Page 185 of Dare To Fall

“So?”

I slant a look at him. “I’ve spent a lot of time in here. These are new.” I return my attention to the coffin.

Garrett moves up to stand beside me. “You don’t think—” His voice is low, stressed.

I don’t answer. Instead, I brace my hands against the stone slab and push. A loud grating noise fills the air as stone moves against stone. I shove again.

“Oh my god!” Garrett’s shout echoes around the crypt. “Oh my fucking god. She’s in there. Bella? Bella?”

One more shove and the slab topples off. I’m inside the coffin, my fingers searching for Arabella’s pulse before it crashes to the ground.

“Ari? Ari, baby? Open your eyes.”

She doesn’t move. I can’t feel a fucking pulse.

“Ari?”

My mind flashes back to that moment when I discovered Kellan, when I saw the blood, his lifeless eyes.

“Fucking wake up. Ari!”

Chapter 122

Arabella

“Ari, come back to me.”

Sucking in a breath at the tortured voice, my eyes snap open.

Eli is kneeling over me inside the tomb, his expression twisted in agony.

Am I dreaming? How can this be real?

My lips part. “Eli?”

“You’re alive.” The words leave him in a relieved rush, and he pulls me up against his hard, muscled chest.

My bound arms throb in pain, and I cry out.

“You’re hurting her,” a second familiar voice warns. Garrett.

“Did Evan harm you?” Eli’s voice is anxious as he lowers me back down. “Did he touch you? Are you hurt?”

I try to speak, but nothing comes out.

“Garrett, call an ambulance. She’s in shock.” He turns me on my side carefully and unties my hands and then my ankles.

I can hear Garrett talking on the phone quietly, but all my focus is on the boy above me.

My Nasty Little Monster who holds my heart in his hands.

The Monster of Churchill Bradley Academy saved me.

I should be happy, relieved, but I feel numb.

Why can’t I feel anything?

In the middle of rubbing my wrists, he grimaces, fingers tracing over the darkening bruises and the blood seeping from my broken skin.

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