Phoenix | S.R.

Ch. 1 | For Now

Summary: Reader's brush with death gives her the courage to show up at Spencer's door in  search of an answer about their unresolved feelings.

——————————————————

I should have died.

By all accounts, I should have died the moment that man pulled the trigger. The sound of gunpowder and fear should have been the last I heard. The dark, demented smile should have been the last thing I saw. The memories of every single look Spencer had ever given me flashing through my brain in high definition should have been the last thoughts I had.

But they weren't. It had been a quick and dirty game of Russian Roulette with an unwilling player to decide whether or not I got to live. The force of a blank shot into the side of my head and rattled the tortured mind within. My thoughts faded to black for just one moment before the world came back into view in dizzying double vision.

I could hear Spencer screaming words I didn't understand. Angry, vile threats that made my stomach churn harder. I could feel blood in the back of my throat, but it didn't taste nearly as bitter as it had felt to hear him like that.

An excited holler rang through the room, and I winced at the way the sound hit my ears like a second shot.

Again, he primed his gun to fire, this time aiming at the phone resting innocently on the floor beside me. I turned with a brief flash of panic overwhelming the shock. Because that phone was the only access I had to him. It was my only choice to tell him that I was still alive - my only chance to say the words I'd tried and failed to say before. But I realized then that even if I'd been able to talk, I wouldn't have known which of the truths would have come out.

Would I have said 'I'm sorry,' or 'I love you?'

The next shot was not a blank.

The device splintered immediately. Sparks and metallic clanking served as a graphic example of what would have come of me if the chamber had stopped one cartridge later.

"Lucky girl!" the man shouted through his laughter, "Dr. Reid will be happy to hear that the odds worked in his favor."

Hearing him say Spencer's name was enough to make me sick, to ignite the urge to wrap my hands around the man's throat so that he could never speak it again. Although I tried to pull against the restraints, my weakness was too overwhelming.

We'd only learned about this part of Spencer's past a few days earlier. The details were never quite as clear as they would've been if we'd had his help. But despite his best attempts to stop us, we had figured out enough to put us in danger. The very same result he'd tried so hard to prevent.

The man had explained to us all months ago that, as long as he couldn't find Spencer, someone he loved had to play this game for him. It would continue like this, he swore, until one of them was dead. We had made it months, but he had made it so much longer. He'd waited, suffered in silence for years without ever uttering a word about the man who had been plotting a twisted game of chance with the young man who'd ruined his life.

It had been difficult to understand why Spencer would hide such a horrible danger from us so long, but he was never the kind of person who wanted to burden other people. He always wanted to be able to fix things himself.

But even he had started to acknowledge that there were some problems he couldn't fix on his own. There were some things that were so deeply rooted in fate that there was no way to stop them. That was why I was there, playing the odds in his place. It hadn't been either of our faults. We'd done everything right. Fate had simply beaten us, and was now choosing to show us mercy. And there was mercy, because I was still alive.