Firefly Embers (Firefly Cove #2)

Prologue

“They say I changed a lot; I said a lot changed me.” —Derez De’Shon

White-hot searing pain scorches its way through the flesh of my back.

Even though the pain is imaginary, it feels as real as any physical touch.

As many times as I will my mind to block out the pain and reminder of my accident, my body refuses to forget.

I close my eyes, begging my body to follow my mind into oblivion and give me the reprieve I crave.

Of course, with my rotten luck, I am trapped in this cycle of agony.

I can feel the bite of the bullet as it pierces my skin, tearing through the flesh of my back as if it were nothing thicker than paper.

My mind still forces me to relive the terror that swept over me as I fell, my legs heavy and unable to move.

The doctor’s words, “never ride again,” were a haunting refrain in my mind, reminding me of the life I could no longer live. A life I had built, brick by painstaking brick.

Anger, fiercer than any before, poured in through my scars, raced within my blood, and boiled ferociously through my veins, filling my body with an untamed fire.

Every night, it’s the same song and dance, a constant cadence of agony tangoing with anger. The crescendo, a gut-wrenching pain that threatens to overtake my senses, draws me further and further into the darkness of my grief.

Under the cover of darkness, I beg my body to forget the feeling, the sound, the anguish. I’m silently pleading with my mind, hoping to quiet the ceaseless churning of dark thoughts. I drown the pain in alcohol, constantly trying to lighten the weight of oppression that these memories hold over me.

The nightmare plays out in the dark recesses of my mind. I am lost, drifting out to sea with no life vest to keep me afloat. Kicking my legs, their stillness an icy tendril of remembrance.

I desperately try to scream, but no sound emerges from my throat. The waves crash over me, drawing me farther and farther from the surface as darkness threatens to consume me, to pull me under.

Looking skyward, I can see the sun. Its rays are a beacon of hope and warmth, beckoning me to keep trying, keep kicking. I stretch my arms up, reaching for the surface, but my fingers fall short of breaching the inky depths. I’m drowning.

I refuse to surrender to the darkness, but every second I’m stuck under, I find my resolve weakening. I don’t know how much fight I have left before this relentless grief swallows me whole.