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CHAPTER ONE
TEMPERANCE
Acough clawed its way out of my chest before I could even open my eyes. Smoke burned my nose and throat. Screams cut through the choked air all around me, but I was paralyzed. I couldn’t wake up. Something sharp pressed into my ribs while something hard and dull pressed into my back. My chest ached, and as I coughed again, those things dug in even more.
What the hell happened?
Where am I?
I can’t remember…
Hushed, angry voices came from above me as they moved around. I could hear their quick footsteps as they approached. They spoke, but the incessant ringing in my ears wouldn’t stop long enough for me to make it out. Not that I could have anyway with my clearly rattled brain.
Even as I lay there, trying like hell to focus on the obvious dangers around me, strange images danced in the darkness behind my closed eyelids. Part of me wondered if I’d suffered brain damage while the other part could only speak to me in hallucinatory lights, shapes, and even faces. Random pieces of even more random memories played from my subconscious as darkness tried to swallow me down again, but I couldn’t allow it.
Ihaveto wake up.
Rough hands grabbed my face, turning it side to side before something pressed against my neck. Apparently, that was all I’d needed. I could feel it. Adrenaline pumped through me, waking me, but I was terrified of what I’d see when I did. My fingers twitched on their own free will, but I willed my eyes to stay shut a little while longer. Just until the person touching me moved away. Something deep in my gut told me to stay still, and I wasn’t about to disobey.
The person above me finally stood, their footsteps moving away. My chest burned even more, and I fought the urge to cough, but it soon became too much. Another cough tore free, this time forcing me further onto my right side. My eyes involuntarily shot open as a scream exploded from my throat when the sharp object pushed further into the sensitive skin over my ribs.
“Move out!” a man with a deep, terrifying voice shouted.
Finally. The ringing had calmed enough for me to hear words, and my brain had come around enough that I could understand them. I was no doctor, but the evidence of brain damage looked optimistically lower by the second.
Danger, however, was still very much all around.
My eyes searched directly around me, but all I saw was ruin. Smoke obscured my field of view, but I made out at least three shadows, maybe four running down the aisle. My vision swam from dizziness. I must have hit my head hard, but I certainly couldn’t remember it. I couldn’t remember anything.
The crackle of flames along with whimpers and few screams echoed through the building. I forced my right elbow under me, which only shoved my ribs down harder onto the object stabbing into them. Unfortunately, rolling in the opposite direction wasn’t an option. There was too much debris under my left side for me to roll over it.
With a pain-filled yell, I threw my left arm over the bench next to me. I pulled, jerking myself away from the offending object in my side and managed to get my right hand under me. Slowly, I made my way to my knees and looked around.
When my eyes focused enough to take in the ruin around me, I stopped breathing for what felt like an eternity.
I was in a church. The object I’d used to pull myself up on hadn’t been just any bench but instead was a destroyed pew. Stained glass littered the floor, and the smoke billowing into the air was illuminated far too much to be inside a dimly lit church. The windows must have been gone, allowing the sun to shine through, but I didn’t remember how that happened.
Bodies lay everywhere. Some strewn over pews. Some in the main aisle. Some hunkered down between what had once been clear rows. Blood soaked everything, and it made my stomach roll. As I tried to push myself to my feet using the destroyed pew next to me, I looked one row ahead, and my chest clenched.
I recognized that long, perfectly curled blonde hair anywhere—even when stained a red so deep it looked black. I swallowed hard and limped forward. My leg wouldn’t move the way I wanted it to, but I felt no pain. Whether that was from shock or nerve damage, I had no idea. I didn’t care right then. I had to know what happened to Miss Sunbury.
I choked back a horrified sob as I rounded the end of the pew and looked into her cold, lifeless eyes as they stared toward the ceiling. Two drops of blood had created two perfect trails down her forehead to her temple, one of them stopping at her ear. Another thicker trail fell the opposite way. All three originated from a single hole in her forehead.
Someone had shot and killed her. She was only twenty-four. She taught the special ed class at my high school. Caroline Sunbury was one of the sweetest souls I’d ever met—and someone fucking killed her.
As I looked at the busted pew behind her, I noticed the blood spatter and brain matter that had sprayed there. How had she died so close to me and so violently, and I didn’t remember any of it?
Someone called for help, but my brain couldn’t seem to process it. It was like I was on that floor all over again. Part of my brain was on autopilot, seeing but not understanding, while the other part was off somewhere else. Maybe somewhere happy. Somewhere beautiful. I hoped somewhere where there was life instead of endless death and carnage.
“Temperance!”
I gasped slightly, only a tiny little thing, but it was enough to send pain shooting through my side again and bring me out of my daze.
“T—Temperance!”
I turned at the sound of my name. My head throbbed, and my vision doubled again from the position change, but I needed to find the voice.
“Pastor Montgomery?” I called out.
