Christmas with the Grumpy Alpha (Feuding Hearts Christmas)

19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Lena

“She fell right into my lap.

A fake relationship so that I could get everyone off my back.

I just needed some space to breathe.”

Tanner's words repeat over and over in my head.

I’m running away fast even though I can barely see, my vision blurry from the tears streaming down my face.

I have no idea where my feet are taking me, nor do I care. All I want is for them to carry me away, away from this cruel, unforgiving world that just won’t give me a chance at happiness.

A muffled sob escapes my lips. I raise my hand and make a half-hearted attempt to wipe some of the tears away, but they are too much. Too many.

Caged for so long, my pain and hurt has finally broken through its prison, and now there is no way I can stop this flood.

The ground suddenly shifts beneath me, turning from hard tiles into sagging snow. The hotel’s warm interior disappears, replaced by a biting cold.

A cold that hungrily nips at my bare arms and tries to worm its way inside my skin. I make no attempt to fight it off. Let it attack me.

It’ll only be the first in a long list of many.

Further and further I go, the air’s chill drying my remaining tears, returning some sanity back to my mind.

My vision eventually clears, and I find that I am inside the forest now, having left the hotel and its clearing behind. Strange.

How did I run such a large distance so quickly? And where the hell am I even going?

Away. Away from them all.

That vague answer is oddly comforting.

I increase my pace, letting my shoes plunge ankle-deep into the snow, letting the cold have its way with me, infiltrating every pore of my being and numbing my extremities.

“She fell right into my lap!”

I grit my teeth together, sucking in a large breathe of freezing air.

It won’t go away. It just won’t go away.

How could I have been so stupid to think that Tanner would believe that we really were fated mates. He even told me how he makes his own destiny.

Those words keep buzzing inside my head, their sharp edges slicing away at me. I feel I will either die or go insane if I don’t stop thinking about them soon.

And maybe dying won’t be such a b—

“AHHH!”

I let out a scream as the ground suddenly gives away beneath me, and my ankle twists sideways at an odd angle.

Pain shoots through it in a bright jet of fire, but I have no time to pay it any heed because I am falling.

Falling straight towards the ground, which suddenly seems to have tilted at an odd angle and—

Oh no! Shit!

I realize it too late.

By that time I’ve already crossed the cliff’s edge and am rolling down its steep end, picking up speed as I do.

My hands madly scrabble at the loose, snowy earth for some purchase.

My uninjured foot kicks out wildly, hoping to snag some stray bramble or branch that’ll stop my descent. But there is nothing, nothing preventing me from falling.

“HEL—AHHH!”

My cry for help morphs into a mindless scream as my twisted ankle strikes against an outcropping of rock, further intensifying the pain shooting through it and tearing into my skin.

My eyes are open, but I can barely make out anything. There is just an infinite white swirling around me, like the whole world is a blank canvas being whipped around by a storm.

And then I hit the tree, bringing me to a halt.

My lower abdomen connects with it first, driving all the air from my lungs.

The white is suddenly gone, replaced by blackness dotted with inkblots of smeared light. I realize I’m gasping for air, my hands clawing at the snow for something it cannot provide to me.

My lungs are burning, filling up with a scorching sensation, yearning for a breath which doesn’t seem to be coming.

God, please. Not like this. Not like this….

It rushes in finally, the oxygen filling up the vacuum in my lungs and throat.

I gasp with delight, gulping in more and more, relishing the feeling of being able to breathe like it’s the most magnificent sensation in the world.

In front and all around me, the world slowly comes back into view.

That starry darkness fades, replaced by white once again, a white that is thankfully no longer moving. The tree has broken my fall, although at the cost of breaking numerous bones inside my body, I’m sure.

Still, I can’t complain. I don’t know how far I would have fallen had it not been for its wooden embrace.

For a few minutes I just lie where I am, too tired to move.

Once some of the pain and exhaustion has left my body, I decide to rise to my feet. It is a terrible mistake.

I’ve only put the tiniest amount of pressure on my injured foot, but it is enough.

White-hot agony flares within it, tiny pins and needles of solidified magma stabbing into my flesh.

I fall back down with a muted cry, and my impact on the snow causes my swollen abdomen to start throbbing again. Suddenly, I’m struggling once more to draw in air.

Shit. This is bad.

I lie gasping on the soft bed of snow, feeling my vision turning dark again. Or maybe I’ve been lying here for hours, and night has finally arrived.

I can’t tell anymore. My mind is a completely disoriented mess right now. I don’t even know where I am.

You have to move, Lena. You have to move before you freeze to death.

But move where?

Where am I right now?

Which way is back to the hotel?

Putting in all of the effort left within me, I raise my head from the ground and cast a dizzy look around.

White. White everywhere.

Undulating fields of white, sometimes steep and sometimes flat, but always white, dotted here and there with the dark smudges of vegetation.

No landmark whatsoever to indicate where I am.

Shit.

The pain is suddenly not so significant anymore. Something else is replacing it, something far more primal and deep-rooted than pain.

Fear.

It’s slowly expanding inside me, colder than this bleak, arctic landscape.

The fear of dying here all alone, with no one to hear my cries which will eventually wind down to whimpers, and then to silence.

No. I can’t just stay here.

Propelled by terror, I roll over on my belly, grimacing at the pain lighting up in my stomach when it presses against the ground.

Then I slowly begin creeping forward, inching my way along the ground at a snail’s pace. I have chosen a random direction to go in, because that’s all I can do.

Maybe it’ll lead me back to where I came from, although judging by my pace, even if I’ve chosen the right path, I could be crawling all night and still not get very far….

This might be it. This might be the end.

I push away those thoughts and crawl harder, face set determinedly. But no amount of determination is going to give my body the energy it needs.

Even crawling like this is proving to be monumentally tiring, and I can already feel a sleepiness setting in….an urge to close my eyes.

Blackness rushes in.