Page 99 of Dance with Death

The fearful girl I see in my reflection taunts me and my madness shifts focus. Though I don’t have the power to even nudge the barrier above me, I lash out at it all the same. I curl my fingers into fists and pound my knuckles against the glass, over and over and over. All I manage to do is splinter the surface, bloodying my hands for my effort.

I can’t keep doing this.

I’m done now.

Done with all of it.

The fighting. The torment. The struggle.

I’m done.

I float, using what’s left of my adrenaline to keep my face above the surface.

But I know I need to let go.

Giving in is what’s best for me now. This was always my fate and fighting it only prolongs the suffering.

I can’t do it anymore.

Then why am I still holding on?

I keep fighting because of him, because of Ezra, because of that dangerous fucking hope he brought into my life that somehow we could be together and happy.

I want that life with him.

I want itsofucking much.

Wanting something this much sets fire to the frozen shell around my heart and burns me with a blaze of angry fire, fire I can’t let out because I’m trapped in this water-filled coffin. It’s enough blazing energy to punch out his name in a piercing shout, a last-ditch effort to beg the universe to change my fate, to changeourfate.

“Ezra!” I scream.

It’s a declaration, a shout to no one and nothing that Ezra is the first thing on my mind, the last thing on my mind, theonlything on my mind as I prepare to let go of life.

I pound my fists at the splintered glass one last time. It sends a rippling crack in a diagonal line, cutting across the reflection of my face. I blink, the last of my tears falling as I watch how the sapphire color of my eyes deepens into a dark navy-blue in the mirror.

“Please,” I mutter sadly at my reflection.

A plea to the girl in the mirror to fight, to find her strength, to hold on just a little longer.

You promised him…

You promised you’d hold on as long as you can.

I press my eyes shut, force my shallow breaths to lengthen in a long steady flow, and focus on floating. All I have to do is float. Float through one count of eight, then another, and another until this careful dance with death is over.

I bring forward the memory of our dance in Nobility Hall and focus on the routine. I run it through my head step by step, beat by beat, as if preparing for the performance—an encore of the dance that changed everything. Each eight count gets me closer to the end of this, closer to peace.

And so, I count.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

Chapter 24

Ezra

I blink, stillfrozen in disbelief at the state of my blue-eyed girl as she disappears from sight. My entire being is still in shock from the sight of her, practically dragging herself up the staircase by the railing.

Fuck, she’d been so frail.

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