Twisted Fate (The Lost Days Book Two)

Chapter 1

Sprawled out like the Vitruvian man, Jesse's right cheek presses into an uneven and gritty surface, his head hammering, his thoughts slow. The pounding between his temples intensifies as he struggles to open his eyes.

Had someone bludgeoned him unconscious?

The air around him is thick with the rancid smell of burning garbage. He chokes, curling his fingers so that his nails press into his aching palms. He does not expect the spasm of pain that follows. Gritting his teeth he pushes his shoulders back as he attempts to lift himself and instantly collapses. He can hear a dim crackling in the distance, a familiar sound that reminds him of red flames on a cool night and the shock of icy water filling his lungs as snowflakes dance in scarlet light.

His throat tightens.

His heart pounding inside his chest. If there is a fire nearby, he wants to be far from it. His anxiety tears down his spine, finally giving him the gumption he needs to ignore his discomfort and rip his matted eyelashes from one another.

Drying mud and broken stones - it is the first thing he sees. An insipid desert of dirt and rot that cakes his exposed limbs. He blinks toward the sky and is overcome by a beam of scarlet and trickling flakes of grey.

He shuts his eyes. It was a mistake to open them. Either he is in hell or he's surrounded by flames, and both form part of his worst nightmares.

He shimmies on to his side, his hip bone jutting into the dirt. The movement has him feeling weightless before searing hot pain skates across his body. The aftermath leaving his very bones humming as stars and colours erupt behind his eyelids.

And then it all returns to him - the white light, his body nothing more than kindle to an inexpressible heat, and finally, his death. Or, at least, something he wishes was death.

Only now he can't be certain if this is hell or a nightmare. He'd read Dante's Inferno, so what does this make him? He isn't too sure which circle he falls into. Do teenage sacrifices have their own place in hell and will he find Cris there?

Mustering the last of his strength he rolls onto his back, his knuckles scraping against the grit of the ground. The smell surrounding him worsens to the point he can almost taste the swill. Shadows twist and curl before him and a feeling of dread collects in his belly.

Turning his eyes to the inflamed sky he blinks. A deep gash of black slashes across the horizon.

He knows he's silly to think it but he recalls his preschool teacher's nasal voice repeating something like, "The sky isn't green, purple or pink and it is most certainly not yellow. It is blue. Blue like the tips of a punk rocker's Mohawk, blue like the itchy wool jersey your gran knitted for your birthday. Blue. Blue. Blue," until his sponge-like mind soaked it up. Okay, so she might not have said those exact words, but he never drew another purple sky again.

The face of a woman bends over his. Her arms folded across her chest that is only just contained within a grimy corset.

Ash clings to cherry red ringlets that fall down past her neck, dangling precariously close to his nose. Jesse doesn't know what he'd do if he had to sneeze from the tickle.

He's not sure if his body can handle it.

"Bonjour monsieur."

She peers at him with large eyes delicately set in a pale oval face.

Jesse squints up at her. Her ringlets are squished haphazardly behind a faded baby blue bonnet. The bonnet, like her face, is grubby with flecks of dirt staining the delicate silk fabric.