Matt! Take the wheel!" Bastian barely got the words out before he dove into the black water, wings snapping open before folding against his body. The freezing ocean swallowed him whole.
The cold burned. The waves roared. But all he could think about was Anastasia.
"Anastasia!" he shouted, his voice lost to the crashing sea. Nothing. Just darkness, water, and silence.
He dove deeper, the pressure squeezing his lungs, his heart slamming against his ribs. His hands clawed through the water, searching—desperate. But she was gone.
No. No. No.
He forced himself lower, lungs screaming, his vision blurring. His fingers grazed something—a phantom? A trick of the light? He reached again, but there was nothing. Just the endless abyss.
The ocean was swallowing her whole.
He shot back up, breaking the surface with a strangled gasp. The yacht was a distant blur, Matt fighting to steer it toward the harbor. The lights from the shore flickered, mocking him, offering safety too far, too late.
His wings felt like lead. His body was numb. His heart—
He wasn't coming back with her.
By the time he reached the pier, his movements were sluggish, mechanical. Water dripped from his body, his soaked wings dragging uselessly behind him. The others were there. Waiting.
"Where is she?" Rose's voice cracked.
Bastian couldn't speak. He shook his head, barely holding himself together.
"Bastian—where the hell is she?" Matt's voice was raw, desperate.
He swallowed hard. The words didn't come. But the truth was in his eyes.
"No." Matt's face drained of color. "No, she's—she's strong. She's out there. You didn't look hard enough."
"I looked everywhere!" Bastian's voice ripped through the night, raw and broken. "She's gone."
The world stood still.
Rose let out a strangled sob, Billy turned away, fists clenched, and Matt stumbled back, shaking his head like he could undo what he'd just heard.
"No," Matt whispered. "We have to go back. We have to keep searching."
"We will." Billy's voice was steady, but his eyes betrayed him. "But right now, we need a plan."
A sharp voice cut through the devastation. "Search and rescue, now." Wyatt's face was stone, but his eyes burned with a father's terror. He barked orders into his radio, his voice cold, clipped, lethal. "No stone unturned. No water unsearched."
The harbor flared to life—boats, helicopters, an army moving into action.
But Bastian barely heard them. His hands curled into fists, his breath ragged.
Anastasia was gone.
And if she wasn't dead yet, he'd tear apart heaven and hell to bring her back.