Page 1 of Cruel Love

CHAPTER ONE

PHOENIX

I couldn’t escape. In one second, everything had gone pitch-black, and I floated in a void. I recovered there, in that dark sea of nothingness. It never lasted long before I returned to the same recurring nightmare that played on a constant loop. My mind and body were exhausted as I fought on repeat against multiple factors for survival.

The void only lasted so long before I was torn from it and returned to the open-top Jeep with no front doors. My brother, Shane, occupied the passenger seat. I sat behind the driver, and to my right was a girl with sun-bleached blond hair. No matter how hard I tried, I could never see her face.

I tried to place her among the people I knew but never could. And for a few brief seconds, my gaze locked on my brother. It was coming. I braced myself for the first impact, for that initial terrible crunch of metal.

One minute, Shane was there. In the next, he was gone. But the connection between us remained. My twin lived. I didn’t know where he was, but he was still tethered to me.

Before I could question anything else, my instincts took over, and I grabbed the blond girl, wrenching her close and covering her with my body. I wrapped my forearms around the top of her head, tucking her tightly between me and the length of the rear seat.

Then the next hit came and another as the vehicle spun with dizzying speed. Pain exploded in my head. Then I returned to the void.

There were no answers, but as I floated in the darkness, it didn’t matter. The nightmare slipped away, and I could rest.

I’d lost count of how many times the cycle repeated itself, but one day, it changed. Faint whispers reached me below the murky darkness, pulling me. I fought with everything I had to swim to the surface. My body was heavy and slow to respond. It felt like someone else’s, which only made me more determined to free myself.

What awaited beyond my heavy eyelids and the depths of that void? The push and pull went on for far too long. And as I got closer to what I knew was the surface, my other senses kicked in. Something was off. I didn’t recognize the sounds or the smells.

With a final push, I broke free. Everything was different in this new state of being. My body was heavy and tired, and a shockingly bright light shone like the sun through my closed eyelids. Where the hell am I?

It had to be the football field. Nothing else made sense. But then the struggle to stay conscious proved too much, and I drifted back under but nowhere near as deep as before.

The beeping, which didn’t sound like the alarm on my phone, didn’t pull me out of my deep sleep, but somewhere in my brain, the familiar scent of strawberries and vanilla teased me with an annoyingly out-of-grasp memory. The smell pushed past the ever-present one of disinfectant, which I recognized from visiting Mom at work in the hospital a long time ago.

The soft murmur of voices volleyed over me. I recognized one as Mom’s, but the other… I couldn’t place it. My mind and body were lethargic and heavy. I fought to open my eyes as I swam through a deep, dark body of water. It was calm there, and I struggled to leave it. But something inside me strained to reach that familiar scent that I knew was tied to the voice I couldn’t place.

With effort, I pried open my heavy eyelids. Shards of pain accompanied the light piercing the darkness, and I immediately shut them again. After three more tries, I kept them partially open, finally able to endure the overhead glare. I held still, waiting for the fog to clear before alerting anyone that I was awake. I needed a moment.

Mom clung to one hand, and someone else held the other. It would have been weird for Shane, so I figured it wasn’t him. I looked right to see who it was, trying to ignore how my badly head throbbed. I must have taken a massive hit in the game.

But it was even worse than that, I realized as I blinked a few times. What is going on?

No one noticed I was awake, giving me a few moments to acclimate. A girl held my other hand, and I worked to bring her blurry face into focus. After a few seconds of concentrating, I could see better. Damn, she’s hot. But older, like, in college. Why is she holding my hand?

Sun-kissed blond hair fell in waves around her shoulders. She had blue eyes the color of the sky, a stop-in-your-tracks face, and skin that glowed. She was gorgeous and looked like she should be at the beach, probably more at home on a surfboard than she was sitting inside some stuffy hospital room.

Because that’s where I was. From my angle, all I could see were the white bedsheet, blank walls, bed rails, and blinking machines, but it was enough. An IV was in my arm. I wanted pull it out, but moving my other hand was too much effort. I was worn out, and everything felt heavy. The will to keep my eyes half-mast took a massive amount of effort. Maybe there’s something else in that IV besides fluids. Bet they’re giving me a muscle relaxer or something to make me this tired.

I must’ve gotten sacked way harder than I’d thought. I would let the offensive line have it when I got out of here. They had to do a better job. I’d busted my ass to get us to the championship, and they needed to step up and hold the line, or Fenley would lead the team. No one wanted that. The second-string quarterback was mediocre at best.

I studied the hot girl, trying to figure out why she was touching me. She had worry written all over her face, but she couldn’t have been my girlfriend. She was obviously in college. I mean, I’d do her, but I can’t date someone that much older than me. I pulled my hand away and looked at my mom.

“Phoenix?” Mom’s voice was full of emotion, and she squeezed me tighter. Then she was on her feet, kissing my face and crying in front of the hot girl.

“Mom,” I croaked. Damn, I was thirsty. And my throat felt like it’d been shredded. What did they do, shove a tube down it?

She wiped the tears running down her face then gave me a shaky smile that I knew was supposed to be reassuring, but it wasn’t. The tears kept falling. I didn’t like it. I tried to talk, to tell her I was okay and that it had only been a brutal hit from the game, but the words wouldn’t come out. I just croaked. Nothing made sense.

“Oh, here, honey.” She sniffled, grabbed a cup with a straw from the tray, and held it to my lips.

The whole damn thing was embarrassing. I tried to tell her to stop, but fuck it. I sucked down the water.

“Slow down, Phoenix,” Mom ordered before taking the drink away.

“Why am I in a hospital? And where’s Shane?”

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