Page 13 of Scars Run Deep

Shit.

I managed to grab hold of her wrist.

A second later, the part of the guardrail she’d been holding onto gave way.

All her weight yanked on my arm as the stability went away and the only thing holding her at bay was me. I roared out into the night as a blinding pain tore through my shoulder.

She screamed and flailed.

“Keep… still,” I gritted out against the pain. “I know it’s hard.”

“Asher,” she cried.

My shoulder was dislocated. I knew it. I’d felt it before, more than once. That meant pulling her up was going to be… challenging.

I looked back, just able to make out Jonah.

He was freaking out, seeing what was happening, but he was bogged down by masks, fighting frantically to get to us.

I looked away and told Aurora, “Just keep your eyes on me.”

I’d never seen her truly scared before.

Not even when I’d beaten her down in that ring.

But here she was, vulnerable, afraid.

And she hated it.

She was struggling to hold my gaze, to keep her eyes on me.

She didn’t want me to see.

“If I was dangling over a cliff, I’d be scared too,” I told her.

“Even you would?”

I smiled. “Even me.”

She beamed up at me.

I gritted my teeth against the blinding pain, trying to embrace it like I always did, instead of fighting it and allowing it to be a weakness.

It wasn’t enough this time.

But she was.

Knowing she was depending on me.

Knowing I couldn’t let her go for anything.

Knowing that I couldn’t stop.

I pulled her up, bit by bit, my shoulder screaming, my bicep straining, my arm shaking with every inch I forced on.

“Motherfucker!” I roared as I drew on every ounce of my strength to keep going, pulling her higher and higher.

I was snarling and sweating.

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