Chapter 1 Shattered Nightmares

Charlie woke screaming, her hands clamped to her skull where the saw had been. The memory of it burned behind her eyes. The bright lights, the restraints biting her wrists and the technician’s voice counting backward while the blade was cutting into the bone.

She’d felt everything.

They’d purposely kept her conscious, paralyzed but aware, because her pain helped them map the neural pathways of her ability. She had died with the saw halfway in her head and drowning in her own blood.

She was still screaming when she realized she wasn’t in the same place.

The lights were different. They were a soft morning gray, not surgical white. Her fingers, which were touching her head found intact skin, smooth hair, no wetness, no hole. She lowered her hands to find that the surface beneath her was a soft clean mattress. The sheets tangled around her legs smelled of lavender, not antiseptic and her own filth.

She sat up sharply, chest heaving, taking in the room. It took a moment for her to recognize that this was her old bedroom. The familiar dresser stood against one wall, lavender curtains muting the morning light. Her university textbooks were still scattered across the desk.