Christina’s POV
I stepped into Isobel’s personal space, feeling Akira bristling.
"Oh really? You’re threatening now? Co on, Isobel. It’s 2025, not so werewolf territory war. What’s your grand plan? Think your precious family’s still going to clean up your ss? Still bail you out after everything you’ve done?"
Her face flushed crimson, her breath coming in jagged bursts like she might explode any second.
"Don’t you dare talk to like that!" she hissed, her raised voice drawing attention from nearby poolgoers.
She glanced around, suddenly self-conscious about the scene she was creating, and lowered her tone. "Fine. How much do you want?"
"I told you, I don’t want your money. I want you to go to the police and confess. Own up to what you did."
"Not happening," she said flatly.
"Then we’re done here."
I turned and walked away. The party atmosphere continued around us, oblivious to our tense exchange.
"We should have settled this years ago," Akira growled inside my head.
"Not helpful right now," I shot back.
It wasn’t like I could throw a sack over Isobel’s head and finish what we started back in high school. Short of that, I was done wasting my ti.
"Wait!" Her voice pitched higher as she scrambled after .
Her hand clamped onto my arm with surprising strength.
I backhanded her in the ribs without hesitation, hard enough to make her wheeze and release with a winded "oof."
"Ow! You hurt !" she snarled, clutching her side.
"I’ll hurt you worse if you keep following ."
I turned away.
Two children ran past, squealing with delight, inflatable swim rings bouncing around their small waists.
I stepped aside to avoid them, montarily turning my back to Isobel.
Big mistake.
Even without looking, I sensed it—the air shifting, the sharp clack of her heels against concrete, that sickly waft of knockoff perfu.
I sidestepped and pivoted, but not fast enough.
She lunged past —arms flailing, legs sliding—headed straight for the swimming pool.
Except I’d miscalculated.
As she flew past, her flailing hand caught the back of my knee and yanked.
"Shit!"
I pitched forward helplessly, headed straight for the water.
The pool hit like a concrete wall. Cold. Sharp. Punishing.
It slapped against my skin and swallowed whole. I sank imdiately, the chill biting into my bones. All sound blurred into muffled silence.
A thrash—Isobel’s arm—caught across the stomach, knocking the breath from my lungs.
Her leg clipped again, pushing further away, the current scattering us like autumn leaves.
I should’ve been fine. The pool wasn’t deep. Children swam here daily.
But the world tilted.
My vision dimd at the edges, narrowing like a tunnel.
Panic surged—sudden, irrational, all-consuming.
"Christina! SWIM!" Akira’s voice echoed through my mind, desperate and frightened.
My limbs turned to stone. I couldn’t move, couldn’t rise. My arms flailed weakly, accomplishing nothing.
The cold wasn’t just water anymore.
The mory hit like a brick to the chest.
Years ago. High school.
Fifteen and stupid, still trusting people I shouldn’t.
Isobel had lured to an abandoned building with so rogues from outside Highrise City.
So big, foul-slling n.
I wasn’t even sixteen yet and couldn’t shift.
I’d wanted to leave, but my head was spinning from the spiked drink soone had handed earlier.
The bastard reached for , slurring sothing about teaching the stuck-up bitch a lesson, and I knew if I didn’t escape, sothing irreversible would happen.
There’d been a rusted piece of rebar on the floor. My fingers found it by accident, grazing cold tal.
When he lunged, I swung.
It landed with a sickening thud, and he went down hard.
The back window was loose. I forced it open.
There was a river below.
I didn’t hesitate. I jumped.
But I couldn’t swim. Not properly. Not while drugged, disoriented, terrified out of my mind.
The water closed over , cold and endless.
I kicked, thrashed, scread—but it all stayed trapped inside.
The sky vanished.
All that existed was the current, swallowing , choking .
The taste of dirty water filling my mouth.
The weight of my clothes dragging down.
The realization that no one was coming.
No one knew.
I was utterly alone.
That old terror slamd into like it had never left. I’d buried it so deep I pretended it never happened.
The pool wasn’t a pool anymore.
It was that river again.
And I wasn’t Christina Laurent, Alpha Hudson’s Luna.
I was that fifteen-year-old girl again—betrayed, alone, drowning with no one to save her.
My limbs forgot how to move.
My body forgot how to fight.
"Christina!" Akira howled inside . "We’re stronger now! FIGHT!"
But panic clamped down like a vise, locking every muscle, scrambling every thought.
I didn’t know which way was up.
My vision blurred.
My chest burned.
My lungs convulsed, desperate for air.
My mouth opened, and water rushed in, cold and vicious.
The edges of my mind flickered, like a dying lightbulb.
Then—sothing.
A figure, slicing through the water.
I couldn’t tell if it was real or just my brain giving sothing beautiful to die to.
A hallucination. A ghost.
But it was coming straight for . Fast, purposeful, unstoppable.
My mouth opened again, but this ti not for air.
Maybe for help. Maybe for a na.
Nothing ca out.
Then—arms. Solid. Real.
One wrapped tight around my waist, anchoring .
That was when I knew it wasn’t a dream, wasn’t a trick of the light or so fading fantasy.
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