My Hockey Alpha novel Chapter 94

Nina

I woke up the next morning in a daze and not knowing where I was. As I cracked my eyes open against the light coming in through the window and started to get my bearings, I realized from the smell of the wood and the forest around me, in combination with the smell of campfire smoke and the sound of voices outside, that I was in one of the cabins in the forest.

But… How did I get here?

My head was pounding, making it difficult to remember exactly what had happened last night. I remembered coming to the party with Lori and Jessica… I remembered seeing Lisa and Justin talking to one another by the fire, and that they seemed suspicious… I remembered following Justin out into the woods…

Suddenly, my eyes widened and I shot up in bed as I remembered running into Ronan in the woods. Running into him, and then feeling an impact on the side of my head followed by darkness, was the only thing that I could remember. Had Enzo come and saved me? Did he bring me into one of the cabins to recover?

I looked around frantically for Enzo, but he wasn’t there.

In fact, there was no sign of Enzo anywhere.

But as I looked down at myself, I realized that I wasn’t wearing my clothes. I was dressed in nothing but my underwear. My jeans, my sweater, my socks, and my boots were strewn haphazardly across the cabin as though they had been ripped off frantically.

What had happened after I blacked out?

My head still reeling, I climbed out of the rickety wooden cabin bed and looked around for my phone, finally spotting it on the floor in the corner -- thankfully, it was still intact. I opened it to see dozens of notifications from Lori, Jessica, and… Twitter.

I felt a lump form in my throat as I opened Twitter, pressing my hand over my mouth when I saw what had been posted about me.

There were dozens of pictures and videos circulating of me, but not innocent pictures like the ones that had been taken in the past of Enzo and I months before. No, these were worse. Far worse, worse even than the pictures that Richard’s assistant took when she was stalking me.

And I didn’t remember any of them.

My eyes widened as I scrolled through the countless pictures of me walking back to the party hand-in-hand with Ronan, a wide smile plastered across my face as I leaned on his arm. Videos of me dancing with him by the fire, grinding myself on him erotically. Pictures of us pressing our lips together drunkenly, stumbling into this very cabin…

I let out an indescribable sound as my shaking hands dropped my phone onto the cabin floor, not caring if I actually broke the screen this time as I quickly ran over to my pile of clothes and started pulling my jeans on.

“No…” I whispered to myself. “No, no, no… I don’t remember any of that!”

Surely there was some sort of explanation behind this. Ronan must have done something to me, used some sort of werewolf spell on me. He, Lisa, and Justin must have set this up as a way to get under my skin -- I was sure of it.

As if a lightbulb went off above my head, I picked my phone back up off the floor as I hopped around the cabin, pulling my socks on, and dialed Enzo. Surely he would have some sort of explanation for all of this. Surely he would believe me.

The phone rang… And rang. It went to voicemail. I tried again, and this time, it went straight to voicemail after just one ring.

Enzo was deliberately ignoring me.

I decided to leave him a voicemail.

“Enzo, I don’t know what happened, but I wasn’t conscious last night,” I said frantically, yanking one of my boots on. “Please listen to me. I don’t know what happened. Ronan came after me in the woods, and I don’t remember anything after that. You have to believe me. Please, please call me back.”