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Chapter 64

As I fell, my stomach and every other organ lifted as if reaching for the ledge, while Karma used rain to push me down faster.

I sucked in a breath, bit back a scream, and through the sheets of heavy rain, I saw Bard reach out above me.

His lips moved around an anguished cry, but I couldn't comprehend the words over the river and wind and pounding of my own heart.

But I saw him.

As I fell. As I voluntarily fell to my own death so that he would live. I'd accepted my fate. I'd given my life to save him. My death had a purpose.

That asshole ruined everything.

He jumped.

Bard disappeared from view, only for a moment, before he sailed over the edge after me.

My back hit the water, and a thousand shards of glass bit into my flesh. It knocked the air from my lungs, swallowed me up in thrashing mud, and tossed me in all directions. I flailed, arms, legs, fighting to get to the surface but too disoriented to even know where that was.

Each attempt failed, and with every passing second, the burn in my lungs turned to needles. White blurred the edges of my vision, and I was about to give in, take a lungful of that deadly water and allow fate to have me...

Something gripped my shirt, then a pair of familiar arms circled my waist.

Bard pulled me to the surface, struggling to hold my weight against the torrential current. "I've got you!" he heaved, voice harsh and strained.

I gasped and spluttered, desperate for air, but the river continued to smack into mouth and steal it.

Bard gripped me tight and pulled the bag off my back, then did the same to his. "Hang onto it!" he yelled, gripping his own in front of him. Surprisingly, they floated, which made no sense to me, but I was too focused on surviving to question it.

I clung to the pack, survival instincts set to high, and desperately fought to keep my head above the surface.

"The log!" Bard motioned to a fallen tree ahead of us. "Grab it!"

We were moving so fast. It was impossible to see. The scenery flew by too quick to focus on any one thing before the river would change our direction again. We were nothing but more debris being carried away, rejected by Mother Nature herself.

But I focused on that damn log. Each time the water would whip me, I'd wildly search until I found it again, and my heart thundered as the crucial moment drew nearer. Almost there. A few feet. A foot less. There...

I lunged, barely caught hold of the coarse bark with the tips of my fingers. It dug in and cut my skin, but I clutched with all the force I had. I couldn't let go.

Bard reached around and grabbed onto a knuckle coming off the side. "Pull, Jessie! Pull yourself forward!"

I tried, but my upper body strength was no match for the watery demon fighting to yank us downstream. "I can't!"

Bard grunted. His hand palmed my back while his other held the log in a strained grip. He pushed me with another grunt, an angry sound as if he were yelling at his own limbs to be stronger. Once further up, I was able to get a better grip on the tree and help pull us along.

"That's it. Almost there," he huffed.

My fingers dug into the muddy bank, and a loud crack rattled my frame. The log shifted and groaned. I clutched hold of mud and rock as it started to roll over.

"Head east! The next shelter is east!" Bard shoved me so hard it toppled me the rest of the way and broke the log free from its position.

It carried him with it.

"No!" I struggled to my knees, but couldn't make it to my feet. I couldn't go after him. I couldn't help. This wasn't supposed to happen! It was supposed to be me!

"I'll come for you!" Bard bellowed out. The water pulled him under, then spit him up, then again.

I watched it pull him away, too beaten to stand, to do anything, and I couldn't hold back any longer. Tears had never done anything. Tears never solved problems, but at that moment, it didn't matter. They filled my eyes, tumbled past my lids, rolled down my cheeks. A sob ripped out of me, then another, then a desperate sound unlike any I'd have thought myself capable of.

I curled in on myself, a blubbering mess on the banks of that godforsaken river. Truly broken, freezing cold and sopping wet. Heavy in more ways than one.

Yet, still, the river kept moving. The sun set like it did any other day, and the rain settled to a light drizzle. Time passed like it didn't know that the world had just ended, and I sat there, waiting, praying Bard would come walking towards me. He could glare at me for not doing what he'd asked me to do, scream at me for sacrificing myself.

He never came, but as the sky darkened, revealing that same starry sky he'd shown me all those weeks ago, it did.

The North Star.

Go east.

He'd find me. Bard would find me. He'd come to the shelter. I had to believe it. If he didn't then...

It didn't matter. I needed to believe in him. Bard was strong. He was stronger than anyone I'd ever met. If anyone could survive, it was him.

I lifted myself onto wobbling legs, took a moment to gather my bearings, then forced myself to move in the direction I was supposed to go.

The pack felt heavier. My limbs were weak, but I just kept telling myself that I needed to move. I needed to get where Bard would find me.

The wildlife sang its whispering song, and the trees cast shadows along the forest floor. Limbs became spindly fingers– the wind footsteps. The trees condensed and blocked out the stars, but I swallowed my panic and pushed forward, begging karma to guide me, begging her to bring him back, promising things in return. I'd let her win. I'd give myself. I'd spend my life under that bridge or in that room. I'd take a thousand more beatings. Anything, if she'd just drag his ass out of that river alive and breathing. I clung to the hope that my desperate pleading made a difference. That, in some strange way, I was helping.

He'll find me. He'll get himself out. He was made for this. He wouldn't have jumped if...

But he would have. I knew he would have, and I didn't know if he made it. Without his sure steps beside me, I was walking through a nightmare. A target. Eyes lit up the foliage when the moon cut through the trees, and whatever creature they belonged to watched me like the intruder that I was. Unwelcome.

I didn't belong here. Bard did. I wasn't meant for this place, and it was as if nature itself knew it.

I remembered watching him track, and left signs of myself. Not just my footprints, although the rain had dulled enough that hopefully he would be able to find them. I pulled pieces of my hair, left bits of food out of the pack, broke the branches on bushes intentionally, struggling to leave any sign I could think of.

He'll find me.

I almost walked right passed it. It was nothing but branches and leaves stacked against a large tree. I inspected the makeshift hut, found the spot where the limbs could be pulled aside, and dipped into it.

I pulled my knees up to my chest and shivered.

Bard will find me.

I repeated the words, over and over, until the sun rose and the rain stopped completely.

I sat, motionless, drooping eyes unwilling to close.

Bard will find me.

With the daylight came quiet. All the nocturnal creatures returned to their own homes to sleep, and relinquished the world to softer sounds, chirping birds and light breezes.

I strained my ears for him. He would come. He had to come.

The more time that passed, the more torturous my imagination grew. Bard at the bottom of the river. Bard motionless on the bank. Each new image ripped away a part of my heart. Each new scenario stole my breath. I tried to push it all away, but alone and wet and exhausted and broken, it was impossible.

Then, it happened. The crunch of footsteps.

A relieved sob ripped out of me. I shoved the pack to the side and scrambled out with shaking limbs. My heart called out to him. My arms ached to hold him close, my body to be held, and fisted hands wanted to beat him for jumping off of that cliff.

Instead, the whole world collapsed around me.

Drake's grin matched the ones of the men behind him. All except for Fred, who's sadness let me know. I'd fucked up. I'd gone too far. It was over.

"There she is."