Hellfire Saga Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Discover More Books By Third Cousins

  A Synopsis...

  Inspiring Words

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  A Synopsis...

  Inspiring Words

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  A Synopsis...

  Inspiring Words

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  A Synopsis...

  Inspiring Words

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  A Synopsis...

  Inspiring Words

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  A Synopsis...

  Inspiring Words

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Copyright

  Hellfire

  What She Doesn't Know

  Paranormal Romance

  Book 1

  By: Stacia Ford & Third Cousins

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  A SYNOPSIS...

  Lucy has always known that she was different from the other kids in her home. Of course, it doesn’t help that she suffers from a recurring nightmare that wakes her up with a scream on her lips and sweat pouring down her back. The nightmare is driving her crazy. She’s too scared to sleep, she’s too tired to live and she feels as though it’s never going to get better...until Daniel shows up, that is.

  Daniel knows why Lucy is suffering from nightmares. He knows that it’s because of the memories that she has locked away inside her mind. He knows this because he’s the one who locked them there. When Lucy gets in trouble and he puts the word out about her disappearance, he unknowingly starts a chain reaction that puts her in more danger than she has ever been in before. What will he do when his own brothers go up against him, and will he be able to save Lucy before it’s too late?

  INSPIRING WORDS

  “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

  - Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

  CHAPTER 1

  Lucy

  I’ve always known that I was different. I’ve never known quite what is about me, but I know that when people look at me, I see fear in their eyes. Maybe it’s just that, when they meet my eyes, they can see the deep loneliness I feel. A deep loneliness that was born from being abandoned straight after I took my first breath.

  I was found at the side of a road. My mom didn’t even bother to take me to a hospital or a fire station. It wasn’t even like it was warm out. I was born in December. The snow was piled up on the side of the roads. I’ve seen it in pictures the newspapers ran above the story of the abandoned snow baby.

  I lived my entire life in care. When I was younger, the house mother used to put me in the line-up whenever prospective parents came to visit, but they never chose me. They always chose the happiest child or the one with the prettiest hair. They didn’t want a kid with problems. They didn’t want a kid who didn’t know how to smile.

  When I was ten years old I started to get nightmares. Nightmares that were so bad that I’d refuse to go to sleep, nightmares that scared me so much that I’d wake up screaming in fear and drenched in a pool of my own cold sweat. They were all the same too, every night the same dream, as if my brain was trying to warn me desperately about something that I couldn’t possibly understand yet.

  When I did fall asleep, I'd find myself in a house. It wasn’t a house I knew. It wasn’t a house that I’d ever been to in my waking hours. The house was dark, so dark that I could barely see my hand in front of my face. I could sense something behind me, though. I could sense something moving quickly in the darkness and I know in my dream that it’s coming after me.

  I call out for help, but there is nobody there, nobody but the thing in the darkness that is getting ever closer to me. I try to run, but I trip and fall. I try to stand up, but I can’t. I can feel fear coursing through my veins. I can feel its cold prickle across my skin as I realize that I’m trapped and that it’s only a matter of time before the thing in the darkness gets me.

  That’s when I feel my body starting to burn. It gets so hot that I’m sure that I’m going to die or explode or something. It’s painful. It hurts more than anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s like my whole body is being torched, but somehow I’m managing to stay alive.

  The fire spreads. It spreads through the house and lights up the darkness that had been covering the house like a blanket. I can see it now. I can see its deformed shape through the flames. I can its gray eyes looming in the nothingness that falls behind it. It’s looking at me. Its eyes are fixed on mine. It doesn’t walk through the flames, though. I know in my gut it’s because it can’t. Then I wake up.

  The dream haunted me for years. There were times when I wondered whether it would ever stop. There were times when I felt like it would be easier to be dead than to suffer any longer in a sleep-deprived state. Then I met Daniel. He moved into the home a couple of days after I turned fifteen. The nightmares stopped that same week.

  There was something about Daniel that drew me to him instantly. I could tell that he wasn’t like the other kids. I could tell without even having to talk to him that he was more like me. I’d never come across anybody who I could see myself in before, but it made me curious to get to know him. I’d never shown any interest in anybody who came through the home, but he was going to be the exception.

  I couldn’t deny that he was hot. I might have had my problems, but that didn’t make me blind. He was kind of tall for his age. His dark blond hair was shaggy and fell down to below his ears. Those weren’t the things that caught my eyes the most, though. His eyes were the thing that captured my interest and refused to let it go. They were gray, not unlike the eyes of the creature in my dreams. But instead of being ominous, they seemed cool and calm like smoke.

  I introduced myself to him on the second day. I could hear the other kids muttering under their breaths, as they watched me sit with him at a breakfast table. “I’m Lucy,” I said, as I slid my tray onto the table alongside his.

  “Yes, yes you are,” he said, as he looked up. I noticed a small pull of a smile starting across his lips, before he looked back at the tray of food in front of him. “Is the food here always this bad?” he asked as he wrinkled his nose and pushed his fork through something rubber that I think was meant to be eggs.

  “Sometimes it’s worse,” I said, shaking my head. “I know this might sound weird, but I feel like I know you from somewhere.” I said it because it was true. From the moment that I’d seen him I’d felt a strange sense of co
mfort that I’d never felt before.

  “Oh yeah?” he asked me with curious eyes that seemed to know more than they were letting on. “And where do you think that might be?”

  “I don’t know. I mean we’ve probably never met before, it’s just weird how familiar you feel,” I said as I tried to explain it without looking crazier than he probably already knew that I was.

  CHAPTER 2

  Daniel

  I knew that I shouldn’t have come, but I couldn’t help it. I missed her. I missed her more than I’d ever admit. I knew, though, that I couldn’t just go over to her. I knew that I had to let her feel the connection, so that she would come over to me. I couldn’t get this wrong again. This was my last chance to make her see me in the way that I saw her.

  She came over to me on the second day. She sat down with me at breakfast and introduced herself, as though I had no idea who she was. She didn’t know, though. She can never know. We sat and talked long after the other kids had gone outside. I’ve never seen her look so happy. I couldn’t help but wonder whether it was because of me or because she was finally feeling a connection to the person she really was.

  I knew about the nightmares that she’d been having. I knew about the way they were tormenting her sleep. I could see the tiredness in her eyes. Lack of sleep had made them dull and almost lifeless. I felt guilty. The dreams were because of me. The dreams were because I wouldn’t let her remember what had really happened. That couldn’t change, though. I couldn’t explain anything to her without the risk of losing her again.

  I spent the next three years by her side. I could tell from the moment that she’d introduced herself that she trusted me, but earning her friendship was something that took a little while. I could tell in the first few weeks of us spending time together, though, that her dreams had subsided. I’d hoped that would be the case. I’d hoped that having me as her connection would be enough to settle the troubled mind she hadn’t been able to escape.

  It was enough, at least, until her seventeenth birthday. I’d heard the screams in the night. They’d rung out through the entire house. It sounded like somebody was getting murdered. I’d recognized the voice straight away, though. I’d known that it was Lucy. I got out of bed before the screams had stopped and made my way to her room.

  I could hear the grumbles from the other kids who were being woken up, but none of them left their rooms to check whether Lucy was okay. I didn’t stop to knock on the door. It didn’t sound like Lucy would have been able to grant me access anyway. I walked into her room and found her body twisting and turning on her bed. Her eyes were firmly shut, but her mouth was open, as screams poured out of it.

  I rushed over to her side and gently shook her awake. “Lucy,” I said softly, “Lucy, I think you’re having a bad dream.” I saw her eyes starting to flicker with alertness.

  She opened her big, beautiful eyes and I could see tears glossing up the light blue, almost gray color of them. “Oh, Daniel,” she said through great sobs. “It was awful; it was the same one as before. It’s come back.” The tears rolled down her cheeks, leaving little glistening trails behind them.

  I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t understand why her dreams had come back. I stroked her hair softly until she had no more tears to cry and no more strength to sob. “I’m sorry you had a bad dream,” I said softly when silence had fallen in the room.

  “It wasn’t just a bad dream,” Lucy sniffled. “It was my bad dream, Daniel.” She lifted her head from where it had been resting on my shoulder.

  “It’ll be all right,” I said to her reassuringly, although I had no real idea whether what I’d said was true. It didn’t make sense that she was having the dreams again. They’d stopped when I’d come back into her life. They’d subsided because her brain was feeling the connection, even if it couldn’t quite grasp it. What had changed? What had broken the connection between us? “Was it exactly the same dream that you used to have?” It just didn’t make any sense to me.

  She looked at me as soft lines formed a frown across her forehead. She shook her head. “No,” she said and she looked at me curiously. “There was something more this time.” She thought about the horrible place where she had just been in her dream. “It was like a feeling, I guess. It was like I understood what was happening. I felt like I was being punished.”

  “It felt like you were being punished?” I swallowed the huge ball of guilt that had formed in my throat and seemed intent on choking me.

  “I guess that’s how I’d describe it,” she said with a little nod.

  I examined her face for a moment. She looked tired. She looked more than tired; she looked as though the dream had worn her out even more than she had been, before she’d fallen asleep. “You should try and get some rest,” I said.

  She shook her head quickly. “I can’t sleep now. I don’t dare. What if I have the dream again?” she asked me with eyes full of fright.

  “Then I’ll be right here and I’ll wake you up,” I promised her, as I wrapped my arm around her waist so that I could pull her close to me.

  “I don’t know what I did to deserve a friend like you,” she said sleepily, as she rested her head back on my shoulder.

  “Oh, if only you knew,” I said so quietly that I knew she wouldn’t be able to hear me, and she couldn’t. I listened to her breathing start to slow down, and then she was sleeping again and I was left to protect her.

  CHAPTER 3

  Lucy

  The dreams had come back. I was afraid to sleep. I was afraid to close my eyes. My only comfort was Daniel. He had been staying with me so that he could wake me when the screaming started. The screaming, I’d discovered, though, didn’t start until a fair way into my dream. I was still living through every moment up until the flames. He’d stopped the flames. He’d stopped the excoriating pain that had come with the fire.

  That didn’t matter, though. It didn’t even matter than I was still sleeping at night. The dreams were leaving me exhausted. My whole body felt as though it was made of lead. My brain felt sluggish and unwilling to cooperate with me. I just wanted everything to end.

  “You look cheerful,” Daniel said to me one morning after I’d had a particularly rough night.

  “I feel so tired,” I admitted to him, although I felt guilty for doing so. He’d stayed up with me every night that week. He’d slept less than I had and even still he was managing to put a smile on his face for me.

  “You look it,” Daniel said, as his eyes examined my tired skin and eyes. “Maybe you should try and take a nap or something?”

  “No, I don’t think it’ll help,” I said, as I forced myself up so that I could make a mug of coffee. “I’m just going to have to get used to feeling like this, I guess.” I shrugged as if I didn't care. I put the kettle on to boil and pulled out two mugs from the bookcase that held everything, except books, that I’d put in my room.

  “You shouldn’t have to, though,” Daniel said. He sounded frustrated.

  “I’m sorry.” I thought I knew where his frustration was coming from.

  He gave me a puzzled look. “You’re sorry for what?”

  “I’m sorry that I’ve been keeping you up so much lately. You should go into your own room tonight and actually sleep. It’s really selfish of me to sit here moaning when you’ve slept less that I have,” I explained.

  “Don’t be an idiot Lucy. If I didn’t want to be here, then I wouldn’t be here.”

  I was inclined to believe him. “Well, even still. You should take the night off. I’m sure I can manage for one measly night.” I tried to sound confident and not as scared as I was feeling.

  “Are you sure?” he asked me.

  “I’m sure that I’m sure,” I said with a quick nod. I finished making the coffees and I passed one over to Daniel. “You need your beauty sleep too,” I joked.

  “Are you saying that I look less perfect than normal?” Daniel asked with a look of surprise on his face that was clearly faked.r />
  “Like I’d ever say you looked perfect in the first place,” I said quickly with a grin.

  “That’s true,” he said with a nod. “I guess I’ll just have to live with the fact that you think it, but won’t say it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You can keep on wishing that.” I chuckled, then blew on my coffee before taking a deep drink from the mug. I felt the energy from the caffeine starting to surge around my body, but it wasn’t enough to kick-start my brain back into normality.

  Daniel left my room when I’d started to yawn. I’d insisted that he was okay to leave me for the night, even though his reluctance was tempting me to ask him to stay. I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes. I could feel the hairs standing up on the back of my neck as I tried to calm myself down. I had to learn to sleep on my own. I couldn’t rely on Daniel forever.

  Sleep took over my mind and I returned to my dream. Without Daniel beside me to wake me up I saw it through to the end. I woke up mid scream. I could feel the cold trickle of sweat running down my back and I pushed my covers off me. In my panic, I didn’t recognize the strange smell that was filling my nose.

  It wasn’t until my heart had calmed down that I realized that I could smell smoke. I opened the door to my bedroom and found thick plumes of smoke rising up the staircase. It looked almost black and the crackling sound that I could hear coming from the source of it was louder than I had expected it to be.

  The fire alarm wasn’t going off. The kids weren’t getting out of bed. The smoke was getting worse and I didn’t know what to do. I started frantically knocking on doors. People started to open them to see the smoke. I could feel the level of panic starting to rise as more and more kids came out into the hallway to find that they were trapped because the stairs were ablaze.

  Finally someone called out for people to throw their mattresses out of the window. I could hear the scramble of footsteps as everybody headed back into their rooms. I followed suit. My mattress was heavy, but I managed to drag it across the room. I pushed it roughly out of the window before looking down at the drop. It didn’t look that bad. It looked like something I’d probably manage without a mattress.