20
── ? ──
EVANDER
The cold hits like a fist to the chest.
Not metaphorically. Actually. Like someone reached into my ribcage and squeezed every organ at once, forcing the air from my lungs in a violent expulsion that wants to drag water in to replace it.
I force my mouth closed. Clench my jaw so hard my teeth ache. Fight every instinct screaming at me to surface, to breathe, to get out of this freezing hell.
The water is darker than I expected. Murky with sediment from three days of snowfall, thick with slushy runoff and winter debris that makes visibility almost zero. I can barely see my own hands in front of my face.
My clothes are lead weights. The expensive coat I forgot to shed, the tailored slacks, the button-up shirt—all of it soaked through instantly, dragging me down with surprising force.
Panic claws at my throat. Sharp. Immediate. Absolutely primal.
Get out get out get out.
The voice in my head is eight years old. Terrified. The same voice that screamed while Matthias went under, while security held me down, while my mother stood watching with clinical detachment.
You're going to die, you're going to drown just like him.
My chest is already tight. The cold making it hard to hold my breath, making my lungs burn with the need to inhale even though I know—I know—that inhaling means drowning.
I force my eyes wider. Search the murky darkness.
There.
A flash of green. Liam's coat. Ten feet down and sinking fast.
The scream snaps something loose in my chest.
Not completely. The terror is still there—vibrating through every cell, making my hands shake, making my vision tunnel. But it's secondary now. Background noise to the single, consuming thought:
Get to him.
I kick downward. My waterlogged clothes fight me with every movement, the fabric creating drag that makes swimming feel like pushing through concrete.
The cold is worse than I imagined. Not just uncomfortable—actively painful. Like thousands of tiny needles stabbing into every exposed inch of skin, burrowing deeper with each passing second.
My lungs are screaming. How long has it been? Twenty seconds? Thirty? It feels like hours.
Liam is still sinking. Not fighting anymore. Just dead weight falling through dark water like a stone.
Like Matthias. The exact same way Matthias looked when someone finally dove in too late, when they pulled out a body instead of a brother.
No.
I push harder. Ignore the burning in my chest, the ice in my veins, the absolute terror trying to drag me back to the surface.
My fingers brush fabric. His coat. I grab for it—miss. The water makes everything slow, makes my movements clumsy and imprecise.
I kick again. Lunge forward. My hand closes around his small arm.
Got him.
Relief floods through me so intensely it's almost painful. I pull him against my chest, wrapping both arms around his small body, holding him the way I should have held Matthias, the way I would have if I hadn't been paralyzed by fear.
He's not moving. Not struggling. His body is limp, heavy, all the fight gone out of him.
How long has he been under?
Thirty seconds? Forty-five? The threshold before brain damage is two minutes. I know because my mother made sure I knew, made sure I understood exactly what happens when you fail someone.
I need to surface. Now.
I kick upward. One powerful stroke that should propel us toward the light filtering down from above.
Nothing happens.
I kick again. Harder.
Still nothing.
My chest tightens with something beyond panic. I look down at my legs, trying to see through the murk.
And I see it.
My left foot is caught. Tangled in something thick and fibrous—tree roots, maybe, or old debris that's been accumulating at the bottom of this decorative lake for decades.
The rational part of my brain—the part that's not screaming in absolute terror—notes that this makes sense.
The Ardencrest lake is old, built over what used to be a natural pond.
There are probably all kinds of hazards below the surface that no one bothered to clear when they converted it into a campus feature.
The irrational part of my brain is having a full-scale meltdown.
Trapped trapped trapped can't get out can't breathe going to drown.
I yank my foot. Hard enough that pain shoots up my leg, sharp and immediate.
The roots hold.
My lungs are burning now. Not just uncomfortable—agonizing. Like someone lit a fire in my chest and is slowly turning up the heat.
I need air. Need it so badly my body is starting to override my conscious control, my diaphragm spasming, trying to force an inhale that will kill me.
Liam is still in my arms. Still not moving. Still running out of time.
Two minutes before brain damage.
How long has it been now? A minute? More?
I pull at the roots again. Twist my foot. Try to free myself through sheer force.
Nothing.
The panic is absolute now. Total. Every cell in my body screaming that I'm going to die down here, that I'm trapped in the exact nightmare I've been running from for thirteen years.
This is how it ends. Drowning in dark water with a child in my arms, proving my mother right about everything. Proving that fear makes you helpless, that attachment is a liability, that caring about someone will always—always—get you killed.
No.
The word comes from somewhere deep. Primal. The same place that made me dive in despite the terror.
I will not let Liam die because I'm trapped.
I will not let Aurora lose her brother the way I lost mine.
I will not—
A single thought surfaces. Sharp. Clear.
I don’t need to free myself. I just need to free him.
The realization brings a strange kind of calm. Cold. Calculating. The part of me that's good at strategy, at making brutal decisions, at sacrificing pieces to win the game.
I can push him up. Use what little mobility I have to propel him toward the surface. The paramedics are up there—I saw them arrive as I dove in. Aurora is up there. Someone will pull him out.
Someone will save him.
Even if I can't.
My lungs are convulsing now. Desperate. The urge to breathe is overwhelming, animal, impossible to fight much longer.
I have seconds. Maybe less.
I adjust my grip on Liam. Position him above me, his small body clutched against my chest.
And then I kick. Not trying to free myself. Just pushing upward with every ounce of strength I have left.
The water resists. My trapped foot screams in protest. Something tears—tendon or root, I can't tell.
I push harder.
My vision is starting to go dark at the edges. Not from the murky water. From oxygen deprivation. My brain shutting down, preparing for the end.
I push again. One final, massive effort that feels like it's tearing my leg in half.
And suddenly—movement.
My foot rips free. The roots release with a sensation like tearing fabric, sending fresh pain shooting up my leg.
But I'm free.
I don't waste the opportunity. Don't try to save myself. Just take that one moment of freedom and use every bit of it to shove Liam upward with both hands.
Push him as hard as I can toward the light.
Toward air.
Toward Aurora.
I watch his small body surge upward, propelled by the force of my push and his own natural buoyancy now that he's not being dragged down.
I watch him break the surface.
I watch hands reach for him—paramedics, teachers, Aurora.
I watch him get pulled to safety.
And then the relief hits.
Complete. Absolute. Overwhelming.
I got him.
The thought is so loud it drowns out the panic, the pain, the desperate screaming of my oxygen-starved lungs.
I got him out. He's safe. This time I wasn't too late.
Matthias is safe.
The name is wrong. Some distant part of my brain knows it's wrong. But it doesn't matter. Not really. Because I did what I failed to do thirteen years ago.
I saved him.
I didn't freeze. Didn't let fear paralyze me. Didn't stand on the shore watching while someone I cared about drowned.
I dove in. I fought the terror. I got him to the surface.
The realization brings something I haven't felt in thirteen years.
Peace.
It's only then that I notice I'm sinking.
The adrenaline that kept me moving, kept me fighting—it's gone. Burned through in that final, desperate push. My body is shutting down, muscles going limp, the cold finally winning the battle against my nervous system.
I should kick. Should swim. Should try to reach the surface that's getting farther away with each passing second.
I can't.
My limbs won't respond. Heavy. Dead weight. The same way Liam was before I grabbed him.
My lungs finally give up fighting. The spasm hits—violent, involuntary. My mouth opens.
Water rushes in.
Cold. Thick. Filling my throat, my lungs, drowning me from the inside.
This is it. This is dying.
It's not as terrible as I expected.
The pain fades quickly. The panic too. Everything is getting distant, muffled, like I'm wrapped in cotton.
The light from the surface is dimming. Or maybe my vision is going. Hard to tell. Everything is getting darker, quieter, further away.
I'm still sinking. Down into the black depths of this decorative lake, into the cold and the dark and the absolute silence.
It's almost peaceful.
Almost.
Then I hear it.
Distant. Distorted by water and dying nerves. But unmistakable.
A scream.
"EVANDER!"
Aurora's voice. Raw. Desperate. Absolutely terrified.
She's screaming my name. Not with hatred. Not with anger.
With the same terror I heard in her voice when she screamed for Liam.
The same terror that made her run, made her kick off her shoes, made her prepare to throw herself into freezing water despite not knowing how to swim.
She cares.
After everything I've done—the manipulation, the control, the systematic destruction of her autonomy—she's standing on that shore screaming my name like I matter.
Like losing me would hurt her the same way losing Liam would.
The realization arrives through the encroaching darkness. Quiet. Absolute.
She doesn't hate me.
She's supposed to hate me. She has every reason to hate me. I trapped her, owned her, broke her into pieces and tried to remake her into something controllable.
But that scream—that raw, terrified scream—that's not hatred.
That's something else entirely.
I want to respond. Want to tell her I'm okay, that she should focus on Liam, that I'm not worth the terror I can hear in her voice.
But I can't move. Can't speak. Can't do anything except sink deeper into the dark water while the last of my oxygen-starved brain tries to process this impossible revelation.
Aurora Lane doesn't hate me.
Maybe she should. Maybe she will, once the shock wears off and she remembers everything I've done.
But right now, in this moment, she's screaming my name like she's terrified of losing me.
And somehow, that knowledge makes drowning feel almost… worth it.
I saved Liam. Proved I wasn't too weak, too broken, too paralyzed by fear to save someone when it mattered.
And in my last moments, I got to hear Aurora scream my name with something other than hatred.
The darkness is absolute now. Complete. The cold has stopped registering—everything just numb, distant, fading.
My last conscious thought isn't about Laurent Holdings. Not about the empire I'm supposed to inherit, the legacy I'm supposed to build, the control I'm supposed to maintain.
It's about a seven-year-old boy who's alive because I finally faced the one thing that terrified me.
And a girl who might not hate me as much as she should.
At least now she doesn't hate me.
The thought brings something that might be a smile. Hard to tell. My face is numb.
The water closes over me completely.
And everything goes dark.