Wilder (The Renegades Book 1)

At Sea

Paxton held me, my back to his chest, wrapped around me like a cocoon in his bed that night. He hadn’t taken no for an answer, simply carried me to his room, dressed me in his boxers and a T-shirt, and crawled in behind me.

It was after midnight, and despite his body heat and my utter exhaustion, I still couldn’t sleep.

“Are you hungry? Do you want me to order more food? Get a sleeping pill from the nurse? Bring the doctor back?” he offered, his arm tightening over my chest, careful not to brush my bandaged hands.

I shook my head. “I don’t want to sleep.”

“You need to.” His chin rubbed against the top of my head. “Your body is wrecked and needs the rest.”

“I don’t want to have the nightmare,” I whispered.

He pressed a kiss to my hair. “I want you to tell me about it. You don’t have to, but I want to know. Watching you up there today, and knowing I couldn’t get to you… God, Leah. I was so fucking scared. And I saw it, that moment you almost gave in.”

I took a deep breath, steadying my nerves and savoring the scent of him. “We were coming home after a party. Brian had probably had a couple beers, but it wasn’t like he was drunk.” His face flashed in front of my eyes, how beautiful his smile had been, how easy it had been around him. “He wanted to take the canyon road home, even though it was longer. He loved his damn car, and he’d just gotten new tires on it, but the roads were slick from the rain earlier.” I reached up, my forearms tightening over where Paxton held me, safe and secure. “I told him to slow down, but he smiled and said he could handle it. To trust him, and I did. We’d been together all of senior year. But he didn’t slow for the curve in time, and there was skidding, and we busted right through the guardrail.”

I closed my eyes, but the images were only more vivid in my imagination, so I opened them again, turning over so I could see Paxton’s face instead of Brian’s. I concentrated on the curve of his chin, the line of his mouth, afraid that if I saw his eyes, I couldn’t continue. “The first impact was rough. I only remember the drop in my stomach as we fell, and then the jarring stop. Then nothing until I woke up hours later.”

Paxton brushed the hair back behind my ears but stayed silent, simply listening. “When I came to, Brian’s body was pinned to his seat by this branch as thick as my arm. There was blood…so much blood. And he was already gone. I don’t know how long I cried, suspended there by my seat belt, but it felt like an eternity. Once I got myself under control, I saw that my door was jammed shut, but I could get out of Brian’s…but I couldn’t climb over him. I couldn’t use him like a step stool to live while he’d died.

“My phone had been flung out of my hand, and when I heard it ringing from the hatch in the back, I thought it would be easier, better for him, if I unbuckled, and got to it. I could get help. But the shift in weight—”

My eyes squeezed shut, feeling it all over again. Paxton kissed my eyelids, grounding me, keeping me with him instead of in the past.

“The shift in weight caused the car to fall again, this time farther, until we hit a massive boulder, and I was a ping-pong ball in the car, hitting…everything. My legs…they went through the windshield.”

Paxton hissed and pressed a kiss to my forehead like that would take away the pain, and oddly enough, it slightly did.

“Once…once I got myself back into the car, I knew I had to get to the ledge next to us. The car was balanced so precariously. I wanted to take Brian, I did. But that branch had broken off inside the car—he was still pinned to the seat.”

I opened my eyes but kept them on Paxton’s chin, my gaze unfocused. “I don’t know how long I sat there debating. Probably hours. Every time I shifted my weight, the car moved, so by the time I found the courage to climb out—to go over Brian— I got out just before the car fell. There was no time to even try to get him. I couldn’t even give his body to his mother.”

“That is not your fault,” he said softly, anchoring me in the now, pulling me back from where the memories didn’t want to let go.

I ignored his absolution. There were some wounds that time scabbed but never truly healed. “The ledge was big enough for me to pull myself onto, but barely big enough for my butt, and my legs were useless, so I held on to the rocks and the vegetation, and I prayed that I wouldn’t black out from the pain. The car fell one last time and burst into flames about five hours later, and I was about ready to let go when the rescue crews arrived.”

“Oh, baby,” he whispered against my skin, his arms tightening around me.

“There were so many times I thought about letting go, giving in. I’d spent all my life preparing for these huge life struggles—for college, and morals, and what I would do with my life. In six hours, that ledge taught me more about life than I had learned in the previous eighteen years. The hardest battles—the most meaningful ones—they’re fought against ourselves. Against our own fears, our own weaknesses, our own shattered expectations of what we thought this life would be. I’d almost forgotten that until today, when I had to make that same choice.”

He didn’t say anything, just kept stroking my hair, letting me take my time.

“My legs…the infection set in and caused all sorts of issues with the draining and setting the bones, and well… They are what they are—a constant reminder that I didn’t have the courage to get out of the car when I should have, a reminder that I lived but Brian didn’t.”

“A testament to how strong you are,” he added.

I shrugged. “That’s how I met Rachel. We were both in the orthopedist’s office, me for my legs, her for a broken arm. When we realized that we were both headed to Dartmouth in the fall, we clicked. She’s my polar opposite, the wild to my safe, the impulsive to my logic. She pulled me through. That first year…the grief was so deep, the nightmares way too realistic, the panic attacks cruelly frequent… I know she kept me alive. I honestly can’t believe I actually came here without her.”

Paxton tilted my head, wearing an expression I couldn’t read. “I’m glad you did. I couldn’t imagine spending these last months without you. Every single second has been amazing.”

“Even today?” I joked.

He kissed me gently, but with a touch of desperation that hadn’t been there before. “Especially today.”

I somehow felt naked, exposed. “Paxton, will you tell me about Nick? He’s the one who’s paralyzed, isn’t he?”

His eyes widened momentarily, but he nodded. “The triple front was always the trick he wanted to master, to nail first. And like an idiot, I jokingly challenged him, told him I’d nail it first. He wasn’t ready, and neither was I, honestly. After the accident, he wouldn’t see anyone, even Brooke.”

“Brooke?” I asked.

“Yeah, they’d been together for years. He shut everyone out, and we kept it quiet out of respect for him. He finally reached out when he heard about the documentary, which was the whole point, and he’s been a godsend.”

“Really? How?”

“All the equipment design has been him, that kicker I’m using for the front? It’s his. But he figured out why we’re doing this whole thing, and he wanted to be a part of it.”

“Why are you doing it? You’re risking a hell of a lot.”

“Nick wasn’t as well-off as the rest of us. We met up at a skate park when we were kids and became the Original Renegades, and this lifestyle, it doesn’t come easy…or cheap. With his accident, even though we kept it quiet, he missed shows, lost sponsors, then started losing everything. Landon and I, we can easily keep him afloat financially, but we can’t touch his depression, or how he feels about his future. But this can give him a future in the arena he loves, that will allow him to not only support himself but build his life again. I know you don’t know him, but Nick is as much my brother as Landon, as much my friend as Penna. This started as the four of us, and we can’t sit back and watch while he implodes any more than he already has. And we’ve seen a huge difference since he came back on board. He’ll call now, he gets excited about the gear—the stunts. He has equal production credit in the movie, equal billing. That was the secret deal we struck with my father, why he’s the one who’s producing the movie…and consequently holding my leash.”

“Who knows?”

“Just my dad, Penna, Landon, and I. He still won’t talk to anyone else, especially Brooke.”

I nodded, snuggling closer into his chest. His warmth was delicious, and he smelled incredible, like ocean, and Paxton…and home. “That’s why you can’t shut it down.” He’d been muttering about killing the project all evening.

He shook his head. “No. I love Nick, but you—”

“I’ll live.” I took a steadying breath. “I understand guilt, even if it isn’t warranted. If I had a chance to help Brian… I don’t, and you do for Nick. If you want to keep going, I’ll support you. But I am honestly terrified of something happening to you, so we have to find out who is after us, who benefits the most from shutting you down.”

“Leah, while we’re alone, I need to ask. When you fell, who did you see at the bottom? We have to rule people out.”

I closed my eyes and let the memory in that I’d been pushing out all afternoon. “You,” I answered. “Landon was already on the shore, but I saw him there next to Penna. Bobby, I think? Some of the camera crew? I know I left Brooke on the blanket, and Little John was standing there, too.”

“Okay. What about Zoe?”

I stiffened. Had that voice been female? It was gruff, but it could have been forced. “I don’t remember. I mean, she could have been down there. I don’t want you to accuse her of doing something because I didn’t call roll while falling to my near death.”

“Near death, indeed. Okay. Not a word of this outside us, Landon, and Penna, okay? They’re the only ones I trust anymore. And you’re moving in here. No argument.”

I knew I should fight that, stand on my own, but being held by him felt so good, so safe. “Okay.” The pain meds were finally kicking in; everything was blurring at the edges.

He pushed my hair back off my forehead. “Sleep, Firecracker.”

My eyelids grew heavy. “The night of the accident, I held on because I knew if I let go, I’d end up with Brian.”

“Right.” He didn’t stop running his fingers through my hair, the massage soothing, lulling me to sleep.

“Today, I let go because I knew I’d end up with you.”

His breath was ragged as he pulled me closer. As I drifted off to the rhythm of his heart, I realized it was the first night we’d slept in the same bed without having sex, and yet it was the most intimate we’d ever been.

“It wasn’t just a moment today,” I whispered. “I do really, truly love you.”

I fell asleep before he could respond, but not without realizing that he hadn’t said it back.