Starcrossed (Starcrossed 1)

anchored to the ground as bits and pieces of people?s houses

tumbled down the streets around him. His bare face was getting

lashed by the swirling debris in the air, and the sideways rain was

clawing at his eyes. All night he wandered around outside every

hotel, inn, and bed-and-breakfast he could think of, looking in the

windows with eyes that could see in even the dimmest of light,

hoping for a glimpse of Helen.

He knew he wouldn?t get it. Cassandra had told him that Helen

would be standing in a hotel window the next morning, but he still

couldn?t make himself stop. He wouldn?t stop, because if by some

miracle he did find her, take her out of that hotel, and bring her

back to her family, he could prove Cassandra wrong. All he needed

was to beat Fate once and he would know that he was the master of

himself?not just a prewritten story that gets reread every now and

again to amuse the cosmos?but a truly blank slate that he would

be allowed to fill with whatever future he decided to write for himself.

If he could just find Helen that night and bring her home, then

he knew that someday they would beat Fate, and that they could be

together.

He walked all night.

Helen?s head was pounding and there was a sour, chalky taste in

the back of her mouth, like she had chewed an aspirin and didn?t

rinse afterward. Her eyes felt swollen and puffy, and the skin on

her face felt clammy and hot, but she didn?t feel as dehydrated as

she usually did when she visited the dry lands. This was different.

She?d been drugged, she suddenly remembered, by a woman. A

woman that looked just like her, but older.

?Take a sip,? said a voice as Helen felt a straw being pressed to

her lips. Her eyes flipped open and she saw the woman again, leaning

over her and holding a glass of water.