Can’t Win Me Back

Jasper felt a pain unlike any he had ever known.

It wasn't a physical agony like having flesh torn away, but a slow, excruciating torture akin to being slowly sliced by a blunt blade.

It was a hundred times worse than dying instantly.

His mind raced through a chaotic sequence of images, like a black- and-white movie playing backward.

He saw people retreating and leaving —Javier, Anne, Newton, Landon, Lauren, Jonah, Axel...

He reached out desperately, trying to grasp any of them, but they were slipping away, one by one.

Finally, the image settled on Alyssa's radiant face.

"Lyse...

Don't go..." Tears streaming down his face, he lunged forward, wrapping his arms around her.

But she dissolved into golden dust, vanishing into the frigid air.

"No! iy A beep sounded in his ear as if everything had been reset.

enveloped him, and

there was

motionless, staring at the fallen

dead, but deep down, he was

then heard footsteps approaching from

Remy emerging from the underground

look on his face, Remy

even a glance at Jameson, Remy's voice dripped with barely concealed

you to

you have no

stood motionless, his

a man who

all his worth—now thrown

of the goddess closed back

laughing

your life has been a

reincarnation exists..." Before he could finish, the deafening roar of a helicopter overhead drowned out

above, casting its shadow over

crash, and with that, the seemingly indestructible

down, cutting