Betrayals of Spring (38 page)

Cameo Renae ~
Hidden Wings

Alexia Purdy ~
Reign of Blood

Tabatha Vargo ~
On the Plus Side

Tiffany King ~
Meant to Be

Beth Balmanno ~
Set in Stone

Lizzy Ford ~
Dark Summer (Witchling Saga #1)

Ella James ~
Stained

Tara West ~
Visions of the Witch

Heidi McLaughlin
~ Forever Your Girl

Melissa Andrea ~
Flutter

Komal Lewis ~
Falling for Hadie

Melissa Pearl ~
Golden Blood

L.P. Dover ~
Forever Fae

Sarah M. Ross ~
Awaken

Brina Courtney ~
Reveal

By

Jenna Pizzi

Available Now

Chapter 1

Lilly rolled over and looked at her
alarm clock, 3:29 a.m.

“Ugh!” she muttered. It’s always the
same time every time she wakes up. She knew she could forget about going back
to sleep. She got out of bed and walked to the kitchen to get herself a drink
of water. As she walked through the living room, she could hear her best friend
and roommate, Amy, snoring so loudly that she sounded like a buzz saw.
Must
be nice to be able to sleep like that
, Lilly thought as she smiled.
One
of these days I am going to record her just so she can hear what she sounds
like
.

In the kitchen she grabbed a glass from
the cabinet then walked to the faucet and filled it. As she held the glass to
her lips she happened to glance out the kitchen window. She gasped; there in
front of her stood a figure cloaked in darkness, standing only feet from her
window, staring at her. Lilly dropped the glass and screamed a blood curdling
scream. Amy woke with a start and ran to the kitchen.

“Lilly, what is it? What happened? Are
you all right?” She asked with panic in her voice. Lilly didn’t want to
frighten her friend any more than she already had so she nodded.

“Yeah, I’m so sorry, Amy, I had another
nightmare. It’s no big deal. I just came out to get something to drink.” Amy
looked at her suspiciously.

“What aren’t you telling me, Lilly?”

Lilly knew she couldn’t keep anything
from her best friend; they had been through too much together. She leaned
against the sink to get her bearings.

“OK, it’s just that I could have sworn I
spotted someone lurking outside in the courtyard. It’s probably nothing. I was
most likely still half asleep. I am just so tired.”

Amy walked over to her and touched the
back of her t-shirt as she said, “Geez, toots, it must have been one hell of a
dream. Look at your shirt.”

Lilly didn’t know what she was talking
about, so she grabbed the back of her shirt. It was shredded at the shoulder,
as if someone grabbed hold of her and pulled. With a strange feeling of
trepidation, Lilly realized that it was the same spot where she had been
grabbed in her dream.

 “I must have caught it on something; I
am not sure what happened.”

Amy looked at her suspiciously, but
Lilly assured her she was all right. Lilly then quickly cleaned up the broken
glass and smiled at her friend.

“I’m all right, really. I’m just gonna
go back to bed. Everything will be better in the sunlight.”

Lilly had tried to confide in Amy as
much as she possibly could without making it sound like she was completely
crazy, but deep down she knew that she couldn’t tell her everything, not yet
anyway.

Amy was hesitant to leave her friend and
return to her room. She had known about Lilly’s vivid dreams, or rather
nightmares. She’d been there to bear witness to Lilly waking up in a sheer
panic only to have no recollection about it. She tried not to make a big deal
out of it for fear she would shatter Lilly’s psyche. She figured she would wait
patiently for Lilly to open up on her own.

The two of them had been best friends
since before either of them could even remember. Their parents were friends and
therefore introductions were not necessary.

Lilly’s parents were killed in a
mysteriously set house fire six years earlier, when Lilly was only twelve. She
was the sole survivor. They only thing Lilly recalled about that horrid night
was that angels saved her by carrying her to safety. Amy’s parents were named
her legal guardians with the stipulation that when Lilly was old enough she was
to be enrolled in the prestigious boarding school Plymouth Academy for the
Arts.

Lilly’s dreams worsened after the fire.
She would often dream about the fire itself. In her dreams, she would see
creatures lurking around her house, searching for something, or someone. She
could hear them speak in tongues, a language that didn’t make any sense to her.
In the dreams, she watched her parents as the fire consumed them and their
flesh burned. To her it felt as though she were watching through someone else’s
eyes. She knew it wasn’t really her, but in the dreams she became someone else.

The police concluded that the fire was
started with an accelerant, which meant it was set on purpose. They never found
the party responsible for igniting it.

Lilly was forced into therapy twice a
week following the fire. Dr.Collins, her therapist, believed that he could fix
her with Lexapro, an antidepressant for post-traumatic stress disorder. He felt
the dreams were her mind’s way of releasing the trauma of her parents’ deaths
and from being the sole survivor of the ordeal.

Lilly never took the pills though; she
knew the dreams were more than just dreams. After five years of being in
therapy, Lilly continued to see Dr. Collins once a month for follow-up visits.
She learned along the way to no longer tell him about her dreams and how they
progressed over the years. She didn’t want him to treat her as though she was
crazy or still traumatized. She knew it was something she’d have to deal with
on her own.

Her parents’ case grew cold. There were
no leads, no connections and no other crimes in the area that fit the
circumstances.

Yet she was still forced to go to the
appointments once a month. She listened to Dr. Collins drone on and on about
how she needed to continue on with her life and not be kept trapped in the
past. ’Blah, blah, blah,’ was all she heard when she was in his office. Lilly
learned it was easier to keep a smile plastered on her face and pretend that
everything was nifty until the fifty minute session was up and she’d leave the
office feeling no better than when she started.

The dreams weren’t always horrible.
Sometimes she dreamt of another place and time where she felt and smelled
everything going on around her. The scenery always felt so familiar to her. It
left her with a hollow ache inside when she woke up, as if she didn’t really
belong where she was.

Then there was
him
. She didn’t
know who he was, but she felt as though she’d known him for an eternity. His
piercing, sapphire eyes haunted her very soul. Lilly’s heart raced every time
she peered into them. She found herself lost and longing to be near him. The
dreams would suddenly take a turn to darkness and fire. She would hear screaming
that would haunt her. Strange symbols would flash before her eyes and she
wouldn’t understand what they meant. There would always be a whisper in the
background, ’Remember, Lilly. Remember who you are.’ That’s when she would
wake, feeling lost and lonely like there was something missing in her life.

Amy gave Lilly a hug.

“Try to get some sleep, Lilly, we have a
few more days before spring break and trust me when I tell you that you need
your beauty sleep.” Lilly cracked up laughing at her friend’s blatant way of
telling her that she looked like hell.

“Thank you, Amy; I can always count on
you to tell it like it is.”

“That’s what I’m here for, sweetie.”

Lilly shook her head as she dropped the
contents of the dustpan into the trash. She once again looked out the window
into the darkness. She no longer saw anyone or anything standing outside. She
grabbed the trash bag out of the barrel and tied it up then opened the door
leading out into the courtyard and stepped out into the darkness. She stood
there rubbing her hand up and down her arms, hesitating.

Come on Lilly, all you have to do is
cross the courtyard and get to the dumpster. You’ve done this a million times,
she tried to
reassure herself.

She passed over the place she thought
she had seen someone standing, watching her. She slowed her pace as something
caught her eye. She bent over and picked up a cigarette butt that was still
smoldering. She tossed it and stomped on it. Now she knew she wasn’t
hallucinating. There had been someone out there. She ran the rest of the way to
the dumpster and tossed the bag inside.

A growling sound came from behind her.
Slowly she turned and was met by the snarling snout of a wolf. Lilly took a
step back and bumped into the dumpster. She stepped on a discarded water bottle
and it made a loud sound that only made the wolf growl even louder. She knew
the beast was going to attack her, she was trapped. She considered her options.
She could run for it, but she knew the wolf could run five times faster than
she could. She could scream, but the beast would probably only lunge at her.
She slowly looked at the dumpster behind her.
Oh God, I don’t even want to
think about it
, she thought to herself.

The wolf stepped closer to her. She knew
she had to jump into the dumpster. It was her only option. She slowly filled
her lungs with the cold March air and before she had a chance to think her way
out of it, she jumped and pulled herself into the dumpster. The wolf leapt and
nearly caught her foot as she pulled the lid down on top of her. She could hear
the beast growling and scratching at the side of her metal prison. Her heart
pounded in her chest. She sat waiting, hoping the creature would leave.

Everything fell silent. She could no
longer hear the wind outside. Then there was the sound of deep, chilling
laughter. The hair on her arms stood on edge, but then the laughter faded and
she was left in a dark silence again. She didn’t want to move. She wanted to be
sure whatever was out there was gone. After what felt like an eternity, she cracked
the top of the dumpster open and listened. There was nothing. Whatever had been
there was gone. She quickly crawled out and ran back across the courtyard as
fast as her legs would take her. She threw open the door, slammed it shut
behind her and locked it. She stood with her back to the door, willing her
heart to slow down. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She didn’t know
how she would explain what she had just experienced outside. When she felt
calmer, she walked to her room and grabbed clean pajamas and hurried to her
bathroom. She took a quick, hot shower to wash off the debris from her dumpster
dive.

Stepping out of the shower, she grabbed
her towel and wrapped it around her. As she wiped the condensation off the
mirror, an image appeared on the foggy, cool surface. It was a lightning bolt.
Lilly quickly wiped the mirror clean, grabbed her stuff and ran to her room.

She closed her door and sat on the side
of her bed. It felt like she was going insane. Everything had been strange for
her lately; she had been hearing and seeing things that no one else appeared to
hear or see. Her dreams seemed to linger over into her waking hours. Quickly
she threw on her clean pajamas and tried to put it all behind her.