I socked him in the face and walked past him as he toppled over. I ripped the body bags open of the five corpses lying in a row. They were charred beyond recognition. But I knelt before the one that had Ava’s golden necklace on. The one with the pentagram charm. I pulled it out of her charred flesh and tried to take it off, but my shaking fingers couldn’t get a grip of the clasp.
“I got it,” Marshall said, gently taking the necklace from Ava’s neck, and held it out to me.
I stared at it as it swung in the air between us.
This couldn’t be real. Ava was not dead. She just couldn’t be. I bought a ring yesterday. We had our whole lives ahead of us. She wouldn’t die now.
I laughed. I grabbed the necklace and clutched it against my stomach as the laughter tumbled out of me.
Of course, she wasn’t dead!
“Owen…” Marshall looked at me with such pity.
“No, Marshall. Don’t you see? This is not her!” I gestured to her body, relief flooding my veins.
“She won’t just die like this. Varon planned this. Jesus! He named the boatNightingale!” I laughed again. “He named itNightingalethen it exploded!”
Marshall frowned at me, not yet understanding, probably thinking I had lost it.
“She was mine.ThisAva. The nightingale. She was mine. And he blew her up. But that means he planned it.”
Marshall pulled me up from the ground. “Let’s get you out of here, okay?”
I laughed as he dragged me away from the body that wasn’t Ava’s. My nightingale was still alive.
And she was deep in enemy territory. I didn’t know what her plan was, but I had to be ready for whatever she was cooking up. I needed to pretend I believed all this crap until she reached out to me. She was going to call. Or email. Fuck, maybe even send a spider.
My Ava was alive. She was out there. I just had to wait.
I would wait for her call.
Ava
Ipulledoffmyscuba mask as the waves pushed me farther onto shore. Grayson and I were the last to reach it. Every muscle in my body was shaking with exhaustion. I clawed at the sand, trying to pull myself onto the beach. We had swum for two and a half kilometres along the coastline until we reached a deserted beach at nightfall.
Grayson’s arm circled around my torso, heaving me up out of the crashing waves.
“I hate you for making me do this.” I pushed him away with the last bit of my strength. We both collapsed onto the sand. “I hate you, Grayson Varon. I hate you so much.”
I was raging at Grayson, but I knew I had no one else to blame but myself.
Idid this. I did this to Owen.
If the roles were reversed and I had to watch Owen’s boat blow up like that, I would have died. Right on the spot. I would have crumbled to the floor and refused to take another breath. “He doesn’t deserve this.”
Grayson sighed, which turned into a sputtering cough as he steadied himself on an elbow. “Hey, I know how much you love him, Ava. I knew you wouldn’t want to hurt him. I made sure he would know you’re alive. He just can’t prove it.”
I frowned at him. “How?”
His grin was wicked as he wiped the hair from my face. “I might have left him a little message. To rub it in that you are mine. So he’ll know.”
Of course. TheNightingale.
My shoulders sagged, relief flooding my system, making my limbs even more boneless. “You’re the devil.”
Grayson’s laugh was silent—too exhausted to make a sound. Nonetheless, he helped me pull my arms from the wetsuit that felt like it was strangling me.
All five of us laid in the sand, catching our breaths as the stars twinkled brightly above us.
