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.

him, and he

was

motionless, staring at the fallen

dead, but deep down, he was

then heard footsteps

to see Remy emerging from

face,

a glance at Jameson, Remy's voice dripped with

you to clean

have no objections, right,

motionless,

looked like a man who had been thoroughly used and

of all his

statue of the

laughing at

life has been a big

Before he could finish, the deafening roar of a helicopter overhead drowned out his

hovered above, casting its shadow over

thunderous crash, and with that, the seemingly indestructible glass shed was

cutting Jameson's