Sirens bruised the air, sliding over the water. The Secret Service had probably sent boats, but they’d mow right over her in the water. So that was great.
Think. Focus. She spotted shore—two hundred meters, maybe. Easy day.
But that was before the bullet. Before the blood loss. Before her hands were useless in the water.
Still, she flipped over to her stomach and started to kick, pushing down with her hands, like an oar of sorts, her blood feeding the fish.
Aw, she wasn’t going to make it.
The thought arrived without drama. Just a fact, cold and clear. Her arms turned to rubber, her legs numb. The icy water seeped into her bones, slowing everything down.
Yeah, she’d die here, alone.
She stopped swimming. Turned over again, floating, conserving what little strength remained. Above her, the sky was impossibly blue. The Harbour Bridge arched across it like a steel rainbow. Seagulls wheeled and cried, utterly indifferent to the woman dying in the water below.
Dakota.
She saw that steady gaze, that smile, the hundreds of ways he’d tried to protect her, showing her who he really was.
She didn’t deserve him. But oh, if she was honest—and why not right now, here at the end?—she loved him. Or could have loved him. Longed to have had the chance to figure it out.
To be . . . Tiffany? Or maybe all of her pieces as one. Jayden, and Katya, and Lynx . . .
The woman Dakota saw when he looked at her with those devastating blue eyes. A woman who was worth seeing. Worth knowing.
Because it had all been real, from the moment on the plane when she’d held his hand to the goodbye kiss at the Opera House. Real.
Because the messy, complicated, terrified parts weren’t the performance. Maybe they were the truth.
She coughed out water as a memory surfaced. Her sister’s room, years ago. The worn Bible on the nightstand, pages soft from use, verses underlined in faded yellow highlighter. Jayden had rolled her eyes at it once. Sentimental, she’d thought. Naive.
But now, floating in Sydney Harbour with her blood spreading through the water, the words came back unbidden:
“The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
Delight.
Not in her performance. Not in her usefulness. Not in anything she could do or achieve or become.
In her.
Jayden looked up at the sky—or tried to, the blue wavering through salt water and tears she hadn’t realized she was crying.
I am nothing, God. The words formed somewhere deeper than thought. I have nothing. No masks left. No performance. Nothing to offer.
A wave lapped against her face. She swallowed water, coughed, sank a little lower.
But I’m asking You to save me.
No bargaining. No promises to be better. No earning it.
Just, please save me.
And then her strength gave out entirely.
A wave caught her wrong—or maybe her body just stopped fighting. The water closed over her head, cool and dark and absolute. She tried to kick toward the surface, but her legs wouldn’t respond. Tried to stroke upward, but her arms were made of concrete.
The light above her flickered. Dimmed. The surface seemed impossibly far away—miles instead of inches. The weight of the water pressed down, down, pushing her into the dark.
