The second time was no better.
If anything, it was worse.
My lungs burned.
They felt as if they bled with my submerged screams.
My heartbeat sent ripples of horror through the water cradling me. Sonic sound waves alerted fish that I would soon be easy prey…that I was moments from slipping from this world and into another.
One that hopefully treated me better.
I struggled harder, bruised deeper, and drove myself quicker into madness.
I screamed again, unable to hold in oxygen. Something scaly swam beneath me, tickling my toes. Fronds of water grasses and quick flashes of movement from frogs all sent my mind twirling into darkness.
Images of Loch Ness monsters and sea creatures with wicked sharp teeth stole the remainders of my rationality.
I want to breathe.
I want to live.
I strained for the lighter green of the surface. Crying and pleading and drinking gallons of pond scum in my struggle to stay alive.
Time played a horrible joke on me. It never ended.
There was no reprieve…no air.
The emerald depth of the water crowded me, closing in tighter and tighter—crushing me like a tin can beneath its gentle waves.
This ducking lasted longer, or maybe I was destroyed already. Perhaps it was shorter, but I’d run out of reserves to hold on.
I wanted to stop fighting.
I wanted to succumb.
How weak I was.
How fragile.
How broken.
My fighting gave way to twitches. My muscles fought on their own, demanding oxygen I didn’t have to give.
My hair hovered around me like it was alive, swaying like seaweed, promising an easy existence if I just followed its gentle dance and give in.
Just…give in.
Give in to the gentle lullaby of sleep.
If I died, I won.
The Hawks would lose as I would be free…
My struggling ceased and I hung there as if I was no longer bones and breath, but weightless freedom. My shift billowed like wings around me, sending me deeper into the abyss.
It was quiet down here. Quiet and calm and…drifting.
I drifted…
I faded…
Then the weight began again, folding my chin against my collar, tugging me from the deep. Pounding, pounding pressure as I was wrenched from my emerald tomb and hurled into the clouds again.
Gravity was now my foe, making everything so eternally heavy. My chest was an elephant. My head a bowling ball.
And I was weak.
So weak.
Air trickled down my throat, mixing with water I’d drank, making me retch. As each mouthful registered, my brain awoke, kicking me into survival. I moaned and begged and devoured every drop of oxygen I could.
I couldn’t look up. I couldn’t look behind me.
All I saw was blackness. But something granted me inhuman strength to twist in my bindings and look, just once, behind.
The clouds were dark and threatening, shadowing the Hawks in sombre gloom.
Jethro’s golden eyes burned me from the banks, superseding all distance, glowing like amber or sunlight—or paradise.
Paradise…
I would like to go to paradise.
But then I looked at Cut, Kes, and Daniel.
Their eyes were the same damn colour.
All of them.
Four men. Four wishes and wills—but one pair of identical eyes.
Evil eyes.
Horrendous eyes.
Eyes I never wanted to see again.
Daniel asked, “Have you given up your power, you wicked witch? Are you cured of the infection of magic?”
Jethro shoved him, cursing him beneath his breath.
Then, I fell again.
The men released their hold, shooing me from dryness and gifting me to a wet crypt.
As the water crashed over my head the third time, I gave up.
There was no point in fighting.
I was done.
I lost all track of time.
Up, down, up, down. Wet to dry and back again.
Every ducking I grew weaker…faded faster.
How many times did they raise me, only to drop me a few moments later? I believed Jethro when they said some torture sessions went on all day.
It felt as if this lasted forever.
I couldn’t move. I had no energy remaining.
Underwater again, my heartbeat raced until it splintered my ribs, cleaving me open, letting water pour down my throat and slosh into my lungs.
Delusions were no longer something to fear, but to be embraced. Delusions brought fantasies to life, soothing me, eradicating monsters from my world.
Down here, unicorns existed. Up there, only beasts.
I opened my mouth wider, slack-jawed and spaced.
Perhaps I had a gift I didn’t know of.
Perhaps I was a mermaid and could breathe water better than air.
Perhaps I could transform and swim far, far away from here.
I would try.
Anything was better than this.
The icy ache in my chest as the water filled me like a balloon was foreign and frightening.
But then it grew warmer.
And warmer.
It comforted me.
The pain left.
The panic receded.
I said goodbye to life.
Death slid over me with the sweetest kiss.
I smiled and sighed and gave into the deep.
SHE WAS DEAD.
I knew it.
I couldn’t explain how I knew.
But I did.
I’d done it.
I’d killed her.
She’d left me.
IT WAS OVER.
I existed in a fog of warm, comforting blackness. I didn’t have a conscience or stress or worries.
I was content.
This nether world had no stipulations or rules on how to be. I just was. With no thoughts corrupting me.
I liked it here.
I preferred it here.
I sank deeper and deeper into the billowing softness.
I belong here.
Then something tugged on my mind.
I swatted it away, curling into a ball, becoming invisible.
The blackness grew darker, wanting to keep me just as much as I wanted to keep it.
But the tug came again, harder, stronger.
I fought it.
But it was so persistent. It scrabbled at my mind, breaking my happy bond and dragging me unwillingly from the deep.
It wrecked my contentedness.
It broke my happiness.
No!
I turned feral.
You can’t take me.
I belong here. Not there.
Here I had a sense of infinity. I wasn’t just human, I was so much more.
I didn’t want to go.
I like it here.
Here where I don’t care or want or fear.
But whatever it was wouldn’t listen. It pulled me faster and faster from my sanctuary.
Blackness faded, becoming brighter and brighter.
I had no choice but to hurtle toward the light, breaking in two with sadness.
Then everything disintegrated.
The darkness. The comfort. The gentle kind of warmth.
It all vanished.
I froze, completely lost and vulnerable.
Where am I?
Something brilliant and bright shone into my eyes. I blinked in pain, seeing an echo of the deep yellow sun.
The clouds are gone.
I blinked again. Bringing the world I once knew into focus.
It made me wish I was blind.
With my eyesight came an unfurling of senses as my soul slipped back into a body I no longer wanted, breathing life into limbs that’d turned into a corpse.
There was something I was supposed to do i
n this world. Something extremely important.
The knowledge slammed into me with wet panic.
Breathe!
I couldn’t breathe.
A shadow crossed the blistering sun, pressing soft lips against mine. My nose was pinched then a huge gust of air whistled down my throat, bringing sweet, sweet oxygen.
My chest expanded then deflated.
Not enough.
More. Give me more.
The life-giver understood, once again filling me with breath along with forgiveness, sorrow, and regret.
I retched.
Strong hands flipped me onto my side, patting my back with solid thumps as I vomited up bucket loads of lake.
It hurt.
God, it hurt.
My lungs turned inside out with agony as the overstretched organ gave up trying to survive on water, holding out eager hands for air instead.
With air came life, and with life came the knowledge that I’d died.
Tears sprang to my eyes.
I’d died.
And I preferred it.
I sank into despair.
How had I given up so easily?
Then realization slammed into me of who I was and where.
I was Nila.
This was the Second Debt.
All around me stood Hawks.
Bastard, traitorous Hawks.
Then it didn’t matter anymore.
Pain enveloped me in a heavy cloak, squeezing me from all angles. Agony I’d never felt before battered me like a storm. Agony lived in my head, my heart, my bones, my blood.
Everything hurt.
Everything had died.
Coming alive was sheer torture, welcomed by a ring of devils.
“Come back to me, Nila.” Jethro breathed into my ear, barely registering above the bone-crippling agony I lived. “I won’t let you fucking leave me.” He licked a tear leaking from my eye. “Not yet. I won’t let you leave, not yet.”
I couldn’t look at him.
I couldn’t listen to him.
So, I focused on the spot on top of the hill—on a black speck spotlighted by the waning sun.
No, not a speck.
A woman.
Dark hair, feminine grace.
Jasmine.
Seeing her stole my tension. I relaxed. My screaming muscles stopped twitching, melting into the mud upon which I lay.
I didn’t need to fight anymore.
Jasmine was regal with honour and resplendent with pride—exactly as expected from any Hawk descendant.
I had the strange urge to wave—to have her grant me mercy.
How was it possible someone could wield so much power even while she was as broken as me?
I’d drowned and come back to life.
I’d been fixed.
However, Jasmine never would.
My eyes drifted from her beautiful face to her legs.
I sighed in sympathy for such a plight.
Wheels replaced legs. Footholds instead of shoes.
Jasmine Hawk was paralysed.
Wheelchair bound and reclusive.
It all suddenly made a lot more sense. About Jethro. His father. His sister.
And then it all became too much.
I drifted off into fluffy clouds.
I said goodbye for the second time.
I CARRIED HER unconscious form back to hell.
I turned my back on my father, grandmother, and siblings.
I let them whisper about my downfall and plot my death.
I did all of those things because the moment I’d felt Nila give up, nothing else fucking mattered.
Money, Hawksridge, diamonds—none of it.
It was all bullshit.
And I didn’t fucking care.
All I cared about was making sure Nila healed.
I couldn’t let her die.
She couldn’t leave me alone.
Not now.
Stalking up the hill, across the grounds, and into the Hall, I ignored the Diamond brothers who’d been watching the spectacle with an array of binoculars and telescopes, and stormed to the back of the house.
In the parlour loomed a huge swinging door, disguised as a bookcase.
Years ago, the door had hidden a bunker. A secret entrance into the catacombs below the house. They were there to save my ancestors from war and mutiny.
Now, that bunker had been converted and served a different kind of function, along with an addition found ninety years after the first brick had been laid.
Nila’s body was icy and soaking. Her clothing dripped down my front, leaving a trail of droplets wherever we went. Her long wet hair trailed over my arm like kelp. Not for the first time, I fantasised I’d plucked a kelpie from the pond and taken her hostage. My very own water nymph to keep for good luck.
She would make me right.
She had to.
Pulling on a certain book, the mechanism unlocked, swinging the door open.
Nila didn’t stir.
She’d stopped shivering, but her lips were a deep indigo that terrified me more than her unconscious whimpers. She teetered on death’s door—even now—even though I’d resuscitated her with mouth to mouth and given my soul as well as my air, she still haemorrhaged life.
It was as if she wanted to die.
Wanted to leave me.
Her brittle body made me focus on things I wasn’t strong enough to face.
I’d grown up.
I’d begun to see.
I’d begun to believe she was it for me. The only one who could save me from myself.
Slinking through the door, I was careful not to bump her head. Her body lay strewn like a fallen angel in my arms—as if I’d caught her mid-plummet to earth. Her lips were parted; her arms dangled by her sides.
I had to get her warm and fast. I knew exactly how to do it.
Locking the door behind me, I descended the spiral staircase. I had no way of clapping to turn on the sound activated lights, so stomped my foot on the stone step, grateful when balls of light lit up one after the other, leading the way in the dark.
Electricity had replaced gas, which in turn had replaced naked flames that used to flicker in the medieval lanterns on the wall.
Moving forward, each bulb guided me further beneath the house, until I travelled beneath my own quarters and the bachelor wing above.
The bunker had been extended far past its original footprint. The crude concrete walls had been meticulously updated with large travertine tiles and top-of-the-line facilities.
Countless contraptions existed that I could use to warm Nila.
We had a steam room, sauna, and spa.
We had everything money could buy.
But none would be good enough.
I needed something bigger, grander…hotter.
I needed something money couldn’t buy: the power of nature.
The scent of sulphur enveloped us as I continued down the corridor and into the humid world beneath Hawksridge. The cave had been discovered after the first part of the Hall had been erected. A workman died falling through the hole when setting new foundations—the cave had been stumbled upon by pure fluke.
Natural springs were a fairly common phenomenon in England—closely guarded by those who had them and a public luxury in places like Bath. Ours had remained a family secret for generations.
The sapphire water never dropped below forty degrees centigrade. Ever. It was consistent and somewhere I used to come a lot—somewhere that Jasmine visited almost daily with her maid to ease her atrophied muscles.
Moisture dripped from the earthen walls, plopping quietly back into the pool where it’d come from. A perpetual circle of death and rebirth.
I didn’t stop to strip.
I didn’t waste a moment.
Holding Nila tight against my chest, I walked down the carved steps and into the shoulder-deep spring. Every wade made my skin tingle and burn. I couldn’t handle such warm waters all at once—I had to ease into
it, allow the ice inside my soul to melt little by little.
But now all I cared about was raising Nila’s body temperature.
I didn’t care about my shoes or clothes.
Shit, I didn’t even care I had my cell-phone and wallet in my pocket.
Everything was inconsequential; the urge to heal her before it was too late far too strong.
Not only had I scarred her back, but now I’d scarred her with death.
I have to fix this. Quickly.
As the warm liquid lapped around my waist, it stole Nila’s weight, almost tugging her from my arms. Unwillingly, I unlocked my grip, letting her float away from me, bobbing buoyantly on the surface.
Her eyes didn’t open. She didn’t show any awareness that she felt the warmth after being so cold.
With cupped fingers, I poured hot water over her head, trading the iciness of the lake for the welcoming embrace of the spring.
Waterfall after waterfall I poured on her scalp, careful not to let the droplets slide over her nose or mouth.
It took too long.
The only noise was the gentle splash of water as it rained through my fingers.
Every second waiting for her to wake up ruined my every heartbeat.
I lost track of time. My eyes never left her blue, blue lips, and it was only when the deep colour began to fade that I finally relaxed a little.
Her fingertips weren’t ice cubes any longer, thawing thanks to the warmth of the water.
When she finally did start to rouse, she began to shiver.
Violently.
Her teeth chattered and her hair tangled on the surface, jerking with every tremble.
Gathering her close, I held her as ripples arched from the epicentre of her body, fanning out to lap against the three metre wide pool.
Every twitch from her resonated in me—I didn’t think I’d ever be stable again.
I continued to pour water over her head, cascading it over her frozen ears, willing her cheeks to turn pink.
Her soft moan was the second sign of her being alive. However, if she was aware of what I did, she didn’t show it—she refused to open her eyes.
I couldn’t blame her.
I wouldn’t want to look at the man who’d done this either.
Sighing, I pressed my forehead against hers. No words could convey everything I felt. So I let silence do it for me.
I filled the space with so much fucking regret. Regret for today, for yesterday, for tomorrow. For everything I was and could never be.
I didn’t know how long we hovered in the cave beneath my ancestral home, but slowly the silence filled with more than just sorrow and apology. It filled with a need so fierce and cruel, I struggled to breathe.