Page 133 of Whips and Chains
Before the cliff face gave away completely.
Taking a pile of rocks and soil and shrubs down the swirling sea below.
And X with it.
A scream ripped from my lungs, the boom of the explosion ringing in my ears.
Shouts mingled with it all, chaos swirling around me, and that angry, feral ocean practically laughing as she swallowed up the man I loved.
The man who’d saved me, more than once.
Whip and Levi hauled me away from the broken edge, their eyes wider than I’d ever seen, their mouths moving in shouts, but all I could comprehend was the sheer terror on X’s face as he’d dropped away, eaten up by the darkness.
I threw myself toward the edge, fighting against Levi and Whip to dive over it.
Levi caught me around the waist. “Violet! No!”
Whip stared over the edge and tried to talk sense into me. “The fall isn’t that far. He’ll be okay. He’ll swim around.” He turned and nodded at me. “He’ll swim around,” he repeated, like he was trying to convince himself.
“He can’t swim, Whip! He can’t swim!” I choked on a sob, punching at scratching at the hold Levi had on me. “He can’t swim.”
That last one was more of a sobbing plea than anything else.
Levi and Whip both stared at each other in horror.
Without a word, both of them dived off the edge of a cliff and into an inky black ocean, determined to take everyone, and everything, I loved.
The end…for now.
