Chapter 1: Prologue [Part 1]

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Prologue [Part 1]

Gasoline burned beside the highway.

Smoke covered the road in thick, uneven waves, turning the lights of the small Saharian city in the distance into pale smears against the dark. Sparks snapped from beneath the crushed hood of Sebastian’s car, and somewhere close to his feet something metallic hissed with enough heat to make the air smell of fuel, scorched rubber, and blood.

Sebastian was folded over the steering wheel.

He could hear himself breathing, but every inhale came short and rough, caught somewhere beneath the pain in his ribs. His chest felt as if something had been driven through it. Blood ran from his temple, down his cheek and into the collar of his shirt, while his right arm burned from shoulder to wrist beneath fabric already soaked dark.

For several seconds, he did not move.

Then anger returned.

It came before reason, hot enough to drag him upright despite the pain.

"You fucking lunatic."

The words barely made it past his teeth.

Sebastian shoved himself away from the steering wheel and immediately had to stop when the world lurched. His left hand found the door handle. His fingers slipped over it once, wet with blood, and the movement left a red streak across the white-gold band around his ring finger.

His wedding ring.

Sebastian stared at it for a fraction of a second before his jaw tightened.

He forced the damaged door open and climbed out.

His legs almost failed him the moment his shoes touched the road. Sebastian caught himself against the side of the car, breathing through his teeth while pain spread viciously beneath his ribs. The metal was hot beneath his palm. His head throbbed with every beat of his heart, and his right arm hung uselessly for several seconds before sensation returned in a sharp rush.

Then he looked across the road.

The other car was destroyed.

The black luxury vehicle sat half across the opposite lane with its front end crushed, smoke rolling from beneath the hood. One headlight still burned through the haze.

Sebastian had been running from him.

Nero had followed.

Sebastian remembered seeing the headlights speeding behind him. He remembered knowing whose car it was before he could even distinguish the shape. Nero had stayed on him through every turn, ignoring the speed, ignoring Sebastian’s attempts to lose him, until the road opened near the city.

Then Nero had simply crashed into him.

The driver’s door of the other wreck opened.

Sebastian went still.

Nero stepped out.

Blood ran through his long white-blond hair from a cut near his temple, staining several strands red as they fell loose over his shoulders. His dark clothes were torn in places from the impact, and there was blood on one hand when he pushed the ruined door away from himself.

Purple eyes found Sebastian through the smoke, and the expression on Nero’s face made something colder than the night move beneath Sebastian’s skin.

Then Nero smiled.

Blood was running down the side of his face, both cars were wrecked badly enough that either of them should have been calling emergency services, and Nero looked at Sebastian as though the entire thing had finally become interesting.

The anger was still there. Sebastian could see it in the hard set of his jaw and in the violent brightness of his eyes, but amusement curled through it, sharp and delighted, as if Sebastian trying to run from him had pissed Nero off so badly that catching him like this had somehow become fun.

Nero wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with his thumb, glanced at the red smear left on his skin, then looked back at Sebastian.

"There you are."

Sebastian stared at him.

That was what Nero had to say?

Nero started toward him, stepping over broken glass without looking down, the wreck behind him apparently no more important than a car he had parked badly.

Sebastian’s disbelief broke.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

His voice tore across the road.

Nero’s smile widened.

"Have you completely lost your fucking mind?"

"You noticed."

Sebastian pushed away from the car, even though standing without support sent another deep ache through his ribs.

"You followed me halfway across the city and rammed your car into mine!"

"You kept driving."

The answer came with enough accusation that Sebastian almost laughed.

Nero did.

It was low and brief, more breath than sound, but it made the hair on Sebastian’s arms rise. There was nothing funny about the wreckage around them. Nero simply seemed entertained by Sebastian’s outrage, by the blood, by the fact that Sebastian was still standing there cursing him instead of putting more distance between them.

"You were very determined," Nero added.

Sebastian had known Nero for years. He knew what Nero looked like when amused, annoyed, bored, arrogant, or even violent.

He had never seen all of it at once.

There was blood in Nero’s hair, smoke curling around his body, rage sitting naked in his eyes, and a smile on his mouth as if forcing Sebastian off the road had improved his night.

Then the fire cracked behind him, splitting the image in Sebastian’s worst fear.

Sebastian saw the same black highway beneath another dark sky. The same smoke. The same wrecked cars.

The same smell.

The same heat.

Nero was walking toward him there too.

Blood in his pale hair. ℯℯ𝑙.

Purple eyes fixed on Sebastian.

Sebastian’s stomach dropped.

No.

He knew this.

The nightmare had followed him for years, arriving without warning and leaving behind fragments he had never been able to explain. He had done everything in his power to stop it from becoming reality of this life.

For one sickening moment, the man in front of him and the Nero from the nightmare became the same person.

"No."

Nero stopped.

His smile faded a little, but his expression did not soften.

"Sebastian."

The low voice cut through the crackle of fire and exposed wires.

Sebastian took a step back.

Pain pulled at his ribs, but the pain was meaningless now.

"No."

Nero moved again.

Sebastian backed away faster.

"Stay the fuck away from me."

That stopped him.

For the first time since Nero had climbed out of the car, something shifted in his face.

It was not guilt.

Sebastian almost wished it had been.

Nero tipped his head, studying him with open, almost curious amusement.

"Are you still trying to run?"