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Troy

T he light burned behind my eyelids.

I sucked in a breath and immediately regretted it. My throat felt like I’d swallowed a glass of razor blades. Everything hurt. My body felt like it had been ripped apart and then shoved back together. All my muscles ached and seared with sharp pain. Even the slightest wiggle of my fingers made me ache in new ways I didn’t think possible.

Where was I?

I tried to sit up, but the second I did, a soft beeping filled the room, followed by the hushed murmur of voices. I fell back into my bed, my head feeling like it was going to explode, my body still screaming at me to just chill the fuck out and figure shit out.

Footsteps sounded out, and a door opened in the distance. Warm hands reached out and pressed me back into bed as I kept my eyes closed. The light was too much.

“Easy, Troy,” a woman said gently. “You’re in the hospital. You’re hooked up to a lot of stuff right now. We need you to stay in bed, OK? You’re safe here.”

Safe .

That word felt so foreign, so impossible, my mind refused to believe it.

I wanted to speak, to demand to know where Adrian and Elena were, but the darkness was already pulling me back down as a new warmth entered my veins.

I let out a soft, weak breath, then faded away again.

The next time I woke, I was aware. I was painfully aware of where I was and what it could mean. I panicked instantly, my heart slamming against my ribs, my mind in overdrive as I considered everything.

I wasn’t in the wreckage. I wasn’t in the snow.

Where was I?

The hospital.

The wires, the IV, the tight hug of a blood pressure cuff around my arm. I yanked at them, ripping them free, ignoring the way my body screamed in protest. The monitor blared, the shrill alarm piercing through the room.

I shoved the blankets aside and stumbled out of bed, my legs weak, shaking violently, and my vision swimming. I was like a newborn deer as I swayed and stumbled. My knee screamed at me, and I cried out at the burst of pain.

I barely took two steps before the door opened abruptly, and my dad walked in.

I froze, my breath catching in my throat, my hands trembling at my sides.

“D-Dad?”

The second the word left my lips, a sob tore from my chest, my knees nearly buckling.

He moved to me immediately, grabbing my shoulders, steadying me, pulling me into the tightest embrace I had ever felt.

I collapsed against him, sobbing into his chest, my body shaking violently .

“Dad,” I choked out, gripping his shirt, clinging to him like a child.

He held me tighter, his voice rough, shaking with emotion as he clung to me as much as I clung to him.

“God, Troy,” he whispered. “I thought I lost you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, my fingers digging into his shirt, my heart breaking under the weight of everything I had carried. Everything fucking awful sin I’d committed.

“I love you,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”

My dad shuddered, his silent tears falling, and when he spoke again, his voice cracked.

“I love you too, son. And I’m so damn proud of you. You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing. Do you hear me?” His voice cracked with his words. “Nothing.”

I let out another sob, my chest aching, my mind still spinning, but then—everything came rushing back.

Adrian.

Elena.

The wreckage.

The last thing I remembered—falling to my knees in the snow, whispering their names, begging God to save them.

I pulled back abruptly, my hands shaking, my voice hoarse and frantic.

“Dad,” I gasped. “Adrian and Elena—they’re alive. They’re waiting for me. I have to?—”

“Troy.”

His hands tightened on my arms, grounding me, but I was spiraling too fast.

“What day is it?” I demanded.

“Troy, calm down?—”

“No!” My voice broke, my body trembling. “You don’t understand! They’re starving! They need me! We have to go! F-Five days. Adrian was going to take the pills in five days so they wouldn’t suffer. Dad, please?—”

The nurses rushed in, moving toward me cautiously, their voices gentle but urgent .

I fought them, trying to shove away the hands, pressing me back down, trying to get back up as they put me in my bed.

“Please,” I choked, turning to my dad, my vision swimming. “Please, Dad. You have to listen to me.”

His expression cracked, pain and heartbreak flashing across his face. He shushed me gently, squeezing my shoulders like he used to do when I was crying after falling off my bike.

“Troy, it’s OK,” he whispered. “We found them.”

My lungs stopped working. My breath shuddered as I stared at him, my entire world a whirlwind of emotion.

“Adrian is recovering down the hall,” he continued, his voice thick with emotion.

I let out a sharp, gasping breath, my knees nearly giving out.

Adrian.

He was alive.

I clawed at my dad’s shirt, desperate to know about Elena.

“Elena,” I rasped. “Where’s Elena?”

My dad hesitated, and I saw it.

I saw the wince, the flicker of something awful behind his eyes. A truth he wasn’t ready to reveal.

Please, Elena. Please…

I lunged forward, grabbing him, shaking him as much as my weak body would allow.

“Where is she?” I cried.

His throat worked, his hands gripped my arms, and his voice was careful and quiet.

“She’s alive,” he murmured. “But she needs to rest. She’s very sick right now.”

It wasn’t enough.

I tried to get up again, tried to push past the hands holding me down, my body screaming in protest, my knee nearly giving out beneath me.

“I need to see her!” I shouted, my voice cracking, my breathing heaving. “She needs to know I love her. That I’m sorry.”

The nurses rushed toward me, trying to push me back into bed, but I fought them, fought them like my life depended on it .

Tears streamed down my face, my voice breaking as I choked out the truth that had been branded into my soul for weeks.

“I love her,” I gasped, gripping my dad’s arms, sobbing so hard my entire body shook. “Dad, I love her. I promised her I’d always come back.”

My dad’s face broke completely, his tears falling, his voice thick with emotion.

“I know, son,” he whispered. “She’s here. She needs to recover. It’s going to take some time.”

I collapsed against him, my body drained. The fatigue was so unreal. My dad gave a nod to a nurse, and I felt the familiar poke of a needle and then an IV being put in. I exhaled, letting it happen.

The nurse pushed a drug into my IV. It made the world seem hollow and cold.

I fought it. I fought it with everything I had.

But my dad’s hand was in mine, his voice low as he spoke.

“She’s alive,” he murmured, pressing his forehead against mine. “Rest, Troy. You need to rest so you can get better. She needs you to get better."

I sucked in a shaky breath, my eyes slipping closed.

“OK. F-For Elena.”

Then—darkness.