Page 104 of Surrender
This time, the fight against the tears wasn’t one I could win.
“We need to keep moving.” Rafe’s arm locked around me, his voice strained and tight with panic. “Darcy. We have to go!”
I couldn’t.
My name was staring back at me from the side of the coffin-shaped flower bed. Parker had already killed me in his mind. I was already dead. Just fertilizer for his garden while he movedon to another girl.
I counted down the line.
Ten.
I was number ten.
“Darcy,” Rafe said again, stomping over and tugging at my arm, pulling me away from the graveyard. From the fucking grave with my name on it. “We have to go!”
The sharp crack of a branch behind us shattered the moment.
Rafe and I snapped, pushing forward, running even harder than before through the trees, ducking, diving, jumping over logs like we were in some episode ofNinja Warrior. The clearing behind us disappeared, but it had been burned into my brain, so I knew I’d see it again.
Most Likely, in my nightmares.
Or maybe floating over myself as Parker tossed dirt on top of me.
“Shit!” Rafe threw out an arm to catch me as we skidded to the edge of a steep drop. We both froze, peering over the cliff at the sparkling lake below. It was at least a three or four-story drop, but the surface was calm and glassy. The cliff we stood on stretched around the lake, lining at least half the shoreline, without a single house or dock in sight from where we stood.
“I bet it’s private,” Rafe muttered. “Probably belongs to the Carringtons too.”
I glanced left, then right, the dense treeline making it challenging to know if there was anything but more damn trees in either direction. It all looked the same.
“What do we do?” I murmured, shaking my head.
“We keep running. We keep moving until the boys get here,” Rafe said, the confidence in his voice lifting me a little. There was no way Nate wasn’t on his way, and I was desperate to be wrapped up in his arms.
They were safe.
They were home.
I just wanted to behome.
“I can collapse later, right?” I said, more so to myself than anything.
Rafe nodded. “They’re coming. We just need to—”
BANG.
Rafe’s body jerked backward like he was being pulled from behind. His hand slipped from mine, and he staggered back, trying to catch his footing.
But there was nothing there.
“Rafe!” I screamed.
But he didn’t answer.
He just vanished over the edge.
A loud splash filled the air a second later.
Just one.
