Frozen Flames (The Hollow #3)

PROLOGUE

Harvey

Two and A Half Years Ago ...

This is how life was meant to be—riding my Harley around the outskirts of Chicago town with my girlfriend, Gemma Ackerman, riding her bike behind me.

This inexplainable thrill courses through my veins as the wind flaps against my body, with July’s sun blazing on my face through the uncovered parts of my helmet.

At twenty-one, I feel as if I’m living my best life. I’m still reeling from last month’s bungee jumping adrenaline hit with Gemma and friends as I slow down to take a steep curve ahead of us.

This is how we escape reality.

Some people jog, some get addicted, we ride.

“Look at that view,” Gemma says through Bluetooth speakers attached to our helmets once we’re on a straight road.

“I know. I’m quite the looker,” I tease her, and a sense of love fills me when I hear her soft laugh.

She then comes up next to me, lifting her visor up, smiling at me. We don’t say anything, simply basking in the silence, my Harley to her sports bike, my casual clothes to her full leather suit.

We’re so different, yet so much alike. We moved into an apartment together last month, postgraduation, for our one-year anniversary, and I’ve never had this much fun with a girlfriend before.

I’m going to marry you, Gemma.

Just then, I watch a flock of birds overhead. One in particular is falling behind. And I can’t help wishing I were a bird.

To be able to fly with no other equipment but my own body weight. To be able to see every other creature on this earth. To live .

I wonder how peaceful it is to be a bird.

They’re like the watchers of the world, soaring and hovering over us while we live our peasant lives.

I quickly glance at the phoenix tattoo on my forearm. Its feet are clutching the root of a small rose. The phoenix’s wings are magnificent, and each line of ink on the bird was sketched ferociously.

I drew it.

My parents didn’t necessarily agree with me getting a tattoo, but fuck it, it’s my arm.

I’m not even sure what I wanted it to represent exactly.

Sure, there’s rebirth and balance. I’m not sure anyone would disagree with that. Maybe we all want our own possibility of life after death. This whole idea that despite our mistakes and our flaws and how hard life can get, we always have the chance to change direction and do better, be better.

Except my phoenix is too raw and angry to be about peace. It’s pulling at the root as if it has to, as if there’s no other option.

As if to say, like it or not, it’s time to go, time to change, time to grow.

And sometimes maybe there’s no other way to reach that point in time than when all else turns to ash.

I breathe in deeply, tilting my head toward the sun, shutting my eyes, forcing myself to forget the slight melancholy of my thoughts.

Little did I know that this was the day, the moment, the hours before my life turned upside down.

And I would do anything to go back in time and do things differently.

Because I had no idea what truly lie ahead.