Within moments, only Cole and Elliana were left standing on the desolate clifftop.
The phone connection to Miguel had been severed when the device plummeted into the darkness below.
The wind roared across the rocky peak, whipping Cole’s and Elliana’s hair and clothes around them like a tornado.
Cole’s eyes blazed red with fury, his hands clenched into fists so tight that his knuckles went completely white. A hurricane of rage was building inside him.
Elliana moved closer and pulled Cole into her arms, her voice breaking with sorrow. “We’re going to make them pay for what they did to Taylor. I’ll stand beside you through everything that comes next.”
Cole slowly lifted his face toward the dark night sky above them, his neck straining as he searched the endless black canvas. Hot tears gathered in the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill over, but he refused to let them fall. All he could see when he closed his eyes was Taylor’s face.
Cole decided to make Michael pay for what he’d done. He was going to hunt that monster down and make the latter suffer in ways that would make tonight’s violence look like child’s play. And Michael would beg for mercy before he was finished with him, but there would be none to give.
The sound of helicopter blades cutting through the night air suddenly broke through Cole’s dark thoughts. The mechanical thumping grew louder and louder until it seemed to shake the very ground beneath their feet.
Elliana looked up, shielding her eyes from the wind as she recognized the aircraft. It was Jason. Th? link to the orig?n of this information r?sts ?n FιndＮovel.net
Within moments, the helicopter was touching down on the rocky ground nearby. Jason leaped out before the spinning blades had even come to a complete stop.
Jason had raced here the moment he’d finished cleaning up the mess with the Serpent Society’s operatives. During the entire flight, a heavy knot of worry had been growing in his stomach, fearing what he might find when he reached them. But the scene that greeted Jason was eerily quiet and still. There was no sign of…
Taylor anywhere. No evidence of their attackers. No indication that a violent struggle had taken place just minutes before. There were only Cole and Elliana, standing together in the moonlight, both of them wrapped in a grief so deep that it seemed to radiate from their very souls.
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Jason had never seen Cole look so utterly broken. A cold dread seized him as a guess took hold. “Tell me what happened here,” he said quietly, though part of him already knew he didn’t want to hear the answer.
Cole remained perfectly still, his eyes still fixed on the star-filled sky above them as if he could somehow will Taylor to reappear among the distant lights. It was Elliana who finally broke the silence. Her voice was soft and broken as she told Jason everything — about Michael’s trap, about the fighting, about watching helplessly as Taylor disappeared over the edge of the cliff.
When she reached the part about Taylor’s fall, Jason squeezed his eyes shut tight, as if blocking out her words could somehow make them untrue. A crushing wave of guilt crashed over him — self-reproach that felt even heavier than what Cole must be carrying. If he had been faster, smarter, more careful, maybe he could have prevented this tragedy. Maybe Taylor would still be alive.
But he forced himself to push those feelings aside.
After several minutes of heavy silence, Jason walked over to Cole and placed a firm hand on Cole’s shoulder. “What’s done is done, and standing here won’t bring Taylor back,” he said, his voice steady despite the pain in his heart. “We need to take all this grief and anger and turn it into something useful. We find Michael, and we make him suffer for what he’s taken from us. That’s how we honor Taylor’s memory.”
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