Chapter 98
Dominic POV
The word missing hits harder than any blow I’ve ever taken.
It cuts through the noise of camp like a blade straight to the chest. The beer in my hand drops to the counter as I scan the edge of
the tree.
Ellie isn’t back yet? I how did I miss that? 1
I blink, trying to time together. It had been hours.
My body is already moving. Pushing through the crowd torwars the trees..
She should have been here.
“Dominic-” someone starts. “Wait-”
I don’t stop, started to jog.
“Dominic!” Vivian’s voice snaps sharp, snatching my jacket. “Hold on! It’s pitch black out there! Let the teachers handle it! You can’t just-”
I turn on her so fast she flinches.
“T-this terrain isn’t safe,” she insists, tears in her eyes, worried. “I get it! I’m her sister! I’m worried too but they’ll send a search team. You can’t go charging in-”
“Let go,” I say.
“Dominic please—”
“Move!”
Lucas, the last person I want to see appears beside her, unusually serious, hand half-raised like he’s trying to slow a landslide Woah, okay, Dom,” he says carefully. “I get it, know you want to help. I’m just as worried as you, just like Vivain. But students die out there in those woods when they act recklessly. We need to let the teachers handle it.”
Reckless.
The word barely registers.
All I can see is water-gray and violent-crashing over stone. The memory slams into me without warning. Elle shipping beneath the lake’s surface once before, the way the world almost swallowed her whole while I stood helpless on the shore
How close I came to losing her.
What if
“I’m not asking.” I say. “When Ellie doesn’t show, it’s because she can’t.”
And then I’m gone, rushing past them with a blast of sand and air as they shield there tace
The moment my boots hit the tree line, the edge of control snaps clean through me
Tjump, bones breaking mid strude
My body tears itself apart and rebuilds in motit
gdi
rush land on all fours, ruy woll surgoing through the forest like a tak tero shartna tunes tha
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Ellie.
Her trail is faint. Pulled thin by wind and distance. Old blood.
Blood.
My speed quickens, breath panting through the cold.
Hours blur together.
I scale a sheer cliff faces where rock crumbles beneath my claws, force through vine-choked thickets that tear at my hide, plunge down ravines slick with frost and rot. The forest is huge, and it fights me every step of the way, branches snapping, roots clawing, terrain daring me to slow.
I track her until my muscles scream and my lungs burn, the thing keeping me going, is her scent. It’s growing stronger.
Bounding down a rock ledge I follow it right off a ledge, jumping straight into the void in a free fall.
BAM
My claws slam into the rocks, landing with a puff of debris.
And a sceam.
Not mine.
Crumbled a few clicks from where I landed, twisted, leg braced in a makeshift splint soaked dark sit’s Ellie. Her skin blue, jacket
ripped to shreds, body upright, barely.
Something inside me shatters.
She tries to sit up more “Dom?’ Her breath is weak. “Dom-!”
I lunge for her, claws gouging into stone, a sound ripping out of me that’s half snarl, half relief so violent it hurts.
Ellie.
I’m human again with a snapping jolt, crouching infront of her, breath ragged, hands instantly snaking behind her, pulling her
to me. I squeeze. Hard.
I don’t realize I’m shaking or how hard I’m holding until she lets’s out a small whimper, tapping my shoulder. “Can’t breath,”
I freeze.
“W-what the hell were you thinking?” I snap back, hands to her shoulders, enough to see her face. My voice comes out rough, frayed.
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