Three years earlier…
The sky blackened, making the wind gust wickedly through the palm trees. Not exactly the Hawaii one pictured, but Adrian Wilde was on a roll, quite literally. Supermodel Ellie Marlow held her long hair out of her face, frowning at the camera.
Adrian tilted his head. “Come on, Ellie. Just a few more shots.” He lifted his hands to the rolling clouds above. “Can’t you feel the excitement in the air, the danger? It’s perfect.”
“It’s insane! We’re going to be electrocuted.”
As if the sorceress had summoned it, lightning cracked across the clouds, puncturing the blackness with wicked fingers. A second later thunder shattered the air.
“Two more shots and we’re out of here,” he called over the wind. “And let go of the hair. Please,” he added with a smile.
After a pause, she let her brown hair whip across her face, walking toward him with a jaunty cant.
“This is going to be the shot of a lifetime.”
For a second, the hairs on his body shot to attention. The air tingled. In a single flash of light and a loud crash, he was knocked backward. Vibrations charged through his body. He could hear Ellie scream, but he couldn’t move or speak. Darkness swirled around him, as if those spikes of light had pulled him right up into that black mass.
“Help me!” Ellie’s voice, he thought.
“He’s not breathing!” he heard someone scream.
The twisting mass formed a tunnel, and at the end a brilliant light pulsed. He moved toward that light as a roller coaster screams across the tracks. Images flashed past him, vivid and full of life.
Only it wasn’t his life.
A young girl made a sandcastle on the beach, patting the sides with infinite care until a boy with dark hair stalked over and kicked it in. That same girl, now a lovely teenager, standing on a seawall, her golden blond curls dancing in the breeze as she looked out to a cerulean ocean. Her arms were crossed in front of her, slender hands on her throat. Then the same girl, now a woman, driving through town in a white Mercedes convertible on a summer day.
He kept rushing through space without time or thought. The woman’s image flashed in front of him again. She was walking out of a mansion. Storm clouds darkened the sky there, too, but he hardly had time to notice. If he kept going, he was going to crash into her. She didn’t see him coming right at her, right…
He was expelled into a thicker darkness, a liquid warmth that flowed all around him. Blood pumping through his veins, a muffled thunder that pulsed through the thickness. A heartbeat. Her heartbeat. He was inside her.
Then everything exploded, worse than the thunder, more painful than the lightning. Fire, the smell of smoke, heat on his skin, searing pain, so much fear and panic. All he could see was the venomous orange burst that surrounded the woman. Her thoughts were louder than the roar of flames.
What’s happening? Mother! I’ve got to get out and find her.
“He’s got a heartbeat,” a voice said from some far-away place.
Adrian rolled on the sand in a desperate attempt to smother the flames. Hands were everywhere on him, holding him down as he struggled. He opened his eyes. The crew. The people he’d left behind what seemed like hours ago. They stood around him, confusion and concern in their eyes.
“He’s alive,” Ellie breathed, squeezing his arm.
He looked around. No fire. Only the rain, gushing from the sky. Rain that had felt like flames.
Two of the men helped him to his feet. His shoes had been knocked off, and his feet felt like two balls of fire. They looked like he’d been standing in a frying pan.
“Let’s get you out of the rain. Geez, are you all right? You gave us a helluva scare.”
Adrian’s breath came in heavy gasps. His body felt like liquid. When he reached the nearest palm, he held onto it.
“Get away from that tree, Wilde,” Bob said. “You want to get hit by lightning again?”
“Is that what happened?” He saw his camera lying on the sand, scorched and now wet. “Where was the fire? I felt flames, smelled smoke.”
Ellie pulled him to the van, where he dropped down onto the floor. “There was no fire, love,” she said, wiping his shoulder-length dark hair out of his eyes. “It must have been the lightning you felt. You were dead, you know. Margot performed CPR and got your heart beating again.”
“I was dead.” His voice trailed off as he looked at the place where he’d been thrown. He closed his eyes, settling his forehead in his hand. Flashes of the tunnel ripped through the blackness behind his eyes. Dead. He had heard of the tunnel, of people seeing their life flash before them. But who was the woman? Why had her life exploded?