Chapter Two
Levi
February
“Levi, Levi!” I hear what sounds like my best friend Tom saying, but that’s not possible. Tom lives in Upstate New York. He lives in New York, and we’re in... Wait, we’re not in Oregon... No, Krystal and I are in California... We’re fighting the wildfires and...
I open my eyes, confused, trying to clear the fog in my head as I thrash around in a hospital bed. The pain is overwhelming, and panic shoots through me as I try to remember what happened and why I’m here.
“Calm down!” he says, but nurses are already flooding the room, grabbing at my arms as if they’re strong enough to stop me.
They do their best to calm me down, but that’s not happening. I’m connected to a mess of IVs, and there are bandages wrapped up and down the left side of my body.
What the fu—
Suddenly, it all comes flooding back. The fire, the tree, the wall falling, Krystal... I search the room, but when I don’t see her, my eyes lock onto Tom’s.
“Where is she?” I’m pleading for an answer, but he doesn’t give me one.
He looks at me, lost for words, frozen when he should be on the other side of the damn country.
For that reason, his being here doesn’t bring me any comfort.
Instead, it’s shooting off every warning bell in my mind, warning me that something is wrong.
“Mr. King, I’m Dr. Saez. You were in an accident. There was a structural collapse where you and your crew were putting out the fires,” the doctor says, but I don’t bother acknowledging him. I know what the hell happened. I was there.
“Tom, tell me where she is,” I rasp, fighting past the dryness of disuse and sudden fear that’s coursing through me.
The pain doesn’t matter right now. Nothing matters more than this answer.
I don’t want to hear another word from anyone but Tom.
I need to hear she’s okay. That she’s in another room, bandaged up like me, but healing.
“She saved you, Levi,” he whispers, barely audible, voice cracking around the words.
“No,” I shout, shaking my head violently, refusing to believe what I know he isn’t saying. “Tell me she’s okay, Tom! Tell me!”
I yank the IVs from my arms and whatever other wires I’m attached to off of me until the room sounds like a cacophony of alarms going off.
Fuck it. If he won’t answer me, I’ll find her myself.
“Krystal!?” I yell over and over. I am trying to get out of bed, ignoring the pain, but it’s threatening to knock me back out and blurring my vision.
The nurses scramble. The doctor calls for haloperidol, a sedative.
Shit. No. I manage to throw a leg over the side of the bed, but when I push off, pain sears up my arm, over my shoulder, and across my chest. I fall back onto the bed, writhing but still determined, not ready to accept what I already know in my heart is true.
“Krystal!” I yell louder like a man desperate to hang on to the only happiness he’s ever known as a nurse injects me with a needle quickly.
The sedative kicks in fast, and I’m too injured to fight it.
Against my will, I calm down, my mind growing foggy again.
Before the sedative pulls me under, I look at Tom one more time.
“Tell me, Tom,” I beg, already feeling broken, already knowing the answer but needing to hear him say it out loud.
“She’s gone,” he chokes out, looking almost as destroyed as I feel.
It was supposed to be me.
It should have been me.
Present Day, April
“Sir.” The flight attendant approaches like she’s edging up on a wild animal. Given my appearance, I can understand. “Some of the passengers are afraid of dogs, and are requesting you muzzle yours for the duration of the flight.”
“That’s not happening,” I mumble under my breath.
“Sorry, sir? I didn’t catch that.” She looks nervous. I almost feel bad for her... almost. But after months of physical therapy, doctor appointments, and worst of all, a house that’ll never be home without Krystal, I’m fresh out of fucks to give.
I didn’t think I’d take Tom up on his offer to move in and start fresh, but right now, that and this dog, who’s somehow more depressed than I am, are the only things keeping me going.
Some service, therapy dog, or whatever, she is.
Ellie lifts her big, sad brown eyes at me.
The same eyes she’s given me every day since I came home without Krystal.
It’s like she misses her, too, and it guts me.
“Sir?”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I grunt out, tuning back into the sound of call bells, beverage carts, and the shuffling of passengers as they find their seats.
The flight attendant appears to relax and extends her hand toward me, attempting to hand me a muzzle. I look at it with a raised brow, then back to her.
“You misunderstand,” I snort. “You can let that passenger know my dog isn’t a threat. Putting a muzzle on her would directly interfere with her trained tasks, which, according to DOT regulations, you’re not allowed to require unless she’s posing an actual danger. She’s not.”
I lean back, my jaw setting as my expression hardens.
“So, unless someone back there has suddenly become a federal safety expert, we’re skipping the unlawful accessories. If they’re that uncomfortable, they can switch seats. Hell, if they want to wear the muzzle, I’m all for it. But Ellie and I? We’re not going anywhere.”
The flight attendant blinks at me, muzzle dangling sadly from her hand.
“If that’s all, I’ll have a bag of pretzels.” Ellie’s ears perk up at the word pretzels. “Better make that two.”
She practically sprints away, and the rest of the passengers avoid eye contact for the rest of the flight, but honestly, I prefer it that way.
People who stare too long always get caught, and once they’re caught, it’s like they feel obligated to ask what happened, like my scars are some kind of public property they’re entitled to an explanation for.
I wasn’t much of a people person before the accident.
.. but at least Krystal was there to help me tolerate them.
My hand rises on instinct, rubbing the ache in my chest I’ve learned to live with, the one tucked just under my robin tattoo. Ellie nudges her snout into my hand before dropping her head into my lap. Within minutes of my petting her, she’s out cold.
If only it were that easy for me.
I haven’t slept through the night once since the accident.
Unless you count the nights they sedated me, which, honestly, at this point, is sounding like a damn good idea.
It would make this five-and-a-half-hour flight go down a hell of a lot easier.
Unfortunately, that’s not an option, so I shove my headphones in, turn on my playlist, and close my eyes.
Hoping, praying, for even a few minutes of peace.
As usual, about thirty minutes in, my brain drags me right to the last place I want to be. At this point, I don’t know why I bother fighting it. Maybe I really am a masochist, punishing myself for being the one who’s still breathing.
I’m still so pissed at her for saving me instead of herself.
“She loved you more than anything, Levi... She’d want you to go on, to live, be happy.”
Her mother’s voice echoes in my skull.
What a joke.
Be happy. Right... Sure.
My mind swirls with memories of the funeral that play louder than the music blaring from my headphones.
I could barely look at her parents that day, knowing they would never see their daughter again, and it’s all my fault.
They don’t see it that way, of course. But that doesn’t change a damn thing for me.
That’s the truth. I’m here, and she’s not, which means someone upstairs really screwed something up.
“God doesn’t make mistakes, Levi.”
Her voice plays in my head so clearly that it almost stops my breath. She had this annoying, and somehow incredible, ability to twist anything awful into something hopeful. She could turn a damn dumpster fire into a life lesson, always finding the light in the dark.
Even now, part of me wants to believe her, that I’m here for some reason.
But the rest of me? It calls bullshit.
“Hey, brother!” my best friend Tom calls, jumping out of his truck at the airport pickup line as I toss my bags into the back.
Tom and I have been tight since we were kids.
Being adopted, I always wanted a brother, and he’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to the real deal, even if we look nothing alike.
He’s got brown eyes and hair that’s dark as midnight.
My eyes are some jade-green color with light brown hair.
He’s big, but at 6’4”, there still aren’t many people I have to look up at.
My family used to spend summers here at the lake.
I was always dragging us into trouble, and Tom, who definitely knew better, never let me do it alone.
When he lost his parents in high school, I stayed with him and his sister for a month, just to make sure he didn’t fall apart and to catch him in case he did.
“You and me against the world.”
It’s corny as hell, but it’s our unofficial motto, and the truth. He’s the reason I know I’m not completely alone, even if I still feel that way half the damn time. Maybe now that I’m here, things won’t suck as much. I’m hopeful, but not optimistic.
Tom yanks me into a bear hug. “Missed you, buddy. How was the flight?”
“The plane went up. It went down. Nobody died.” I shrug while he ruffles Ellie’s ears.
“That’s great. Glad we’re keeping our standards high,” he laughs before really looking at me. “Dude, what’s with the—”
“Oh my God, Levi!” Callie shrieks, hopping out of the passenger seat and launching herself at me, wrapping me into one of her big hugs.
“Tom, you’d better warn your officers. If they get calls about Bigfoot roaming the streets, it’s just Levi.
” She reaches up and pulls on my overgrown beard.
If it were anyone else, they wouldn’t have even tried.
“Okay, enough of that.” I swat her hand away.