Took Me Yesterday (book 2 of The Tomo Trilogy)

Fiancée

"Drink this, darling." My mother smoothed my hair back, her honey brown eyes warm as she watched me lift the glass to my lips. The liquid fire burned my throat, as hot as the setting sun, but she nodded, and I drank as much as I could. She smiled the entire time.

"Good girl," she said as I drank more, my head swimming, my mind hazy. "My darling Sophie."

Behind her, the dropping sun caught the edges of her hair and turned it to the color of rubies, the same color as her dress. Then, the sun hit the horizon and swirled away, right until the last rays caught the silver edges of planes flying in. Loud and fast ones. Metal birds my mother pointed to as she dragged me into her lap to watch. She hummed my favorite song as it all began. The one about sirens singing sailors to their deaths until one sailor's dog bit him, breaking the trance and saving him.

I had gotten my tattoo that afternoon.

"Oh, my darling Sophie."

She sang the siren's name, the tale she named me from.

And then, the first bomb dropped.

It was loud and excruciating, and every bone inside me ached as my mother held me tight against her chest. While I screamed, she hummed, and while she hummed, I watched hundreds die.

...

I woke up to Noah leaning over me, his green eyes shifting, his blond head highlighted by the fluorescent lights above us.

"Sophie," he sighed my name, and I blinked away my blurry vision. "Sophie, it's Noah. Can you hear me?"

"Yeah," I managed, but the second I pressed my elbows beneath me, I regretted it. A singeing pain shot up my arm, and I gasped. Noah steadied me with one hand, but his touch hurt. I stared at where my pain began.

Bandages. I was covered in bandages.

"It's not as bad as it looks," he promised when I gave myself the onceover.

From my right shoulder to my right hip, wraps held my body together, but nothing felt broken. Just burned. Really, really burned. The left side felt the opposite, frozen from the hospital room's air conditioning.

"What happened?" I asked, scooting toward the edge, but Noah stopped me. When I looked up at him, I realized both his arms had bandages, and one arm hung in a sling. A broken arm. "Noah—"

"I'm okay," he said. "You are, too."

His tone may have been comforting, but something regrettable hung at the end.

"How's Pierson?" I asked.

Noah's breath halted. He shook his head.

Pierson was dead.

I tried not to think about it, tried not to dwell, tried not to fight it, but the tears came. Quick pounding ones that'd been hiding ever since leaving Topeka. Giving up my home, finding Louis City, meeting Penelope and Jack. Oh, god. Penelope and Jack. Without Pierson, I didn't know where'd they go. They were supposed to have a future together. Even Pierson saw their future together.

My tears stopped.

Noah tensed. "Sophie?"

"He can't be gone," I declared. "He can't. He saw his future with his wife in Louis City, and—"

"Wife?" Noah leaned back. "What are you talking about? He's a kid."

"He's a grown man," I ranted, trying to explain, but as I did, Noah's face only feel deeper and deeper into silent despair. His eyes darker. His face paler.