…
The world vanished in a scream of cold. Salt and black water swallowed me whole. The pain ripped through my body instantly...shock, breathlessness, panic.
But I didn't fight it. I let myself sink. Let the waves take me. Under long enough to fool him. Long enough to disappear.
Aiden's scream echoed through the air above me... ripped from his soul, raw and guttural. It was the sound of a man losing everything.
And I almost let it get to me.
Almost.
I swam under the rocks, the secret way Sophia and I had discovered years ago during one of her escapes. The current was vicious, and I scraped my knees, cut my palms. But I didn't stop.
Couldn't.
Not until I broke the surface again, gasping, behind the Cliff's bend where no one could see.
I ran.
Dripping, barefoot, bleeding… I ran thro
