Something changes in you when your love is ripped from you. Something snaps, and you forget yourself, all your demons, all your fears.
At least, I do. Because in an instant, ignoring whatever Drazen is yelling at me, I’m bolting to the window, leaping out into the night, and plummeting into the dark abyss below.
31
KRATOS
All I know is darkness. Like a black snake, swallowing me whole. Like pure nothingness, its silence drowning out everything else.
Cold surrounds me, sucking me down. Pulling me deeper.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Like the tick of a clock. Like grains of sand slipping through an hourglass. They’re slowing. Time is slowing.
I’m slowing.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
No. It’s not sand. It’s my pulse. I can feel it growing weaker, slowing to a deadly pace as the cold inkiness surrounds me and pulls me deeper and deeper into the empty embrace of nothingness.
I want to tell her I love her. I want to tell her I’m sorry that I’m leaving so soon.
I want to tell her she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and that I’m going to haunt the fuck out of her after my heart finally stops and the darkness swallows me up.
My vision clouds. The swirling shadows slow to a crawl as my limbs go numb.
This is it. Fuck, I wanted more time with her.
Suddenly, something’s splitting the darkness.
A hand, reaching for me. I try to reach back, but I can’t. All I can do is sink deeper, growing number.
Weaker.
Fading faster.
The hand thrusts deeper, gleaming, surrounded by a halo of light.
Save me, I want to whisper. Pull me from the darkness. I fell in love with your light.
But I can’t.
It just all grows darker and colder.
And then—there’s nothing at all.
32
BIANCA
Under the sterile fluorescent lights of the hospital hallway, Callie crashes into my arms. She clings to me, sobbing against my shoulder as I cry into hers. Through the tears, I’m dimly aware of others moving toward us: Ares, Hades, and Deimos. My brothers. Tempest.
Callie pulls away, and I collapse into Dante’s embrace next, my tears staining his shirt as he holds me tightly.
Through the chaos and heartbreak exploding through my system, I hear the hushed murmurs of tense, serious words being spoken around me.
Fell twenty-five stories…
The bullet pierced his lung…
Sepsis…
That Amaya bitch is dead…
Drazen pulled them both out… Bianca wouldn’t let go…
It comes back to me in flashes. I remember leaping out into space and feeling the yank of gravity. Not “facing” my fear of submersion, just simply not remembering I even had one as I dove under the water.
I remember reaching through the darkness for him, looking into his eyes as consciousness faded from them. Swimming deeper to grab him. Pulling with all my strength, lungs burning as I kicked toward the surface.
