Buried Alive

by Brown, Stacey Marie

  “I will speak to Oscar. Get them off the property.” Mom went around shutting the blinds. I stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring at nothing. “My heart almost gave out when I looked out my office window seeing them surround you. How did they even find out?” She busied herself, fluttering around me. “Was it Siena? You know how bad she wants attention. To give the exclusive…she’d love that.”

  My hands rolled into balls.

  “You don’t think it was the Rhys kid? I never trusted him. He’s nothing like his brother. To out you would bring more attention to himself, which would be great for his career.” She faced me. “Oscar told me he asked for you to wait on him. Maybe he’s been planning this, wanting to hurt you, knowing who you were the whole time.”

  My lids and lips squeezed shut.

  “Do they not understand what this does to us? Bringing all this up again?” She leaned over the sink peeking out the window, her hand on her chest. “We were all starting to move on.”

  “Were we?” My mouth opened, the accusation slipping off my tongue.

  “What?” Mom twisted to look at me.

  “Were we moving on? Or have we merely gotten really good at pretending?” My arms thrust straight at my sides, feeling the burn of anger flare up in my chest.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Everyone in this house goes through a routine. Stuck in it because it’s safe. It’s how we can deal. We live, but we aren’t living.”

  “Bren. Hannah,” she corrected herself. A little too late. “Your father and I have been doing the best we can.”

  “The best?” I scoffed. “You call this your best?” I motioned around the tomb of a house. Nothing was different from nine years ago, as if they were still holding out hope if they kept it that way our lives would return to the way it had been. They remained stuck in time where they wanted my brother and me to come home, fill it with life again.

  “You haven’t faced what happened.” Fury shot up my spine as the years of not speaking, all the anguished silence, tumbled in my stomach like a storm. “And you certainly haven’t forgiven me.”

  My mother stepped back as though I had slapped her. “That’s not true.”

  “Please, Mom,” I exclaimed, slapping my palms against my legs. “You don’t think I see it? Feel it? You found every excuse to not visit me in the last five years. You know how many justifications Grandma had to come up with telling me why my parents weren’t coming…again?” Resentment filled my chest. “Maybe it would have been better if I had died.”

  “Brennley!” she snapped, rolling her shoulders back. Good. It was nice to truly see some kind of emotion in my mother.

  “That was how you treated me anyway,” I seethed, the quiet girl evaporating into nothing. “You blame me. Admit it! Please, just for once, say what you actually feel, because I can’t take this passive guilt you put on me.”

  “I. Do Not. Blame. You.” she said slowly, inhaling, tipping her chin back. “It was an accident.”

  My shoulders sagged, feeling my mother build a higher wall to her emotions after years of hiding behind it.

  “Yeah, but unfortunately, I was the one who lived,” I said softly.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Brennley

  (Nine Years Earlier)

  The cloudless, star-filled night felt quiet and still, which made the air feel even colder. My lungs tightened, filling me with more exhilaration. I always felt things intensely, but it was as if every molecule in the atmosphere pranced along my nerves. The high I had been riding since winning grew. Nothing could bring me down.

  I tracked up the dark, snowy hill with a tequila bottle I snuck from my father’s stash in the restaurant basement wrapped in my coat. It took me forever to get away from Mom and Dad, like they knew what we had planned. After finding out Jonah and I were dating, they had been a lot stricter with me, even giving me a curfew.

  Bryan, their golden boy, could get away with anything, charming anyone he passed into thinking he was a responsible guy. He was not as sweet as they imagined him to be. He simply concealed it better than me. I was blunt and couldn’t hide my nature, so they thought I was constantly getting into trouble.

  Okay, I was. But Bryan was usually right next to me.

  I tried not to think about the fact they had gotten off work to see his win but not mine. When Daddy’s little helper no longer wanted to be stuck in the kitchen, but out on the slopes, something had changed. Dad seemed to resent I followed Bryan’s footsteps instead of his. And as much as my mom said she supported me, I could tell she hoped this was a phase. I couldn’t deny because of my nature I didn’t stick to things long. Except snowboarding. They didn’t seem to grasp this was my dream too. Not just Bryan’s. They pushed college on me more than they did my brother. They had no doubt he would make it as a professional athlete and land on his feet, but not me.

  Being raised here, I had been skiing and snowboarding since I could walk, but the passion didn’t click until I was ten. By then, Bryan was already doing competitions and training with his coach. I went to watch him one afternoon, seeing the instructor tutor him on a trick. I knew then I wanted to do it. I clicked my feet into a board that day and never looked back.

  Bryan was my biggest supporter, spending extra time with me on weekends, helping me get moves down. When Jonah and his parents moved to Whistler to join our team, it was as though we had been waiting for him. Our connection was instant and solid. Jonah and Bryan spent every minute together. The older I got, the more I tagged along.

  I could see Jonah was envious of what Bryan and I had. He had never been close to his brother because they spent most of their growing up years living apart. I’d met Rhys once at Christmas when he came for a few days. But being younger than us, the three of us left him in the dust for most of the week he spent here. Rhys was an extremely talented, cheeky kid, but Jonah was all I saw.

  My crush on Jonah was instant, but he simply saw me as a kid sister. The amount of times he rubbed my head and told me I reminded him of his annoying younger brother still irritated me. I couldn’t wait to grow up, for him to see me as a woman.

  The summer I turned fifteen, I started to get more brazen with my feelings for Jonah. He rebuffed me at first, but slowly things started to shift. Our relationship grew, but he still kept me at arm’s distance.

  Tonight, I thought, wrapping my coat tighter against me. Tonight, that will change. I wanted Jonah to be my first. I couldn’t think of a better night to lose my virginity—under the snow-capped mountains and stars, both of us on the way to becoming Olympians.

  Yes. Tonight I was going to have sex with Jonah Axton.

  My throat dried at the thought, my heart tripping in my chest as a newly awakened desire rushed through my veins, tightening my breasts.

  My brother was going to have to get lost. I smirked. Knowing me, I’d be blunt enough to outright tell him to go.

  Stomping through the deep snow, I saw the glow of a campfire. Knowing my brother and boyfriend were just over the hill made me walk more quickly. Excitement pirouetted through my body. Everything in front of me was bright, the stars glinting in the sky, as if they too came out to celebrate.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Hannah

  “What did you say?” My mother’s sharp voice snapped in my ear, bringing me back.

  “What’s not true about it?” I pushed up my chin, matching her challenging stance. Fury and hurt flared through her expression, parting her mouth. “You don’t think I believe it myself? I carry enough guilt and grief. Every time you and Dad are in a room with me, even though he hides it better, I can feel it.”

  “What? What do you feel?” She tossed up her arms. “All we’ve done was try to love you. You are the one who pushes us away.”

  A humorless scoff brushed past my lips. If them avoiding me, making excuses to not see me, was their way of loving me…?

  “Tell me, Brennley! You left. You ran away.”

  “You kn
ow why I had to leave.” Anger shot from me, motioning outside where the press lay in wait. “I wasn’t just buried on that hill. It didn’t stop after our rescue. I couldn’t breathe. It felt as though I was being choked to death. I couldn’t be here with everything. There were too many memories, too many signs of everything I lost. I needed to heal.” The scars on my legs and the metal rod in my hip were merely the physical signs of my damage; most of it was in my head and heart. “I was so young. I needed you. I needed my parents.”

  “We were grieving too.” A strangled cry tore from my mother’s throat, her body curving forward as if she physically hurt.

  Tears stabbed at the back of my lids, agony crushing my lungs. I understood we had all lost on the mountain, but my heart only understood my fifteen-year-old scared, hurt self. The girl who needed her mom and dad to hold her. Instead they let me go. We all grieved alone.

  My grandma had been my savior. Her warm arms held me when the nightmares plagued me, rocking me back to sleep. When the pain from the physical therapy brought me to my knees, she lifted me back up and sought help for me. But the scars were already there. The fire in me went out. I wanted to start fresh, to have no one know who I was. And soon Brennley Evans became Hannah Jennings. Someone who was numb to life. Who just got by.

  “He was my idol too, Mom.”

  “Don’t do that.” She fisted her hands. “Don’t talk about him in past tense.”

  My gaze drifted over to the wall, where a picture of Bryan hung, a medal in one hand, flowers in the other on the day he won the championship. Another one of us as kids with his arm wrapped around me, our smiles huge.

  She could deny all she wanted, but the boy in those images was gone.

  Wiping at the single tear that escaped, I nodded. My brother and I had always supported each other, never competing. That night changed everything.

  There’s so much my parents don’t know.

  Tension crept in the room, anger and hurt washed over us, weighing down my shoulders. Maybe this hurt was too deep, the scars too entrenched, to ever heal.

  My phone started buzzing, Siena’s name flickered across the screen. I thumbed the off button. I couldn’t talk to her right now. And from past experience, it wouldn’t be long before reporters found this number and hounded me day and night.

  “I need some air.” I rounded for the back door, needing the cold air to rush over my skin and the smell the clean snow. Life. Hope.

  “Brennley.” My mother called me, but I didn’t stop and shut the door behind me. I was relieved our back yard was closed off and allowed me to walk through the trees without being seen from the reporters flocking around the front, ready to peck off what was left of me.

  Deep under my hood, my legs moved me forward, lost in churning memories and grief. I didn’t even think where I was going until I stood in front of his door. Fear fastened me on the front stoop. Fear of his hate and anger, but more that I was cutting a darker chasm in his soul. Dread of going forward engulfed me, but something also kept me from going back. I knew deep down the moment had come. I had known from the instant I first walked in his room. He is going to loathe me. I wouldn’t blame him, but acid still burned around my heart at the thought. It was time. I had hidden in the past too long.

  He needed to know. From me first.

  Taking a deep breath, I knocked on the door, part of me hoping he was out training and I could escape this for a little longer.

  The door swung open, forcing me to take a step back. Carrie stood there, abhorrence showing in her eyes as they roamed over me.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” She popped a hand on her hip, seething. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”

  Fuck. He knows.

  She took a step closer, using the stair into the house to loom over me. “I knew something was strange about you. I just didn’t think you were this screwed up. You’re a fuckin’ sociopath!”

  “I need to talk to him.” I straightened my spine, not inching away.

  “Stay the hell away from him. From us.” She leaned in closer to my face. The ownership she felt she had on him was clear. He’s mine pulsed off her like a neon sign.

  Because of the crap I had been through in my life, I was done with cowering. I pushed my way in the door, getting into her face. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  A malicious grin bowed her mouth. “I may have not figured out who you were, but I’m so glad the truth is out there. He finally sees you for who you really are. A demented, conniving whore.”

  I shoved past her. She wasn’t worth my time. “Rhys?” I yelled, heading through the entry with Carrie screaming after me.

  Graham met me at the kitchen entry, shaking his head. “Not a good time. You should go.”

  Pushing past him, I ventured into the room screaming, “Rhys!”

  My boots rounded into the kitchen and stopped. Rhys sat on the sofa, his back to me as he watched the huge TV over the fireplace. Video of the press’s assault on me outside the lodge played on the screen. At the bottom, images of me both when I was young and blonde and now scrolled past.

  “Nine years ago, a tragic accident happened behind me.” A reporter stood at the base of the peak that had taken so much in a flurry of frozen ice. “Three lives were changed forever. Full of hope and promise, on their way to the Olympics, but none would see these aspirations fulfilled. Jonah Axton, Bryan Evans, and the youngest hopeful, Brennley Evans, in one fateful night, in a matter of seconds, had all their dreams die on that mountain.”

  A noose looped around my throat, cinching in. Seconds? I lived and died a lifetime on the mountain.

  The reporter continued on about the “accident,” but I stopped listening. The media loved the sensation, the drama, heartbreak, and the tie to Rhys. To us.

  “Rhys?” I took a tentative step.

  “Get out, bitch. He doesn’t want you anywhere near him.” Carrie moved next to me.

  “Rhys, please. Let me explain.”

  Rhys slowly stood, turning around, his face blank, but his eyes held tremendous anger and hurt. Loathing. Even though I’d known he would hate me, seeing it in person was similar to being knifed in the gut. I tried to stay away, to save him from this grief, and all I did was make it worse.

  “Get out,” he said low and clear.

  “No. Not until you hear me out.”

  Graham and Carrie both tried again to force me back out the door, but I slipped past, standing before Rhys. “Please. Five minutes. And then I’ll go and leave you alone.” The statement stumbled over my tongue, jarring pain spread through me at the thought of never seeing him again, never seeing him smile, feeling his touch.

  “What can you possibly say to me, Hannah? Or is it Brennley?” He looked to the side, running a hand through his hair. “Fuck. I can’t believe I didn’t see it. Didn’t know it was you. I’m a fucking idiot.”

  “No.” I shook my head, stepping closer. He retreated, giving me a warning look. “We only met once. A long time ago. We were kids. Please, give me a minute to explain.”

  He peered at the screen, at the picture of me blonde, smiling and happy. He then looked over at Graham and Carrie, giving them a nod.

  “Oh, hell no!” Carrie stomped her foot. “I’m not leaving you here with this two-faced psycho. Rhys,” she pleaded as Graham grabbed her arm. Rhys didn’t respond, his jaw twitching as he stared down at the ground.

  It took some effort, but Graham finally got Carrie out the door, leaving the cabin cloaked in silence, except for the low murmurs on the TV.

  Rhys folded his arms, his muscles bursting through the fabric of his T-shirt, his hard, dark gaze locked on me. When I first saw him, he reminded me so much of Jonah. The same hair and eyes. But now all I saw was Rhys.

  My shoulders sagged, shifting on my feet. “I know sorry won’t help.”

  “No. It. Won’t.”

  My fingers twisted together. “I never meant for this to happen. To let it get this far. I tried to stay away…”
>
  “You mean you never meant to fuck me?” Anger ballooned from his chest as he paced the floor. “You were always going to keep this a secret, weren’t you?”

  I couldn’t deny it. “You don’t understand.”

  “What don’t I understand? You used to be that girl, the girl I totally crushed on, who my brother was in love with, who was with him the night he died. Do you know how it feels?” He pointed at himself. “Like this is some sick game to you. How could you not tell me who you were? I shared so much with you…and this whole time you knew everything about me. The truth. You lied to me. About everything!”

  “No!” I bellowed back. “With you, I’ve never been more truthful about myself than with anyone. With you, I could finally be myself. The real Hannah Brennley Evans. Not ‘the girl who survived’ or the ‘once Olympic hopeful,’ but me. I should have told you, I get that, but honestly, would you have seen me as anything but the girl who was buried alive? The painful link to your brother? The scars you kissed would have been nothing more than an ugly reminder. You would have never seen the real me.”

  “Well, I see her now.” His glare charred my skin. His voice cold. Frigid. Final. “Get out, Brennley.” He sliced my name in half.

  A sob caught in my throat. I couldn’t blame him. I’d want nothing to do with me either. The tragedy I had locked away for so long had plowed back into me and somehow it was even worse. The loss of Rhys buckled my legs.

  Struggling to keep myself from collapsing on the floor, I nodded and mumbled, “Okay.”

  Every step toward the door, my chest heaved with pain, feeling as if I were being shredded into pieces. The agony was worse than anything I had ever felt.

  In one acute realization, I knew I had fallen hard for Rhys Axton.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Rhys

  I watched her walk out the door, feeling as if my guts were being yanked up through my throat, bloody and raw. I took a faltering step, my instinct to go after her, to stop her. The part of me that had fallen for the dark-haired beauty. Hannah.