Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 119597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
She’s alive. She has to be. The thought of her not breathing, not smiling, not existing alongside me, shatters something fundamental within me. My love for her refuses to flicker and die. That love convinces me beyond reason, beyond evidence, that she still draws breath.
She’s alive because my soul refuses to accept any other reality. I cling to this belief as I have clung to nothing else in my life.
The denial that prevents me from losing my fucking mind is also the fuel that drives me forward, through the blizzard and into the hospital toward whatever truth awaits.
She’s alive. I will not accept any outcome where she isn’t by my side.
I float in a haze, swimming without my body, untethered and directionless.
Panic bubbles at the edges, a rising static in a sea of feelings and sounds. The beeping, rustling of fabric, distant murmuring of voices—everything fizzes dully, every thought fragmented.
None of it makes sense. My mind struggles to latch onto something, anything familiar.
Where am I?
A short, high tone pierces through the fog, an electronic noise, accompanied by the whirs and hums of machinery.
My eyelids, heavy as lead, resist at first, then relent, parting to a world awash in sterile white and harsh fluorescent lights.
And piercing blue eyes.
Wolf’s eyes.
They hover inches away, heartbreakingly familiar and intimate, so damn beautiful.
I gasp, blinking, confused and overwhelmed. My arm lifts awkwardly, connected to tubes, as I try to touch his face.
No.
Not Wolf’s face.
These eyes are older, sharper, creased with maturity, shadowed with worry, and glaring with intensity.
It’s the glare that dawns recognition.
“Monty?” The name feels foreign on my tongue, a keepsake from a life that was taken from me.
The last time I saw him, we were fighting.
No…wait. The last time I saw him, he was a man on a video screen, thrusting inside another woman.
The sting of that betrayal, that terrible pain, floods back with a vengeance, warring with the physical agony that flares in my body.
“Frankie. Thank fucking God.” He lowers his head to mine, sighing against my lips. “You’re safe now.”
Machines buzz around me, the purpose of every beep and alarm clear to my trained ear.
I’m in a hospital.
I was in an accident.
A plane crash.
Leo and Kody.
Panic seizes me, my breath quickening, sending the heart monitor into a frenzy of beeps.
“Where are they?” I try to sit up, forcing him back as I frantically scan my surroundings.
Familiarity seeps through the cracks of my confusion.
The unmistakable, muted color of the walls, the layout of the room, the arrangement of medical equipment, the placement of the door, the bathroom, and the window with views of the cityscape framed by distant mountains—it all clicks into place.
This is where I did my residency program, where I spent years training, learning, and growing.
This is the hospital that shaped me as a nurse.
I’m in Anchorage.
And Leo and Kody aren’t here.
Visions of the crash flash before my eyes, vivid and gutting. The screeching, the breaking, the cockpit ripping away. Each memory is a blade, cutting me open and spilling raw terror down my cheeks.
A cold sweat breaks across my skin. Icy dread seeps into my bones.
I can’t be alone in this survival. I can’t.
“Shh. Please, don’t cry. Everything will be okay.” He softly kisses the tears from my cheeks. “I’ve been searching for you…for so long.” His voice cracks with rare emotion. “I thought I lost you.”
So strange, that shattered, unguarded expression on his cruel face. It stirs a whirlpool of conflicting feelings within me. Betrayal and love, pain and nostalgia, they swirl together, indistinguishable from one another.
“Leo and Kody,” I gasp out, my concern for them overpowering everything else. “They were with me. Are they…?”
A muscle twitches in his jaw, and his hand finds mine, a touch that’s both familiar and alien. “You crashed outside of Fairbanks, not far from a busy hunting lodge. The guests saw the plane go down and had a helicopter on the premises. They were able to transport you and the other two passengers to Anchorage in record time. The others are unconscious but alive.” He nods at the door. “Just down the hall.”
Relief swamps me.
They’re alive.
We survived.
We fucking did it.
We actually fucking escaped.
“I never stopped looking, Frankie. Not for a moment.” His eyes search mine, seeking forgiveness, understanding, a bridge to a past I have no interest in rediscovering. “I made so many mistakes, but finding you, making sure you’re safe, has been my only focus.”
He rolls his bottom lip between his teeth while working that jaw. There are questions he wants to ask, things he doesn’t know or understand. My miscarriage, his brother, my traveling companions, the past nine months—there’s so much to unpack.
Right now, all that matters is that Leo and Kody are here, alone in a new world, and I need to be at their sides when they wake.
“They’re unconscious? Any life-threatening injuries?” My head pounds as I push away the blankets and try to slide off the bed. “I need to get to them.”