I couldn’t stand it.

I’m dying.

I can’t fucking stand it!

And then, just like any rollercoaster, another incline halted the fatal swoop and hurled me back into the heavens once again.

The weight of the water pressed down on my skull and shoulders. My eyes burned from rushing water. The pressure. The unrelenting grip the lake had on me. It fought the pull. It didn’t want to let me go.

The sodden material of my gown sucked to my skin as my chair was raised and raised until…

Pop.

The water relented, letting me break the skin of the pond and leave a watery death behind.

Thank God—I can breathe!

Up and up I swooped, spluttering and dripping rain from above. I breathed and coughed and choked and sobbed.

I sucked in air as if I only had one purpose in life: to revive myself and regain my sanity.

My heartbeat was frantic—palpating, double beating—far too fast and petrified.

My long hair plastered to my face. Every mouthful of oxygen I sucked, strands smothered my mouth. More panic screeched through my veins. The claustrophobia was more than I could bear.

Through the forest of my hair, I had to see behind me. I had to look at Jethro and let him see how much I’d unravelled. I wouldn’t be able to stand another dunk.

I won’t.

Quaking, I looked over my shoulder. My hair tugged, plaiting wetly around my throat as I focused on the banks.

Through drips of water, I vaguely noticed the four Hawk men. All four had their elbows locked, pushing down on the pendulum and gripping hard to the leather handholds.

The strength it took to raise and plummet me into the pond exceeded that of one man.

This debt.

This atrocity had become a family affair.

Jethro, Kestrel, Daniel, and Cut.

Together they played roulette with my life, and in a perfect harmony, they shifted as one and began the rollercoaster all over again.

Their side of the seesaw rose; I dropped.

“No!” I screamed, thrashing in the chair.

But they ignored me.

Faster and faster they dropped me until they disappeared; once again, my aquatic grave welcomed me.

The water’s kiss devoured my feet, my thighs, my breasts…my head.

I sank quicker.

Like I belonged.

The second time was no better.

If anything, it was worse.

My lungs burned.

They felt as if they bled with my submerged screams.

My heartbeat sent ripples of horror through the water cradling me. Sonic sound waves alerted fish that I would soon be easy prey…that I was moments from slipping from this world and into another.

One that hopefully treated me better.

I struggled harder, bruised deeper, and drove myself quicker into madness.

I screamed again, unable to hold in oxygen. Something scaly swam beneath me, tickling my toes. Fronds of water grasses and quick flashes of movement from frogs all sent my mind twirling into darkness.

Images of Loch Ness monsters and sea creatures with wicked sharp teeth stole the remainders of my rationality.

I want to breathe.

I want to live.

I strained for the lighter green of the surface. Crying and pleading and drinking gallons of pond scum in my struggle to stay alive.

Time played a horrible joke on me. It never ended.

There was no reprieve…no air.

The emerald depth of the water crowded me, closing in tighter and tighter—crushing me like a tin can beneath its gentle waves.

This ducking lasted longer, or maybe I was destroyed already. Perhaps it was shorter, but I’d run out of reserves to hold on.

I wanted to stop fighting.

I wanted to succumb.

How weak I was.

How fragile.

How broken.

My fighting gave way to twitches. My muscles fought on their own, demanding oxygen I didn’t have to give.

My hair hovered around me like it was alive, swaying like seaweed, promising an easy existence if I just followed its gentle dance and give in.

Just…give in.

Give in to the gentle lullaby of sleep.

If I died, I won.

The Hawks would lose as I would be free…

My struggling ceased and I hung there as if I was no longer bones and breath, but weightless freedom. My shift billowed like wings around me, sending me deeper into the abyss.

It was quiet down here. Quiet and calm and…drifting.

I drifted…

I faded…

Then the weight began again, folding my chin against my collar, tugging me from the deep. Pounding, pounding pressure as I was wrenched from my emerald tomb and hurled into the clouds again.

Gravity was now my foe, making everything so eternally heavy. My chest was an elephant. My head a bowling ball.

And I was weak.

So weak.

Air trickled down my throat, mixing with water I’d drank, making me retch. As each mouthful registered, my brain awoke, kicking me into survival. I moaned and begged and devoured every drop of oxygen I could.

I couldn’t look up. I couldn’t look behind me.

All I saw was blackness. But something granted me inhuman strength to twist in my bindings and look, just once, behind.

The clouds were dark and threatening, shadowing the Hawks in sombre gloom.

Jethro’s golden eyes burned me from the banks, superseding all distance, glowing like amber or sunlight—or paradise.

Paradise…

I would like to go to paradise.

But then I looked at Cut, Kes, and Daniel.

Their eyes were the same damn colour.

All of them.

Four men. Four wishes and wills—but one pair of identical eyes.