I’ll never stop hating him.
I fight against the current, clawing my way to the surface, my lungs burning. I break through, the frigid night air a shock to my system. The bridge recedes in the distance, the flames from the truck a dying ember in the dark.
My voice is hoarse, useless, lost in the roar of the river and the thundering of my own heart. I’m alone. I’m alive. And I’m more broken than I’ve ever been.
“Arlo! Give me your hand!”
Arsen’s voice cuts through the night. Ahead of me, he’s half-submerged, one arm hooked around a fallen tree. A few others are already clambering up the muddy bank.
I swim toward him, every stroke a battle against the current. My fingers find his and he yanks me forward, dragging me through the freezing water until I collapse against the shore.
“He’s gone.” The words taste like poison on my tongue. “We have to go back, Arsen. They shot Priest. We have to go back for him.”
I push to my knees, reaching for the river again, but his hand closes around my arm.
“There’s no going back. The bridge is gone. If he’s not dead, they’ll have him.”
The world tilts. “No—no, you don’t understand—” My voice breaks into a sob. “I can’t leave him! I can’t!”
He grabs my face, forcing my eyes to his.
“Sterling will make a statement out of him. He’ll keep him alive. For a while.”
The words gut me.
For a while.
Like a countdown I can’t stop.
Voices shout from farther up the bank, one of our soldiers, yelling over the river. “We’ve made contact with the other sections! East and West are secretly mobilizing! They’ll rendezvous by dawn!”
Arsen nods without looking away from me. “We need to move. Now.” He pulls me to my feet.
“Arsen…he told me he loved me.”
He freezes. Just for a second.
“Arlo.”
“He said he loved me,” I whisper again. “Arsen, I can’t lose him. I can’t lose someone else I love.”
His hand tightens on my shoulder, pulling me forward through the mud and chaos as the river rages behind us.
My back is raw meat. Every breath tears through me, fire blooming from the crater in my shoulder where a bullet tore through. The exit wound pulses with each slowing beat of my heart. My chest is wet, the air thick with the smell of iron and rot.
Chains bite into my wrists, pulled so tight I can feel the bone grinding in the sockets. The floor beneath me is freezing concrete, coated in my pooling blood.
I should be dead by now.
The only reason I’m not is because they pumped me full of something—adrenaline, coagulants, who the fuck knows. Just enough to keep my eyes open. Just enough to prolong the agony. Whatever it is, it’s wearing off.
Footsteps echo in the room.
I force my eyes open. The overhead lights stab straight into my skull, turning the room into a haze of white and pain. Through it, a tall silhouette sharpens: draped in an expensive suit that doesn’t belong anywhere near blood.
“Hello, son.”
I laugh, breaking into a wet, broken cough. Blood drips down my chin.
