Chapter 298 A Voice From the Deep

Viola felt herself rising off the ground as the rope around her pulled her up and, almost as if to intimidate her, the rope moved slowly to begin lowering her onto the water that was sparking like lightning currents.

“Javier, I don’t think she killed Ember. She only just held her wrist,” Laila, who was standing at the side, spoke as she watched the rope lowering her toward the water. Though she might not like the wolfless, she had just saved her of being electrocuted.

“What are you still doing in here?” Javier questioned Laila. “Should I assume you still want to join her? Get out.”

He waved for his men to drag her out and away from his sight.

Viola heard Javier ask her, “Do you have a confession to make now?”

She didn’t even look at him, and her eyes remained on the water below that was coming closer to her toes, and she instinctively curled them in.

Viola’s brows pulled together as she noticed the surface of the water beginning to rise slowly in a way that not everyone would notice if they weren’t looking too closely, and she belatedly recognized what was happening.

Oh no.

That water creature was forming, and she could see its eyes staring at her, and what looked to be a smile drawing across its watery features made her insides drop.

Right below the surface of the water, she noticed something swirling and forming circles like a portal.

Viola recognized it from when Zoe’s glass wall had given way.

What was it doing here?

She was denying doing anything and denying having anything to do with sea creatures, and this thing was going to give her away!

Viola shook her head as if to tell it to go away, but everyone mistook the movement for fear, as they hadn’t noticed yet what she was seeing, and Javier smiled as he flicked his finger for the men to release her into the water.

Before she was prepared for it, she was dropped into the water.

A whimper left her mouth, and she closed her eyes, expecting the shock of the electricity, but instead of that, all Viola felt was normal water.

And she was drowning in it.

Her eyes flew open to the darkness of the water, and fear consumed her, her heart drumming loudly in her ears as she belatedly realized she hadn’t been dropped into the pool but into an endless dark body of water, as though she had gone through a portal hidden beneath the pool, and that was somehow more terrifying than being electrocuted in the pool.

As she began to drown with the rope still around her, Viola felt her lungs burn from lack of air, and her chest began to feel heavy.

She tried to wiggle her arms and legs, but the ropes kept her restrained.

“Serena!”

Viola’s insides knotted as her name echoed from somewhere around her with a rippling echo to it, and she looked around the darkness, panic-stricken, water bubbling around her as her heart drummed faster and faster.

She noticed the movement too late, but when she did, Viola saw something blue coming toward her, swimming toward her through the darkness.

“Serena! You shouldn’t be here. Go back. It’s unsafe. She will kill you… She wants you.”

Came the voice of the blue creature that was hazy in the darkness, and when it began to swim closer to her, water bubbling around them while her lungs burned and her body tingled, she felt the rope tighten around her limbs and she was suddenly jerked upward and away from that blue figure, giving her heart an anxiety she couldn’t put a name to.

Before her breath would give out or before she could see what that thing speaking to her was, she was pulled back toward the surface where she finally felt the electric shock that rattled her whole body briefly before she was completely pulled out of the pool.

Viola was coughing and trying to catch her breath, while at the same time her body was still shaking from the electrocution of the water current. But she slowly became aware that she was being held by someone who was loosening the rope from her body, and his familiar warm scent hit her like a wave after the shock, sending her insides tingling with a spark of delight and relief even before seeing him clearly.

“Cough it out, love. That’s it.”

She heard his familiar voice whisper close to her ear, and when she looked up through her hazy, red, teary eyes, Viola’s heart skipped a beat before it resumed throbbing faster against her ribs, as if trying to make up for that brief moment of a missed beat.

She stared at the face of her husband like she was seeing him in a dream and couldn’t believe he was indeed back and trying to make her cough out the water. For a moment she simply stared, afraid that if she blinked he would disappear and she would wake up to find herself still trapped in that water, and this was a dream.

“Seb…” she muttered hoarsely as she began to cough again, and he patted her back, looking at her without displaying any emotion on his face, which made her suddenly fear that he was angry at her for causing a mess, especially with that dark scowl settled on his face.

She was relieved to see him and wanting nothing more than to throw herself into his arms properly, and just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming this after falling into that water, she tried to touch his face.

But he moved his face away and grabbed her wrist, bringing it down to her side as he continued to pat her back gently and tenderly while pulling her to lean against his chest.

Viola barely had the energy to apologize to him for the trouble she had caused, as she was weakened by the electric shock and the experience in the water. She let her head rest weakly against his chest as his arms tightened around her.