Chapter 40
Blacks Beach, La Jolla, California
Fly paddled with practiced strokes, his muscles burning as he fought against the incoming surge.
The sun glinted off the water's surface, momentarily blinding him as he positioned himself for the monster wave building behind him.
This was the kind of heavy water he lived for, the moment when man met nature at its most raw and powerful.
When he rode a wave, the world fell away.
The board became an extension of his body, and he wasn't just riding the water.
He was soaring above it. There was a weightless, breathless moment at the peak of the swell where gravity seemed to let go, and he was suspended between sea and sky, riding an invisible thermal of wind and water.
His mind, honed by years of training and instinct, automatically calculated his approach. With split-second precision, he aligned himself to slide through the barrel of the oncoming wave. One miscalculation, and he would be thrown out or crushed by the fold.
Something massive moved toward him from the beach, a shimmering wall.
The wave rose, magnificent and terrifying. Where he was supposed to enter the barrel, something warped. His angle was suddenly off, so off that he was in serious trouble. The physics of the situation were wrong, impossible even.
But to his shock, his board slipped into the roll with an odd sense of déjà vu that made him almost lose his balance. The ride was so clean, so effortless, something settled in him with a discordant pulse, a bombshell to his brain that didn't compute.
"What the fuck?" he muttered, barely audible over the roar of the water.
He should be crushed beneath heavy water, but he was almost gliding on a surface that felt as if it was too loose, too forgiving. The wave should have been fighting him, but instead, it seemed to cradle his board, guiding him through the barrel with an unnatural precision.
As he emerged from the tube and dismounted from his board, he paddled back toward shore, shaking uncontrollably. Something fundamental had shifted. The world felt different, thinner somehow, as if the laws between possible and impossible had been temporarily torn away.
Bolt and Shamrock were cheering from the beach, oblivious to the strangeness of his ride. To them, it had just been another perfect wave, another demonstration of Fly's skill with a surfboard.
But he knew better.
Fly's mind, usually a fortress of logic and precision, was being unwritten. All those years of burning muscles, all the near-misses, all the perfected timing, suddenly rendered meaningless.
A powerful wave was an adversary, something he conquered, danced with, and commanded.
It was never forgiving. But this wave…it had cradled him.
The techniques he trusted no longer aligned with outcome.
Ocean physics punished error. In all reality, at this moment, he should have been pushed to the bottom and held down by tons of churning water.
He was furious he wasn’t dead.
He looked back, almost afraid of what he would see, but the waves were familiar, rhythmic. The water behaved again. The sets lined up the way they always had.
He waited for the certainty to return.
It didn’t.
His gut clenched, nausea on the edge of threat.
By the time the light drained out of the sky, they were packing up and heading back toward Calsbad, the city lights waiting inland like a promise of order.
Blacks stayed behind them, dark and open, the surf still breaking long after they were gone.
Sand clung to them as if it didn’t want to let them go.
In the vehicle, Shamrock kept talking about the ride.
Fly nodded and smiled, but nothing about the praise touched him on any deep level.
His gut churned and protested, and that furious energy just built like a rising wave.
There was just this feeling of being an impostor inside his own body, and he’d never in his life felt that way.
What he did was genuine. If it wasn’t, he left it in his wake.
“I mean, Surf talked about you handling heavy water, but that was just talk. You walk the walk, lad.”
Bolt whooped. “We need a drink to celebrate that famous ride and numb ourselves a little before we get our tats.” He looked out the window and said to Fly, “Oh, here’s good. Pull over.”
Fly just wanted the night to be over so he didn’t have to hear anymore. North was quiet, but he often was.
The bar was low-lit and narrow, wedged between a surf shop and a closed café, its windows fogged from the contrast between warm bodies and cooling night air.
Salt and beer hung thick in the room, layered with old wood, citrus cleaner, and the faint metallic tang of taps that had seen too many hands.
A chalkboard over the bar advertised drink specials in sloppy block letters, half erased, as if no one had bothered to finish the thought.
Music thumped from hidden speakers, something with a heavy bass line that vibrated through the floorboards.
Laughter rolled in uneven bursts from clustered tables, tourists and locals pressed shoulder to shoulder, the kind of place where stories got louder with every round.
Surfboards were stacked in one corner like discarded shields, their waxed surfaces catching stray flashes of neon.
Fly paused just inside the door, the noise and heat hitting him all at once.
The room felt tight, compressed, like the air pressure inside a collapsing wave barrel, the moment before the world imploded.
He could already feel his stomach knotting again, that wrong, restless energy humming beneath his skin.
They claimed a high table near the back, shadows pooling around them as the door swung shut, and the ocean vanished behind glass, and the night closed in.
“I’ll get the first round,” Fly said, needing a breather.
“You shouldn’t have to pay, master surfer. Let me—”
“No!” Fly shouted, realizing he yelled above the music. His three friends looked at him like he’d just pulled out a loaded gun. “I’ve got it,” he said, modulating his voice, sweating, and feeling sick. He ordered a pitcher and picked it up along with the four mugs.
When he got back to the table, Shamrock was talking again about the monster wave. “Just texted Surf.” His voice was loud, proud, animated, riding the buzz of adrenaline like it was still daylight on the beach.
“I’m telling you, man, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Shamrock said, slapping Fly on the shoulder for emphasis. “That barrel just kept opening. I swear to God, it was like the wave wanted you there—”
“Drop it,” Fly said.
He meant it lightly. He thought he did.
Shamrock laughed, undeterred. “I’m serious. You could’ve sold tickets. Bolt, back me up.”
Bolt grinned. “Best ride I’ve seen you take. And that’s saying something.”
Fly set down the pitcher and glasses, jaw tight, the praise scraping instead of landing. His stomach churned again, sharp and hot. He waved a hand. “Wasn’t that great,” he said. “You guys are over-hyping it.”
Shamrock scoffed. “Bullshit. You’re being modest now? Since when?”
That did it.
Fly grabbed a fistful of Shamrock’s shirt, dragged him off the stool, and slammed him back against the wall hard enough to rattle the frame.
“Shut the fuck up,” Fly snapped.
The words came out sharp and ugly, nothing like the measured tone he used when he was in control. The bar noise dipped around them. Someone swore under their breath. Bolt froze, eyes wide.
Shamrock blinked, shock wiping the grin off his face. “Fly—”
“Don’t,” Fly said, chest heaving. “Just—don’t.”
He released him like he’d been burned and stepped back, hands shaking. The silence was worse than the noise. He could feel it then—the wrongness—not just in his gut, but in his limbs, his breath, the way his temper had flared without warning.
That wasn’t him.
Fly knew it. The guys knew it. That was the problem.
North’s hand settled on his shoulder, and it should have grounded him, but it felt wrong too. He spun away from him.
“Geezus,” he muttered, trying to handle what the hell was happening to him, backing away. “I need—”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
Fly turned and pushed through the bathroom door, dropping to his knees, barely making it to the commode before his stomach revolted. He braced one hand against the porcelain as he threw up hard, body folding around the violence of it. Acid burned his throat. His vision swam.
When it was over, he stayed there, head hanging, breathing through his nose like he was trying to ride out a storm.
Get it together.
Outside the stall, he splashed water on his face and stared at his reflection. Pale. Eyes too bright. Jaw clenched so hard it ached. The man staring back at him looked familiar but wrong, like a photograph taken from a bad angle.
He’d lost his temper.
That never happened. Not like that. Fly absorbed chaos. He didn’t become it.
The nausea lingered, sour and insistent, as if his body hadn’t finished rejecting whatever had gotten into him.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and straightened slowly, every movement deliberate. Controlled.
Fly turned away from the mirror, unsettled.
The night settled into a quieter rhythm as Shamrock and Bolt finally let the ride go.
The jokes thinned out. The volume dropped.
They kept throwing Fly sidelong glances, like they wanted to ask him what the hell was going on but didn’t trust the answer they’d get.
That made the sick feeling in his gut tighten instead of easing.
“Tattoo time,” Bolt said finally, pushing his chair back. “I’m ready for some lightning.”
Fly nodded, grateful for the excuse to move.
North rose a beat too late.
Fly caught it immediately. Not a stumble exactly, just a hesitation where there shouldn’t have been one. North’s movements were usually economical, calibrated. He didn’t waste motion. Tonight, he over-corrected, boots scuffing as he found his balance again.
“You good?” Fly asked, already halfway out of his chair.
“Yeah,” North said, too quickly.
They headed for the door. The bar was loud again, bodies shifting, someone laughing too close. North angled toward the exit—and nearly clipped the doorjamb hard enough to rattle it.
Bolt reached out on instinct, hand coming up to steady him.
“Hey—”
North recoiled like he’d been shocked.
“Don’t touch me,” he snapped, voice sharp and raw. He planted his feet, shoulders squared, like he was bracing against something invisible. “Don’t you think I’m capable of walking on my own? I’m the fucking anchor.”
The words landed heavily in the narrow space.
Bolt froze, hands dropping, surprise flickering across his face. Shamrock went still. Fly felt it like a punch, not the anger, but the fear underneath it.
That wasn’t North.
North didn’t flare like that. He didn’t need to assert what he was. He was it.
North scrubbed a hand over his face, breathing hard now. “I’ve got a headache,” he muttered. “Like a son of a bitch.” He shook his head once, as if that might dislodge it. “Alcohol should’ve helped. Didn’t touch it.”
Fly watched him closely as they stepped out into the night air. North’s gait was steady again, but something in the way he moved felt…off. Like his center of gravity was a fraction displaced. Like he was compensating for a ground that wasn’t answering the way it should.
Fly’s stomach clenched.
First him. Now North.
Whatever had happened on that beach hadn’t stayed there.