PROLOGUE - AVERY
Cold. The first thing I felt was cold.
Everything hurt and nothing was alright. I could feel the pain lancing through my body, arcing all over the place.
Even more than that, something was wrong.
Balance.
Gravity.
Something was off.
When I opened my eyes the world shifted from black to white in an instant. The sound in my ears was almost deafening and I felt more lightheaded than I ever had before.
My arms were outstretched, swaying in the harsh wind that whipped around me. I blinked, trying to dispel this bad dream, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t make anything go away. It was all real.
Finally my eyes focused and I was able to look around, and, slowly, when things finally started to fall into place and make sense, I realized that I was upside down.
Where the hell was I? What was going on?
The wind kicked up again and I shivered, clasping my hands together below my head to keep my fingers warm.
I was hanging by a seatbelt, the belt I was wearing on the bus…the bus from school to…Meridian! The holes in my memory filled themselves in slowly as I swayed back and forth, shivering.
Buses weren’t usually supposed to be upside down like this. At least not any buses I’d been on before.
A creaking noise, like metal tearing apart, emanated from all around me and I felt the bus shudder, like it was threatening to turn over again. I jerked my head around in fear, still trying to make sense of what was going on. How had I gotten here?
The driver. Where was the driver?
I was facing the back, so I gripped the belt around my waist and pulled on it till I turned around, looking toward the front of the bus. The driver’s seat was empty, and the floor, or, rather, the ceiling, underneath it was too.
He must have been thrown from the bus during the slide. The windshield was mostly gone, and a layer of snow had begun to form on the new floor.
I was all alone.
I pulled on the belt again, spinning around as slowly as I could not to disturb anything. Pieces of memories leading up to the accident floated back into place as I tried to figure out how I’d gotten here. There was a cliff, and a turn, and speed…
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. I could figure out the why later. First thing I had to do was get myself out of this belt and back down to the ground - I couldn’t concentrate with all this swaying back and forth doing a number on my already precarious sense of balance.
I reached up and gripped the seatbelt’s buckle.
“Stop!” A voice cried out, harsh and loud, even through the wind and the haze of the storm.
I turned around slowly, relief washing over me that someone else was here, even if he could have been nicer about it.
“Help me!” I shouted back as I turned, scrambling till the voice came into view.
“Hold on, just stay there and don’t move.” The voice sounded a little closer now, and I heard more creaking, like things were moving.
I didn’t think he understood just how scary this was. “Get me out of here!” Still spinning, still trying to get a good look at whoever it was, but I was still groggy and nothing made sense.
“Will you shut the fuck up for a minute? I’m trying to keep you alive!” came the retort. Whoever it was, they were kinda a dick.
“I’m the one stuck up here!”
“And if you don’t let me work, I’m gonna leave you there.” The voice was closer now, deep and rumbling. Or maybe that was the storm, I couldn’t tell anymore. Looking out the broken windows of the bus, I could see snow all around, and more falling.
“You wouldn’t dare!”
I finally turned all the way around and came face to face with an upside down man’s face. “Why are you upside down?” The words sounded wrong as soon as I said them.
“Listen to me,” he said, moving his face in close. “You’re the one who’s upside down. You’ve been in an accident.”
“No shit I’ve been in an accident!” I yelled back, trying to figure out what he’d look like if he, or rather, I, were right side up. “You think I like to hang out like this for fun!?”
He held up his hands, and for a moment I was afraid he would clap one of them over my mouth. “Keep it down!” He leaned back in and I could feel the warmth of the steam coming off his breath. “I don’t think you quite appreciate the situation you’re in.”
“Get me down from here!” As soon as I started shouting I heard a low rumble underneath.
He Shhhhh-ed me with one hand and lowered the other like he was taking something’s temperature. “That’s what I’m talking about, that right there. You feel that? Do you even know where the fuck you are?”
“I’m hanging by a seatbelt in a bus in a storm, with someone being really unhelpful right now. Does that about cover it?!”
He chuckled, and I saw the beginning of a smile forming on his upside down face. Dark hair, dark eyes. Chiseled, angular facial features. Cheekbones that could cut glass. “There’s a little more to it than that. The bus you’re in is at the edge of the cliff and there’s a snowdrift pressing against it. Make too much noise and it might send both of us flying a long way. I didn’t pack a parachute, did you?”
I tried to take all of that in but my mind pretty much shut down. I did understand the part about keeping my voice down. “Get. Me. Out. Of. Here.” I hissed as loudly as I could, immediately thankful that I didn’t hear the same rumble as before.
“I’m working on that, but you’re being a little difficult.” Again that grin. I hated it already. So smarmy, like he had all the answers.
Like anyone had any answers in the middle of a blizzard like this.
“I’m being difficult?! Who the hell are you?!”
Just when I closed my mouth I heard a catching sound, like a release, and then the world whirled and blurred as I flailed my body around, falling downward. In the moment before I hit I braced myself to hit the frosted-over ceiling of the bus below me, but just as I felt my fingertips brush against the metal, I landed in strong arms and felt my downward momentum stopped, way more gently than I had expected. My eyes were clenched shut.
“Relax. You’re alive, Princess,” the man said.
“Don’t call me that,” I whispered, before opening my eyes, one at a time, still unsure whether I’d go crashing to the ground as soon as I moved.
I felt us move a few tentative steps to one side before he spoke again. “This isn’t that kind of threshold, Princess,” I gasped when he said that last word, so soon after I had told him not to, “so I’m going to let you down now. You might want to open your eyes for this part.”
I opened my eyes one at a time just as I felt my feet hitting the ground - I could feel the cold snow through my shoes, even though they were the thickest pair I owned. Why didn’t I wear boots? With this storm coming on? Jeez, Avery. Way to plan ahead.
When I finally felt stable I waved away his hand and got a good look at him, such as it was, considering most of his head was covered by the hood of his thick jacket. What I saw could only be described as the very definition of tall, dark, and handsome. Those dark eyes, the hint of the short black hair peeking out from the front of his hood, the way his stubble just….mmmmm, now was definitely not the time for this.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” He whispered, that grin coming back. OK, from the right side up it was way sexier, but also just as smarmy and self-assured. Maybe even more so, I couldn’t tell right now.
“You’re hilarious. People tell you that often?”
His eyes dropped for a brief second. “Still’s nice to hear.”
I narrowed my gaze. “I don’t really like you.”
“Luckily you don’t need to like me for me to save your life, then, yeah?”
“Great job of it you’ve done so far.”
“One second.” He held up a hand, pointer finger stretched out. “You said you didn’t like it when I called you Princess? Could have fooled me, the way you’re acting.”
“Ugh!” I shouted, unable to control myself. I had no idea who this guy was and he already made me so mad. “I’ve had enough. I’m getting out of here.”
As soon as I closed my mouth I knew I had screwed up. The rumbling came fast and without warning, and I felt the bus lurch forward underneath us, and start sliding back down the incline.
Toward, I was sure, the cliff we’d passed by just before the accident.
“Shit!” I heard the man say, and before I knew what had happened next, I felt strong arms wrap themselves around me, and then I was flying again.
It was a short flight, and it ended when we crashed into the snowdrift just outside where the bus had most recently been. By the time I had opened my eyes and grappled to my feet, dusting myself off in between spasms of shivering, I watched the bus slide closer and closer to the edge of the cliff, the metal screaming in protest as it scraped against the ground, pushing the snow out of the way.
The bus came to a stop just at the edge of the cliff, and it looked like even looking at it funny would send it right over.
I didn’t realize it, but the man’s arms were still around me, and mine were wrapped around his neck. It was…much more cozy and intimate than I would have liked, but it really did feel…kinda good.
He was smiling, because of course he was smiling at a time like this. I shook my head. “It’s cold, don’t flatter yourself,” I said, hastily pulling away from him, fast enough that I already missed both the heat and the feel of his muscles against my body, keeping me, above all else, safe.
The smile disappeared as we separated, and he looked at me with a stern glare, one that spoke more volumes than I could count.
“We’re not out of this yet.”