Born, Darkly (Darkly, Madly Duet Book 1)

LONDON

A blazing heat like a furnace warms the side of my face. The startling contrast of hot and cool rips me out of a dreamless sleep, awareness hurtling me out of my calm and sated cocoon.

For once, my mind is blissfully quelled from all thoughts of the past and present. Then, reality bleeds in, drawing me into a new realm of anxiety.

A heated orange and red flickers against my eyelids. I reach for Grayson, and hear a rattling clink as my wrist is pinched and the cool kiss of metal drags across my arm. Eyes straining to open, an alarm sounds within me, my heart pounds in my ears as blood rushes my arteries.

I feel disconnected. Woozy. I blink a few times to clear my vision, and the sight hollows out my chest. Fire blazes high into the early morning sky. Flames seam the edges of deep-blue, blending into the mosaic of red and orange clouds, unable to separate the two entities.

“Grayson—” I say, panic lacing my voice. Then as I start to shout his name, the realization of where I am and what’s happening crashes into me.

I yank at the cuffs. A chain circles the scaffold, shackling me to the trap that Grayson and I used to kill a man. Beyond the maze, the house is engulfed in fire. The pop and snap of burning beams reaches my ears before the faint siren.

Frantic, I examine my body. I’m again wearing the black satin dress Grayson chose for me. An irrational thought circles my mind—that this must be another test. I glance up. One of the keys must set me free. Only the keys are gone.

My chest pangs with an empty, resonating ache.

Grayson told me he would let me go.

Oh, God. I didn’t imagine it. I didn’t invent what happened between us. No, my memories are firmly in place, undisturbed. Everything that transpired is still with me, a part of me—the world more transparent than ever.

Only Grayson is missing.

He let me go.

I tug at the handcuffs, desperate to flee and find him and…

What?

Run off into the sunset like some deranged Bonnie and Clyde? Running from the law, living on love and danger and…resentment. That’s the whim of a little girl. Not the reality for a woman.

I sag against the scaffold. My bones weary, my muscles lethargic. Reality is a black hole.

I couldn’t see past the immediate and instant gratification—but Grayson could.

Still, he didn’t give me a choice. He decided for me.

The flash of police lights bounce against the pines. As the flames rise higher, smoke billowing into the callous morning, the shouts of firefighters and authorities clash. A moroseness settles in the pit of my stomach. Misery acute and damning.

Then voices drift toward the clearing.

“Dr. Noble?”

The dull talons of melancholy drag me under. I can’t respond. I can’t breathe.

“Dr. London Noble. I found her! Are you all right?”

My unseeing gaze snags on a significant detail. The dark suit before me brandishes an FBI pin clipped to the gray tie. “I’m Special Agent Nelson. You’re safe now.”

The agent lays a hand on my bare shoulder in a show of comfort. “Let’s get some help over here!” he shouts.

My body curls around the scaffold. Clinging to the solidness. Only moments before, I was free. Free in a way I never dared to imagine, with vibrant colors and textures. And in a blink, I’ve been thrust back into the dull and guilt-leaden world.

The pain tears a seam inside me, and an ache clogs my throat. I choke on the bile of bitterness. But I sniff hard, shoving the ache down. I have to.

I was a performer once. I can be again. At least now, I know the difference.

As the agent walks the perimeter of the tank, I erect my shield. He mutters a swear when he completes his round. “Holy mother of God.”

“Please, get these off me,” I manage to say.

Agent Nelson directs his attention on me. “Of course.” He slips on a pair of Latex gloves. While he’s working the cuff mechanism, more agents and police officials enter the clearing.

In a matter of seconds, uniforms and Tyvek-suited medical examiners have the clearing yellow-taped and marked off as a crime scene. Plastic sheets cover what was—just hours ago—my and Grayson’s sacred haven.

“I’m sorry to have to ask this, London.” The agent searches my gaze. He’s not sorry at all. “But I’m going to need you to undergo medical screening.”

Heat blazes my chest. “You mean a rape kit.”

“Yes.” With a resounding click, the cuffs release my wrists. He shakes out an evidence bag and slips them inside. The only hint to his remorse is the slight crease at the corners of his eyes. We’re both professionals. This is standard. “I’ll also need your statement shortly afterward.”

I rub my wrists, the beveled ridges of scrapes a painful reminder of what I’ve lost. Agent Nelson tries to help me stand, but I fend him off with an outstretched hand. “I’m all right,” I assure. And I am. The pain that normally plagues me hasn’t returned, vanishing the moment acceptance took root.

Later, I’ll analyze this phenomena. But I can’t think of it now.

“I’m ready,” I announce.

The agent guides me out of the maze and toward an ambulance parked a distance away from the blaze. Chaos swamps the once peaceful woods as firefighters fight back the inferno before it spreads.

I face the fire, let the heat touch my skin. I feel it deep in my marrow, that electric pulse of chaos and disaster. Grayson’s artwork framed within a pale canvas of sky. I watch the flames dance and tease higher, until the agent forces me away.

“Any evidence must be in there,” one of the agents says as he passes, his gaze cast on the smoldering house. “We’ve recovered nothing so far.”

Agent Nelson nods him on. “Keep searching.”

I close my eyes. Just for a second to gather my bearings. I can’t do this. Not without him. Grayson said I was the key—but he was the one to unlock me. Now we’re both damned.

A medical personnel wraps a warm blanket around me, directing me farther away from the scene. Agent Nelson follows. “Dr. Noble, is he in there?” he asks.

My gaze flicks to the blackened, charred bones of the house. The fire still burns, brilliant orange and red and raging, licking the limbs of pines and sending embers into the dusky sky.

Grayson burned it all for me.

He set me free in more ways than one.

And in doing so, he destroyed my path to him. The answers to the man now ash.

Some things are meant to remain shrouded in mystery, I suppose. Where you’re not fed the answer. You have to search for it.

I wrench an answer for the agent from the dregs of my soul. “Yes,” I say. “He’s in there.”

A gentle shake of the agent’s head reveals his disbelief.

“How did you find me?” I ask.

He tears his attention from the fire and refocuses on me. “An anonymous call,” he says simply.

A young EMT urges me to sit on the back of the ambulance. She asks me standard-issued questions about my wellbeing, then sets to work bandaging obvious cuts, being as careful as possible not to disturb any potential evidence.

It hits me then that the dress will be confiscated.

I sniff back my anger and look up at the agent. “There is no such thing as an anonymous call,” I say, not attempting to hide the accusation in my tone.

His light brows create a furrow between his eyes. “No. There’s not,” he confesses. “The call led officials to an abducted boy that was being held in a warehouse. They then traced the call back to a wireless number in Grayson Sullivan’s name. This address was listed on the account.”

I turn my head to hide my outrage. Grayson knew it would only be a short matter of time before they discovered the location once they made the connection. It’s so blatant it’s almost stupid. Not the act of a highly intelligent man or criminal. Surely the FBI has to see that.

“The boy is all right?” I ask.

Nelson nods. “Yes. The parents are with him at the hospital.”

I tug the blanket tighter around me. “The man who kidnapped him is in that rancid container.”

“Jesus.” The agent drives a hand through his shaggy hair. “Did you witness this?”

I consider the question. Grayson isn’t inside the burning house. I know this just as the agent knows this fact.

The tests I endured and passed told me all the answers I ever sought. No more hiding. No more suppressing. No more lying. Grayson set fire to his life for me, so that I can start over. So that when I’m ready—truly ready—we can start over.

I trust him.

He found me by putting the puzzle pieces together. So that’s how I’ll find him. This agent and any official working the Sullivan manhunt are my new best friends.

“London?” the agent gains my notice, pressing the question.

I turn toward the fire. “Yes, I witnessed the murder. I have your answers.”

After a charged minute, he asks in a more subdued tone, “Is there anyone I can call for you?”

Normally, that question would provoke me. A painful reminder of how alone I am. But being alone and lonely, as I once expressed to my patient, are two different things. I no longer choose to be alone, and the person I need is out there. Waiting for me.

I look at the FBI agent. “Yes. Call the press. I have an announcement to make.”

Dig them up.

He’s not my father.

Lessons that I must put into action, or else the rest of the answers will never be unlocked.

Now I know where I belong.