Stop fighting me!" he said, trying to pull on the arm he held.<br /><br />He was in a precarious position himself, straddling the rail as he tried to lean over far enough to get me and actually hold onto me.<br /><br />“Let go of me!” I yelled back.<br /><br />But he was too strong and managed to haul most of me over the rail, enough so that I wasn’t in total danger of falling again.<br /><br />See, here’s the thing. In that moment before I let go, I really had been contemplating my death. I’d come to terms with it and accepted it. I also, however, had known Dimitri might do something exactly like this. He was just that fast and that good. That was why I was holding my stake in the hand that was dangling free.<br /><br />I looked him in the eye. "I will always love you."<br /><br />Then I plunged the stake into his chest.<br /><br />It wasn’t as precise a blow as I would have liked, not with the skilled way he was dodging. I struggled to get the stake in deep enough to his heart, unsure if I could do it from this angle. Then, his struggles stopped. His eyes stared at me, stunned, and his lips parted, almost into a smile, albeit a grisly and pained one.<br /><br />"That’s what I was supposed to say. . .” he gasped out.<br /><br />Those were his last words.