Page 63 of The Hunted

Scarlett. My God what will this do to her? I do take comfort in knowing she is alive. If nothing else, she is safe.

The shallow water reaches my side and takes my breath. The icy water grows colder as its murky depths consume me. The white dress, stained with mud, adds another layer of weight pulling me under. As I’m dragged further into the pond, water cascades across my face. The stagnant water filters through my nose and mouth, choking me. I begin to thrash. The sensation and fear of drowning are all too real now.

I can tell the moment the anchor leaves land. I get pulled under swiftly. The pain of the ropes pulling tightly against bare skin, cutting through tender flesh, makes me cry out, which only causes me to drink in more water and lose precious oxygen.

I’m light headed, but I try to propel myself upward, to break the surface. The anchor tries to drag me to the bottom as blackness crowds the corners of my mind. I’m drowning. I know it with everything I have in me.

Suddenly, a stillness, a quietness I’ve never felt within myself begins to consume my body, but before I can relax into it, I’m propelled upward.

Breaking the surface of the water I sputter, gag, and cough as water pours from my mouth. I desperately suck in deep lungsful of precious air. My lungs burn like they are on fire.

A whimper escapes me as my arms are pulled taut. Pain radiates through my shoulders, my chest, and my back, as my arms feel they are being pulled from their sockets. The anchor tries to do its job and sink to the earth below the surface, pulling at me, stretching me, trying to drag me to my death. My body feels as though it’s being torn in two. I scream at the pain and pressure coursing through my body, my tears mixing with the cold drops of rain to fall into the pond. Vaughn’s men drive the posts into the ground, lifting me higher.

Finally, once the posts have been driven in, I begin to settle. The water sluices around me at waist level, and the rain dances on the surface. A whimper escapes me.

This is how my life ends.

A pained, guttural roar rips through the night, piercing my very soul. I lift my head to find Knox’s furious gaze locked onto me.

My heart breaks for him and all that he has endured and lost at the hands of a man who was supposed to love him, more than anything on this earth.

I can’t stand the thought that he has to watch history repeat itself.

---