Page 101 of Salem’s Rise

The need to breathe becomes unbearable. My mouth opens involuntarily, and I clamp it shut again before water can rush in. My body bucks against the cuffs, desperate for air. Darkness creeps steadily inward as my lungs scream for oxygen.

I am going to die down here.

There is no longer fear or even pain, just overwhelming, crushing, heartbreaking sadness. I think of my mother and how this will break her. And of Josh. Of every stupid choice that brought us both to Salem’s Fall.

What if he’d never come here? What if I hadn’t followed after him? What kind of life would we have had somewhere else, far away from the Veil and all these terrible secrets?

And The Rites.

What if I had managed to win them? Could I really have brought Josh back?

Could I have saved him?

I’ll never know now. I’ll never know anything, ever again…

Then—

Something crashes through the surface. A shape cuts downward through the black water, fast and powerful, coming straight toward me. For one disoriented second, I think I’m imagining it.

Then I see his face.

Silas.

I’ve never been so fucking grateful to see someone in my entire life. Relief hits so hard it nearly breaks me.

He came for me.

He has not forsaken me, after all.

His hands go first to my chest strap, then the wrist cuffs. Though his movements are controlled, his face is not. His eyes are wide, furious, afraid as he points urgently upward toward the chain and shakes his head.

I understand immediately. The mechanism broke—it’s not moving.

He grips the release pin beneath the right cuff and pulls, but nothing happens. The iron has jammed under pressure. He changes position and braces both feet against the chair frame, wrenching at the lock until the tendons stand out along his hands. It does not open.

My momentary relief gives way to a new kind of terror as I realize I’m trapped in the broken chair. My lungs seize again, my thoughts growing distant and strangely disconnected. I’m losing consciousness.

Silas looks at me, and I see the moment he understands how little time remains for me. Something in his expression changes. Not panic.

Decision.

He presses one palm flat against the water between us. For half a second, nothing happens. Then the harbor… moves.

I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s as if the current gathers beneath his hand in a tight, spiraling pull. Water folds around his arm like fabric drawn by invisible fingers until the pressure against the restraint makes the iron groan. The locking pin tears free and the cuffs spring open, then the strap across my chest snaps loose as if cut by a blade. A force surges beneath the chair, driving us upward with the violence of an underwater geyser. The water carries us to the surface, and we break through into freezing air.

“Jack!”

Silas drags me onto the scaffold and rolls me onto my side. He looks terrified, his face gone completely pale. His hand closes around the back of my neck, steadying me as a spasm tears through my chest.

“Goddamn it! Breathe, Jacqueline!”

Finally, I drag in a ragged breath. Then another. I cough, choking on water, my lungs flayed. Some of the panic leaves his face, but he stays kneeling beside me, soaked and shaking.

“You moved it,” I whisper, staring at his fingers and the harbor still dripping from them. “You moved the water.”

“You were drowning,” he says simply, as though that explains the impossible.

Above us, the clock has stopped as the final chair rises from the harbor, the scarred man from the fifth station still strapped lifelessly inside. His partner, the blonde, blue-eyed woman, looks devastated, guilt written across her face. Like Van, she made a grave miscalculation. They both took a chance, pushing their partners too long for the win, and misjudged the line between endurance and death. That gamble cost two competitors their lives.