Chapter 1
## Ann POV
“Universe, if only you knew… Right now, I hate you so, so much!” I shouted straight into the leaden sky, pushing my way through yet another thick, prickly thicket.
I wiped the water from my face with my hand, but the sleeve of my jacket was already so thoroughly soaked that it just smeared the rain across my cheeks. I cursed under my breath, but I didn’t slow down. My legs carried me deeper into the forest of their own accord, as if they had a mind of their own. Why? Because I had a feeling.
I had to admit that it was the worst, most intrusive premonition I’d ever experienced in my entire twenty-four years of life. I didn’t feel fear—my premonitions had never put me in a situation where my life was in immediate danger. They were more like a defiant, unquestionable command. Just an hour ago, I’d been sitting comfortably on the couch, wrapped in a fluffy blanket, reading a book and drinking hot chocolate. And then, suddenly—bam. In a split second, I felt that sensation and the command:
“Go to the forest. Right now. Get dressed and get moving.”
I never knew when it would come, but when it did, it was usually a burning pressure in my stomach; sometimes it was just a sensation—icy or warm—but I’d learned one thing: when the premonition struck, I had to act on it without question.
Unfortunately, learning this cost me too much. My premonitions didn’t give me any advance warning. They appeared exactly in the split second when I had to make a decision. When I was five years old and we were driving with my parents to visit my aunt, I suddenly felt that we had to turn right. At that very second, I shouted at my dad, but he just smiled and ignored a child’s whim. He turned left—straight into a speeding truck. My parents died on the spot. And even though I grew up in good foster homes, nothing could ever replace a real family for me.
Later, I tried to ignore that voice two more times. Once, a hunch told me to walk straight into a deep puddle. I thought it was silly, so I walked around it—only to slip on the wet curb and break my leg. Another time, I was looking for a job. I had two interviews lined up—one at a small, run-down studio and the other at a prestigious corporation. The voice in my head whispered: choose the run-down studio.
I chose the luxurious skyscraper. Three months later, the company went bankrupt, and I nearly ended up in jail for complicity in my boss’s tax schemes, which I knew nothing about.
Since then, I’ve stopped arguing. The voice has become my strange, hidden ally. In college, a friend of mine dabbled in the stock market. I didn’t understand any of it at all, but when I looked at the chart for one of the companies, my stomach gave a jolt. I poured all my savings into it. After two months, I was a “rich” woman—the amount might not have been in the millions, but it was enough to pay off my student loan and buy a small, cozy apartment in a decent neighborhood. As a freelance photographer, I also lived comfortably. Sometimes I’d just be drawn to a certain place, take a photo at the perfect moment, and win great awards for it.
But tonight was a nightmare.
Following a gut feeling, I pushed forward, ignoring the mud caked on my shoes. Suddenly, right in front of a dark wall of fir trees, the burning pressure in my stomach vanished. It was gone in an instant.
I’d made it.
I stopped, squinting. The wall of rain made it nearly impossible to make out what was on the ground. I took three cautious steps forward, and my heart skipped a beat, only to pound like a jackhammer a moment later.
In a puddle of mud, leaves, and thick, dark blood—which the rain couldn’t wash away fast enough—lay a man.
I walked over on unsteady, suddenly weak legs and crouched helplessly beside him. My hands trembled as I touched his cheek. It was smooth and ice-cold. I was about to scream in terror, but then I noticed a faint, white mist rising from his lips. He was alive.
“Oh my God, you need to get to a hospital right away,” I muttered to myself, completely panicking.
I had no idea how to administer first aid. After I managed with great difficulty to turn him onto his back, I looked at his chest—the fabric of his shirt was torn, revealing deep, gruesome-looking wounds from which blood was oozing. I had to get him out of this forest somehow. I wasn’t exactly a short woman myself—I was just under 1.70 meters tall—but this man was a good head taller than me. He looked massive and damn heavy. There was no way I could carry him.
“Can you hear me?!” I shouted, grabbing his icy arm and shaking him gently. “You have to get up! Please, help me!”
The man let out a quiet, hoarse groan. His thick eyelashes fluttered, and he slowly lifted his eyelids. In the glow of the lightning that lit up the sky, I could only make out that he had an incredibly intense gaze, even though his eyes were clouded with pain. He looked at me as if he were seeing a ghost.
With great effort, hissing in pain, he lifted himself up slightly. I grabbed him by the arm, letting him lean his weight against me. When he stood up, our legs almost buckled beneath us. He was like a block of solid granite.
“Lean on me. It’s okay, I’ve got you,” I gasped, wrapping his massive arm around my shoulders.
The walk back to the car was the worst walk of my life. Every step was a struggle. The man kept losing consciousness, becoming a limp, monstrous weight, and his body would slip off my shoulders. I was crying from the effort, and the rain mingled with my tears. The blood from his chest was staining my jacket, and I had only one thought in my head: please, don’t die on me here.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity spent in the mud, the headlights of my small SUV emerged from between the trees.
As soon as I slammed the door shut, cutting us off from the raging storm outside, I immediately turned the heat up to maximum. I drove fast, but damn carefully—visibility was practically zero, and the wipers could barely keep up with the walls of water. I raced forward with a single thought in my mind: head to the hospital.
Every now and then I glanced at the stranger in the passenger seat. He looked terrible. Quiet moans kept escaping his throat, beads of sweat glistened on his forehead, and a high fever was clearly beginning to consume him. That crazy “trip” through the forest certainly hadn’t helped him.
“Hang in there, we’re almost there… We’ll be at the hospital soon,” I repeated quietly, trying to calm myself down.
He stirred. He slowly lifted his eyelids, and in the yellow glow of the powerful streetlights we were passing, I could finally get a better look at him. He had incredible eyes—deep, with a beautiful, warm shade of rich, dark chocolate. Above them, his black, wet hair stood on end, slightly longer on top, stubbornly falling across his forehead.
“Where am I…?” he managed to say in a rough, deep voice.
I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by ‘where,’ so I started with the most obvious answer.
“In my car. I found you in the woods; you were injured. I brought you with me.”
“Thank you…” he said uncertainly, then narrowed his chocolate-brown eyes slightly. “Who are you?”
“My name is Ann. And you?”
“I’m… I…” He looked at his huge, bloodied hands, and pure, genuine fear flashed across his face. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything…”
He jerked his hand up as if to grab his head, but a sharp, searing pain in his torn chest immediately prevented him from doing so. He hissed loudly, slumping back into the chair.
“What happened to me?” he rasped.
“I don’t know myself; it looks like you were attacked by some kind of wild animal. But don’t worry, we’ll be at the hospital soon and they’ll check everything out there. Everything will be fine.”
“Okay…” he repeated mechanically and closed his eyes.
But not even a second had passed when he suddenly snapped them open. Before I could react, his huge hand shot forward and clamped down on my wrist, which was gripping the steering wheel. For a man so horribly beaten and weakened, he had an iron, almost inhuman grip.
“No hospital!” he snarled, and in his voice, besides panic, I heard a strange, commanding tone.
“But they’ll help you there!” I argued, slowing down as we were just approaching an intersection.
“No!” he insisted, tightening his grip on my skin even more, though not hard enough to hurt me.
“I can’t go to the hospital.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know! I just… I know I can’t! Please…”
Just then, the red light came on. I slammed on the brakes and turned to face him. I looked at his pale face and those big, chocolate-brown eyes, which were filled with a pure, pleading cry for help. And then, in that split second, I felt it. That familiar, warm flutter in my stomach. My intuition spoke up again, this time in a quiet, calm whisper: “Trust him. Take him with you.”
I sighed heavily, resting my forehead against the steering wheel for a split second.
“All right,” I said finally, gently removing his huge hand from my wrist. “I’ll take you to my place. But I’m warning you: if you cause me any trouble or, God forbid, die in my bed, I’ll personally throw you out the window. Clear?”
I saw something like a pale, grateful smile on his lips before his head lolled limply to the side and he sank back into a deep sleep.
We reached my apartment building fifteen minutes later. I’m almost certain I exceeded every possible speed limit along the way. I could only hope that the downpour and zero visibility would prevent the speed cameras from identifying my license plate.
My mysterious passenger slept through the rest of the trip, tossing and turning restlessly in his seat. At one point, as we were passing through the suburbs, a guttural scream—full of terror and pain—suddenly burst from his chest:
„Jack!”
And then he fell back into a deep unconsciousness.
That single word could have meant absolutely anything. The name of a brother, a friend, a buddy, or even a boyfriend. After all, a person in delirium rarely shouts their own name—that would just be weird. Clearly, he was calling out to someone who was incredibly important to him, or someone who had put him in this state. However, I myself had no idea how to address him, and that name somehow suited his stern, expressive face perfectly. So I decided that until he regained his memory, to me he would simply be Jack.
