She’s alive.
For a second, I genuinely question my own sanity.
I turn to Isaak. “Am I hallucinating?”
He studies me for a moment, then a faint smile touches his lips. “If you are, then so am I.”
The air leaves my lungs in a rough exhale.
The realisation hits me with such a force it almost hurts.
She’s alive.
She is fucking alive.
I get to see her again.
To touch her skin, to breathe in that vanilla scent that belongs only to her.
To kiss those intoxicating lips.
To hold her and never let her go.
Something in my chest shifts back into place, something that has been absent for months.
Purpose.
Direction.
Breath.
She isn’t gone.
And whoever laid a hand on her—whoever took her—has just sealed their own death sentence.
Chapter 70
Octavia
Three hours earlier
Another boot drives into my stomach.
The air leaves my lungs in a harsh rush, but I don’t scream.
I won’t give him that.
I bite down on my lip to keep the sound trapped inside. I taste blood almost instantly.
I lift my head, slowly.
Our eyes meet.
The man I killed.
Or believed I had.
The one who should be buried six feet under, forgotten and rotting, yet stands before me very much alive.
