Of all the ways Ethan imagined he could die, he truly never thought he’d drown.

  The small mountain town of Stillrock was over a thousand miles east from the Pacific Ocean, and the rivers and lakes found throughout the Lavender Mountains were far too cold to swim. In fact, the only time Ethan ever entered a body of water larger than his bathtub was when a friend would invite him to their pool during their summer breaks, and even that had been a rarity after high school since everyone with any sense had either gone far, far away to college or taken a job in the city, never looking back at the black hole that was Stillrock.

  Ethan, of course, had done neither of those things, and that poor decision was just one of the many reasons he found himself slowly sinking underneath a frozen lakebed.

  He could regret those decisions later, if he lived. With what little breath he had, he allowed himself a moment to assess his limited options. The water in the rocky lakebeds of the Lavender Range were crystal clear and, the way he saw it, he only had two choices.

  He could try to swim up, back to the surface, and hope Hailstone had stayed around long enough to help pull him up. That part wasn’t likely given she was the reason the ice had collapsed around him in the first place and she didn’t exactly have the best moral compass, but if he made it to the surface and flailed around enough, Raz might be able to see him and call Alex for help. She would be here in seconds if she knew Ethan was in enough trouble. If he moved now, he just might have enough air to make it back to the surface.

  Or, he could get what he came here for.

  Above him was dark, the unnatural ice forming a shadowed mosaic of the lake’s surface, blocking the light save for the hole he crashed through, allowing a beam of dull sunlight to filter through. His eyes followed the light down, and he saw what he had driven up to Basin Lake for in the first place.

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  Below him was the breach, a jagged fissure scarring the lakebed. Beautiful, multicolored light poured out of the breach, crackling and popping as it came into contact with the water, washing away with the gentle undercurrent. It called to him, like a siren to a sailor, beckoning him to forsake the shadows above and just sink a little further and slip into its light.

  It was everything he had hoped for, just a fifteen foot swim down. Sink, and it was his.

  Power. Opportunity. Everything he wanted, everything he’d been searching for and denied at every turn was in his grasp, if he wanted to take it, but he had to decide fast.

  The summer heat had yet to fully wane, and the water wasn’t as cold as he expected, but it was still frigid, forcing his muscles to contract painfully, but not fully immobilizing them just yet. Given he was forced under the ice, he didn’t have time to take a deep breath before it broke, and he knew he only had a few moments before his muscles tensed up and moving became impossible. He had just enough breath to make a push to the surface, or to sink to the breach, but he knew he didn’t have enough time for both.

  After being told time and again by Alex and the Apex Corporation that breach points and, by extension, opportunities to gain power did not exist, Ethan had, miraculously, proven them wrong.

  fI he really wanted powers, to become a Protector and leave his old life in the nowhere town of Stillrock behind, it was now or never. There was no telling if he’d ever get this opportunity again, an opportunity he had already missed out on once.

  For the first time that he could remember, his future was finally within his control, within his grasp, and all he had to do was choose.

  Sink or swim.

  With a grin, Ethan chose. Instead of pushing up, towards the sunlight and the fresh air his chest was screaming for, Ethan’s eyes drifted downwards.

  It was now or never, and Ethan was choosing now.

  No matter what it might cost him.