PROLOGUE

LENA

The rain came down in sheets, blurring the road, turning the headlights into useless smears of white.

My fingers gripped the wheel so tight they ached.

My breath was uneven, coming too fast, too shallow.

The air inside the car was thick, suffocating, pressing against my chest like invisible hands.

I shouldn’t have been driving.

Not like this.

Not in the middle of the night, not with my head spinning and my heart trying to claw its way out of my ribs.

But I had to.

If I stayed in that house a second longer, I would’ve gone insane.

I barely remembered getting in the car.

I barely remembered grabbing my keys, shoving my feet into my boots, and running out the door.

But I remembered him.

The voice in my head.

The whisper, low and teasing.

You can’t run from me, Lena.

I pressed harder on the gas.

The engine roared beneath me.

The highway stretched ahead like a slick, black river, winding through the empty woods.

The streetlights flickered.

Or maybe that was my vision.

I checked the rearview mirror.

He was there.

A shape in the backseat.

A man.

A shadow with eyes that burned like dying embers.

I sucked in a sharp breath, my pulse skidding.

My hands jerked on the wheel.

The car swerved.

The tires screamed.

And then—

Nothing.

Nothing but the feeling of weightlessness as the car lifted off the ground.

The sick, stomach-twisting sensation of flight, of helplessness, of knowing that in the next second, pain was coming.

The world turned upside down.

Glass shattered.

Metal screamed.

My body snapped forward, the seatbelt catching just before my skull slammed into the dashboard.

I was spinning.

Or maybe the world was spinning around me.

The impact came too fast to register.

One moment, I was airborne.

The next, the hood of my car crumpled like paper.

Something cracked—bone or glass, I wasn’t sure.

My head slammed sideways, and everything inside me jolted.

The rain was still falling.

It hit my skin through the broken windshield, cold, sharp, almost like needles.

Blood dripped from my forehead into my eye.

The taste of metal filled my mouth.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t breathe.

But I heard him.

Soft.

Amused.

Close.

You should’ve listened, Lena.

Darkness swallowed me whole.

Cassian

She ran.

She thought she could escape me.

She thought if she got in that fragile little machine and drove fast enough, far enough, she’d be free.

Adorable.

I sat in the backseat, watching.

She smelled like fear—thick, rich, intoxicating.

 The kind of fear that comes from knowing the nightmare isn’t just inside your head.

It’s real.

It’s sitting right behind you, breathing down your neck.

She wouldn’t look at me.

She didn’t want to see me.

But she felt me.

The way her fingers clenched the wheel, the way her breath came in short, panicked bursts.

The way her heart pounded—so fast, so desperate.

I whispered to her.

Just to see her flinch.

Just to remind her.

"You can’t run from me, Lena."

She pressed harder on the gas.

Foolish girl.

Then, finally, she looked.

Her wide, terrified eyes met mine in the mirror, and for just a second, time seemed to stop.

No more rain.

No more road.

Just her and me.

The truth and the lie she told herself.

Then the car swerved.

It all happened in slow motion.

The way her body jerked, the sound of tires losing their grip, the way she screamed.

Not just in fear.

In realization.

She knew what was happening.

She knew I had won.

The car flew.

Flipped.

Crashed.

And then, silence.

She lay there in the wreckage, bloodied and trembling, barely holding on.

Her fragile little body slumped against the seat, her breath ragged, her pulse fading.

I leaned in close, brushing damp hair from her face.

"You should’ve listened, Lena."

She shuddered.

A whimper, barely a sound.

Then—nothing.

I smiled.

Because now, she was mine.

Forever.

1

LENA

I woke to the sound of my own breath, shallow and uneven.

Darkness pressed against my eyelids.

My body felt weightless, floating between awareness and something deeper—something vast and inescapable.

Then came the whisper.

“Lena.”