Chapter 14
The entrance to Saugatuck Dunes was just like Charlie remembered: a small roundabout with space for a handful of cars to park, plus several sets of trails leading off in different directions.
During their summers here, Charlie’s mom had always fought for parking with the other families eager to spend a day at the dunes. But because she and Elias arrived on a random Tuesday morning in October, she wasn’t surprised to see almost no cars.
Her family had always camped near the center of the forested area beside the dunes, right off what the map called the Beach Trail.
There were plenty of flat spots where they could set up their tent and—more importantly—a nearby outhouse.
Trish Hudson staunchly refused to poop into a hole she had to dig herself.
That morning, however, Elias led them north, up a trail she’d never taken.
It began among the trees, the coastline not yet visible.
They crunched down the path in silence, Henry tottering ahead, kicking pinecones and sniffing at plants.
Birds twittered in the distance. Bright leaves slipped from branches and fell to the forest floor.
As they walked, Charlie pulled her phone out to scroll through the texts she’d felt rolling in during the ten-mile drive to the dunes.
As expected, she had over twenty-five missed messages in her group chat with Lou and Abigail, plus two more from her mom.
LOU: Where r u??? Why is Mason picking us up?
LOU: He said that ur working on a school project with ur “boyfriend”??
LOU: We both know THAT isn’t true
LOU: So where r u???
ABIGAIL: Lou, stop blowing up the group chat. You can just put all the sentences you need to say in one text, like a normal person.
LOU: No normal person texts like that Abby.
ABIGAIL: Don’t call me Abby!
ABIGAIL: But seriously Charlie, where are you? Did Elias kidnap you?
LOU: Omg do we need to launch a rescue mission?
LOU: *gif of Tom Cruise scaling a building in Mission Impossible*
ABIGAIL: Just let us know you’re okay.
ABIGAIL: And get here ASAP to kick Mason the Hel out of the driver’s seat. The guy drives like he’s in Grand Theft Auto V.
LOU: How do u know what GTA is?
LOU: Srsly, tho. You better get here
LOU: Abby is scared shitless
LOU: He ran over a curb and she almost started crying
ABIGAIL: That is NOT true.
ABIGAIL: I have a stuffy nose today because I stayed up all night finalizing the details for the car wash this afternoon.
LOU: And by “finalizing the details for the car wash” she means “reading the best Valkyrie smut I could find on AO3”
ABIGAIL: Louise!!! What did I say about Valkyrie jokes?
LOU: That I am encouraged to make them as often and with as much detail as possible
ABIGAIL: That literally couldn’t be further from what I said.
ABIGAIL: Whatever.
ABIGAIL: Wherever you are, Charlie, you better be back in time to scrub some minivans. If you don’t show our friendship is over.
ABIGAIL: Unless Elias has already killed you.
ABIGAIL: That would be the only acceptable excuse.
LOU:
Charlie almost laughed but didn’t want Elias asking her what was funny. She typed out a quick response.
CHARLIE: Dw, I’m fine. Elias and I are chasing a lead on Rattatosk in the dunes. He had information I needed. And no, I still don’t trust him. I’ll fill you guys in on everything at the car wash.
She clicked over to her mom’s texts. They were short, and before she could read them, the top of her screen blew up with responses from Lou and Abigail, such as Elias?
? and Wtf???? and Make sure you keep Find My Friends on and Did u get to ride in his convertible?
? and Cuz I want to ride in his convertible sooooo bad and I can’t believe you’re ditching class AGAIN (the last one, naturally, came from Abigail).
She ignored the group chat, focusing on her mom’s messages.
MOM: Be safe today. And have fun working on your project.
MOM: I’m so glad Elias is back. You really light up when he’s around.
Charlie groaned. Could her mother be any more clueless?
“What?” Elias asked over his shoulder.
“Nothing.” She stuffed her phone into her pocket. “Just posting a photo of your back on Instagram and tagging our location. That way if you kill me, the police will know who did it and where to find my body.”
“Mmm,” he hummed. “I do have a distinctive butt. It’s one of my best features.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“I always flatter myself. It’s what makes me so fun.” He winked over his shoulder.
It felt so natural, the conversation flowing between them. Too natural. She’d fallen back into their banter the way moths return to the glowing white light on someone’s porch—inevitably, stupidly, and with the certainty of a most excruciating death.
“Do you really believe I’d leave your body behind if I murdered you, though?” Elias asked. “That’s just insulting. How sloppy do you think I am?”
“Not sloppy,” she said. “Sadistic.”
“True. But you need not worry. The only person I’ll be killing today is anyone who tries to lay a hand on you.”
Charlie sucked in a silent gasp of air. A zip of electricity shot up her spine, her heart kicking into a wild gallop. She was relieved Elias was unable to see the expression on her face.
He wasn’t trying to be romantic. Loki had ordered Elias to keep her safe; if he killed anyone, it would be out of duty to his boss, not affection for his subject.
Still, she couldn’t stop the instinctual response her body had to his words.
The racing pulse. The quickening breath.
The rope knotting tighter and tighter in her stomach.
She felt just like she did when the episode had crept up on her in the car.
Only, in this case, it didn’t scare her because it felt bad.
It scared her because it felt very, very good.
“Can you try to calm down?” Elias asked. “The scent of your fear is distracting. And besides, you have nothing to worry about. Joturri are cranky, but they don’t usually eat the people who come to speak with them.”
Her fear had nothing to do with the approaching joturri, but she certainly wasn’t going to tell him that. Instead, she asked, “Usually?”
He shot a grin at her. Sunlight and shadow flickered over his face as he passed beneath the orange- and red-laden tree branches. “Always gotta leave room for the chance of fun, right?”
Abruptly, the trees ended, and Charlie, Henry, and Elias emerged to find themselves at the top of a dune covered in beach grass.
The sand rose and fell in gentle waves. A path had been cleared in the grass that led to the shore below—a flat, sandy beach no more than twenty feet in width that ran south for over two miles.
Charlie paused at the top of the hill, looking up and down the coast. It, too, was as she remembered: a skinny beach and rolling dunes and tall, daring trees with wind-weathered trunks that stood on the hilltops. Sentries watching over the water.
“Which way?” she asked.
“Left,” said Elias, and Henry took off straightaway, toddling down the sandy hill. “We’re nearly there.”
Halfway down the dune, Henry tripped and let out a loud squawk as his little body rolled the rest of the way down.
“Good,” Charlie said to Elias. “The sooner we find the joturri, the sooner this day will be over.”
Elias sighed, turning to face her. His arms crossed in front of his chest, exasperation flaring his nostrils. “Look,” he said. “You hate me. I get it. I betrayed you at the homecoming dance.”
“And tried to kill me,” she added, stomping down the path to stand right in front of him. “Not to mention everyone else I care about.”
“I did what I did because I had to,” he said, taking a step closer.
“I was doing my job: find the Fenrir, get the riddle out of him, get back to Helheim. You and your friends’ involvement was collateral damage.
” Running a hand through his dark hair, he sighed.
“And honestly, it’s a good thing I didn’t succeed in killing you or Mason.
I’m pretty sure murdering your boss’s children is a fireable offense. ”
“He’s not my father,” she said, “but I appreciate the touching sentiment.”
“That’s not my point,” he said impatiently. “My point is I betrayed you, yes. But you betrayed me, too. Don’t forget that. You used me. Pretended to have feelings for me to get the information you needed.”
Charlie inhaled sharply.
Pretended to have feelings.
She hadn’t been pretending. Not at first, anyway.
But that was something Elias could never know.
“What do you care?” she asked. They were standing so close now.
His emerald green eyes were mere inches away.
Wind rolled in from off the lake, tossing his dark hair across his forehead.
She had to hold her breath to keep from inhaling the scent of him.
“It’s not like I hurt your feelings. You don’t have any feelings to begin with. ”
“I don’t care,” he said automatically, though there was an odd uptilt to his words, as if he were asking a question instead of answering one.
A muscle twitched in his jaw. He cleared his throat and went on, sounding far more certain this time.
“I don’t. But I am growing tired of all your loathing stares and nasty insults.
You don’t need to like me, but if we’re going to work together on finding this leash, I’d prefer it if you could take your hate down a notch from outright hostility to at least a mild disdain. ”
Her eyes narrowed. “There is absolutely nothing mild about my disdain for you.”
“Actually, I’m fairly certain there’s nothing mild about you, period,” he said, his eyes flashing with something between a threat and a dare. “It’s one of the things I like best about you. All fire and no bucket of water to put it out with.”
Her heart picked back up into that horrible gallop again.
“Eat sand,” she spat, unable to think of anything more clever.
Elias’s eyes searched hers. What they were looking for, she couldn’t possibly imagine, but she knew she couldn’t blink or look away. She refused to break first.
At last, one corner of his lips lifted. “Gods, I missed this.”
Then he turned and walked away.