Siena

SIENA

She perceived someone hovering over her before the catastrophic agony. It knocked the breath from her lungs as she lay upon the hard ground, broken and dying.

Memories trickled back into her head like sludge down a creek bed. She'd fallen and crashed into the next circle of hell. Her lungs denied her new reality, and continued to expand and deflate, ushering oxygen into her bloodstream. The air was different—dry. Her lips parted, and she tasted ash and mineral.

Above her, a pretty woman with tawny skin and big eyes looked as frightened as she felt. Then suddenly—almost violently—the woman threw her head back and laughed.

"Dr. Dupont," she said. "You're here."

Her face crumpled like was more beautiful than God, then she wept tears as big as her eyes. How... strange .

Dr. Dupont. That was her name, right? When was the last time she'd been called that?

Her lungs expanded again, and smelled iron, calcium, and magnesium silicate. She'd grown up near this dirt, studied this dirt, spent her whole life breathing this dirt.

She smelled the Sierras.

She wanted to relay this to the woman above her, but the only thing that left her mouth was a guttural groan that shook the pieces of her skull.

"Holden!" the woman screamed. " Holden! "

's ears rang. The ringing . She squeezed her eyes shut. Tears trickled over her temples. The pain. That was all it was. Nothing else other than a hollowness inside, her rib cage a dusty, aching cavity.

"She's here," said the woman. "She's fucking here ."

Footsteps. Someone else getting closer. "Is... is she alright?"

's eyes fluttered open. Her heart thrummed hotly in her throat.

That voice.

He knelt next to her. She lingered on his dark eyes and the slope of his jaw. His kind face. A young face, with smooth olive skin free of scars and trauma. Another doppelg?nger, but he stared at her with so much vulnerability and shock, reaching out to touch her arm as if to remind her he wasn't here to hurt her.

He'd come all this way to make sure she got home.

Ren.