chapter one
It was 6:07 p.m. on the dot and I had been sitting in my room reading for the past three hours. I heard something crash against the wall outside of my room. I then heard my father, Arian, yell something at my mother, Janette. Something crashed again. I sighed and put the bookmark in my book and then placed it on the shelf above my head. I crept over and opened my bedroom door to see a broken picture frame in shards at my feet. It was the picture of the vacation to Hawaii that we had gone onto. This was before the fighting had started, back when we were just an average, happy family. That was before my elder brother, Jace had died. Everything had gone downhill from there. Mom had slumped into a deep depression and dad, well there’s not much you can say about that; he blames mom. It wasn’t her fault, she wasn’t even there when it happened; but I was, I saw the whole thing.
~back to that night....
It wasn’t more than three months ago that this had happened. We were on our way back from a party at Jace’s girlfriends’ house. It was me, Jace, Richi, and Adrian. We were in the car jamming to music that was playing on the radio. It was real foggy out; it had been raining all night. We stopped at Adrian’s house first. He waved goodbye as he got out. We backed out of his driveway and headed for Richi’s next. We turned into his driveway and let him out.
“All right Raven, what do you say we go and get some smoothies before we head home?” Jace asked me.
“Sure.” I mumbled. Looking out the window, I saw a few cars pass. Not many people were out on a Sunday night. We got to Sandy’s Smoothies and turned in. We went through the drive-thru; I got a chocolate shake and Jace got a mango smoothie. He started to pull away from Sandy’s when some idiot backed out in front of him, causing him to spill his smoothie in his lap.
“What the hell!” Jace yelled at the driver in front of us. He bent down and reached for the glove compartment for the napkins. He looked back up and I saw him try and reach for the door, I thought he was going to yell at the driver, but the driver was looking over to the side of the car, yelling something. Ash was yelling something at me but I never got the chance to hear it; all I felt then was a sudden pain.
I awoke in a brightly lit, white room. I looked to my left and noticed my favorite flowers (moon lilies) sitting in a vase of water. They were in full bloom so it must have been night outside. I looked to my right to see my mother lying against the bed. She looked exhausted, I wondered why she was here. I then noticed that I wasn’t in my room. I was in a hospital room. I looked down at my arm, there was an IV coming from it, leading to a drip. I examined myself; I didn’t seem to have anything broken. Sure I was a little sore and had some scratches, but that was about it. Why was I in here? What had happened...
Janette stirred and sat up abruptly. “Raven...” she whispered, as if in a dream. “Raven! Arian come quick, she’s awake!” she yelled towards an open door, leading to somewhere in the hospital. My father walked in and about collapsed when he saw me.
“Oh hunny, thank god you’re awake; we thought you weren’t going to wake up.” I looked between the two of them, confused. “You have been in a coma for four weeks. Do you know where you are?”
“Um...in a hospital?” “Do you remember anything that happened?” Janette asked. I remembered coming home from the party with Jace and then stopping at Sandy’s for smoothies.
“We stopped at Sandy’s after the party and got smoothies, someone pulled out in front of Jace and made him spill his smoothie in his lap. He got out of the car and then...um...” I couldn’t remember what happened after that, everything from there on was blurry.
“Do not push yourself, you don’t remember right-”
“Where’s Jace?” I asked, looking at my father. I looked over at my mother and saw her face fall, she started to cry. “Where’s Jace.” I said a little more forcibly, sitting up.
“Raven, Jace was in the car with you, when the truck hit you.” “Truck? What truck; I don’t understand, there wasn’t a truck! Just the car in front of us.”
“No, the guy that cut out in front of you saw the whole thing. He was the one who reported it. He accidentally cut you off, and then the truck behind you couldn’t stop in time. He rammed the back of the car.”
“Jace...” I said, putting a hand over my mouth, sobbing.
“Jace, didn’t make it.” my father said, putting his head in his hands.~~~
I heard a chair fall over, it knocked me back into reality, away from the horrible memory. I noticed my mother sitting on the couch. I threw the pieces of glass in the trash. My father blamed her for Jace’s death because she was the one who let us go to the party. I grabbed my phone and ran out of the house, ignoring my mothers’ shouts of protest. I ran down to the river, it was a place where I could just get away from everything. Fog had just started to roll in with the breeze of twilight. The eeriness of the docks at night had never bothered me before, but something about tonight was different. I walked over and sat down on one of the plastic chairs.BZZ...BZZZ I about jumped out of my skin. I immediately put a hand to my back pocket, it was just my phone. I let out a breath that I hadn’t even realized I had been holding. My mom had sent me a text saying ‘Come back home, we won’t yell anymore.’ “Not likely,” I said aloud. I flipped my phone open and texted back, ‘be home later.’ I needed some quiet time, to be by myself. I need to get my nerves under control, jumping over a stupid pho-Something splashed in the water across from the dock. I got up and went to the edge of the dock, trying to get a better view of whatever it had been. I saw a duck gliding across the water. Okay this was getting pathetic. I was just a tad bit too jumpy for my own good. I decided that I was going to go down to the lower part of the river and skip rocks. As I turned around I bumped into a large form and fell over. I backed myself up against the railing and looked up. He had long black hair with grey streaks down to his shoulders. His eyes were grey with a burst of blue in them. He looked to be around my age; somewhere near seventeen or eighteen.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” he said bending down, stretching a hand out to help me up.
“I can get up just fine by myself thank you.” I said pushing myself up from the ground, embarrassed.
“Okay.” he said, standing back up. He put his hands up as if to say ‘I mean no harm’.
“Well?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“Who are you?”
“Oh! My name is Ash, I just moved into one of the river lots down here; and again I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s fine. Well, I should be getting back now. See ya.” I didn’t trust this guy at all. There was something off about him. I turned around and started walking away.
“Wait.” he said, grabbing my arm. Suspicions confirmed, I tried to yank my arm away but his grip only tightened. He wasn’t letting go.
“Let go of me.” I said, meeting my hazel eyes with his grey.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” he said.
I scoffed. “Yeah right! I’m sure Jack the Ripper said that to his victims too.” I yelled at him. I’m pretty sure I could get a good kick in and make a run for it.
“I wouldn’t try that if I were you.” he said.
“Try what?” I asked. what the hell?
“Kicking me; it would only hurt you.” he said, the smirk on his face growing.
“Would you cut that out!” I yelled at him.
“Cut what out?” he asked. Oh as if he didn’t know.
“You very well know what I’m talking about. Stop it with all the mind reading crap. Oh, and you are not very good at hiding what you are.” I said.
“Hmm...really? You think you know what I am?” he got this creepy look in his eyes. “Okay, go ahead guess, but I was telling you the truth when I said that I would not harm you. I promise. Now, go ahead... guess what I am.”
