The Year I Stopped Being His novel Chapter 15

"Archie! Archie!"

Frantic, hoarse shouts tore across the treacherous rocky shoreline on the outskirts of Stockholm.

More police units swarmed the area, armed with megaphones and heavy-duty flashlights. The sky had turned practically pitch black, heavy gray clouds pressing down as the ocean churned into a violent, ominous tempest.

Bzzzt—

The phone in Garrison's pocket buzzed. He hit answer, met instantly by Rosemary's voice, thick with suppressed terror and rage. "Did you find him?"

"Not yet."

Garrison had zero patience to coddle her right now. "Don't tell Dad yet," he ordered, promptly hanging up.

Meanwhile, Sloane was pushing through an isolated stretch of rocks entirely cut off from the main search grid.

She stumbled forward, half-blind in the dark. Her shoes were already soaked through with freezing seawater, but she couldn't feel the biting cold. Her mind was locked onto a single, desperate instinct: Find Archie!

The next second, as she rounded a massive, slick black boulder, something caught the corner of her eye. Wedged in a crevice right near the crashing waves was a tiny flash of reflective material—a blue mitten.

Sloane's heart practically stopped.

She scrambled forward on her hands and knees and snatched the mitten. It was his!

Scanning the dark, violent surge of water ahead, she finally spotted a tiny splash of red. Her five-year-old boy was wedged in the hollow of a massive rock. As the waves swelled and retreated, the freezing water surged dangerously close to his chest, yet he didn't move an inch. He looked like a frozen little statue.

"Archie—!!!"

Without a second thought, Sloane practically threw herself down the sheer face of the rock. The freezing ocean instantly pierced her down to the bone, knocking the air straight out of her lungs. Only then did she realize the water was deep here, almost swallowing her whole.

Thank God she was a competitive swimmer.

"Archie! Mom is here! Hold on!"

Sloane shucked off her heavy winter coat right in the water and swam frantically toward the red dot. The water deepened further, the submerged rocks dangerously slick with algae.

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