I tried to differentiate reality from dreams and truth from imagination. Though this made no sense, it felt too real to be a dream.
Not a dream, a nightmare.
No, not a nightmare, worse.
I pushed on, searching through the thickening fog. Condensation hung in the humid air, frizzing my red hair, yet not wet enough to soothe my parched lips. The mist created an impenetrable veil, separating me from where I longed to be, where I belonged. The muck below my feet transformed.
Thinner, less viscous.
It was water.
I tried to cup some in the palm of my hand, to satisfy the unquenchable thirst.
I couldn’t. It was rising, too much and too fast.
I gasped for air as I sank deeper, fluid filling my lungs.
Unlike the stagnant muck of before, this water was rapid in its movement.
A waterspout.
Swirling.
A current—a riptide.
I had visions of water circling in a bathtub, being sucked down the drain.
My body flailed at its disposal.
Around and around I went.
I pushed upward with all my might, trying to fight the current. My arms swam outward, my legs kicked.
Again, the water grew thicker, too thick to navigate.
A light appeared, distant, much like a lighthouse barely visible upon a fog-filled jetty. I reached toward the glow, but it was too far away. An optical illusion or perhaps heaven’s welcome.
The more I fought, the weaker I became.
“Reid,” I called out, yet my voice didn’t register. One can’t speak aloud when drowning.
Was I dying?
Was this what it was like?
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t fight harder.” The words weren’t audible, yet I heard them, felt them resonate in my heart and soul.
Had I told my husband I loved him?
I said it daily, multiple times a day.
Would he know that he was in my thoughts as I stopped fighting?
I exhaled one last time, giving way to sheer exhaustion.
My eyes opened to darkness.
Had time passed?
I couldn’t be sure, but no longer were my lungs unable to expand. I could breathe.
Large gulps of air. The rush gave fuel to the simmering fire from before, bringing back the torment as the flames raging through me. As the blaze flourished, my skin chilled, cooled by...
More water?
“Float, Lorna,” I told myself.
I’d read that somewhere.
Don’t fight—float.
The surreal sensation was of buoyancy. My body bobbed like a buoy in the waves. It was as if I were transported back to the Dead Sea. Everyone and everything floated in the Dead Sea as salt pellets the size of snowballs formed on the sand below the water.
Exhaustion dampened the flames, filling my arms and legs with heaviness.
Sleep. I needed sleep.
Drifting.
Nothingness prevailed.
Time was irrelevant.
I woke with a start—a crash—as my body landed upon a hard surface, my head bouncing as the throbbing resumed and a gush of air expelled from my lungs. Yet I was no longer in the sea, tide, or muck. The world was still dimmed but not as dark as before.
It was as if I was at the point where light and dark meet.
Dusk or dawn, which would win?
Below me was a solid surface surrounded by nothingness. I strained to hear—anything—nothing.
I spat the copper taste of blood from my dry, bloated lips as strands of my hair stuck to my battered cheeks. My swollen eyelids fluttered against a rough fabric. My shoulders ached.
I tried to move. Each attempt met unrelenting resistance.
My wrists were bound behind my back. My ankles bound to one another.
My knees bent as I inched upon the hard, cold surface with only the sounds of my own breath gasping for air and the thump of my pulse echoing in my ears. I pushed with my toes, realizing that my shoes were gone. Arching my back caused pain to radiate from my ribs. With Herculean effort, I rolled to my back, breathing in and out. When the pain subsided, I tried again, moving my legs as my fingers clawed at the smooth, cool, damp floor.
What was my last recollection—before the fire and muck?
Where had I been?
Where am I now?
Each question filled my mind with terror.
“Reid.”
I didn’t utter his name aloud.
This wasn’t a nightmare.
This was worse.
If this was the dusk as darkness fell, would I see the dawn?
Tears prickled my eyes as I become conscious of my situation. It was what my husband and others had cautioned me about since the day I agreed to be his wife.
The wife of one of the top officers in the Sparrow army would never be fully safe.
Reid vowed to do everything he could. He wasn’t alone. All of the men—Mason, Sparrow, and Patrick—my friends and family, vowed