Page 43 of Lifebound

Trees. Branches full of colorful leaves. Yellow, blue, green, purple—realleaves, not plastic.

My body moved on its own and I raised a hand toward the purple leaf that was hanging from the branch right over my head, the tip of it pointing at my face. I reached my index finger and touched it.

Yes, definitely real. A purple leaf, thick and glossy, the small white lights around me reflecting on its surface like it was a mirror.

I didn’t even find said lights floating about me strange until I’d inspected that leaf thoroughly. Until the memories came back to me, and I was more certain by the second that I’d been dreaming. The only thing that didn’t let me fully believe it was that leaf.

And also the fact that I wasn’t in my bed.

Instead, I was sitting on a branch. I’d somehow climbed halfway up a tree, and I was sitting on a branch thick enough to fit me comfortably, and my back was against the trunk.

Panic settled over my shoulders, taking my breath away. I held onto the wood of the branch below me and took in my surroundings—more trees, a sky grey with the coming day, and small balls of white light floating all around the tree I was on, just hovering in the air.

The ground was most likely about thirty feet down from where I’d been sleeping, and my instincts didn’t let me think at all. Or plan. Or wonder what could be down there, or what had put me up here—no, no, I didn’t think. I just started climbing down the tree like my entire body was on fire, and if I didn’t make it down to the ground very soon, I was going to turn to ashes.

Climbing wasn’t hard. I made it all the way to the branch closest to the ground, which was thin and it would barely fit my sneaker. I was still high up, possibly ten feet, but I decided to jump instead of expecting that little thing to hold my weight.

Never mindlogicor trying to take my time and figure out another way—I was just certain that I was in a hurry, and I needed to get down thereright now.

I did.

My arms were wrapped around my head and I hit the ground rolling. By some miracle, I managed to stop three seconds in and jump to my feet, with just some pain on my right side, but nothing that disabled me from moving. From running.

Bile rose up my throat as the memories rushed through me—those beasts with the large fangs and red eyes, and the horse, the way he’d felt while I’d been wrapped around his neck, the stranger with the indigo eyes…

I ran.

No, I had no idea where the hell I was going, and all the trees around me were equally big and colorful and terrifying, but we’d seen lights somewhere close by when I was still with Helid, and lights meant people.

Or at leastfae.

Light meant safety, and I had to find it. I had to get to them as fast as I could.

“Where do you think you’re going, mortal?”

My entire body locked down and I almost fell on my face—just when I’d started to gain some momentum.

I turned around, eyes wide and unblinking, searching the darkness, the trees.

There was nobody there.

My heart hammered in my chest. I had no idea where I was or if I was dreaming, if I’d heard that voice or if it had just been in my mind. The panic, the fear was pulling me under fast, and I didn’t know what else to do except run. To the edges of the world if I had to, justrun.

Then…

“Up here.”

I turned to the side and looked up.

My eyes found him immediately—the indigo-eyed stranger was sitting on a branch with his legs crossed, close enough that I’d have seen him if I’d just thought to lookupa moment ago.

He was there. I hadn’t made him up. He was real.

And he was moving.

The way he threw himself to the side of the branch and held himself on it with one hand only could have been a trick of the darkness. Then he let go, just like that, possibly twenty feet off the ground. He landed on his feet, just slightly leaned forward, before he straightened his shoulders again and fixed his shirt.

He had something in his other hand, too—a bag.

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