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“Dad? I need help!” he rushes out. “Sloane got hurt, she fell off the old ski lift…” He trails off, choking on another sob as muffled shouting sounds from the other end of the line. “I don’t know, just hurry…”
He ends the call and shoves the phone back in his pocket. Then he gathers me in his arms again, begging for me to wake as he attempts to stand. His injured leg gives out and he slumps to his knees, tears and snot streaming down his face. Holding me tighter to his chest, he tries again.
And again.
He screams out in frustration, then changes tact. Sitting in the snow with me in his lap, he pushes off with his good leg, grunting under the effort it takes to slowly drag us backwards. He’s bound and determined to get me back to the lodge by any means necessary, but at this rate, I’ll bleed out before he can.
We don’t make it far before a sleek tan wolf comes into view, sprinting right for us. Snow sprays out from beneath its paws as it slides to a stop, then the air shimmers around the animal with its shift, Madd’s mom rising up in its place.
“What happened?!” Luna Fallon demands as Madd slips his jacket off and tosses it toward her.
“Fell from the lift… hit her head…” he pants, so winded from his effort to drag us through the snow that he’s unable to string together more than a few words at a time.
His mother shrugs on the jacket, zipping it up and crouching down in front of us to assess my injuries as another wolf suddenly leaps out from the treeline.
My dad barrels toward us, barely slowing before he’s shifting to his human form and staggering to find his balance on two legs. “What did you do?!” he demands, green eyes wild as he lunges for Madd and wrenches my limp body from his arms.
“It was an accident,” Fallon cuts in. She wraps an arm around Madd, helping him to stand. “They fell off the lift. We need to get them to a doctor…”
Madd reaches out for me, his fingertips barely grazing my arm before my dad twists around to yank me away. “Don’t touch her!” he snarls, clutching me tighter as he stumbles back.
“Hey!” Fallon snaps, narrowing her eyes on my dad as she tugs Madd into her side protectively. “You’d better watch how you talk to my kid, Masters.”
“That kid of yours is a menace,” he growls back. “This is the last straw! You keep him away from my daughter, or so help me, I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” Fallon challenges, edging in front of Madd and taking a threatening step toward my dad. “I’d choose my next words very carefully, if I were you.”
The roar of a motor cuts through the thick tension hanging between them, and not a moment too soon. Their heads snap in the direction of the noise, an ATV racing toward us with Madd’s dad behind the wheel and my mom riding beside him. Snow spits out from the tire treads as it arcs in front of us and slides to a stop, the engine still idling with a purr.
“Get in!” Alpha Gray orders, and my dad wastes no time in circling behind the ATV and hauling himself up onto the rack with my unconscious body cradled in his arms.
There isn’t room for all four of us on the platform attached to the back of ATV, though. There’s barely even room for my father.
“Just go,” Madd grits out, wincing as he tries to put weight on his injured leg and hobble closer.
Gray’s eyes flicker down, taking stock of his son’s condition. “Madd…”
“Please, Dad,” he urges. “She needs help…” his voice breaks as it trails off and Fallon slips her arm around her son’s shoulders in support, nodding to her mate.
He nods back, then hits the gas, the engine roaring as he whips the ATV around and speeds away.
I wake up drenched in sweat, the sound of Madd’s broken cry as he watched me being driven away echoing in my mind.
I’ve heard various accounts of what happened after I fell that day, but actually seeing it play out like a movie before my eyes is a whole different experience; one that I won’t soon recover from. The sheets are tangled around my ankles from the way I’ve been thrashing, my face and pillow wet with tears.
This time, I don’t second guess whether it was just a dream. What I just saw was far too vivid. And unlike the last time I dreamed of the accident, it wasn’t rooted in a memory- not my own, at least. Because though I was there, I wasn’t conscious. I have no firsthand recollection of what happened between the time I fell and when I woke up days later.
But I’ve just seen it all play out in shocking detail, and I can’t hold back the torrent of emotions it triggers. I shudder a sob, curling up on my side in the fetal position and burying my face in my pillow.
It’d be easier if it was just a dream.
The heartbreaking reality is harder to face, even all these years later. Seeing Madd again as that terrified teenage boy…
My heart breaks for my first love all over again as I cry myself back to sleep, praying no more visions come.
My chest is painfully tight as I approach the front door of the Riverton packhouse, knowing what I have to do but dreading crossing the threshold. I haven’t been back here since moving to the dorms. My father and I haven’t spoken since our screaming match the day before that, and I’m still feeling guilty about what I said to him, even more after my nocturnal vision of the accident.
I’ve never seen the mighty Brock Masters so desperate and scared, and now that I have, I’m developing a new sense of understanding for his actions in the wake of the accident. Sending me away was extreme, but after seeing him and Fallon at each other’s throats and considering what another incident like that could’ve done to our parents’ relationship and the entire six-pack alliance, maybe it really was the only way. Me and Madd were magnets to trouble back then, and the accident was just the latest in a long string of teenage misbehavior.
