“Remember when Sofia told us about this?” he said, looking into the pool. “The source of the river. You wanted to see her kingdom so bad. Now you’re going to be, like, fertilizing it.”
John looked at him, now a stranger inside and out.
“I never wanted it to end this way,” John murmured, motioning Aish toward the pool with the gun. “But you can’t give away our money.”
Aish had to stall. He needed to buy more time. And he was getting really fucking annoyed at the lazy way John was trying to kill him.
“What, you think I’m just going to get in?”
John rolled his eyes and smiled. “Yeah.”
Because wasn’t that what Aish had done his whole life? How many hallways and pathways and stadium tunnels had he followed John down, letting his “friend” hold doors for him and walking through, so assured of his own perfection and graced life that he never stopped to look where he was going? Of course John thought he could lead Aish to his death.
Of course he thought he could force Aish to abandon Sofia once again.
Like he’d summoned her with his desire to finally put his foot down, he heard the most glorious and terrifying yell in the world behind him: “Aish, no!”
“No,” he groaned back because, fuck, he never thought it would actually be her saving him, her literal vulnerable self, and Jesus Christ he hoped her brother and that behemoth were with her because all he could do as John started to whirl around was slam his shoulders into the smaller man.
“You pathetic fuck,” he got out, rearing back to slam into him again, hoping to make him drop the gun, hoping to send him into the pond, hoping to make him shoot a hole a foot wide into Aish, anything other than letting John hurt his girl.
John’s look of shock and his shaky hold on the gun gave Aish a second of triumph.
Just one second.
John steadied himself and the end of the gun barrel suddenly looked wider and blacker than the pool.
Thank God Aish could swim like a fish.
He turned and dove into the water.
A bullet winged near him, almost meaningless against the arctic cold and ancient dark that swallowed him, an electrocution of pain to his aching body. He kicked hard with his hands behind his back, trying to stay near the surface, trying to keep John’s gun aimed on him and away from Sofia. But he could feel the pull, the whirlpool trying to sacrifice him to the river. With his hands tied, his battered body was not cooperating in the freezing water.
And soon, too soon, he had to breathe.
He tried to mermaid up to grab a sip of air. But he couldn’t get his head back above the surface.
He could see lights bouncing above him as an invisible force tried to drag him down.
Maybe those ghosts Sofia talked about were real.
Maybe he’d join them and one day get to tell her that he was sorry. That he loved her. That, in a happy and blessed life he hadn’t earned or deserved, she was the happiest and most blessed thing that had happened to him.
That he’d never felt more worthy than when he was striving to be perfect for her.
Feeling the last of his breath burn up in his body, Aish closed his eyes and began to sink.
The water moved beside him and slim arms surrounded him. Those hermetic monks were welcoming him to their ranks.
But instead of going down, Aish felt his body being lifted up. His head broke the surface and then he was given a slap to the back of his head.
“Respira, idiota,” said the most lovely voice he’d ever heard. “Keep...treading.”
Aish was never going to be manipulated again. He was going to stand on his own two feet and bear the weight of his own decisions. But in this, for this woman who showed him how to carry a kingdom on her shoulders, he would do what she said.
He opened his mouth and breathed deep, moved his legs to help her fight the whirlpool’s claim on them.
His coughing spasms made him slip through her hold before she clenched him again.
“Román,” he heard her call, saying her brother’s name in the Spanish way, and although he felt like he was kicking through quicksand, he kicked harder to soothe the panic in her voice. They were fine, he wanted to tell her. They were together.
Everything was going to be fine.
Seconds or minutes later, a bright light shone in his face as hands hooked under his armpits. “I got him,” Sofia’s brother grunted, and Aish sucked in with pain as he was dragged over the sharp rim of the pool and every muscle in his body howled. That didn’t stop him from struggling to rise once solid stone was beneath him. “Get her out, gotta get her out, gotta...”
Before he could even struggle to sitting, a dripping Sofia was kneeling next to him on the stone. “Roll over,” she said, her teeth chattering. “I’ll free your hands.”
When he rolled over, he realized why he could see her dripping and chattering and wide-eyed beautiful. Glow sticks had been snapped and scattered around them. John was on his stomach, knocked out, his hands bound behind him. Roman was kneeling and rooting through a backpack.
Aish felt the bind give behind him. His shoulder screamed as he rolled to his back, brought his arms forward, grabbed Sofia’s face in his big hands.
“I’m sorry. I love you. I need you. Nothing’s brighter than you.” He was shaking so hard he was afraid she couldn’t understand him.
But her wide, liquid eyes, her trembling smile as she hovered over him, told him that she did. She grabbed his wrists as she tried to control her own shaking.
Roman dropped a Mylar emergency blanket over her shoulders. “Okay, lovebirds, let’s get you two warmed up.”
Aish wanted to fight her brother when he pulled Sofia’s hands down and swaddled her in the blanket. But he couldn’t get the words
