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Before argument can continue, bullets splinter wood mere inches from my position. Riot's body moves with impossible speed, sheltering me from debris as Sable returns fire with deadly accuracy.

"No time," I gasp, pushing away from Riot's protective embrace. "Bridge. Now. I'll follow with?—"

The next moments blur into fractured imagery and sensations.

Riot and Corvus reluctantly moving toward the bridge's entrance. Sable providing covering fire with mechanical precision. The sudden appearance of a massive figure on the opposite ridge. The glint of sunlight reflecting off a sniper's scope. The realization hitting a heartbeat too late.

"SNIPER!"

My warning comes simultaneously with the shot—a sound that seems to shatter reality itself. But the bullet isn't meant for any of us.

It strikes the bridge's main support cable with devastating accuracy.

The world tilts into nauseating slow motion as the structure begins its collapse. Riot and Corvus, already halfway across, scramble desperately for stable footing as woodenslats disintegrate beneath them. Their enhanced reflexes allow impossible jumps from one failing section to another, somehow carrying them to safety on the opposite ridge.

But Sable and I remain on the wrong side, with guards closing in and no escape route remaining.

His silver eyes meet mine with judicial assessment. "Thirty seconds until they breach our position. No viable extraction avenue. Limited ammunition. Capture imminent."

The truth of our situation crystallizes with brutal clarity—we're about to be taken. Everything we've fought for, every carefully laid plan, every hard-won inch of progress toward freedom... all of it reduced to nothing in a single catastrophic moment.

"No." The word emerges as declaration rather than denial. "I won't go back. I won't let them take us again."

Sable's gaze softens fractionally, something like compassion crossing his features. "There are worse things than captivity."

"Yes," I agree, taking a step backward toward the ravine's edge. "Living as their puppet again is worse."

Understanding dawns in his expression as my intention becomes clear.

"Jinx—"

"Tell them I'm sorry," I whisper, not entirely sure if I mean my alphas or the sister whose life I've stolen. "Tell them I tried."

Then I step backward into empty air.

The sensation of falling carries strange serenity—a perfect moment of choice in a life defined by others' control. Wind rushes past my ears as gravity claims its due, the world spinning in kaleidoscopic confusion as I plummet toward the raging waters below.

Freedom, at last.

The impact never comes.

Instead, strong arms wrap around my body mid-fall, a presence I didn't anticipate joining my suicidal plunge. The scent hits me a heartbeat later—smoke and ash and something uniquely alpha beneath it all.

Impossible.

We hit the water together with devastating force, the impact driving air from my lungs in a silent scream. Cold beyond imagining engulfs us instantly, the mountain-fed waters so frigid they burn like fire against skin.

The current catches us immediately, tumbling our entangled bodies like insignificant debris in its uncaring grip.

Panic claws through my chest as water fills my nose and mouth. I've never learned to swim—another skill Ravenscroft deemed unnecessary for their experimental subject. My arms flail uselessly as the current drags me deeper, lungs screaming for oxygen that won't come.

The world begins to darken at the edges, consciousness slipping away in spotty increments. The arms around me tighten with desperate strength, fighting against the water's implacable pull. Through blurring vision, I catch glimpses of my unexpected rescuer—a face marked by extensive scarring, eyes burning with determination despite our shared drowning.

Level Minus One. The Scarred Saint. ASH.

Recognition comes too late as darkness claims me completely.

Death tastes like river water and regret.