"Besides," Grimes continued, thinking that I was wavering, "I'm starting to take a shine to you, Ms. Blanco.
You're strong, just like you said Sophia was. And I do so admire the strong."
He didn't admire strong people; he wanted to break them to make himself feel stronger. That's what he had tried to do to Sophia all those years ago: break her spirit, break her strength, break her will to live, to survive all the horrors that he had visited upon her. But he hadn't broken Sophia, and he wasn't going to break me either.
"come on, now," he said, his voice taking on a soft, cooing note. "If you come back with us quietly, I'll keep you for myself. None of my men will touch you. I promise you that."
Hazel's mouth gaped open for a moment before her whole face tightened with rage and jealousy. The Fire flickering in her hand coalesced into a ball of molten lava that oozed out between her fingers and splattered onto the rocks at her feet, causing the stone to shriek in agony.
But Grimes didn't notice. He only had eyes for me.
After a moment, he licked his lips, like his men had done back at camp, and his gaze flicked up and down my body.
No doubt the bastard was thinking about how I'd look in a pretty white dress with my hair in a sweet little braid.
Well, he was never, ever going to find out.
My only regrets were that I wouldn't get a chance to tell my friends and family how much I loved them and that I wouldn't be able to stop Grimes once and for all.
I thought of Owen and how he'd kissed me on top of the ridge. There had been a desperate promise in that kiss, one that said that there was still a chance that things could get better between us, one that had kept me going through all of this. Just when it seemed like we'd finally turned a corner, we were going to be torn apart again forever.
But Owen would understand. He'd seen the pit. He'd seen what Grimes and Hazel had done to Sophia. He'd understand why I had to do this. I just wished . . . I just wished that I could have seen him once more.
But wishes were for fools. People made their own decisions, their own lives, their own fates. That was what Fletcher had always said, and it was certainly true in this case.
I'm sorry, Owen. So sorry. I wish that I had been able to keep my promise to you.
I slowly held the rifle out to my side, laid it down on the ground, and kicked it away, sending it skittering across the stones. Then I straightened back up, holding both of my hands out to my sides. Grimes smiled with hungry, sadistic glee, thinking that I was finally surrendering, that I was finally weakening, that I was finally giving up.
His grin lasted until I started walking backward toward the edge of the cliff.
"Don't be stupid," Grimes warned. "You'll never survive a fall like that."
"Probably not," I agreed. "But I have no interest in being your little torture toy either. I'd rather take my chances with the river and the rocks. Simple as that."
Before he could react, and still thinking of Owen, I turned and threw myself off the cliff.
Chapter Twenty-three
It seemed as though I had a pair of cement blocks strapped to my boots. That's how quickly gravity yanked me down.
The cliff rushed by my face in a swirling mix of grays and greens, and the wind tore at my hair and screamed in my ears.Even as I plummeted toward the rocks, river, and rapids, I grabbed hold of what little Stone magic I had left and used it to harden my body as much as I could. I reached and strained and clawed for all those tiny bits of power, trying to weave the scraps into my usual solid shell, but I didn't know if it would be enough. If not, at least the end would be quick.
I hit the water a second later.
The impact knocked all of the air from my lungs and pulled me deep beneath the surface. For a moment, everything went cold and wet and black, and I thought that I was dead.
But then that pesky, determined, undeniable instinct to survive, to live, rose inside me, and I realized that the pressure in my lungs hurt too much for me to be dead.
It took me several sharp, hard kicks before I was able to break through to the surface. Even then, all I managed to do was swallow down a quick breath before the current dragged me under again.
I'd jumped into the Aneirin River twice before. Once from a balcony at the Ashland Opera House after a botched hit. Then again from the top of a moving train in order to escape Elektra LaFleur, an assassin with electrical elemental magic. But this was far more brutal an experience than either one of those previous adventures. In both of those cases, the water had only wanted to drag me down, down, down. But now it wanted to pull me every which way, dash me against the rocks, suck me down, push me up, and repeat the whole process over and over again until my mind was spinning around as much as my body was.
I quickly exhausted what was left of my Stone magic, and my skin reverted to its normal texture. That meant that I felt every single pull and grab and yank of the water, every slam of my body against a half-submerged rock or a gnarled fallen tree, every slash of a sharp stone across my skin. Good thing these weren't shark-infested waters, or I would have been their buffet, that's how much blood seemed to flow from the dozens of tiny nicks and cuts that crisscrossed my body. Still, I laughed at the thought.
At least, I tried to. All I really ended up doing was swallowing more water.
Just when I was about to give in and let the water sweep me under forever, the rapids surged forward, flowing even faster than before, as though they were building toward some grand finale. All that was missing was some wild, loud, bombastic music to go along with the steady surge. I blinked through the sheets of water stinging my eyes. Why was there so much blue? It almost seemed like the river was flowing into the sky -
I barely had time to suck in another breath before I plunged over the waterfall.
It wasn't a terribly steep drop, maybe thirty feet, but the force of the fall stunned me, and my mind went blank. Then my body slammed against the bottom of the pool below, snapping me out of my dangerous daze. Still, it took all the energy that I had left to kick my legs, claw my hands upward, and finally break free of the surface once more.
I blinked wearily and looked around, wondering what new challenge awaited me. But the waterfall must have been the end of the rapids, because the river formed a large, sedate pool before slowly flowing out of the other side of the wooded canyon that I was in.
The muddy bank was only about fifty feet away, but it took me much longer than it should have to flounder in that direction. At this point, I didn't even have the strength left to use my arms to pull myself through the water. All I could do was weakly kick, like a puppy that was in way over its head.