Prologue
Brody
Six years ago…
“I had the best time tonight,” Stacy purrs as she reaches over and lays her palm on my thigh. Her touch is warm but when she flexes her fingertips, causing her nails to bite into my skin, it turns carnally hot.
The music is pulsing in the background… Black Eyed Peas… and we have the windows down, allowing the warm summer air to swirl around us as we ride down West Franklin Street. My second year of medical school starts tomorrow, and Stacy and I are blowing off steam the best way we know how. With a good college frat party and then a trip back to my apartment, where we’ll probably f*ck each other to death.
It would be a good way to die, in my humble opinion.
“I love you, baby,” she calls out to me, the air causing her blonde hair to float all around her face. I have just enough beer in me to be entranced by it before my attention is diverted by her fingers sliding up my leg.
Grabbing onto her hand, I pull it up higher, pushing it down against my erection. Smiling at her, our eyes locked momentarily, filled with young love, I tell her. “I love you, too.”
We stare at each other, for what seems like minutes, but it can’t be because we’re in the car. My blood is racing from the promise of her touch, but my heart is squeezing deliciously over the love radiating off her. I’m a lucky man.
My lips quirk up and, almost by mutual agreement, we release our gazes and turn to look out the windshield.
The headlights pick up a flash of white… maybe I see some Carolina blue, getting closer. Too damn close.
The brakes are slammed hard. The nose of the car starts to dive down at the sudden deceleration and then a blur of white and blue hits the front of the car, rolls up the hood, and smashes into the windshield. I see the glass spiderweb outward, and then whatever was on the windshield is flipping up and over the roof.
We veer off the road, tires screaming loud on the pavement.
I see a tree coming closer.
Nothing to do but close my eyes and grit my teeth for the impact. The last thing I remember before I kiss the airbags… Did Stacy have her seatbelt on?
Then it goes dark.