𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐈𝐗𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍
— 𝒷𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒶𝓈 𝓌𝑒 𝑔𝑜 𝑜𝓃 —

𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐃 by flowers; pastel pink blossoms in the midst of a warm spring, a loose dress adorning her silhouette. Though she doesn't recognize the clearing, she feels as though she has been here before. Her memories are stripped, she realizes as her ember eyes close in concentration. A clean slate, washed of damage and stains, that embraces her mind with clarity — could this be good for her? Perhaps, she thinks as she opens her eyes, a lack of the past is a gift in disguise, an opportunity to paint a new beginning and sketch a future free of trauma. She notices a woman seated upon a bed of moss, humming a sweet song as her fingers twist a dozen flowers into a crown like the one she wears upon her blonde waves. Her features are soft, lips tugged into an unwavering smile and a similar gown that ties at her feminine shoulders. Her voice is carried by the breeze, tugging at leaves and intertwining with the sun's fragile heat. Serenity is drawn to her, the girl realizes, as she takes an unquestioning step forward, and then another.

"You used to know the tune," the woman speaks gently, not looking up from her project, "and we would sing it before I turned out the lights. You were only a child, I would not expect you to remember it — but now, it seems you don't remember anything."

Serenity seeks the song within her memory, but bites her lip when she faces the emptiness that replaces what was once a collection of stored moments. "How unfortunate that I don't recall it," she breathes, sinking into the grass alongside the woman, "it's beautiful."

There is an emotion in the woman's eyes, though it is gone before Serenity can grasp it. Hurt. But the Reagan woman, as if anticipating the future, is quick to smile again as she stares into her daughter's eyes. "You knew me once," her voice is lighter now, more confident. "And maybe one day you will know me again, remember me again. Until then," she leans forward with careful fingers, placing the budding crown on Serenity's head, "never forget that you are loved."

Serenity's eyebrows are furrowed when the woman places her hands upon her cheeks. "Is this a dream?"

"Close your eyes with me," she nods once, as if to tell the girl that the world is awaiting her. It misses her presence.

As Serenity Reagan inhales a deep breath and closes her eyes, she notices that the sounds of the breeze and the warmth on her skin is fading. The woman's touch, however, seems as though it will last forever — she doesn't want that feeling to leave her.

"You don't belong in a place without memories," her mother caresses the apples of her cheeks. "Your dreams will bring back what you lost. Nothing is ever truly gone, Serenity."

Perhaps when Serenity wakes from this dream, she will forget the interaction altogether. But for a fraction of a second, she envisions a single moment to come: one that eases the pressure on her chest with the promise of a future, just as the woman's touch finally dissolves into nothing.

But maybe it was only her imagination.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Paul's fingers are gently caressing her palm when she wakes, though he doesn't notice at once: his hair is tousled, his muscles stiff from a lack of rest, and dark circles tug at his exhausted eyes. At first, Serenity could only stare at the ceiling with hazel irises that seemed unlike her own. Her entire body, in fact, feels foreign as newfound pain rushes through her temples and surges through her petite frame. The air is cold, but heat grips her hands and forms a bundle of warmth within her chest. The girl does not move, only intakes a sharp breath from the lack of wholeness rushes through her veins — what is missing? Though she can not remember what she once had, she now notices that something is gone . . . a piece of her heart ripped away, and awaiting the moment in which she will find it again.

What had led to this point of forgetting? What had she been through, only to wind up here? Though there are others in the room, and she can practically feel the weight of their presence, perhaps she has never felt more lonely.

When Paul Lahote's eyes find hers, sensing the slightest of movement within her fingertips, he nearly drops to his knees. Could he be hallucinating? "Serenity?" He asks, his voice on the verge of breaking already. Hours of waiting, hoping, praying to whatever higher power that rested above, could be deceiving him.

Though she does not recognize his features, her name sounds familiar on the boy's lips. He is handsome, with desperate sienna eyes and sun-kissed skin — however, she can not bring herself to remember what connection they share, or how they arrived here in the first place. Where is she? "Where are we?" She questions, her gaze scanning the sterile room around them. "Am I in the hospital? What happened?"

Laythe chokes on his own words, unable to find his voice as he tightens his grip on her hand. "You . . . you're awake," he says incredulously, eyes filling with tears, "how are you feeling? Can you remember anything?"

The girl swallows before she shakes her head, pitying the two as disappointment radiates from their bodies. Perhaps it's the glaze over their eyes that tells her she shared a close, but different, bond with each of them . . . if only she could remember what it was. "Pain," Serenity admits, "lots of pain everywhere, but it's bearable. Could someone please explain how I wound up here?" She only looks at her hands for a moment, realizing the heat in her body is being acquired by their touch. Does everyone else's skin feel like this? She is unsure as she closes her eyes and wishes that something, anything, would come back to her. But in this moment, she can only think of the woman in her dream. Would the strangers know her?

"You hit your head," Paul vaguely responds, tracing soothing circles on her forearms. The contact makes her chest loosen with relief, though she doesn't know why. "Out in the woods beside your house, you fell and it triggered memory loss. The doctor isn't sure if you have amnesia, or if your pre-existing condition is the cause, so only time will tell."

"What condition?" Her eyebrows furrow as she looks between the boys, expecting an explanation. "Who are you, how do you know me?" Serenity tears her hands away from their comfort before placing them in her hair. "I don't know who I am, I can't remember my age. I know nothing about myself."

This is a curse, she thinks to herself. A nightmare that has embraced her with evil arms and has no incentive to ever let her go. Though she once thought that a clear mind could create a new opportunity, it now seems that she was terribly wrong.

"Hey," Paul's voice grows ever so gentle, and his touch on her softens. His eyes — pools of melted chocolate, pained from the sight of his distressed imprint — never move from her own, encouraging her with comfort. "I promise, everything will be alright. I can explain it all, but you need to calm down first. Breathe, please."

It shouldn't have been enough for her to react. But when his easy aura reaches hers, her muscles no longer ache with tension, her heartbeat settles as if it's in his control, and her chest cracks wide open with a vulnerability that could only be described as magical. With furrowed brows, she stares at him for a lasting second. "How do I know you?" Though the question is a demand for the sake of her own sanity and an attempt to begin piecing the puzzle of her memory together again, it is weak. A plead, perhaps.

"We were together once," his hands shake, and he attempts to hide them from her when he averts his attention to the linoleum below. "It happened fast, but I was happy and I like to think that you were too. We didn't even have the chance to go on a real date." Paul smiles in an attempt to be reassuring, but to no avail. "You don't have to think about that right now, I want you to focus on getting better, on remembering. The last thing we should do is put more stress on your shoulders."

Serenity Reagan had loved him once, and had never really known it. That emotion had been disguised, awaiting the right moment to reveal itself . . . but that moment had never come. And maybe it never will: because as she lies in the hospital bed, sinking so slowly into the mattress and scanning his countenance as if he is the one solution that she will never be able to find, Serenity feels nothing. All of her previous hopes for her future with the supernatural boy have burned within her, leaving behind a rotting ash that serves as a reminder of what once blossomed between them. How can she turn those remnants into something new? How can she get back something that she can't remember?

With a closing throat, she manages, "I'm sorry." Serenity is unsure if he could hear her faint apology, but the heavy sigh that falls from his lips provides an answer.

Laythe Reagan does not speak, afraid of what he may destroy if he does — the delicate moments between Paul and Serenity need to be left unbothered, or perhaps the girl will wilt and the air will smother them all. But when he looks to his cousin, he wonders what she saw in the moments that she lurked in the middle of life and death. Was it a nightmare that she couldn't recognize — the fatal car crash that would torment her for the rest of her life? Or was there a bitter nothingness: pitch black scenery in the middle of nowhere that extended for all of eternity? If she were lucky, she would have rested in a gentle place with a brilliant sky and thousands of stars to keep her company. But from the expression that he holds, he doesn't quite understand what she experienced. Maybe he never would.

Paul can hardly contain himself, wrapped within layers of thick skin and aggravated with what his fate had to offer. His limbs shake, his heart nearly bursts within his chest because when she looks at him, she no longer sees him. She sees another being entirely: without the hopeless promises they made to one another and the memories they shared, what were they?

Strangers.

"I don't know if I can do this," Paul's voice trembles, and for once, he gazes past Serenity and into the eyes of Laythe. "Maybe it's safer if I stay away for now, until things get better . . . until I'm better." His anger, though not directed at his imprint, makes the Reagan girl shutter with anticipation. Without his presence in the room, she would grow cold. Why is his company so assuring, despite the fact that she doesn't remember the feelings that they once had? Perhaps those emotions still linger in her veins, only dormant for the time being.

Laythe only shakes his head with concern, "If you feel that it's necessary, go." How would Paul be able to do it? Walk away from her, knowing that she felt utterly alone already with only her thoughts as a companion? "But just know that you're giving up too easily. You have to be willing to fight for her even when things go to shit," he releases a heavy breath, a weight lifting from his shoulders, "even when they already have. Don't expect her to wait up on you."

Paul Lahote wishes so desperately that the world would stop spinning so quickly — that he could grasp reality with firm hands and walk the road that he is meant to be on. But the earth is still turning, the world is moving on without him, and the love of his life has forgotten everything that molded her. How can her family be so calm? How can they bury their emotions so easily, and pretend that they aren't heartbroken? How can they let go of their anger?

His temper has always found a way to overwhelm his senses, but since the day he finally found his imprint, that fury had been rotting in the back of his mind like decaying soil under a gravestone. But now it has resurfaced, threatening to bubble over and begin a path of destruction that he feared would always come. And now that Serenity no longer remember him, he has an excuse to leave it all behind — to leave her behind, for her own safety. His presence in her life attributed to the accident that stole her memory, it practically led the fiery-haired bloodsucker to the Reagan doorstep with a glowing walkway of gold. His presence was the reason she had fallen to the forest floor only weeks ago, doused in mud with an injured ankle and tear stained cheeks that would break the heart of any stranger.

When Paul Lahote is near, Serenity Reagan will always get hurt.

And it's all his fault.

Victoria is dead, her porcelain skin shattered upon a cliff and burned to ashes. Victoria is dead. But perhaps the ghost of her was always meant to linger . . . always destined to break him, to destroy his only chance at happiness.

Perhaps Paul Lahote had died that day too.

❝ happy early new year!! i love you guys,
and i can't wait until you see what i
have planned out for this book :) maybe
a book three is in store?? ❞