When I first felt the water around my skin, I thought I might have been dreaming. Maybe it was all a nightmare. It had to be.
If it wasn't, then why did I see my husband—the only man I ever loved—turn his back on me as I fell five feet down into the dark body of water?
If it wasn't, then why was my best friend, the woman I called my sister, Lena, snickering as our eyes met in that frozen second before I hit the surface?
Even though I had told them countless times that I was terrified of water, that it haunted me ever since the accident that took my parents, they still watched me fall. They watched me drown.
The water was colder than anything I'd ever known
It clung to me like hands, dragging me down until the world above became only ripples and noise. My lungs spasmed, searching for air, but all I tasted was salt and iron and the faint metallic sting of panic. My limbs flailed, heavy and useless. My heart pounded so violently I could hear it in my ears, loud as thunder beneath the surface.
Then, like a cruel spark in the dark, I remembered my baby. Our baby.
The child I'd carried carefully for five months—the one I talked to every night, whispered nursery rhymes to in the quiet hours when the house slept.
The baby I had promised a kind father, doting grandparents, a proud aunt, and a god mother who would love her more than family.
The baby I had already loved more than my own life.
No. No. No.
This couldn't be real. Any second now, I would wake up. Adrian would be there, shaking me gently, telling me I'd had another bad dream. Lena would be laughing beside him, calling me dramatic.
Everything had to be a dream—everything from walking into Lena's apartment and seeing them having sex in the bedroom.
But the cold didn't fade, and neither did the heartache I still carried from that day that I had seen them together. It only sank deeper, biting through my bones and turning my blood to stone. My vision blurred as bubbles slipped from my lips. My chest burned. I tried to scream, but the sound came out as a rush of water and despair.
I'm sorry, baby. I couldn't protect you. I couldn't protect anything. I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry, Dad. You gave your lives to save me, and I wasted it dying so young. Maybe I'll be seeing you soon.
No.
No.
No.
I want to live. I want to see my baby's face. I want to hold her, protect her, tell her that the world isn't as cruel as this moment makes it seem. I want to live, even if it's just for her.
I kicked, clawed, fought against the blackness creeping over me. But the water pressed harder, filling my lungs, swallowing my thoughts until everything went still.
Somewhere, faint and desperate, a voice cut through the black.
"Star. Star! Star!"
The sound tore through the water and into my bones, rough and ragged, shaking something inside me that still refused to die.
For a moment, I hoped it was Adrian. I prayed it was.
There was no way my husband—the man I loved, the father of my baby would let me and our child drown.
It had to be an accident. Maybe in the heat of the moment one of them had pushed too hard. Maybe I'd tripped. It had to be a misunderstanding. It couldn't be real. It couldn't.
Except I knew it wasn't Adrian. I knew from the sound of my name. Star. It had been so long since I'd heard it said like that—with desperation, with fear, with feeling.
Adrian didn't say my name that way anymore. When he did, it sounded like a chore, an inconvenience on his tongue.
Oh God, I've been such a fool.
A weight pressed against my chest again and again, and water spilled from my mouth in violent coughs. My body convulsed, fighting for air.
The voice came closer, trembling now. "Come on, breathe. Breathe."
It was the first thing I felt that wasn't pain.
Through the blur, I saw a shadow hovering above me, broad shoulders blocking out the sunset, a thin scar tracing just below his chin. The voice reverberated. "Star. Star, say something."
I forced my eyes open, gasping. The world swam in color and darkness. I looked up at the stranger and thought, for one dizzy moment, that I must be in heaven—that this man was an angel sent to save me and my baby.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
But the words barely left my mouth before everything went dark again.
...
"Star! Star!"
I shot awake, my breathing fast, sweat slicking my skin. That same damned dream—the river, the cold, and the nightmares that always followed.
"I'm not drowning. I'm alive. I'm okay," I mumbled over and over like a prayer until warm hands wrapped around me, holding me tight until my lungs began to slow.
"Are you okay?" Gabriel asked, his voice steady. His arms were still around me even after my heavy breathing calmed.
"I'm fine. It was just a nightmare. They happen," I said, trying to convince myself more than him.
"You were screaming, Star," he stated. That was how he always spoke, cold and factual. His hands finally released me, and I gripped the sheet beneath me for balance.
"Gabriel." The name slipped out before I could stop it. I always thought it strange that he was named after an angel, because that's how he felt to me: big, quiet, impossible. Majestic and strong, and always just out of reach.
"Star," he said, low and careful, like he was testing me.
"Nova," I corrected immediately. "Star is dead. She doesn't exist anymore, so stop calling me that."
Silence filled the space between us. I lifted my head and met his eyes—ice blue, sharp even in the dark. He rose from the bed, the mattress lifting with his weight. His back caught my eye, broad and large; his presence made the room feel smaller. The familiar scar under his chin caught what little light there was when he turned slightly toward me.
"If you ever mess up and call me Star, you ruin the plan," I said, my voice tight. "I know," he replied. "But I never make mistakes."
"Try and get some sleep," he said, moving toward the door, motioning that the conversation was over. "After today, we are Nova and Gabriel Hart, and we are taking back everything they stole from you."
My voice hardened. "An eye for an eye. A heart for a heart. I'll pay them back tenfold. I swear it, Gabriel, on this new life I was given. I'll make them rue the day they met me."
He nodded once and left quietly; the door shut softly behind him.
I exhaled and caught my reflection in the full-length mirror in the corner. I didn't even look like the old Star anymore. She really was dead.
The Star Vale who had been young, naive, gentle, and trusting was gone. I was Nova Hart now: cold, ruthless, hungry for the pound of flesh that was more than five years overdue.