ANNABETH SAINT
I gripped the ballroom balcony's stone railing and stared at the obsidian night. The lights shining from the windows of the Echelon Hotel barely pierced the cimmerian darkness.
Alone on the balcony, hoping this shadow-filled world would swallow me whole, I looked down, down, down. Here was a ready-made abyss I could fall into…
"Are you going to jump?"
Startled by the deep male voice, I stepped back from the railing and looked at the tall, well-dressed man standing nearby. He had short, styled brown hair and dark, dark eyes. The energy of this man was intense. So much so that I felt his presence like a gravitational pull. He was a planet. I was an insignificant moon circling him.
He lifted his eyebrows and nodded toward the churning ocean. "Hmm?"
"I haven't decided," I answered. I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered. I'd been out in the cold wind too long. "But I have a Plan B, which is to stand here and freeze to death."
