Chapter 8
Erik
Sonny had heard Mr Parker talking to Declan, I was sure of it.
He had gone pale and I could hear him swallowing, as though he were swallowing down his tears.
As he skated away from me, I wanted to shake him and blurt out, “He’s here on a date with you, Sonny, he loves you,” but it wasn’t my place to tell him that.
I glanced over my shoulder to see Declan sitting on the bench. Even in the fading light, I could see that he was holding himself upright, which would be good for his back, and he was slowly easing his leg up and down to keep it mobile. He was such a good patient.
At least he was taking care of his body.
His mind and his heart were a different matter, though.
Declan was not a man who found it easy to talk about his feelings. I knew that from the first session we’d had together. But he felt things deeply, and his love for Sonny was as deep as the lake beneath our feet.
Maybe I should go over and shake him, instead.
His eyes flicked between me and Sonny, and possibly nobody else would see that from this distance, but I could make out his expression perfectly. He was worried about something.
A sudden crack resounded around the lake, as loud as if the very earth was breaking in two.
Instinctively, I looked around for Sonny. He wasn’t there.
I scanned the lake, and saw the polished silver of the ice, criss-crossed with skate marks, and there, where Sonny had been, a jagged black patch. A hole.
I was moving before I’d fully processed what that meant. Behind me, Declan screamed, “Sonny!” and my worst fears solidified inside me.
Around the hole, the ice was cracked and broken, jagged and sharp. I heard it crackle under my skates as I neared it and knew it would break if I stood on it much longer.
“Erik!”
There was something in Declan’s voice I’d not heard before.
Something that made my animal writhe inside me, rising to the surface, something inevitable.
My eyes shifted and I saw in the blackness of the lake, where the evening light couldn’t penetrate beneath the ice, the thrashing form of Sonny as he sank deeper and deeper.
Without thinking, I threw myself onto my stomach and slid towards that hole, sliding straight through it and diving into the freezing waters.
My human body was too slow. My clothes stuck to me and already the weight of them dragged at my limbs.
Sonny was below me, fighting against the heavy, waterlogged clothes and the darkness.
He wouldn’t be able to tell which way was up, would hardly be able to see that small little hole in the vast surface of the lake, the one chance he had of making it up to air.
I shifted.
Within a second, my octopus had taken over me and pushed itself out, slipped out of my coat and shirt, left my trousers floating behind me and my skates to sink quickly. The water felt cool against my skin. I could breathe deeply and move freely.
I shot through the water as fast as I could, heading directly for Sonny.
His movements were slower, his body tired so quickly from the shock of the icy water, the weight dragging at him and the little air he still had in his lungs.
Within seconds, I’d wrapped myself around him. My tentacles slid around his middle and curled around his throat beneath the sodden wool of my scarf, along his arms to his hands. He was completely in my embrace.
As soon as he was secure, I pushed against the water and swam straight for that tiny point of light, the hole in the ice.
I broke the surface, pushing Sonny up above me, angling his body so that his head broke the surface first and he could breathe. To my relief, I heard the ragged breath he took, the first inhale of precious air. He spluttered, his body shaking as he coughed and shivered uncontrollably from the cold.
His hands scrabbled at the ice, trying to pull himself onto it, but it broke under his grip. I pressed against it from below with two of my tentacles and tried to push him onto it.
He wasn’t going to make it.
I wasn’t strong enough, not from below, not with the ice cracking and breaking the way it was. If I could pull myself onto the ice and drag Sonny up, perhaps, but every second he was in the water, he froze more and his movements – and his breathing – became more laboured.
Then a hand grabbed Sonny’s.
I saw Declan through the rippling surface of the dark lake, lying flat against the ice to spread his weight evenly. He was too close to the edge, but I couldn’t speak and send him back, not that he’d listen to me anyway. He’d known the danger and he’d come anyway.
He gave a strong pull, and Sonny moved in my grasp. Declan was strong, and desperate.
With me pushing from below, my tentacles manoeuvring Sonny so that he didn’t get cut on the shards of ice, and Declan hauling him from above, Sonny slid onto the flat ice above me.
The shadows shifted and Sonny was pulled further away from the edge. Then Declan’s voice, distant through the water, “Erik? Erik!”
I could stay in the water forever, despite the cold. It wasn’t pleasant but it wouldn’t kill me. Or I could ease myself onto the ice in my octopus form and make my way to my cottage where I could shift without being seen.
But of course I couldn’t do either of those things. Because Declan had seen me go into the water. He needed to see me come out.
And so I did the only thing I could. I shifted back.
In my human form, the ice suddenly stabbed into my skin like pinpricks. My limbs became less fluid and harder to control. Already, I could feel myself shivering.
Even if I gathered my sinking clothes in my octopus form, I’d never make it into them and back to the surface in human form.
So I had to break the surface as I was.
Declan was pushing Sonny along the ice, away from the hole and the cracks spreading out from it like a web.
“Erik,” he said as he saw me, my name catching in his throat. “Give me your hand.”
I reached out and took it, holding tightly onto his fingers and letting him pull me. It was lucky I was small and strong, because I slid right over the edge and onto the surface, slithering along it quickly.
The ice stung my naked skin but I ignored it. Sonny was lying very still.
“Get off the ice,” I said, and pushed myself along, doing what Declan was doing and crawling along it on my belly so as not to put too much pressure on one spot.
As soon as I was far enough away from the hole, I grabbed Sonny and pulled him into my arms. He didn’t resist, lying limply and breathing shallowly.
Clambering to my feet, I ran across the lake to solid ground. The couple who’d been skating were there, staring at me in astonishment.
“Give me your coat,” I demanded. The young man unzipped his puffy coat and I began to tug Sonny’s clothes off him, fighting to unwind my now-heavy scarf from around his neck.
Buttons were my enemy, what with my numbing fingers and the waterlogged cloth making it impossible to manipulate them.
I ripped anything that didn’t undo easily.
Under his coat and jumper, Sonny’s skin had turned blueish and I grabbed the coat from the young man and wrapped it round Sonny’s torso, zipping it up.
Behind me, Declan crawled onto the grass. “Why isn’t he moving? Sonny?”
“We need to get him warm,” I said. “My cottage is near.”
Declan was shaking as much as I was when I helped him to stand, holding his freezing hands in mine and making sure he was steady on his prosthetic.
He pulled his hands away and started working the buttons of his coat. “You need to put this on,” he said.
“No, you keep it.”
He was human, and in shock. He needed the warmth. I was cold, sure, but my healing abilities were far better than a human’s and while my body didn’t like the cold, it wouldn’t kill me.
“You’re naked,” he said.
I faced him, reaching out a hand to touch his cheek. He was shaking. “Declan,” I said softly. “We need to get him to my cottage. Then we’ll all warm up.”
He hesitated for just a second and then he nodded.
The trust he was showing me in that moment kept me warm as I lifted Sonny, wrapped in a dry coat, into my arms. My octopus pressed against my skin and I longed to let it out, just a little.
To ease my tentacles out of my sides so that they could wrap around Sonny as we walked.
My octopus wanted to wrap itself tightly around both of these men and never let go.