Chapter 27
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
The next day, I tell Jane everything. We eat ice cream on a bench across from the fountain and I spend a lot of time poking at frozen strawberry chunks with my spoon instead of looking at her face.
I know what I’m going to see, and I don’t like it.
Sure enough, by the end of the story, she’s looking at me in horror.
My stomach twists, full of vipers once more.
Duncan gave me permission to tell her everything except Felix’s inclusion, so she gets the full story. Even the truth of his identity.
“OK,” she says, chewing on her words the same way she chewed on her brownie caramel ice cream. “So they were hunters.”
“I think they come from a whole family of hunters. Duncan said he was looking into it.”
All the color has drained from Jane’s face. “Why the fuck would hunters want access to the drowned depths? Those were closed off years ago after a bunch of accidents.”
Of course she knows all about it.
I shrug miserably. My face is still fucked up, but it’s less swollen now. That doesn’t stop passersby from ogling. Even now, as I stir melted ice cream, someone stares openly at the bruise on my neck.
Duncan sent me article after article about Halea’s fabled drowned tunnels.
Once used to house students, they were eventually converted to training grounds for aquatic shifters, then closed off entirely after too many accidents.
People have been trying to find a way into them for the last twenty-odd years with no success.
Apprehension squeezes at my throat when I think about it. I unlocked the halls. Whatever’s hiding down there, I let it out. Whatever work my parents did to close that place off, I’ve undone it like an unruly, ungrateful child.
They aren’t even alive so I can beg them for forgiveness.
“I think there’s something down there.”
“I mean, obviously,” she snaps. “The question is, what? What the hell was bleeding you out in a pool of saltwater supposed to do?”
“A ritual?” It’s the only thing I can think of. But it leads into a worse question: if this ritual opens the depths, what did my parents have to do to close them?
I’m not sure I want to know the answer.
She scowls. Taps her foot impatiently. If there’s one person out there who wants answers more than I do, it’s Jane. “I know, I know,” she says. “I just—Are you gonna be OK if I leave to go do some research?”
“Of course.” I shake a bottle of pills at her.
Jane rolls her eyes. “You aren’t drinking with these, right?”
“I think I’m done drinking for a while.”
“Good,” she says, and pulls me into a hug. “Be careful. Call me if anything happens, OK? Don’t wait for Duncan.”
I already learned that lesson the hard way. “I won’t,” I promise. “Thanks. For everything. I’m sorry you have to keep taking me to the hospital.”
“I’ll forgive you if you stop needing to go,” she says, shouldering her bag and gathering her trash. “And I’m not kidding. Call me.”
“I will, I will.”
Then she’s gone, disappearing around the corner.
In two weeks, most of my stitches are gone and my head has stopped pounding.
I take advantage of my newfound health by dragging Duncan to the cliffs.
I know he thinks I should be resting, but I’m so tired of sitting around.
He’s lucky I’m not trying to jog. When I tell him that, he begrudgingly follows me out the door, across campus and down the trail.
I’ve lost enough weight that I fit into some of his clothes (which I am not panicking about, not even a tiny bit), so I steal a gently-used shirt, which he seems to like, because he won’t stop fucking sniffing me.
We have to be careful, so he’s discrete, but the gesture makes me feel warm, cherished, claimed in a way that just feels right, like all the broken parts of me are finally starting to fit together again.
I still want to know about all the weird wolf shit he’s panicking about. I bet it’s not that weird. I don’t want to make assumptions, but it’s hard when my curiosity is eating me alive.
We reach the cliffs at sunset. The sky is purple and pink and streaked with clouds.
Weeks have passed since I last smelled the pines and the ocean air, and I inhale deeply.
Maybe I’m picking up habits from Duncan, who is not-so-subtly sniffing me.
I know it’s part of how checks in on me, that he can smell pain, fear, lust, sickness, and a whole bunch of other things I’d probably rather keep to myself, but I can’t deny how useful it would be in some kind of emergency.
Night falls. It’s here, under the cover of darkness, that I finally gain the courage to say, “So the hidden halls are underneath us?”
Duncan’s hand squeezes mine. “Yeah,” he says. “They’re directly below us.”
I nod. Regret the words as they’re leaving my mouth. “I’m gonna have to go back one day.”
He pulls me into an embrace, careful to keep his grip loose because I’m still bruised and bandaged. “I know. I hate it.”
“They’re not gonna stop.”
“I killed them,” he mumbles into the junction between my shoulder and neck. His lips are soft, his breath hot against my skin. I shiver, lean into him.
“There will be others.”
“I know, baby.”
I press my face into his shoulder, breathe him in. “Are we gonna be able to handle that?”
He holds me a little tighter. “I don’t know. But I’m not giving up.”
I nod slowly. “Right. Neither am I.”
I don’t know why the drowned depths were sealed. I don’t know why the hell Jordan dragged me down there.
But I’m determined to find out.
Duncan’s grip loosens. “I’m not losing you without a fight,” he murmurs, leaning in so I can feel his breath on my lips.
My heart stutters. “Good thing I’m not done fighting, then,” I manage. I want to close the gap between us, but if I do that, we’re done talking for a while.
“Whatever’s going on down there, we’re going to figure it out.” He kisses me. Gentle at first, then harder when I part my lips and invite him in. He tastes of mint and salty air.
The tides crash against the rocks below us.
We stay like this a long time before returning to campus.