Chapter 10
brIAR
My heart races as we’re relentlessly smacked with branches. Roman slips a few times but catches himself, not letting us fall. I’ve never held on to somebody so tightly in my entire life. A few times, I think I’ll lose my grip, but he’s holding me just as fiercely.
“What’s happening?” I whisper shout.
Roman doesn’t reply. His breaths are labored and he’s entirely focused on running as far as possible from whatever is behind us. I dare a glance over my shoulder and see something moving, then another figure shifting off to our left.
“Um, Roman, there’s another one!” My voice quivers, and he nearly drops me as he takes a hard right.
Oh my God. Are we being hunted by people? Grahm isn’t one of them, is he? The roar of my heartbeat nearly washes out all other sounds, and I have to bite into my lip to stay alert.
My arms are losing their strength to hold on. We’re so close to the lake now that I can smell the fresh water and sand. We’re going to make it. We’re going to—
Bang.
A gunshot rings through the forest, and the bullet whizzes right by our heads. I muffle my scream, burying my lips against Roman’s shoulder.
“Almost there. Get ready to swim as hard as you can,” he says with a raspy voice. His breathing is labored, but he doesn’t let up.
My stomach coils. “Swim? The lake is too big to cross!” The words come out shaky. The adrenaline is already coursing through my body.
It’s the same feeling as the night Callum tried to kill me.
Another shot and something hits the back of the vest. Pain instantly flares up in my shoulder, and I choke on a breath.
My muscles seize up. I can’t hold on, and I’m slipping from Roman’s arms. I hit the sand and roll a few times before I’m being dragged up to my feet and thrown into the lake.
The cold water hits my body like a lightning strike.
“Go!” Roman shouts as I practically inhale a mouthful of water. My body isn’t responding—I think I was just shot. I start hyperventilating and stare with horror as three figures erupt from the tree line around the beach.
“Goddamn it.” Roman gets in the water too and grabs my arm, hooking it around his neck. “Don’t let go,” he growls as he starts pumping his legs.
The water is so icy that each breath feels heavier than the last. Not to mention there’s a fucking dead guy in here somewhere. I shudder at the thought.
That could very likely be us soon.
“W-who are they?” I barely get the words out past my clattering teeth.
Roman’s growing tired. I can feel his muscles trembling. “Men who want me dead and you likely dead or alive.” He leaves it vague, but at least he answered me.
Either Roman’s cult is a lot crazier than I initially thought, or he’s in something much worse. But why me? I have nothing to do with any of this.
They start shooting at us from the beach. Bullets pelt the water inches away from us, and I barely have time to inhale a deep breath before Roman dives under.
We get separated, and I can’t see a fucking thing. I swim desperately in what I think is the same direction we were going. My clothes are pinching around my joints suffocatingly. It feels like they’ll drag me under if I don’t keep swimming like my life depends on it.
I can’t hold my breath any longer. The last time I had to hold my breath with my heart racing like it is right now, I was in a grave. The second the water breaks, I inhale sharply and muffle my coughs in case we’re still close enough for them to hear.
It’s a sobering predicament to be in: swimming alone in a vast expanse of black water. Night swimming is an ultimate fear of mine, alongside being hunted by people. Two for two.
I blink furiously to unblur my vision and scope the beach. It’s empty; the men either left because they’re worried their gunshots will attract others, or they’re waiting for us to swim back to shore.
Oh my God, I might actually die out here. A knot balls in the back of my throat, and I have to take a few steadying breaths before I get my bearings.
Wait, where’s Roman?
I look all around me but don’t see any sign of him.
Was he hit? There’s a strong chance of it, the bullets were pelting the water all around us. My eyes widen and terror sends another wave of adrenaline through my veins.
“R-Roman.” I wince at the scratchiness of my voice.
“Roman.” I’m not speaking over a whisper, yet with the stillness of the night, I may as well be shouting.
Any sound has a chance to give away our location.
The dark water is smooth like glass and gives me a foreboding, worried itch in the back of my throat.
For a forest so big, it doesn’t sound like there’s a single creature stirring.
Maybe they’re all watching, waiting for the lake to take its next victims.
I run my hand on the back of the vest over my shoulder and knock something metal loose. A bullet hit me, and Roman’s vest stopped it. It’s bulletproof. Why the fuck would he be wearing a bulletproof vest as casual wear? My thoughts are muddled with exhaustion and fear.
I continue to search for him, spotting something floating a handful of feet away finally. I swim over to it and let a breath of relief out when I see that it’s Roman.
He’s on his back floating, taking shallow breaths that wrench at my heart. I mean sure, he’s not likable, not even a little, but it hurts to see him like this.
“Are you okay?” I hastily ask, pushing away every thought about my own safety. I try to help him float, but it only pushes me down more.
Roman winces and takes a few more short breaths. “I’m…” He groans. “Fine.”
He’s acting like he’s been hit. It’s too dark to see if there’s blood in the water, but Roman wouldn’t just be floating here if he wasn’t wounded. He’s conscious, but it’s like his muscles have seized up.
“Tell me what to do. Where do we go?” My tone is nothing short of determined.
Although my limbs are already so exhausted, I feel like I could sink to the bottom of this lake any second.
Spending energy on him might mean I don’t make it either.
I push the fears away and focus. As tempting as it is to save myself and flee, it’s not who I am.
I can’t leave him.
Roman looks at me with narrowed, distrustful eyes. He must see the scared, unsure flicker in mine because he relents and sighs painfully. “We need…ugh…to get to a different shoreline.”
I hate how much agony he sounds like he’s in. It makes everything I’m feeling seem so pathetic—the cold that reaches into my bones, the weight of my arms and suffocating grip of the jeans.
“I’ve got you,” I say steadily, grabbing beneath his arms and starting to slowly kick. We’re moving at a sluggish pace, but it’s better than not doing anything. I have to stop frequently and roll onto my back and float to catch my breath.
Roman groans every few minutes. After the fifth time I stop, I have to start talking to keep myself from going to a really dark place in my mind. I can’t stop thinking about both of us drowning.
“Have you e-ever come close to dying before?” My jaw trembles despite my best efforts. Our heads are close together, and Roman’s hand softly bumps against my neck as we float side by side.
He’s quiet for so long that it becomes obvious he won’t respond. I give myself a moment’s reprieve and shut my eyes.
“Is this your way of flirting, Briar?”
I ignore that slight and tug on a strand of his hair. He grunts with a short laugh.
“Yes, I have. Many times in fact.” His voice is as gentle as the ripples of water around us. I shut my eyes and listen deeply. “This isn’t one of those times. So don’t panic.”
My brows pull together. “How can you be sure?”
He makes a sound that people make when they smile and exhale.
“Because you just know when it’s close. Death is a cold, vile grip against your ribs.
A knocking at the cusp of your hopes and dreams. You’ll know.
” He tilts his head a bit and looks at me.
I do the same, feeling my chest lurch at the closeness of his weary eyes.
Darkness consumes every fracture of the world, everything but his lonesome stare.
It’s captured me. He spares me the smallest of grins. “Perhaps you already know.”
A secret so dark I dare not share it.
“What are you, Roman?” I bring my hand to his cold forehead and trace the scar there with my forefinger. He observes me, motionless and digesting every move I make.
He blinks as if he’d been lost to his thoughts and then lets his eyes shift back to the sky, the stars our audience.
“Something that should be locked away and forgotten.”
It feels like it’s been hours by the time we reach another bank. Neither of us said another word after his comment about him being locked away. Is that truly how he sees himself? The thought weighed heavily on my mind and kept me moving.
I didn’t stop or get close to the beach until I was sure I didn’t see anyone moving. The shoreline we end up on has a lip of rocks that surround the top, edging the forest and making it impossible for someone to reach us from behind without considerable effort and noise.
A small break that we really needed.
I’m not sure if Roman’s conscious anymore. I checked his pulse a few times along the way just to make sure he was still alive. It seemed silly to think someone like him could…I don’t know, just die, but I worried enough to check frequently.
I manage to drag him onto the sand after struggling for a few minutes and collapse beside him. My limbs are trembling from overuse, and it’s impossible to tell if I’m actually freezing or not.
Everything I learned in survival classes from university seminars indicates that I’m likely cold and should seek warmth. Roman needs to warm up too.
My hands won’t stop trembling as I check his chest for a wound. Nothing. That’s a relief. He’s definitely out cold, so I roll him onto his side and let a gasp escape my lips.
There’s a bullet lodged between his ribs, almost beneath his shoulder blade. It’s odd though, because it pierced his flesh, but didn’t go in all the way. It’s as if something stopped it. This must be why his breathing was so labored and he couldn’t move.
Lucky son of a bitch.
I brush the bullet softly with my thumb, and it falls into my palm. Roman’s blood streams down his back and wets the sand.
Cursing, I take off the vest and my tank top. The vest won’t help in stopping the bleeding, and I’m not sure how much a wet shirt will help either, but I press it against his back regardless until the bleeding slows.
Once I’m satisfied, I pull the shirt away and stare at something metallic from beneath the entry wound.
It looks like a metal meshing of some sort, like chain mail but much smaller.
He must’ve had a surgery at some point that required it to be placed there, but I can’t shake the odd feeling that accompanies that idea.
Why would anyone need metal meshing like this under their skin?
The wind stirs, and it’s almost as if the forest itself beckons to me.
I glance over my shoulder at the tree line.
This would be the perfect time to escape and leave Bane Falls and all its devils and secrets behind.
But… I stare at Roman’s peaceful expression.
It’s the first time I’ve seen him without his poker face.
He’s almost unrecognizable without his signature scowl and heavily furrowed brow.
To leave him alone and cold would burden my mind for the rest of my life. Not knowing whether he got back home safely or not would haunt me. I can’t leave—not when something so cruel and vicious is in a vulnerable state.
I shake myself from the trance he seems to always put me in and recover his wound with my tank top. The idea of trying to get help crosses my mind, but I’m so tired that I know I’ll drown if I go back out there. It’s a miracle I was able to get us to this beach.
With reservations, many, many reservations, I press my chest against Roman’s back so we can share body heat and I can keep pressure on his wound.
It doesn’t take more than a minute of our warmth blooming between us before I pass out.