I stood between two monsters: one who wanted me dead, and one who had sworn to ruin me but now held my life in his hands.
The world was a vortex of cold and fire. The frigid black water swallowed me, a shocking embrace after the searing pain in my side. The gunshot wound screamed in protest, a hot brand against the numbing cold. Bubbles escaped my lips in a silent scream as I sank, the weight of my clothes, my fear, my shock, pulling me down into the abyss. The surface, a shimmering, distorted canvas of fog and panic, receded above me.
This is it, a detached part of my mind observed. This is how it ends. In the dark, between two warring legacies.
Then, a violent displacement of water. A force, powerful and determined, plunged into the depths after me. Through the murky water, I saw him.
