Page 2 of Accidentally Mine

“I accept this award on behalf of every one of my team members at Key Technologies. We know we are doing important work, but it’s truly our honor to serve you. Thank you.”

I stepped down to the floor to slightly less enthusiastic applause, into a small crowd of people, all extending their hands for me to shake.

Most of them were probably thinking, I paid three-hundred dollars for a plate to hear him speak.

That’s it? That’s all he has to say? As I shook each hand, thanking them and accepting their congratulations, my skin started to feel warm.

Hot, actually.

The room blurred around the edges. I pulled on my collar and found the tendons in my neck tense, slick with sweat, a vein bulging.

As I continued to reach for and shake hand after hand, a dark-haired woman slipped through the crowd and came to a stop in front of me. “Well, if it isn’t the man of the hour,” my sister said, her smile cautious. “Nice paperweight you’ve got there.”

Oh, thank fuck.

“Time to leave,” I mumbled.

“Not really, but we’ll make an exception.” Claudia nodded graciously at the people I had yet to greet, took my arm and began to steer me toward the exit. “I’m sorry. Mr. McKee thanks you, but he really needs to be on his way.”

Even a head and a half shorter than me, my sister made a hell of a bodyguard, deflecting arguments, parting the crowd.

We took the elevator down to the lobby, the four walls closing in the lower we dropped.

It was only when we burst out onto Charles Street that I could finally breathe.

I stood on the sidewalk for a moment, drawing the air into my lungs as Claudia watched me, eyes wide.

“Geez, Brent. You okay?”

I scowled at her. “Didn’t I look okay?”

She shook her head. “You were wavering on your feet like a drunken sailor,” she said. “You were about two seconds away from kissing the dance floor.”

I was? Fuck. I’d known I was in trouble, but I didn’t think it was that bad. I looked up at the sky, happy to be free. “Let’s get out of here.”

Ernest had double-parked the black Cadillac XTS with a Red Sox license plate frame, as usual.

Claudia dragged me to the car, ripped open the door, and motioned me inside. “What you need to do is get some rest. Your doctor told you not to work full days at the office.” She waited a beat before adding, “Remember?”

I glared at her. “Ha ha.” But that was the most sarcasm that I could muster before collapsing into the seat.

“Hey. What are you two doing out here so soon?” Ernest asked. “It’s too early. Didn’t you want to trip the light fantastic? I just started to get into my reading.” He held up an issue of Playboy .

“I nearly did some other kind of tripping,” I muttered, yawning and staring out the window at the traffic breezing past. It was early.

Probably not even ten yet. It would be nice to get my life back, when I could stay out until two without blinking an eye.

I was only thirty years old, but I felt like an old man.

When I looked up at Ernest, who liked to call himself my “valet” since he’d started getting into British television, his concerned eyes were on me through the rearview mirror.

I could feel Claudia’s eyes on me as well.

They’d been babysitting me ever since the accident. I wished I didn’t need them to.

But I did.

That didn’t make me hate it any less.

“Look, you two,” I said, stiffening. “Stop trying to coddle me like I’m some toddler. I’m fine.”

“Are you?” Claudia asked, leaning closer and studying me as Ernest pulled out into traffic. “Because you look like you’re about to puke.”

“I’m not,” I insisted, just as the dull throb behind my eyes became a slicing pain. I squeezed my eyes closed and massaged my temple. “Just a headache.”

“There’s no such thing as just a headache with you,” Ernest said, echoing something my neurologist had said. “If you have a headache, log it in your Key.”

Right. I pulled out my phone and went to my headache log, typed it in.

Type of pain: throbbing

Location of pain: All over head

Severity of pain on scale from 1-10: 4

That number would climb higher if I didn’t pop some medication soon. I scrolled back and realized I’d had at least one headache every day this month.

Claudia placed a hand on my knee. My elder sister by six years, she loved mothering me, especially since I never knew our real mom, who died when I was just three hours old…because of me.

“When was the last time you saw your neurologist?”

I forced away the guilt and waved a dismissive hand. “A week ago. He said everything was fine.”

“Are you sure?” She wrinkled her nose. “Because everything is not fine.”

Well, not fine. But what could I do? “Stop being a downer about this, Clau. You’re always telling me that my attitude’s become negative.”

“It has. You used to be so positive. Upbeat. Now you’re like a grouch.”

Ernest was nodding in the rearview mirror.

I loved them both, but they didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand why, every now and then, I wanted to tell the world to fuck off. I suppressed a deep urge to give them the double middle finger. Instead, I snapped, “I’m working with half a fucking head. Give me a break.”

She gave me a hurt look. “Brent—”

“Okay. You say I’m so negative. So here’s the bright side. It’s not getting worse. Let’s drop it.” I shot her a right now look.

My big sister was stubborn as hell and not scared of my tactics. She pursed her lips, and of course, did not drop it. “How are you sleeping?”

I exhaled slowly, ignoring her question. Because the answer was simple. Not well.

“Have you been having that dream anymore?”

I rolled my eyes.

It wasn’t a dream. It was a nightmare, a bona fide night-sweats, heart-palpitating, body-thrashing nightmare.

Doc said it was from the medication I took for insomnia and depression, but I needed the damn meds, so I had to put up with it.

I wasn’t sure what part of the dream was real—if any—and what was a product of my imagination.

But I knew I would never be able to rid myself of those haunting turquoise eyes that made an appearance each time, as long as I lived.

Taking a deep breath, I said, “Thanks for your concern, Mom, but I’m okay.” When I called her Mom, it was the final signal to cut it out.

She got the message loud and clear and threw herself back against the seat, crossing her arms in defeat.

Guilt stabbed my gut at once.

“Hey. Clau,” I said, tapping her foot with my own. “I’m good. Seriously.”

She gave me a sad smile. “I just worry about you, nerdboy. That dream really had you upset.”

Nerdboy. Her sweet little term of endearment for me, which told me she’d forgiven me once again, no matter that I was brutal to her when my negativity took over.

“It wasn’t upsetting me until you mentioned it,” I assured her, looking out the window again as downtown Boston flew by.

Lights flashed overhead, and a car horn blared. In an instant, I was suddenly thrown back to that night. The night my life changed.

I was in my Porsche, driving to my Beacon Hill brownstone overlooking the Public Gardens.

I was tired after another long stint burning the midnight oil at the McKee Technologies headquarters at Brookline.

Listening to Guns N’ Roses to stay awake and watching fog roll in off the bay.

Just another night. Nothing on my mind but work, work, and more work, namely figuring out the timeline for the trials of the newest Key Scanner model.

The fog thickened, knocking visibility to only a few feet in front of the windshield.

No problem. If there was a road I knew like the back of my hand, it was the Pike, since I’d driven it every day of my life for the past five years.

Straight shot into the city and usually choked with traffic, the road was empty now. Not another car to be seen.

Turning on the windshield wipers, I leaned forward, squinting and feeling like I was driving into a solid gray wall.

The wipers streaked the glass, and thick vapor swirled as it parted to allow the car to slip through, blurring my vision further.

A sign on the side of the road blinked “Reduce Speed.” I took my foot off the accelerator, cruised to fifty miles per hour.

Straining to see past the headlights of cars passing in the other direction, I checked the clock on the dash. After one a.m.

My eyes were off the road for a blink, a flash, and everything changed.

The Porsche emerged from under an overpass. The curtain of fog parted. Headlights. Massive ones, in my lane, bearing down on me.

At first, I thought it was just my eyes playing a trick on me, but as the fog parted, I realized the tractor trailer was angled at an unnatural position across the three lanes of highway in front of me.

Wrong. That was wrong.

In slow motion, I pulled my foot totally off the accelerator and moved it to the brake. A frisson of fear climbed up the back of my neck.

Rain scattered through the air. But it was white. Thick, more like hail. No, not rain. Not hail, either. It sprayed my car, pinging off the windshield. Crumbled concrete. Fucking hell. The truck had come from the other side. It had hopped the median, crushing the concrete like a paper cup.

I jammed my foot on the brake. That truck wasn’t just sitting there, still. No, it was in motion. Jackknifing. Slipping across the road, tires screeching, its giant container and wheels juddering in uncontrolled motion, thundering across the road.

Straight toward me.

Kicking up asphalt and gravel and dust.

I stood on the brakes, bracing myself on the steering wheel. The fear morphed into sweat breaking out on my skin as my mind churned at once through a thousand ways to escape.

Escape. Escape. Escape.

But there was none. Nowhere to go.

Then, jarring impact.

My body went one way while my head went the other. The steering wheel dug into my gut and the seatbelt sliced into my chest as there was a popping sound—the airbag inflating. I inhaled the smell of burning rubber.

Pain. My skull hitting something hard, caving like an egg cracked on the side of a bowl. Broken glass rained over me as the car moved through the darkness, and I wondered where I’d wind up.

Darkness.

I lost consciousness before I wound up anywhere. For a second. A minute. An hour. I had no idea.

The next few things happened in blinks.

Someone shouting.

Too-bright light.

My skin cold and hot at the same time, pain bursting all over my body.

Wet warmth on my neck, seeping down my shirt. Blood.

I tried to find the catch on my seatbelt so I could free myself but realized my body was wedged between the door and the steering column. The position was so unnatural, and I felt like I’d been skewered clean through.

Enormous pressure—in my head, my chest, everywhere—like a balloon being squeezed to popping.

I felt around for the door handle and found it under my ass.

Lifting it, I realized the door was jammed, probably too bent to open.

I smelled gasoline. Saw, vaguely horrified, that I was sitting dead center of the three lanes of the Pike that I knew so well, staring at the approaching headlights of oncoming traffic cutting through the haze.

Movement. More shouting, frantic screams, closer now.

Panic welled inside me. Move. Get away, something inside me screamed. But my body wouldn’t obey. I wasn’t sure I had all my limbs. I tried to suck in a breath but my lungs ached, and I couldn’t draw the air.

“It’s okay. I’ll help you.”

The voice sounded like an angel. Calm. Completely at ease. Was I dead? I blinked. A face appeared in front of me, blurry except for two turquoise eyes. Those eyes, thick-lashed, almond-shaped, clear as the sky on a summer day. Eyes that speared me straight to the soul.

She pressed something to my head and said in a firm voice, “Hold on to me.” Then we worked together and miracle of all miracles, the door popped open and I tumbled out.

I coughed wetly, tasting the metallic tang of blood.

My lungs made an emphysemic wheezing sound.

I didn’t think I could move at all, but she managed to get me upright.

I wasn’t sure how. She helped me up on my feet, and we staggered a short distance before falling to the gravel on the side of the road.

The white glow of headlights and dim blue light of her phone flashed.

Sirens. More shouting. More screams.

Fatigue pulled me down. I rested my head on the hard ground, and my eyes fell closed.

Then that same angelic voice said, “I’m sorry, but I have to go. Be well. I’ll be thinking of you.”

“Brent!”

I was ripped out of the memory and focused on two concerned eyes.

But not the turquoise ones I’d expected.

No, these were familiar black eyes that mirrored my own, ones I’d known since I was a child.

I found myself in the climate-controlled darkness of the Cadillac, with Claudia clutching my arm for dear life.

I looked around for the fire. “What?”

She smacked me lightly. “Don’t do that! You can’t just keep spacing on me like that. I worry that you’re about to have some sort of seizure again.”

“Sorry, I’ll try to keep that in mind,” I snapped sarcastically, the big joke being that it didn’t matter how hard I tried.

She’d seen me seize once before, so she had a reason to worry.

She’d said that before it happened, I’d simply spaced.

The next thing she knew, I was on the floor, thrashing in the subway car.

Medication had helped reduce the frequency of them, so I’d only had one in the past six months, but like Claudia had told me, once was enough.

I’d officially scared her to near death.

After that, riding the busy T became only something I did out of necessity, and Ernest became my chauffeur, in addition to my everything else.

I became aware of the heavy award I was holding in my hands. I had a place in my living room for such awards now, a shelf to show how important I was. This award, like all the others, had my name engraved in gold, the date, and: For outstanding contributions to fellow humans.

I should’ve been happy. Just be happy you’re alive! That’s what everyone said.

Fuck that.

I would give up all the awards if I could just have my fucking life back.

I placed the award on the seat beside me and stared out the window at the people walking the Common, trying to shake away the memory of that night.

But all I saw, still, clear as day, were those eyes.

Those brilliant turquoise eyes that felt like the answer to all my dreams—and haunted my every nightmare.