Chapter One: The Pull of the Unseen

Ava had never been the type to romanticize the bad-boy persona. She wasn't the girl who wrote letters to inmates or got lost in the tragic allure of men behind bars. She liked stability. Predictability. Real-world logic.

So why couldn't she stop staring at the news report?

The anchor's voice was a dull hum in the background, drowned out by the pounding in her chest. Her fingers curled around the edge of her coffee cup, but she wasn't drinking anymore. Her gaze was fixed on the screen, on the man whose mugshot filled the space beside the reporter's serious expression.

Marcus Holloway.

The name meant nothing to her. It should have meant nothing to her. But the moment she saw him - dark eyes staring blankly at the camera, jaw tight with defiance - something shifted inside her.

Charged with first-degree murder. A hero to some, a criminal to others.

Her stomach clenched as an eerie sense of familiarity slithered through her. She had never seen this man before. She was certain of it. And yet -

A whisper in the back of her mind, an unshakable feeling that gnawed at her bones.

You know him. You've met him before.

She exhaled sharply, forcing a laugh under her breath. That's ridiculous. Maybe it was the sharp angles of his face, the wildness behind his stare. Maybe something about him reminded her of someone else. That had to be it.

Yet the feeling lingered.

For days afterward, Marcus Holloway's face followed her like a ghost. She'd catch glimpses of his dark eyes in the reflections of subway windows. Hear echoes of his name when scrolling through articles online. It made no sense, this quiet pull toward a stranger.

She didn't mean to research him. She told herself it was nothing, just a passing curiosity. But late at night, her fingers hovered over the keyboard, and before she knew it, she was scrolling through court records, old mugshots, and crime scene reports.

Anger. Murder. Possibly understandable murder, but either way?

Everything about him screamed danger. Everything about him should have repelled her.

So why did she feel like she was on the verge of remembering something?

A scent teased the edges of her mind - salt, coconut, a warm breeze carrying laughter into the night. The distant echo of waves. A boy's voice, soft but certain.

Then came the dream.

She was standing on a beach at night, toes curling into the cool, damp sand. The ocean stretched endlessly before her, waves rolling in steady rhythms, as if whispering secrets only the wind could understand. She wasn't alone.

A boy sat beside her, dark hair tousled by the breeze. The moonlight caught the sharp lines of his face, made the warmth in his eyes stand out. He was looking at her, searching for something in her expression.

"Do you ever think about fate?"

Ava's heart pounded. The weight of the moment pressed against her ribs, the certainty that something significant was happening. She wanted to ask his name. She wanted to stay in this moment forever.

But before she could speak, before she could reach for him -

She woke up.

The dream clung to her even as she stared at the ceiling, breathless.

By morning, the pull became undeniable.

She picked up a pen.

And she wrote to him.