There was nothing to hold on to. Grass and dirt caked under my fingernails, and I couldn’t even scream. I fell with the avalanche of dirt, rocks battering me and chunks of earth catching on my skin.

Pain seared through me like fire, my ankle suddenly in so much pain I had to scream. It was lost in the sound of the rain and the river.

Oh, fuck. I wasn’t moving, but I was hanging. Partially suspended under the precarious overhang of the bank by my ankle. It was caught on a root of the tree, bent at an angle it shouldn’t go.

My head was in the dirt, and every movement sent a new wave of pain through me. Blood was rushing to my head. I was going to pass out if I stayed like this, and I needed to be free. I needed to get away from the water and away from the overhang.

Think, Esme.

At least I wasn’t hanging. When I got myself free, I would only fall on dirt. Small blessings.

But the way I was hanging, I couldn’t reach my foot. It was too far and too awkward, and it was wedged between the crossing of two roots that didn’t want to move. The only way it was going to move… was if I moved it.

Even preparing to move it was agony.

It’s that or pass out, May-may. You can do this.

It was Eva’s voice in my head. I could do this. I had to do this. I was broken and devastated, and I wasn’t sure my soul would ever recover, but I wasn’t going to give up and die here.

Passing out and dying hanging from a tree root was unacceptable.

I took three big breaths, counting myself down, and I shoved upward, screaming as I did. My ankle might as well have been made of glass for all it felt shattered.

The dirt was slick, and I kept falling, rolling down the bank too fast to control.

Please stop, I begged. I couldn’t go in the water. I wouldn’t be able to get myself back out. I didn’t even think I could walk.

I hit the bottom of the curve, slamming into the rocks on the shore too hard. But I was no longer moving. The water was close, but I wasn’t going to slip into it.

Everything hurt, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. My body gave in to the pain, and I faded into black.

Chapter 42

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

________

LUKE

The rain splattered against the windshield as we drove too fast.

Omega. Omega. My Omega.

My heart pounded with the word. I couldn’t breathe, because I didn’t know where she was, and in this weather…

Something felt wrong. On the same base, primal level where I knew Esme was mine, I knew something was very very wrong.