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I kicked again, trying my best to swim, but the weight of my clothes, my ammo, and everything else, dragged me down deeper. How far did the ocean go? Would I ever reach the bottom, lost forever in the depths of the sea? Or would something eat me first? What monsters lived in this watery grave?

I opened my eyes, but it didn’t matter. The darkness was so thick, so intense, that having them closed was just as bad as having them open.

I tried kicking again, the weight of my boots and waterlogged pants using the little reserved strength I had left to push my legs. But I couldn’t tell if I was going anywhere. Not being able to see, to hear, to sense anything but the stinging cold left me lost. Confused and disoriented, unsure if I was going up or down, or if I was moving at all.

Then, the panic started to set in as tightness formed in my chest. I was going to die. It was already a miracle that I had survived the fall instead of hitting one of those jagged pillars of death, but—

Oh my god…was I already dead?

What if Ihadhit those rocks? What if I was already a splattered mess on the side of the cliff and this…this was my hell? A watery grave that I would spend eternity in, always fighting for breath, always aching for air, but never getting it ever again.

My heart battered itself in my chest, fear escalating within me. This was it. It was already all over, and I never got a chance to tell Wes that I loved him. I never got to tell him I was sorry. Because after everything I had experienced with Raúl, all the lies and deceit…I had turned around and done the same thing to someone else.

I was no better than him.

I had schemed from the very beginning to trick him, to trickeveryone. To pretend to marry Wes only to run away with my brother and never return. It didn’t matter that I changed my mind. I changed it because I fell in love, not because I was trying to spare him. How fucking rotten of me. And then when I faced my first sign of trouble, my first barrier toward a possible happy ending, I jumped ship like a coward. And I didn’t even give Wes the chance to make his own decision, his own choice. Because why?

Because I was scared, and it suited me better to do what I wanted. To turn tail and hightail it out of the North so I didn’t have to deal with the scary bad man.

Pa-lease… Give me a break.

I was Raúl’s daughter.

And I was no better than him.

And Wes deserved so much better than that. So much better thanme. Because I truly was just another de la Puente. And I was no good for anyone.

The realization that I was just another spider in the horrible web that was this reality hit me like a ton of bricks. I was just another iteration of the same sack of lies. Sure, I thought I was doing it for the greater good, but how many awful people make decisions thinking that they are in the right? How many people lie, cheat, steal, or kill, all under the impression that they were doing the right thing?

All of them.

And in the end, it didn’t matter, did it? In the end, you still lied. You still cheated someone else. You still stole. You still took a life.Whyyou did it didn’t even matter in the end.

Because you were still wrong.

Iwas wrong.

And Wes deserved better.

The anguish in my heart because of everything I had done was too powerful, too all-consuming. The searing pain in my lungs—the ache for breath—overrode my mind’s command to continue holding it. My mouth shot open, and I inhaled desperately as salty water flooded into my mouth, swirling into my throat, and filling my lungs. The experience brought nothing but a burning, fiery sensation into my chest, my eyes flying open from the shock.

All this time, the memory of Chase being burned alive at the arena scared me, haunted my dreams. And I feared my own death by fire in that colosseum. Never in a million years would I imagine that drowning would feel like burning alive from the inside out.

Iburned.

My body convulsed. The pain set off mental alarms as panic caused me to inhale more ocean water, sealing my fate.

Iburnedfrom the inside out.

And then it all went away as my body grew too heavy to move.

Then…

I died.

67: Flashback

The first thing I noticed was warmth. I had been feeling cold for so long, my body going numb, succumbing to the horrible burn inside of me. But the burn was gone now…and I felt nothing. Nothing except for the warmth that wrapped around me. And it was soft, cozy.