Death. What happens after it? What lies beneath the surface?
Poor Arielle Daniels stumbled through dangerous hoops to figure this out. She wakes in a new place--the Void--and discovers that what waits after death are layers, dimensions, and sadly...
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"I don't think she's here, Kylie," said Benny, ruffling his raven-and-chestnut locks. The air smelled of stale chips and foul dust, and though used to such scents, they irritated his nostrils more than usual. And he hated that such a putrid aroma would soon stick to his hair and be impossible to wash out. "I don't see why she would be."
Kylie's heavy black boots banged onto the floor, leaving prints in the layer of grime as she approached the slitted closet. "Right, but the guys reported weird stuff up here, I told you." She kneeled, pulling her amber-blonde braid to the left side, exposing her neck. Benny couldn't tear his gaze from it, licking his lips as he recalled how her skin tasted—strawberries and vanilla with a hint of citrus. "And the faint words on the wall, in here... like someone tried to scrub them off—"
"—someone did scrub them off, that's why we can't read them, babe." Benny's use of a former pet-name prompted Kylie to stand and whip around to face him. Her usually tame but tantalizing green eyes flashed with fury as she stomped over, and he held his hands out—including the one gripping the voice recorder—to stop her progress. She'd slap him if he wasn't more careful. "Sorry, I didn't mean to."
"Watch it," she said, her perfectly plucked eyebrows scrunching as she glared at him. "You fucked up once with my team, so don't make me tell them you fucked up again by pissing me off."
He couldn't help it—Kylie hypnotized him. He'd never admit to it, but she was the reason he'd botched the one and only investigation her FBI crew had invited him on. Too distracted by memories of her, by the way her hips swished when she walked, by her infuriated but sexy tone when barking orders at lower-level agents who handled evidence. Their past was far behind them, and yet Benny would always see her as the one that got away.
And it's all my fault.
"So what weird stuff did they report again?" Benny spun on his heels, then grimaced as he faced the window—late evening sun poured in and blinded him. He covered his eyes as he hurried over to shut the blinds. "I need specifics so I can ask detailed questions."
Kylie had moved on to a wall where the hazy outline of a painting left a mark. She fixed on it, head tilting left and right, as if trying to imagine what sort of artwork might have once been there. "Voices, mainly. Whispers, but they couldn't piece together what was being said. And one of them swears that the message in the closet—the scrubbed one—became visible. Like it... glowed, or something. But it spooked him so much he didn't get a chance to read it, and it hasn't happened again."
Benny pulled out his phone from his jeans pocket and typed up what she said, never letting his gaze leave her silhouette. He watched her as she swayed from one end of the room to the other, focused on stains and dents in the walls, crouching and rising, her curves making him salivate.
It had been years—many years—since he and Kylie concluded whatever their situation had been, and yet he'd never stopped thinking about her. More so since he'd been certain he'd ended her career in the FBI when they last spoke. His lack of tact had put her deep in trouble with her superiors, and he had never forgiven himself for it.
