Page 111 of Wreckage

Chapter 39

Troy

There was so much light. Too much. It burned behind my eyelids, piercing the darkness I had been floating in, yanking me toward something I wasn’t ready to face.

I groaned, my body aching everywhere, pain pulsing deep in my knee, spreading like fire through my bones.

Everything felt wrong.

Too hot.

Too soft.

Too safe.

My mind fought it, recoiling against the unfamiliarity of it all. I had been cold for so long and had felt nothing but ice, wind, hunger, and pain.

But now?—

Now it was warm.

I sucked in a shallow, rattling breath, my lips cracked and dry, my throat like I had swallowed an entire desert.

Somewhere, voices murmured. They weren’t familiar. They weren’t Adrian. They weren’t my sweet Elena.

A spike of panic shot through me, weak but fierce, clawing through the fog in my mind.

I tried to move—pain exploded in my knee, sharp and excruciating, sending white-hot agony tearing through my leg.

A strangled groan left my lips. I tried again. My hands twitched, gripping at something soft beneath me—sheets.

Not snow.

Not ice.

Not the cold, metal floor of the plane.

My brows knitted together, my mind frantic, hazy, clawing at memories that felt like they belonged to someone else. Like I’d lived an entirely different life before this moment.

“Elena…” I rasped, my voice barely more than a breath.

I forced my eyes open, but the light was blinding, a harsh white glow pressing in from all sides.

I let out a shaky breath, my pulse hammering weakly against my ribs.

They weren’t here. They were on the plane. Alone.

The panic inside me surged, overpowering the weakness in my body, ripping through my ribs like something wild and untamed.

I had to get back to them.

I tried again, straining against the heaviness, but hands pressed me back down, gentle but firm.

“Troy.” The voice was soft and soothing but not the one I wanted.

I flinched, my chest heaving, my body too weak to fight, my mind spinning.

“Elena,” I tried again, desperate, pleading. “Adrian.”

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