by Katie Klein
I can't believe my restaurant is making a profit.
In a moment I feel someone behind me. A lingering shadow. A presence.
A chill rips through my spine, and, even after all these months, my hand instinctively reaches for the weapon secured at the inside of my thigh. My heart pounds above the roar of the ocean as I spin around to face him, gun pointed.
His eyes are muted, dark hair falling across his forehead.
My breath hitches, catching in my throat.
Oh my God.
"I'm sorry." He swallows hard, hands lifting in surrender.
My body goes rigid, cemented in place, refusing to cooperate. My mouth opens, but no sound surfaces. I'm afraid to speak. Afraid to move. To breathe. Afraid to think and to blink and afraid that this moment—whatever it is—doesn't exist. That this isn't happening.
"I'm sorry," he repeats. "I didn't mean to scare you. I was wondering. . . ." He hesitates. "Do you think you could maybe put the gun down?"
My arm falls to my side, finger releasing the trigger.
"I have something to show you. I'm just gonna reach. . . ." His hand disappears and resurfaces, holding two tiny pieces of paper. Two small photographs.
I take the photos from him, examining the two of us, fingers touching my lips without thinking, remembering that night at the boardwalk. "Where did you get these?" I whisper.
"I found them in my pocket."
I stare at the angel in the photographs, at the angel standing in front of me.
"Do you know this?" he finally asks.
"Yeah," I reply. "Don't you?"
His eyes tighten, as if trying to focus, but he shakes his head. "I was in an accident. I don't really know the details. When I woke up. . . ." He shrugs.
"An accident," I repeat, heart slowing.
"Everything before is kind of . . . hazy," he finishes.
Hazy.
"How hazy?"
"I don't really remember before," he confesses. A quiet laugh. "I don't remember anything, really."
He doesn't remember anything.
But I do. I remember everything. Everything he doesn't and more. The night of the accident. How his hand felt in mine. Pulling me out of traffic to safety. The first time we kissed. Racing through flames. The only time we ever. . . . A thousand memories that were ours. . . .
The Diabols. The Guardians. Someone made him forget.
The moment collapses around me, smothering. I step back, eyes welling with tears that blur this midnight world. "You mean you don't. . . . You don't know me?"
His eyes—dark and troubled—answer for him.
After all of this—everything we've been through. . . . This is my happily ever after?
I shove the photos into his broad chest, watch as they flutter to sand, landing at his feet. I turn away, leaving him, arms crossed against the wind, hugging myself tightly.
"Wait!" he begs."Please?"
I spin on my heel to face him, struggling with the words: "If you don't remember anything, why are you here?"
"I'm here because I remember this girl," he says, waving the photographs, eyes roving, serious, searching mine in the darkness. "I dreamed of her. Every night. And when they gave me my things at the hospital, there was a note with a name and address on it, and the name matched the girl in the photographs. And something told me there was nowhere else for me to go—that everything I could ever want was right here. So I came looking for you, Genesis. Because something inside. . . ." He trails off, faltering. "Something inside me still wants you. I don't know you, but I know that . . . that I want to know you—more than anything in the world. And if these pictures are real, and I hope to God they are, then once upon a time you wanted me, too."
I watch him through silent tears, inhaling ragged breaths, the sound of waves crashing between us.
"I'm freaking you out, aren't I." It's not a question.
"Yeah," I admit. "You were pretty good at that."
His shoulders fall, resigned. "I'm sorry. When I imagined this whole thing in my head I was much smoother. You weren't crying. And there wasn't a gun pointed at me." A lazy smile. "Can we just . . . I don't know. Start over?"
Start over.
At the beginning.
It's better this way, right? That he doesn't remember Viola. The Diabols. Wouldn't I want to forget, too, if I had a choice?
But something—something about this doesn't make sense. Doesn't seem plausible. My head spins, wrapping itself around his story, the details. An accident. The hospital. Coming here, to this beach. My beach.
The note.
"Who wrote the note?" I ask. "How did you know where to find me?"
"I don't know. It wasn't signed. It's . . . weird, actually. When I checked out of the hospital—after the accident—there wasn't even a bill. Someone brought me in, paid for everything, and left enough cash in my pocket and the directions to get me here."
A note that wasn't signed.
I glance around us, across deserted beach, searching, lips pulling into a slow, mystified grin.
It sounds like The Flemings.
Like Carter.
It sounds like the Guardians.
Like Mara.
The new Council.
It sounds like Luke Castellani.
Like God Himself, giving me another chance—giving us another chance to be together, to become . . . something.
I move closer, touching his skin, running fingers through his hair. And for the first time I let myself feel relief. Joy.
He's mine. They gave him back to me.
"I can't believe. . . ." I choke back the knot tying my throat. "I can't believe you're real," I whisper. He brushes thumbs beneath my eyes, smearing away tears. "I thought I lost you."
"I'm not lost that easily." He stops, pausing, poisoned with hesitation. "So . . . can I kiss you now?"
I laugh, and the sound—something like happiness, sweet exhilaration—surprises me. "You're asking permission?"
"Well, yeah. You know, considering. . . ." He clears his throat, frowns, and with all the composure he can manage: "This is complicated, isn't it?"
"You're not a stranger to me," I assure him. "You were never a stranger to me."
I take his hand in mine, our fingers interlock, and I remember a moment—a moment both a million hours and barely a breath ago. And so I turn his hand over, palm skyward, confirming that yes, it's still there. Gray smudges—the mark on the tips of his fingers. Proof that he belongs to me.
"It doesn't come off," he says.
"I know," I whisper.
"What is it?"
I curl his hand in mine, grasping, holding it tightly. "It's you. Saving me. Over and over and over again."
Even in the shadows his cheeks burn with a fiery blush. "Yeah, well, something tells me you're worth saving."
My eyes drift as he bends closer, curving toward me. Anticipation radiates from his lips, sparks of energy passing from his mouth to mine and back again. Electric. He kisses me slowly, deliberately, a reassuring hand slipping beneath my cardigan, touching the bare skin of my back.
We are not alone on this stretch of beach—water surging past ankles, bubbling, foaming, wrenching grains of sand underfoot, thin moon rising above, stars punching holes in the heavens. The ocean may seem dark and endless and the entire world asleep, but we are never truly alone. We are watched. We are guarded. We are defended. Sheltered. Protected.
And Seth is everywhere, coursing through veins, fluttering in my stomach, stealing my breath away.
Forever stealing my breath away.
♥ ♥ ♥
About the Author
Katie Klein is a diehard romantic with a penchant for protagonists who kick butt. Her YA contemporary romance, Cross My Heart, is an Amazon Teen Top 100 Bestseller. She currently resides on the East Coast and is hard at work on her next YA novel. Visit her on the web at www.katiekleinbooks.com.
ians, Book 3)