Page 4 of Scarred Bratva King

My arms flail as I fight my way upwards. When I do burst out, I gasp for air, but the river slams a wave into me, choking me with icy water as I sink again.

All of a sudden I just want to close my eyes and rest. Just for a moment. The thought is fatally seductive.

Stay alive or he gets away with it.

I kick up again, using the last of my energy. I glimpse the bridge above, the faint glow of the streetlights.

My muscles ache, my limbs feel like lead, but I force them to keep moving.

Focus. Float. Keep your head up.

The current is relentless, pulling me under again. My vision blurs, and exhaustion creeps into my bones. My chest burns as my lungs scream for air.

I think of Elena.She’ll never know what happened to me.

The thought slices through the haze of cold and pain, hurting more than a knife to the heart ever could. My best friend. My only real friend. Forever wondering where I went.

My limbs grow impossibly heavy. I see the faint glow of the city lights on the distant shore as the deep pulls me down. Slowly, one by one, the lights go out.

3

VERONICA

The muffled hum of voices. The soft beeping of a machine. The dull distant click of heels on tile. The sharp scent of antiseptic. Where am I?

My head feels heavy, like it’s filled with wet sand, and every inch of my body aches, a deep, bone-deep kind of pain that makes me want to sink back down into the darkness.

“…still no ID?” The voice is close. A woman in the same room as me.

“Nothing,” another voice replies. A man. “Been unconscious for a month. No one’s come looking in that time. No wedding ring. No result on the prints. Nothing.”

A month? My heart lurches though my body can’t move. A whole month? What happened to me? Am I in hospital?

“Who brought her in?” the woman asks.

“Get this. Some guy out sailing apparently saw her and jumped in, pulled her to shore. Waited with her for the ambulance but left before anyone could get his name.”

“Who the fuck is out sailing at four in the morning?”

“Someone up to no good.”

“Well, that’d explain why he didn’t hang around. What do you think?”

“My money’s still on attempted suicide.”

My chest tightens. I want to scream, to shout that they’re wrong, that I didn’t jump. But my body won’t cooperate. My throat feels like it’s been sandpapered, and even opening my eyes feels impossible.

“Maybe,” the woman says. “I’ve seen cases like this before. No friends, no family. Would make sense. Guessing she had nothing to live for.”

Nothing to live for.

The words hit like a slap. My parents are gone, and I’ve never let anyone get close enough to care apart from Elena.

Who’s Elena?

I wrack my brains, forcing thoughts to come forward.

Elena. My best friend.

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