I stepped into her space. ‘Oh really? What, you’re going to threaten now? Co on, Isobel. It’s 2025, not the Wild West. What’s the plan—whack ? You think your precious family’s still going to clean up your ss? Still going to bail you out after everything you’ve done?’
Her face flushed deep red, her breath jagged like she was seconds from bursting a blood vessel.
‘Don’t talk to like that!’ she hissed, her raised voice drawing attention.
She glanced around, suddenly self-conscious, and dropped her tone. ‘Fine. How much would it take?’
‘I told you, I don’t want money. I want you to go to the police and confess. Own up to what you did.’
‘Not gonna happen.’
‘Then we’re done.’
I turned and walked off.
It wasn’t like I could conjure up a sack, throw it over her head, and pick up where we left off back in high school with a proper beatdown.
Short of that, I was done.
She scrambled after . ‘Wait!’
Her hand clamped onto my arm.
Stronger grip than I expected.
I backhanded her in the ribs, hard enough to make her wheeze and let go with a winded ‘oof’.
‘Ow! You hurt !’ she snarled.
‘I’ll hurt you worse if you keep following .’
I turned away.
A pair of kids ran past, squealing, inflatable swim rings bouncing around their waists.
I stepped aside to avoid them, my back montarily to Isobel.
She must’ve thought that was her mont.
Even without looking, I felt it—the air shift, the sharp clack of her heels against the concrete, the sickly waft of her perfu.
I sidestepped and pivoted.
She lunged straight past —arms flailing, legs sliding—and crashed towards the swimming pool.
Except I’d misjudged.
Didn’t shift far enough.
As she flew past, her flailing hand caught the back of my knee and yanked.
‘Shit!’
I couldn’t stop it.
I pitched forward helplessly, headed straight for the pool.
The water hit like a 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, maybe trying to swim—caught across the stomach, knocking the breath from my lungs.
Her leg clipped again, and I was pushed further away, the current scattering us like broken pieces.
I should’ve been fine.
The pool wasn’t deep.
Kids swam here.
But the world tilted.
My vision dimd at the edges, narrowing like a tunnel.
Panic surged—sudden, irrational, all-consuming.
The kind of fear that didn’t care about logic.
My limbs turned to stone.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t rise.
My arms flailed weakly, but they weren’t swimming—they were sinking.
The cold wasn’t just water anymore.
The mory hit like a brick to the chest.
Years ago. High school.
Sixteen and stupid, still trusting people I shouldn’t.
Isobel had lured to an abandoned building with so thug from off-campus—soone twice my size, reeking of cigarettes and sothing worse.
I’d wanted to leave.
I tried.
But my head was spinning from the spiked drink soone had handed earlier.
The bastard reached for , slurring sothing, and I knew if I didn’t get out, sothing irreversible would happen.
There’d been a rusted piece of rebar on the floor.
I found it by accident, fingers 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 even hesitate. I jumped.
But I couldn’t swim.
Not then. Not while I was drunk, 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 in my mouth.
The weight of my clothes dragging down.
The realisation that no one was coming.
No one knew.
I was utterly alone.
And that old terror—the one I’d buried so deep—slamd into now like it had never left.
The pool wasn’t a pool anymore.
It was that river again.
And I wasn’t Mirabelle Vance, the woman who survived.
I was that sixteen-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.
Panic clamped down like a vice, 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.
And the mont that truth registered, my body gave out.
Everything went black.
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