26. Chapter 26
We burst into beams of sunlight and low hanging tree branches, and I slammed onto the ground next to the Captain. Ben staggered, barely able to keep his balance. Holy crap, it had worked.
“You heathen wench!” the Captain bellowed, and I rolled away from him as he thrust a hand out to grab me. “Where have you sent us?”
“Run!” Ben yanked me to my feet, and we took off through the trees.
For all his ferocity and skill with a blade, I hoped the extent of the Captain’s time on the ship had affected his cardio. His bellows followed us through the woods, but every time I checked over my shoulder, he had fallen further behind. Maybe that sword of his had slowed him down.
“That was brilliant,” Ben said. “Risky as hell, though. Thank goodness you had luck on your side.”
“About that...” I checked over my shoulder before I slowed to a jog and rolled up my sleeve to show him my bare forearm.
“Are you kidding?” Ben took my arm and brought it up to his eyes as if still hoping to find it there. “You’ve used it up already?”
“That’s the thing, I didn’t,” I said. “I think when we go back through the portals, all the magic attached to us is erased. In the same way the ship keeps us in one state constantly, it must also take away any enchantments on us.”
“Great.” Ben released my arm and ran a hand through his hair. “So my power is pretty useless on that ship.”
“So is mine. Remember the seashell?”
“How could I forget? Our only plan flushed down the drain. Thank the gods for your mum.”
Even if she had barely had the chance to show it, she really was the best mum.
“We have to find out what day it is,” I said. “If we’ve landed even close to the night Izzy cast that spell, we’ve got to figure out how long we have to come up with a plan.”
“That and work out how we execute that plan without being seen by anyone we know... or ourselves,” Ben said.
Gods, how had I forgotten? We weren’t the Maeve and Ben from this time and as such, the Maeve and Ben who belonged in this time were running around somewhere on Dusk, probably getting into trouble. If we bumped into them, we risked changing the past in all the wrong ways.
“Okay, so we can’t go anywhere public and we can’t go anywhere we might have been today.” I swung my bag off my back and retrieved my phone to check the date and time. “It’s one p.m. on the day Izzy cast the spell. But... we can’t talk to her or...?”
This whole thing felt like a giant waste of time. Esther’s warnings about being unable to change the past’s significant events put extra pressure on what we were trying to do. How were we going to pull this off?
“Come on.” Ben looked over his shoulder before encouraging me back into a jog. “There’s somewhere we definitely weren’t today, and maybe it’ll give us some space to think up what to do next.”
***
We ordered a taxi from the nearest road and Ben asked the driver to take us to his house.
“Well, I definitely wasn’t there this time today, but you might have been,” I said, as the taxi set off.
“Not in our bunker, remember?”
“Oh, so it’s our bunker now?”
“We’re the only two people who have been in it lately, so yeah, it kinda is.”
I leaned into Ben and cuddled him, relaxing under the sensation of his arms around me. We had spent so much time trying to figure out how to save Dusk that we hadn’t had a moment to just be with each other. With the Captain on the island, at least Kira, Bronwyn, and Adrian were safe for the time being. But that didn’t remove the sense of urgency that had plagued us for weeks now. It felt like a constant headache that never went away, painkillers be damned.
Ben stopped the taxi driver a short distance from the house and we sneaked around the perimeter of the Everhart property to get to the bunker entrance. I spied the perfect slate roof, still intact over the top of the wall. But instead of relief, I only felt dread. A part of me wanted to find the bomb and get it out of the house. But nobody had died from the explosion, even if it had injured Ben. We had to act so carefully if we were going to make the changes we needed.
“You brought the key with you?” I asked as Ben dug it out of his wallet.
“I kept it in here so I wouldn’t lose it.” Ben waved his wallet in the air before putting it back in his back pocket. “Lucky for us.”
Ben gave me a boost up the wall and leapt up after me, and we sneaked our way down to the bunker, careful to close the door quietly. Who knew who might have wandered around the gardens at the time?
The moment the door closed, I enjoyed the same sensation of tentative peace that had overcome me the last time we were down there. Or was that the next time?
I leaned against the wall and took a deep breath in and out as Ben put the key back in his wallet. “Do you think this place has a calming enchantment or something? It always makes me feel so... relaxed.”
“Maybe.” Ben sidled in front of me and grabbed my waist, pressing his forehead to mine. “Probably. Given the purpose of this place.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and stood up a little on my tiptoes to kiss him. The lack of intimacy we had experienced since we had gone swimming that night with Adrian watching had the warm sensations of his skin and the pressure of his body more powerful than usual.
“I don’t know about you,” I murmured. “But I could use a shower.”
Ben bopped his nose to mine. “Why are you making it sound like more than a shower?”
“Because this is the first time we’ve been alone without your brother watching in too long and a girl has apocalyptic needs.”
“Apocalyptic needs?” Ben chuckled. “Are those different from regular needs?”
“Only in the sense that they can’t wait. Because, you know, the world might end.”
“That sounds urgent.”
“Doesn’t it?” I pulled him into another kiss, a little squeak escaping me as he leant down to hook an arm under my butt and hoist me up around his hips.
I didn’t stop kissing him until he set me down in the nearest bathroom and I kicked off my sandals. Ben’s fingers grazed the bare skin of my stomach as he lifted my shirt up, and my entire body spasmed with the sensation.
“Are you cold?” Ben wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to his chest, but he wasn’t nearly naked enough for my liking.
I pushed him away and yanked his t-shirt over his head. “No, but I’m not warm enough, either.”
“Let me fix that.” He dove for my neck, his hands travelling up my back as he pressed kisses down my throat.
The ecstasy thrust me into a glorious headspace, floating in calm seas while every nerve revelled in the purest ecstasy.
My bra fell away and his fingers travelled down to my waistband, but I had other plans. I seized his hips and whirled us around, pressing his back to the bathroom wall. I found his gaze and held it, the hint of surprise in his eyes and the playful anticipation at the corner of his mouth giving me all the permission I needed.
My hand slipped past his waistband, bypassing his trousers and his boxers entirely. Ben’s mouth fell open, and his eyes rolled back a little as I wrapped my fingers around his length. An unusual thrill had me squeezing harder, pumping my hand up and down in a slow rhythm. He had willingly let me seize entire control of him in the most vulnerable of moments, and I revelled in the gentle sense of power it gave me.
The space between my legs warmed, and crackles of anticipation shot from my core ever lower. Ben grabbed my neck and pulled me into a deep kiss, my tongue the first to part his lips.
“You’re right,” he croaked, when we parted. “It’s been way too long.”
He reached into the shower and flicked on the water, which sputtered a little before gushing out in a hot stream. Ben slipped out of my grip as he yanked my shorts and pants down, and I kicked them across the floor. He whisked me into the shower and I wrapped my legs around his waist as the water cascaded upon us.
I moaned as we melded into each other, the tip of his cock teasing my entrance. Every drop of water tantalised my skin, deepening that heady feeling of bliss.
“Promise me we’ll have more sex in the water when this is over,” I breathed.
“If we get out of this, we can have sex wherever you want,” Ben muttered into my neck.
“Great Barrier Reef?”
“You got it.”
I pressed my palms to the tiles as Ben entered me, his cock filling me so deliciously that my eyes rolled back. His breathy gasp and his tightening grip on me promised a sexual fury I would have begged him to unleash. But I didn’t have to.
One arm around my butt and the other around my torso, Ben slammed into me with reckless abandon. I seized his shoulders, my fingers dipping into his taut muscles as the purest euphoria submerged me entirely. And yet, something wasn’t quite right.
I put one foot on the floor and sank us both onto the floor of the shower, Ben’s legs sticking out of the door. But I didn’t care. My body urged me for a closeness only this position could achieve.
I straddled him, easing his cock back into me as our bodies pressed against each other. Ben hugged me to him, his breaths leaving him in primal grunts as he buried his face in my breasts. I rode him with all the force my thighs could muster, my clit grinding against him with each thrust.
My head snapped back and my mouth fell open as unstoppable waves of bliss tore through me like a tsunami, striking me without the usual warning. It really had been too long.
Ben groaned into my chest as his entire body went rigid, his cock pulsing inside me, straining against my contractions.
“You promised,” I whispered, as I fell limp on top of his shoulders. “Great Barrier Reef.”
***
We didn’t talk much after we had showered properly, dressed again, and gone to the kitchen for some food. Maybe we didn’t want to ruin the aftertaste by discussing the only thing that had been on our minds lately; saving the island. We ate from tins cuddled up on the sofa, watching the clock tick its way to the beginning of the end.
Neither one of us could remember the exact time Isadora had cast the spell, but it had taken place sometime shortly after six, when the sun was setting. We agreed to set off at around four thirty to ensure we arrived at Freddie’s mansion house before our past selves did. Or our present selves? We couldn’t decide.
“How do you think Captain Lovebird is getting on?” Ben asked as he lay across my lap on the sofa.
“Hopefully Mallory’s arrested him for being a dick.”
This Dusk was worlds away from the Dusk the Captain knew. It had rules and expectations neither bullying nor violence could break. I hoped he would find that out the hard way and soon, if he wasn’t already locked up in a cell.
“Well, he’s on our turf now. Plus, I think he deserves a healthy dose of bad luck,” Ben said, taking a strand of my hair between his fingers and playing with it.
“Be my guest.” I stroked Ben’s hair with a rhythm that matched every other second of the ticking clock on the wall. “What’s the first thing you’d do if Dusk went back to normal?”
“Have a giant steak. Gods, I miss meat. What about you?”
“I think I’m going to go take my dad for ice cream.” It seemed fitting, given that mum and I had ice cream together.
“Do you think... if we pull this off... we should tell our families?” Ben asked. “About us, I mean?”
I paused my strokes. “Shouldn’t we get them to sign that agreement first?”
“Probably the best idea. Does that mean you’ll tell your dad you’re a mermaid?”
After meeting with Mum, the idea didn’t sound as worrisome as it once had. She had expressed her wish to tell him, but had just felt too awkward to do so. With that context in mind, telling Dad felt like a much more comfortable possibility.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess we’ll get all our secrets out in the open.”
“We’re used to dealing with apocalypses by now. We’ll be fine, right?” Ben said.
“Yeah, of course we will.”
I looked up at the clock, and an icy chill skittered across my skin as the hands struck four thirty. It was time.