Page 115 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
“Sucks to be you,” he mocked.
Then Nico’s eyes blinked open. He looked up at Christian standing over him, let out a bellow, leapt to his feet in a whip-crack move and launched himself at him. He hit Christian in the chest full force—
—And they both tumbled over the low deck wall and disappeared into space.
Ember screamed. There was a flat smack and a splash, then nothing. Several seconds later two heads popped up in the frothing white wake behind the boat. There was a quick struggle, then only one head was left bobbing above the dark water.
Christian. He screamed something but the wind stole it, and Ember watched as he grew smaller and smaller as the yacht sailed forward into the night.
I will love you, until the end of time.
Tears pooled in her eyes, then slid down her cheeks as the sight of Christian’s face disappeared altogether, swallowed by the dark.
“Now,” said Caesar, spinning her around with both hands on her upper arms and pulling her hard against his chest. He leered triumphantly down at her. “Let’s see exactly how much pain you can take.”
Ember whispered, “Exactly this much.”
Then she closed her eyes and depressed her thumb on the detonator’s trigger.
In the infinitesimal moment before the explosion knocked her off her feet and the world went black, her last thought was, Come what may.
There were many who saw the huge explosion in the dark waters off Port Vell that night, many who saw the other huge explosion in the hills above the city, many who saw them both. But there was only one person who was close enough to both to see the bodies fly.
Christian.
He was floating in the frigid water when the yacht was torn to pieces in a thunderous eruption that sent a shockwave of heat roaring over him and an orange ball of fire and smoke billowing high into the sky, still screaming what he’d been screaming since he’d gone in the water, the words the wind had stolen from his lips. The words Ember would never hear.
The two most miraculous words in the world, which would now eat at his soul like a cancer until the day he died.
You’re pregnant.
Salt water choked him. He was blinded by tears. He didn’t even bother to wait until the huge fireball contracted or the debris stopped raining down into the waves.
He just began to swim. Frantically, as fast as he could, he swam.
Death wasn’t nearly as peaceful and quiet as Ember had hoped it would be.
For one thing, there was too much talking. Granted, the voices weren’t loud, but the way they murmured constantly, the cadences rising and falling while the words remained indistinct, was really irritating. She wan
ted to shout at them to shut up because she was trying to concentrate on being deceased, but her throat wasn’t working properly. Her tongue, furry and swollen, felt like a dead animal inside her mouth.
Then there was the incessant beeping. She imagined it might be some kind of mechanical contraption designed to process souls through the underworld, a conveyor belt maybe, crowded with the disembodied spirits of the recently departed on their way to be sorted. Or perhaps it was a waiting room like in the movie Beetlejuice, filled with the patient undead, and the sound was the clock of eternity, forever announcing the same, unchanging hour.
Also, there was a hell of a lot of pain involved. She thought this death business was supposed to be the absence of pain, especially since she no longer had a body, but somehow agony crackled through her, angry as a nest of spitting snakes. How was that possible, if she no longer had nerves?
The worst thing, though, was the crying.
It was soft and muffled and anguished, its tone of utter misery worse than everything else combined. She caught a few whispered words that reminded her of something, but she couldn’t quite remember what.
“Don’t leave me, little firecracker. Please, please don’t leave me.”
This was followed by a low, choked sob, then another.
Ember hated to hear that. The pain in those quiet sobs was…it was…
Awful. Piercing. Bottomless.
Ember wanted to comfort the crier. She wanted it so badly she finally managed to force her eyes open, though they felt stitched closed, to look around for the source.
