Reawakened (The Reawakened Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

been struck at least twice. Blood dripped from his mouth and from a large gash on his head. Road rash ran down his side, and his feet were covered with cuts.
    One of his hands was crushed, his very nice abdomen was already bruising, and his right shoulder was ripped up. Onlookers couldn’t seem to figure out what to do except take photographs with their phones.
    “Back off!” I screamed uncharacteristically at the crowd. I started edging away a bit when some of them began turning their cameras on me. To be fair, they probably didn’t know what to make of the man. Heck, I didn’t know what to make of him myself. He was alert, which surprised me, considering the state of his body.
    From the moment he saw me, his eyes, more amber now than green, never left my face. He was afraid, confused, and in pain. I could feel the emotions coming off him in waves, and the empathy it stirred within me was tangible. It licked my skin with a panicked heat. I felt as if my own body had just gone through the same painful experience. I had to help him.
    Though severely injured, he tried to sit up as I approached. “I’ve found you, Young Lily,” he said, the words seeming to carry more weight, more meaning than just the obvious. He looked like an ancient warrior dying on a concrete battlefield.
    Kneeling beside him, I touched the smooth skin of his arm lightly and, despite my uncertainty, said gently, “You sure did. And look what you’ve done to yourself.”
    The fact that he was hurt, perhaps even dying, coupled with my strange new insight into his feelings made whatever remaining fearful thoughts I had about him dissipate, like little bubbles popping into watery nothingness in the bright sunshine.
    He was still crazy, no question about that, but now I believed he was more a pitiable type of insane than an I’m-going-to-kill-you-slowly type. The dark menace and exaggerated sinister qualities I’d branded him with earlier seemed silly to me now. He looked so harmless lying in the street.
    Moaning, he shifted and then hissed in pain. I guessed that his leg or maybe even his hip might be fractured. Pulling out my phone, I had just begun dialing 911, when he lifted his non-crushed hand. “Help me,” he pleaded.
    I pointed to the phone. “That’s what I’m doing.”
    “No.” He shook his head, closing his eyes as he gritted his teeth. After panting for a few seconds, he focused on me again. I stared into his eyes and felt inexplicably mesmerized. The noise of New York City washed away. The world ceased to exist except for the two of us, me and him. And for a moment I imagined sinking into the deep pools of his eyes and being lost forever.
Oh, boy, what have I gotten myself into?
    “Help me,” he repeated. His words snapped me out of the strange, dreamlike trance and the city’s sounds assaulted my ears once again. Automatically, I dropped my phone on the pavement, barely noticing the cover popping off, and reached for his hand.
    A burning jolt seared through my fingers and into my veins, the pain bringing tears to my eyes, and I wondered if this was what electrocution felt like. I cried out between chattering teeth as a strange scent, like scorched perfume or incense, assaulted my nose. Just as quickly as it had come, the agony began to diminish, turning into a warm, tingling sensation that lifted my hair at its roots and caused wispy tendrils to float with a static charge. There seemed to be an invisible barrier between us and the crowd. Though they snapped pictures, no one approached.
    My muscles trembled from aftershock. I felt wrung out, like I’d been shoved into a dryer and tumbled around until I emerged in a fried, wrinkled heap. Someone squeezed my hand.
    My eyes flew open, and suddenly remembering where I was, I yanked my hand from the man’s grip. “What
was
that?” I demanded. The euphoria of being a Good Samaritan had abruptly faded, replaced by shock at what had just occurred between us.
    “What did you do?”