Chapter 19 - DON'T LET GO
Mara froze.
The river roared below.
Lena stood three feet away.
Just sisters.
Or something pretending to be one.
“You let go of my hand,” Lena said.
Mara’s eyes filled.
“I was twelve.”
“You promised.”
“I know.”
“I was scared.”
“So was I.”
Lena stepped closer.
“For years, you blamed yourself.”
Mara gripped the flood wheel.
“Yes.”
“That guilt kept me alive in you.”
“No.”
Lena smiled.
“That’s what love is.”
Mara shook her head.
“No. That’s what hunger tells itself.”
Lena’s face twisted.
The thing beneath her skin moved.
Mara turned the wheel.
Lena grabbed her wrist.
Cold.
Impossibly strong.
Mara screamed and drove the iron handle against Lena’s arm.
Black fluid sprayed.
Lena shrieked.
The wheel turned.
Below, the floodgate began opening.
Water thundered into the quarry channel.
The main river level dropped.
Black threads in the current were pulled sideways.
Thousands of them.
Into red-brown water heavy with iron.
They convulsed.
The sound was not audible.
Mara felt it in her teeth.
Lena collapsed.
Her body flickered between woman and something impossible.
For one second, Mara saw a nine-year-old girl.
Wet hair.
Blue dress.
Terrified eyes.
“Mara?”
Mara dropped beside her.
Whether it was real or a final trick, Mara would never know.
Lena reached for her hand.
Mara took it.
“I’m here.”
Lena whispered, “Don’t let go.”
Mara held tighter.
“I won’t.”
The black veins beneath Lena’s skin began fading.
She smiled.
This time the smile looked like the sister Mara remembered.
Then her hand went still.
The river roared into the quarry as townspeople collapsed across the bridge. Caleb fell too.
Mara ran to him.
He was breathing.
The black vein behind his ear was gone.
For the first time since the cabin, no whisper answered from inside his head.
Then Dr. Park’s radio crackled.
“Mara, you need to see the reservoir cameras.”
She stared at him.
“Why?”
May you like
His voice shook.
“Because something reached the intake before we closed it.”
