Chapter 5

Grace POV

I sprinted until my lungs burned like they were filled with broken glass.

The humiliation from the lodge was a physical weight, pressing down on my chest harder than the impending storm.

I needed air.

I needed the sanctuary of the woods.

The sky had turned a bruised purple, heavy with unshed rain.

Thunder vibrated in my chest before I even registered the low, rolling growl in the distance.

I reached for my ear and realized too late that I had left my hearing aid on the nightstand in the chaos.

The world was instantly muffled.

Dull.

It felt like I was underwater. I was half-deaf in the darkening forest.

Desperate to orient myself, I turned back toward the lodge.

That's when I saw them under the shelter of the old woodshed near the tree line.

Josiah and Lexi.

They were arguing.

I couldn't hear the words, but I saw Josiah's aggression in the rigid set of his shoulders.

He was slashing his arms through the air, violent and erratic.

I stepped closer, my boot crushing a twig.

I didn't hear the snap, but the vibration must have traveled, because they turned.

Josiah saw me.

He stormed over, closing the distance in three long strides and grabbing my shoulders.

His mouth moved rapidly.

I focused, forcing myself to read his lips.

*Liability.*

*Stupid.*

*Go back inside.*

"I am not a dog!" I screamed.

My voice tore through my throat, raw and bleeding, vibrating strangely in my own skull.

Josiah froze.

Lexi gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.

"You're a coward!" I rasped, the words clumsy but loud enough to bridge the silence. "You let her break me!"

Josiah's face twisted in frustration. "I am saving you! You don't understand the-"

*CRACK.*

I didn't hear the gunshot clearly.

It sounded like a dull pop, like a cork pulled from a bottle across a crowded room.

But I saw the wood of the shed splinter inches from Josiah's head.

Dirt kicked up around us in violent puffs.

Ambush.

Men in black tactical gear emerged from the tree line like shadows detaching from the darkness.

Rivals.

Probably sent to kill the heir.

"Get down!" Josiah lunged and tackled me.

We hit the mud hard.

More shots flashed.

The ground shook.

An explosion ripped through the air near the main lodge.

Suddenly, the earth beneath us gave way.

The heavy rain had loosened the soil on the ridge, turning it into a slurry.

We slid.

Mud, rocks, and darkness swallowed us whole.

I tumbled down the ravine, hitting trees, tearing my skin on unseen roots.

I landed hard at the bottom of a gully.

My leg screamed in white-hot pain.

I gasped, wiping sludge from my eyes, and looked up.

Josiah was ten feet away, covered in mud but standing.

Lexi was screaming, clinging to a root halfway up the slope.

"Josiah! Help me!"

She was the alliance.

She was the future.

She was the trade routes.

I was the mute ward. The liability. The theft suspect.

The gunfire was getting closer, popping rhythmically above us.

The assassins were coming down the ridge.

Josiah looked at me.

I was hurt. I couldn't walk.

He looked at Lexi.

He had to make a choice.

He could only carry one.

Our eyes locked across the muddy divide.

I saw the apology in his eyes a split second before he moved.

It was the most cruel thing I had ever seen.

"I'm sorry," he mouthed.

The syllables were perfectly clear.

He turned his back on me.

He scrambled up the mud bank.

He grabbed Lexi.

He hauled her up.

They ran toward the extraction point.

They ran away from me.

I lay in the mud.

The rain washed the blood into my eyes.

I was alone.

I was deaf.

I was weaponless.

And the man who had swore to be my voice had just left me to die in the silence.