Vendetta Nation (Enigma Black Trilogy #2) by Sara Furlong-Burr Read Free Book Online Page A

the nothingness in its glow.
    “What’s out there?” Paige asked, toweling her hair dry.
    “I don’t know,” he answered. “It’s weird. Every so often, I’ll get the urge to look out the window, like something’s there wanting me to see it. Sometimes, I swear I actually do see something.”
    “So, my boyfriend’s seeing things,” she said, tossing the towel aside while she rubbed his back with her free hand.
    “Don’t worry,” he said, turning around. “All I ever want to see is you.”
    *****
    I’m standing in the smoldering rubble of Hope Memorial Hospital in my suit, and my mask covers my face. Around me, I can hear the screams of both the living and the dying. I’m disoriented as though I’d just been through hell, though when I inspect myself, I see nothing physically wrong. I walk through the rubble, stumbling over furniture and pieces of scaffolding, wondering why I’m here. Then I hear it.
    Clunk, clunk, clunk , the painfully familiar sound of the footsteps belonging to The Man in Black of my nightmares resound behind me. My stomach turns, my pulse quickens.
    “Isn’t it enough you haunt me while I’m awake? Must you lurk in my subconscious too?” I turn around, expecting him to be several feet away still, but find myself facing him nearly nose to nose.
    “Celaine Stevens,” he scowls. His gloved hand reaches over to my masked face, cupping my chin. I remain frozen, as a mixture of fear and rage roots me to the ground. “Tell me, Ms. Stevens, what do you have worth fighting for?”
    “Why don’t you tell me?” I answer him. “It seems as though you’ve already taken everything that mattered to me. The only things I have left are my convictions. But I suppose that’s enough, isn’t it?” I can’t remove my eyes from the darkness that fills the eye sockets of his mask.
    “You’re wrong.” His demonic melodious laugh echoes throughout the remains we’re standing in. “Look over there, and you’ll see that you have plenty left to fight for.” He points to a large cube centered at the heart of the destruction. Within the cube stands Chase, pounding on the side of his prison. “I know what makes you tick,” he sneers.
    “Let him go!” I exclaim. My feet attempt to leave the ground, but they won’t move. “He has nothing to do with any of this.”
    “He matters to you, that means he has everything to do with this.” The Man in Black takes a couple of steps through the rubble in the direction of the cube.
    “Don’t touch him!” I yell. “Take me. Kill me. Just leave him out of this.”
    “Find me,” The Man in Black says. “Then and only then will he be safe.”
    The ground around me shudders, and the cube begins to shake violently. Nearby, The Man in Black raises his arms, and I know from a decade of countless nightmares that nothing good would come next. “No! No!” I scream, finally freeing my feet. But just as I became able to run again, the earth violently shakes once more, causing the cube to implode with Chase still trapped inside.
    *****
    “Celaine, wake up.” Ian shook me until I woke. “Are you all right?” he asked, sitting on my bed, his hand on my shoulder. “That must have been one hell of a nightmare.”
    “You heard me?” I asked, trying to still my rapid heartbeat.
    “Are you kidding me? I think they heard you in China. I’m surprised half The Epicenter isn’t in here right now. It sounded like you were being murdered.”
    “In a way, I was.” I shivered. Pulling my legs up to my chest, I sat huddled on the bed, unable to rid my mind of the vivid images from my dream.
    “I have them, too,” Ian said softly. “Nightmares so real I feel like my heart is being ripped out of my body all over again.”
    “Why do we have to be repeatedly tortured?” I asked, not expecting an answer. “It’s like we were born just to suffer.”
    “We weren’t born to suffer, we were born to make a difference. Our pain is just an unfortunate consequence