Steel Princess (Royal Elite 2)

I was floating and floating and floating.

I couldn’t breathe.

All I sucked were gulps of water and more water.

I can still taste the chlorine on my tongue.

It was cold. So so cold as I floated in there.

For a moment, I thought it was the end. Because that’s how the end feels like, right? It’s endless.

And lonely.

And cold.

Hell isn’t only scorching fire. That water was my special type of hell.

A cold hell.

Someone pushed me.

I think a hand pushed me straight into the pool.

But I can’t be sure if it’s true or a work of my imagination. After all, I was out of it from the car park to the pool. I shouldn’t have gone to the pool in the first place.

If I lost time on the way to the pool and can’t remember the faces I saw, why couldn’t my mind play a trick on me? By thinking that I was pushed, my mind can protect itself from believing that I jumped in there of my own volition.

That’s… a scary thought.

I have nothing to prove that I was pushed and there’s no way I’ll worry Aunt and Uncle when I’m not sure myself.

Sniffling, I smile. “I think I tripped.”

“What were you even doing near a pool?” Aunt asks. “You avoid them like the plague.”

“Blair,” Uncle gives her a knowing look.

“What? She wouldn’t go near a pool out of her own will.” She narrows her eyes. “Did Aiden make you do it?”

My heart squeezes into itself at the mention of his name, but I shake my head.

“He was in practice…” I trail off as a crazy thought barges into my mind.

Was he in practice?

He’s the ace striker and can ditch anytime. He could’ve been at the pool.

My lips tremble.

He couldn’t have been the one who pushed me, right?

I inwardly hit myself. I need to stop making him the saint he’ll never be.

The facts are: Aiden King is capable of drowning me.

After all, he’s the only one at RES who wants to destroy me.

“Stop jumping to conclusions, Blair,” Uncle tells Aunt.