Ruined (Ruined, #1)(72)
“I can think of worse things than turning out like my mother!” As soon as the yell left her mouth she regretted it, but the anger swirled inside of her too violently to back down.
“I can’t think of anything worse, actually,” he spat. “She tortured people for fun—”
“Your father just tortured one of my best friends!” she interrupted.
“And your mother would have tortured every person in Lera if given the chance!”
“Well, she wasn’t given the chance, was she?” Em shouted.
“And maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” Cas said tightly.
“Lovely. Please go on about how you think it’s so great that my mother is dead.”
“Really. You’re telling me that you aren’t celebrating that my father is dead.”
She pressed her lips together. He had her there. Lera—and the rest of the kingdoms—were much better off without him.
And maybe she could understand why Cas felt that way about her mother.
“Perhaps we should just both agree that both our parents were horrible people,” Cas said drily.
She let out a startled laugh. Cas cocked one eyebrow at that reaction, and she felt a fresh wave of almost hysterical laughter bubbling to the surface. She leaned over her knees, her giggles echoing across the river, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle them.
She caught a glimpse of Cas’s stony face, and she knew the laughter was going to dissolve into tears. The ache of keeping them in pushed at her throat, and her attempts to force the tears away were entirely unsuccessful. They spilled down her cheeks. She pressed her forehead to the tops of her knees.
“Are you crying?” Cas asked, like it was the first time he’d ever seen anyone do it.
She didn’t want to admit it out loud, so she remained silent and tried not to let her shoulders shake.
“You’ve lied to me, attempted to destroy my kingdom, basically killed my father, and now you’re crying?”
She sniffled. The boat tilted slightly, and she peeked up to see him scanning the area, holding the oars out of the water.
“I . . . I can’t even go anywhere,” he said. “I’m stuck on this boat with you, watching you cry.”
She wrapped her arms around her legs as she tried to get ahold of herself.
“It’s been a bad few days,” she mumbled.
He was quiet for several seconds. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer, calm. “It really has.”
Em woke to Cas yelling her name.
She jerked awake, her brain cloudy and her body stiff. She’d fallen into a deep sleep, and it took several seconds to pull herself out of it.
When the fog cleared, she realized the boat was going very, very fast.
And the noise . . . what was that?
She whipped her head around, squinting in the dim, early morning sun. A waterfall. It was still too dark to see it, but from the speed they were going, they must be rapidly approaching it.
Cas grabbed her hand, the boat lurching dangerously to the right. “Get out of the boat!” he yelled. “We’re going over—”
His sentence ended in a gasp as the boat tilted down.
She lost Cas’s hand as the water swallowed them both.
THIRTY-THREE
CAS GASPED AS he surfaced from the water. His entire body stung from the impact, but he hadn’t hit anything solid.
He couldn’t say the same for the boat, however. Pieces of wood bobbed on the dark river.
Em was nowhere to be seen.
“Em?” He splashed in a circle, desperately squinting in the darkness. “Em!”
He didn’t see her. His chest started to tighten, panic creeping in. What if he lost her like this? What if, after everything, he lost her going over a stupid waterfall?
“Cas!” Her yell came from behind him, and he whipped around and swam toward it as fast as he could.
He heard her breathing before he saw her. Em’s head barely bobbed above the surface, and she sucked in air before disappearing under. She resurfaced a second later.
He reached for her, his fingers finding her under the water. He tried to tug her up, but her body resisted.
“It’s . . . stuck,” she gasped, her arms flailing. “My foot is stuck.”
“Which foot?”
“The left one.” Her face disappeared underneath the water for a moment, and she spit out water when she surfaced.
He took in a deep breath and dove down. It was too dark to see anything, so he had to feel his way down her leg. At her foot he felt something slimy and stringy wrapped around it. He tugged at it, but it didn’t budge.
His lungs burned and he kicked to the surface, sucking in a deep breath. “I’ve almost got it,” he said. “Try to stay still.”
She nodded and he dove back under, grabbing her leg. He yanked on the vine as hard as he could. It finally released Em’s leg.
He swam back up, his hands finding her waist. She was shaking, and she immediately clung to him, wrapping her arms around his neck.
He circled one arm around her waist, using the other to keep them afloat. “It’s all right,” he said softly.
“Thank you,” she said, lowering her face into his shoulder.
“You’re welcome.”
For a moment the only noise was the water rushing and Em breathing against him, and he realized that he wasn’t supposed to be saving her. If he’d been thinking clearly, he might have remembered that he hated her. He should have been ordering her execution, not saving her life.