Page 133 of Taunt Me (Dark Odyssey 2)

Myworld will end here if I don’t make it.

I run and then I hear my name being called.

I see Nick and Salvatore, then Vincent. They’re on the other side of the hill, running past the bridge.

Salvatore jumps down to the area I’m running. Just as Nick and Vincent are about to do the same the ground crumbles away in such a ravenous manner that Vincent had to grab Nick to keep him from falling .

Salvatore bounds toward me, fast , lightning speed fast but I can’t stop. The earth around me is still going, falling through and I know I came up a good thirty feet.

It’s at least that if I fall too.

I have to leap over a wide section and I’m aiming for a section ahead that looks stable. I manage to get there but only as the ground crumbles away and now I’m falling.

I’m falling.

I reach up as I pass a tree and manage to grab onto a branch that’s jutting out, but I know from the look of it that the tree won’t hold. There roots are already starting to pop out from the ground. It can’t take my weight and my panic.

“Charlotte, hold on,” Salvatore shouts.

I can’t, even though my grip is tight, I can’t hold on. The roots start popping faster flicking out the dirt in my face and my eyes.

I make the mistake of looking down and see the fire below me.

I don’t get the chance to look back up because the entire branch snaps off and I’m falling again.

I scream but then something crashes into me. Something hard like a wall and grabs me. arms grab me and knocks me off path to the drop I was aiming for.

I lose focus for the few nanoseconds it takes for Salvatore to land on the ground with me cocooned in his arms.

We fall hard and both cry out from the impact. I know he’s hurt but he doesn’t let go of me.

“I got you,” he says holding me close.

“Salvatore,” I wince. “Thank you.” I manage but I’m so choked up the words barely come out.

“That’s okay doll, I got you.”

I break down and he pulls me closer.

The ground has stopped shaking now but there’s still a rumble within it.

I glance around his shoulder to see we landed on the edge of a section where the earth came free. It’s just jutting out of the hill and where we are is solid like rock. The only reason we’re still on it. We must have fallen about ten feet.

The fire is still billowing but I see water flowing now that more of the area is exposed. There’s all manner of debris in it.

“Gabe,” I whisper and he runs a hand over my back.

The devastation around us is answer to any question I may have about whether or not Gabe made it.

“I’ll take care of you now. I promised him I would,” he tells me.

I start crying from what feels like deep inside my soul. His words are such a testament of the man Gabe is, and who Salvatore is too, but it confirms what I don’t want to accept. That Gabe… didn’t make it.

I close my eyes at the dark thought. It rips me in two, tearing me in pieces, tearing up my heart and shattering all that I am.

I open my eyes again and look down to the water flowing deep below us.

I stare at it long and hard and what feels like forever, wishing against the truth of the situation.

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