All Chapters of Left for Dead by My Brother: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

A familiar voice sounded above me, thick with irritation.I forced my head up and found myself looking at my boyfriend, Ethan Kessler.Hadn't he already carried Maya into the ambulance?Why was he back?Ethan didn't even glance down at me. His eyes searched the treatment tent until they landed on a pair of custom dance shoes in a corner nearby.Maya had them made specially for next week's final. She'd lost them in the chaos.He had come all the way back just to find her shoes.Ethan walked over and picked them up. When he turned and saw me sprawled on the ground, his brow creased deeply."Jenna, was the set outside not big enough for your little show? You had to move it into the medical tent?"His voice was full of mockery and exhaustion.I shook my head desperately. I tried to pull my hand, red and swollen where he'd stepped on it, out from under him so I could point at the caved-in side of my chest and beg for help.But he misunderstood. He thought I was about to start com

But every time, I lost badly.Once, I was in bed with a 102-degree fever. Maya nicked her finger peeling an apple, and Derek and Ethan panicked, left me behind, and drove her to the hospital in the middle of the night to get it bandaged.Another time, I accidentally ate some seafood chowder Maya had made and had a severe allergic reaction. I broke out in hives all over.All Maya did was shed a couple of tears and say "sorry," and they pulled her into their arms to comfort her. Then they turned around and blamed me."Jenna, you know you're allergic, so why would you eat it? You just can't stand us being nice to Maya, so you're throwing a tantrum on purpose, aren't you?"Favoritism, again and again. Blame, again and again.I should have understood long ago. Their hearts had belonged to her for a long time.But I refused to believe it. I stubbornly kept begging for a love that had gone bad a long time ago.Until today. Until this very moment.The tide of memories receded. All tha

The two of them stormed back to the emergency medical center and barged straight into Dr. Finch's office."Dr. Finch, where's my sister?"Derek kicked the door open and, acting every bit the incident commander, demanded sharply, "Wasn't she playing dead in your treatment tent that night? Where did you send her? Tell her to get out here and face me right now!"Ethan added coldly, "Dr. Finch, if your hospital is helping her pull this ridiculous sympathy stunt, I'll have my lawyers sue you for wasting medical resources."Dr. Finch sat behind his desk, looking at the two arrogant men in front of him. He was so furious he was shaking."You two are monsters! How dare you come looking for her?"His eyes were bloodshot. He pointed at the blood-soaked clothes on the floor, then jabbed his finger right in Derek's face."Do you have any idea what she went through that night?"Three broken ribs! A punctured lung! Over two liters of internal bleeding! She lay in that freezing mud and suffoc

Derek stared at the caved-in shape of my chest and slammed his head against the glass with a dull thud. "Jenna... I was wrong... I was so wrong!"He kept at it until his forehead split open and blood ran down his cheeks. Still, as if he couldn't feel any pain, he kept mechanically banging his head against the glass."I'd trade my life for yours, okay? As long as you live, I don't want anything else. Just take my life instead..."The heartbroken sobbing of two grown men echoed down the hallway.But on the other side of the glass, my eyes stayed closed. I couldn't hear them, and I didn't want to.Two weeks later.With a team of top specialists at Northgate watching over me day and night, I finally made it through the most dangerous stretch of infection risk and was moved out of the ICU into a private suite.I was still so weak I needed a wheelchair to get around, and talking took effort, but my mind was completely clear.When they heard I'd left the ICU, Derek and Ethan, both out