Our Overtime: Ice League Book 1 (The Ice League Series)

There was ringing in my ears. Loud. I put my hands up to my ears to stop it, but it wouldn’t work.

I was blinking hard, as hard as I could, wondering if I was blinded.

I slowly came to the realization that it was just pitch-black outside and the car was completely dead.

The ringing in my ears was painful as fuck.

I took stock of my limbs; the car was crunched close to me but I could still move everything.

But my head. It hurt so fucking bad. My vision was swimming, like I was underwater.

And then I remembered where I was going and who I was with.

Panic welled inside of me like I’d never experienced before, and I started shaking so hard I couldn’t unbuckle. I could see she was unconscious in the seat next to me and her seat belt had been on. I was afraid to move her. Hockey had taught me that much. You never wanted to move someone who possibly had a neck injury and risk making it worse.

Oh God, what if she had a neck injury. What if I hurt her? I cried out, incapable of any true words.

Searching for a way out of my stuck seatbelt I felt something wet and sticky on my hands. Looking down and focusing my eyes as hard as I could, I saw red. A lot of it.

She stirred then and I paused.

She looked over at me and shock registered on her face.

“Greyson!” She cried and reached to touch me.

I didn’t care what she said or how she said it, just hearing her speak and seeing her move put me at ease and darkness closed around me.

I blinked against the starch white brightness and tried to bring my hand to my eyes, but I couldn’t. My arms felt like lead.

I felt a woman’s hand was in mine. Thank God. Jules was okay.

I tried to mutter “Jules,” but I choked instead.

The darkness started to close in around me and I let my body fall back into it. I was so tired.

This time when I woke up, there wasn’t a hand in mine. I missed it and wondered where Jules had gone. She was probably somewhere near, bossing a nurse or doctor around. She wouldn’t leave me here alone.

This time I was able to push myself up.

I looked around and noticed Max’s mom sleeping in the corner of the room.

But then the darkness got me again.

The next time I awoke I was up for good. I felt like shit. But I was alive and could move.

Nurses were immediately zooming around me, and a doctor appeared in my room within minutes. He spoke to me so quickly I couldn’t understand what he was saying. My head was still killing me so much that I couldn’t focus. The side of my face was aching. It felt like I’d been hit with a hammer. I reached to touch it and found it bandaged. I couldn’t wait until he left the room so I could ask Max’s mom for a recap. It felt like I’d been slammed a couple hundred times into the boards.

When Max’s mom could finally talk to me, I found out I’d been asleep for two days.

I walked away from the wreck with a concussion, a burst eardrum that would heal in time, and a deep gash in my face from a shard of the windshield. That was where all the blood had come from. It would leave a scar, but I didn’t give a shit. I only cared about Jules and no one would tell me what happened to her or how she was doing and it pissed me off. She hadn’t been here. The hand had been Max’s Mom’s.

I wasn’t allowed out of my room until I was cleared, but I didn’t do well with rules restraining me.

After hours of waiting and going crazy on my own I roared at a nurse to tell me where the fuck my girlfriend was and I’m pretty sure she peed her pants. She exited quickly and Max and Paige entered.

I didn’t like the look on their faces. I didn’t like it one bit.

She was alive. I’d seen her awake and moving. But fear bubbled inside of me that something happened after I’d fallen unconscious.

If Jules was gone, I couldn’t go on. She had to be in this world with me. And taking her from this world… It couldn’t be my fault. It just couldn’t.

“What?” I spat at them.

They were still silent and not looking at me. I felt the rage building in me.

“Tell me!” I roared and slammed my fist on the bed, making the IV stand fall down.

“Shit. Easy, man,” Max said as he leaned down to pick up the IV. “They’re going to commit you or somethin’ if you don’t mellow out.” Max spoke in an even voice that sounded like it was coming from underwater and it wasn’t doing anything to calm my nerves at all.

“She’s okay,” Paige told me then and I felt like I could finally breathe. “But… she’s not here,” she finished. “We don’t exactly know where she is.” Paige’s eyes were darting around the room nervously. She wouldn’t make eye contact with me.

“What the fuck does that even mean?” I asked. Paige flinched at my harsh tone.

Max gave her an apologetic look and stepped in front of her, “It means her grandaddy came here and raised hell and got her taken to a better hospital. She was in a coma. Just like you were.”

I felt rage twisted with disgust. He didn’t understand that she already chose me. I needed to hold her and to know everything was ok and to tell her how extremely sorry I was. It was all my fault. If I’d handled it differently everything would’ve been okay. God. How did everything go so wrong?

“She’s moving with me to Texas,” I told them. “As soon as we can.”

Paige looked at me with a doubtful expression and Max patted my leg on the bed with a sordid expression.

“What?” I demanded.

“Her Pops was…saying stuff about you. He blames you,” Max said with a shrug. “I would just focus on yourself and healing for a little while before things cool down, man.”

I’d focus on healing, but only with Jules. I needed to get out of this place and find my girl.

I rode the elevator in the “fancier” hospital to her room. The last week had been excruciating.

“Congratulations, baby.”

I replayed her saying it over and over again in my mind and it made me want to cry like a damn baby.

She was still asleep. She hadn’t woken up since they brought her in.

It didn’t make sense to me. We’d both been awake in the car. She screamed when she saw my bleeding face. They told me that was what adrenaline did though, and once it had done its job and the shock wore off, her body had to shut down.

I found out from Paige that she was at Northfield’s Mercy Hospital and that she’d had a spinal concussion. From all the tests, they knew she’d most likely be fine when she woke up…. she just needed to wake up.

I needed to help her somehow. To hold her and see her and beg her not to leave me.

I could still feel her hair, her smooth skin, how she shivered in the mornings and cuddled closer to me, wanting me to protect her. I needed to help her and give her warmth.

But he wouldn’t let me.

The man was the devil in my mind.

I tried to see her every single day of the last week and every single day I was escorted away from the room.

She was laying there, lost in space and not knowing that I cared about her enough to hold her hand, and that tore me to pieces.

Which was why I was trying again today.

I probably looked like hell. I still had the side of my face bandaged, but on top of that I hadn’t shaved or even looked in a mirror since I was released a week ago. Jules would’ve yelled at me to take a shower. I didn’t care without her.

I stared at the elevator numbers ticking up until it reached floor five.

When I walked out of the elevator, I was met with two hospital security guards.

They’d been expecting me.

“We’re sorry, but you can’t come on this floor, Mr. Scott.” The guard said with a resigned sigh.

I had so much anger coursing through me, I couldn’t see straight. I felt myself shaking and I took a swing at one of the beefy guys.

But my reflexes were still off from being concussed and he quickly restrained me, pinning my arm against my back, and shoving me back into the elevator.

Feeling useless and lost, I backed against the rough brick wall of the hospital and slid down to my butt. I dropped my head in my hands and cried until I made myself physically sick. I dry heaved on the grass next to me for what felt like an hour.

The next two days I spent in the waiting room. If she woke up, she’d ask for me and I wanted to be around.

But not even that was okay with Henry fucking Hurley. He had me banned from the hospital, claiming I was a stalker and who was trying to hurt his granddaughter.

I tried to argue against his charges, but his money proved more powerful than anything I could say… as per usual.