Fated Hearts (Echoes of Darkness Prequel)

7

Ava

TWO MONTHS LATER

T he blaring sound of my alarm breaks through my dream, and I groan, not ready to wake up yet. Fumbling for my phone, searching for it in the tangled sheets, I finally manage to find it and press the snooze button.

Just five more minutes.

I was dreaming about him again, the majestic, giant wolf with honey-colored eyes and a beautiful, thick coat of ash-brown fur. We were howling at the full moon together, and the sense of rightness, of complete belonging, enveloped me like a warm blanket.

Is it weird that I’m sexually attracted to a wolf? Yup, I’m definitely going crazy.

Sighing, I push up into a sitting position as the alarm screams at me again. I stab at the screen, mumbling profanities at it, and rub at my eyes to clear the sleep cobwebs from my mind. Standing up, I accidentally knock into one of the boxes I still haven’t had the chance to unpack. It flies across the room. Jesus, I’m so much stronger since the surgery, and I haven’t gotten used to it yet. I can’t even keep track of how many things I’ve managed to clumsily break, only by holding them or by pressing my finger on a button. On the bright side, I was able to carry all my boxes to my new apartment without any help in record time.

My body is also toned. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have abs or anything like that. I am still my curvy self, but you can start to see some muscle definition here and there, and the weird part is that I didn’t do anything for it. I still eat chocolate cake like my life depends on it; you can’t pry it from my cold, dead hands even if you want to.

Even though it’s small, the studio apartment I moved into is cute, and the space is used efficiently. A glass paneled screen separates the bed from the rest of the space, and the dark brown L-shaped couch is on the other side, with a small walnut coffee table between the couch and the TV console resting against the wall. The kitchen is adjacent to the living room space with white cabinets that are a bitch to clean and a breakfast bar that sits two instead of a dining table.

Making my way to the bathroom, I enter the small room and take care of my business. Then I turn on the shower, take off the sleep shorts and the tank top I’m wearing, and step into the spray of hot water.

To my mother’s horror, I moved across the country to the city of Ashville a week ago. One day, I was rotting in bed, still drowning in the endless possibilities of what my life could look like, when this wildlife documentary about Ashville’s national park started on TV. With my eyes plastered to the screen and a weird jolt from my heart, I felt this strong compulsion to move here. I took it as a sign to make a new beginning and escape my mother’s immediate reach. She drove me nuts after the heart transplant surgery.

As soon as I got the confirmation from my new doctor that everything was all right and I made a full recovery after the surgery, I packed all my things and haven’t looked back. He said I was a miracle patient, that no one had ever made such a fast recovery after a heart transplant in all of his career. I was just happy that I could put distance between me and my mother so soon.

Turning off the water, I dry myself and wrap the towel around my body. I have a pep in my step as I shuffle to the small mirror hanging above the square-shaped sink. My heart condition made everything strenuous. So now, I greedily sponge every mundane task I go through without feeling like I’m running up a hill with no lungs. I brush my teeth and then dab a bit of foundation and blush on my face. I tame my unruly eyebrows with a spoolie and curl my eyelashes before coating them in a thin layer of mascara.

When I deem my face presentable enough, I stride to one of the boxes on the floor next to my bed and rummage for something to wear. I finally settle for a pair of straight jeans and a sweatshirt that looks like it doesn’t have too many wrinkles and get dressed.

My loudly grumbling stomach guides me to my fridge. Since the surgery, it seems like I can never eat enough. The idea of stuffing my face as soon as I woke up was never appealing to me. Now, I feel like I will wither and die if I don’t wolf down a whole continental spread in the morning. Strangely, though, I haven’t gained any weight. I’m practically living the dream if you ask me.

I’ve cracked six eggs and am whisking them in a bowl with a fork when my phone starts ringing on the coffee table. I make a beeline for it, take the phone, and accept the video call from Chloe, bringing it back with me to the kitchen.

“Hey, Chlo.”

She smiles brightly, and my chest constricts with how much I miss her. Her hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and her beautiful face is free of makeup. “I see you still haven’t unpacked everything.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not that easy doing it all by yourself,” I say as I rest the phone on the kitchen counter next to the induction stove, angling it so she can still see me, and take out a skillet. I drop in a big glob of butter and wait for it to melt under the heat.

She blows on top of the mug she’s holding, the window at her back giving a glimpse of the night sky. “You know I would’ve come to help you if you would’ve let me.”

I arch an eyebrow at her and pour the eggs into the hot skillet. “And miss going on tour with your sexy rockstar boyfriend? Like I would have ever let that happen. How is he, by the way? Where are you guys?” After the night my heart stopped on the tour bus, Knox pursued Chloe relentlessly. She was nervous and had a lot of reservations about dating a rock star, understandably so, but he turned out to be a sweet guy, and I convinced her to give him a shot since life was so short and all that.

She practically has hearts in her eyes at the mention of said hot rock star boyfriend. “I honestly don’t know, somewhere in Europe. We just arrived like an hour ago, and Knox left five minutes after that. They’re having a late session at the studio recording a new song that Jude wrote.” She takes a sip from the mug, and her expression turns serious. “By the way, he won’t stop asking about you. He keeps demanding I give him your phone number. Since I joined the band on tour, I haven’t seen him with one chick, and he hasn’t touched drugs or alcohol. Maybe you should give him a chance.”

I huff as I turn off the stove and dump the scrambled eggs on a plate. “How’s my baby?” I deflect, referring to Simba, my cat. I don’t feel like talking about Jude at the moment.

After the incident in the tour bus, he sent a dozen bouquets to my hospital room with an ‘I’m sorry’ note and then put a stop to the tour so he could get admitted into one of those exclusivist celebrity rehab centers. He said he had a spiritual awakening the moment my heart stopped and that he realized he was going down a slippery slope with the drugs and the alcohol, and what happened to me made him rethink all of his life choices.

When he got out, he tried to reach me everywhere on my social media, but I ignored his messages. He kept saying we belonged together, but c’mon, we just met, and we kissed once. I am happy he got clean and that they restarted the tour, but honestly…Jude and I, we just used each other. He probably got hung up on the idea that he never got to fuck me after all and that I chose to ignore his messages. I can’t see myself with him, and it’s silly, but he can’t compare to the longing I feel every time I dream about the wolf with amber eyes.

“My mom is spoiling him rotten. I swear to God, he won’t even want to come back to my apartment once the tour is over. She refuses to feed him kibble. Last night, she made him the cat-safe version of dinuguan, a traditional Filipino stew. Wait, I’ll send you the photos; I forgot to forward them when she sent them last night.”

Taking a seat at the breakfast bar, I dig into the scrambled eggs before they get cold. “Oh my God, he’s so fat,” I chuckle out after swallowing. Tears prickle the back of my eyes when I scroll through the photos Chloe has finished sending me. Simba really is living his best life at her mother’s house.

After I got released from the hospital, he kept hissing at me and hiding. He was so terrified of me he refused to eat. It broke my heart into a million pieces, but he was losing weight, and he wasn’t happy living with me anymore, so Chloe offered to adopt him, and he is staying with her mother while she’s on tour with Knox.

“Yeah, I keep telling her to feed him less, but she won’t listen.” Chloe rolls her eyes. “What are you up to today?”

“Nothing much. I have to look for a job. The money my Abuelita left me is not infinite, and I don’t want to blow it all out on rent and food, so I have to find something.”

Chloe yawns loudly as she stands up from the couch and plops on the bed. “I think I’m going to turn in for the night. This tour life is fucking exhausting.”

“’Kay. Love you.”

“Love you too,” she replies, ending the call.

Half an hour later, I’m exiting the apartment building, the slightly chilly air prickling my cheeks and filling my lungs. The morning sun shines brightly on the cloudless sky, but the rays barely convey warmth. It’s almost the middle of September, and an array of colorful leaves cover the sidewalk like an autumnal blanket, from bright copper to a fading yellow, the smell of decay filling my nose. The weather here is vastly different from the West Coast, and it definitely needs some getting used to. However, my body temperature is running higher after the surgery so while the people I pass on the street are already wearing jackets, I don’t need one.

The city is bustling with people on their commute to work, and the morning traffic is brutal, angry drivers honking and muttering insults at each other. Luckily, I don’t have to drive my car today. The building I moved into is a ten-minute walk from the Raven district, where I am on my way to meet the private investigator I hired a month ago to look into my donor. He’s in the area with another job and asked me to meet him face-to-face to report his findings.

The Raven district is smack dab in the center of Ashville, and it’s filled with people wandering in and out of the small restaurants and cafés. I pass by a help-wanted sign in the window of a bar named the Shabby Shotglass—information I store for later.

A chill skates down my spine with the sensation of being watched, and I frown, turning my head, expecting to find someone following me, but I can’t spot anything out of the ordinary. It’s not the first time I’ve felt this way since I was released from the hospital. Every time I step outside, I feel like someone is watching me, and honestly, it’s starting to bug me how paranoid I’m becoming for no good reason.

I shake off the unpleasant feeling, berating myself, and open the small café’s door to the pleasant smell of cinnamon and freshly roasted coffee. The murmur of conversations, laughter, and the thick whir of the frothing machine fills the air. The café has a cozy urban vibe with two exposed brick walls, other two painted a nice mint green, and a few industrial light fixtures that hang from the ceiling alongside numerous plants. A long line of people at the back of the café are waiting at the wood-paneled counter for their to-go orders.

I take my phone out to call John, the private investigator, because we have never met in person, and I have no idea what he looks like. A man lifts his hand as if to signal me, and I walk to the rounded table in the far-left side corner of the café where he’s seated. He stands, scraping the plush velvet chair abrasively against the floor.

“Ava, right?” John asks as we shake hands. He is a stout and scruffy middle-aged man with a thick mustache and intelligent hawk-like green eyes. His dark hair is sprinkled with some gray here and there.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, John,” I reply, and he gestures with his hand, urging me to sit. I sling my purse on the back of the chair. “So, did you find anything?” I ask, drumming my fingers on the table.

He turns slightly and takes out a file folder from the brown leather satchel that dangles from his chair, opening it and pushing it toward me. “Her name was Hope Moore. I also emailed you everything in case you misplace the folder or lose it.”

I nod and look down at the page. I’m immediately riveted by Hope’s otherworldly beauty, her hair golden and eyes a vivid azure, her features delicate and regal. My heart starts beating erratically against my ribcage as if it recognizes her, and goosebumps form all over my body as I trace her face with the pad of my finger. “She was so young,” I murmur, swallowing hard.

John picks up his coffee from the table and takes a sip. “Actually, that’s the last photo I could find of her. She disappeared when she was fifteen years old, and she only appeared the night she was declared dead. She was twenty-three when she died.”

A horrible feeling churns in my gut. My eyes snap to his. “That’s weird, right? How did she die?”

“She got hit by a car. At least, that’s what the hospital records say. Getting that information was hard; I had to hire someone to hack into their system. When the family went to pick her up, she’d been cremated already. They made a big scandal out of it because they wanted to bury her in the woods of the community she grew up in.”

“Hello. Can I get you something?” the chirpy voice of the server interrupts our conversation.

“Hi, yes, can I have a cappuccino, please? Oh, and a chocolate croissant?” I reply.

She inserts my order into her tablet and smiles at John. “Can I get you anything else, sir?”

“I’m good, thanks,” John says, waiting for the server to leave until he speaks again. “She was from a small town in the mountains called Devil’s Creek. Her family lived deep in the woods in a closed community. When I started to ask around town about them, everyone acted strangely, and no one wanted to speak to me. I even got thrown out of a few places. When I almost gave up, I passed this house, and an old woman sitting on the porch called out to me. She told me some weird shit about the people living in that closed community.”

Leaning forward in my seat, I wait with bated breath for his next words. Maybe I will finally get an explanation for the weird things happening to me. And the vivid dreams. “Like what?”

“She said the people living there belong to some sort of a weird cult that performs satanic rituals while wearing the skin of wolves. She even said her late father saw one of them transform into a wolf when he was just a child playing in the woods.”

Ice fills my veins. It must be some sort of a weird coincidence, right? That woman was probably crazy…right? It’s just a fluke that I’ve dreamed about transforming into a wolf and running through the woods with my amber-eyed companion almost every night since I woke up in the hospital after the surgery. I take a few deep breaths in an attempt to stop the panic crawling in the back of my throat.

John smiles halfway. “I wouldn’t believe the ramblings of an old woman, though. You know how these small-town folk are. They get so bored living their lives, they start spinning lies and weird tales.”

I try to reciprocate his smile, but it probably looks more like a grimace. What John’s saying is logical, and his words should erase this feeling of uncertainty bubbling inside me. But the more I think about the old woman’s story, the more I feel my heart racing in my chest, like it’s trying to say Yes, exactly . My palms turn clammy, and my fingers tremble in my lap. “Anything else?” I ask.

“No, that’s everything I could find,” he responds, standing and slapping a five-dollar bill on the table for the coffee. “I hope you don’t mind, but I have to meet another client in about twenty minutes.” He puts his jacket on and takes the leather satchel from the chair.

“Thanks, John. I’ll wire you the rest of the money,” I say, still sitting. I don’t want to be rude, but honestly, I don’t think I can stand. My legs feel weak and disjointed.

He leaves hastily with a goodbye thrown over his shoulder, and I remain seated in an almost catatonic state as I stare at Hope’s picture with equal amounts of sadness and gratefulness for her saving my life. My eyes silently beg her to tell me what’s going on.

I wish you didn’t have to die for me to still be here, Hope. I promise I won’t waste your precious gift.