Chapter 2 Violet
VIOLET
In the darkness, the rocky path that led down to the beach was treacherous.
I slipped and stumbled on loose, wet rocks, praying the entire time the explosion hadn’t weakened this part of the cliff face as well.
I knew hikers used this path, but I never had, preferring to take in the beach by hopping off the bus in the parking lot and setting up my towel by the lifeguard’s tower.
Getting a drink from the café. Applying some sunscreen and lying out on the sand to read my smutty book…
Like a normal freaking person.
This path from the bluffs felt like a surefire way to fall and break my neck. I’d watched people walk it from my vantage point on the sand, a cold drink in hand, and wondered why on earth they picked that option when they could have just…not.
Because this hiking business was not fun. Not in the least.
But I supposed most people didn’t try it in the dark. In a storm. And most people weren’t running down the barely visible track as fast as they could because the three men they loved were drowning in the ocean at the bottom of it.
The physical act of keeping myself from tripping and snowballing down the cliff face was the only thing stopping me from screaming. The terror inside me built with every step, only eased by the sharp breaths my lungs forced me to take.
My ankles twisted.
I fell more than once but hauled myself back up and kept going, knowing that whatever pain I was in, those three men were in a lot more.
Tears streamed down my face and I silently begged them all to live.
It felt like a lifetime before the ground beneath my feet changed from rocky dirt and gravel to sand.
I dragged myself along it, hair and clothes soaked and plastered to my face and body. Hot and sweaty, despite the rain that still came down in sheets.
I ran to the edge of the water, scanning it desperately for any sign of life.
“X!” The dark waves smashed against the edge of the sand, black and inky as the night. “Levi! Whip!”
“Here, sweetheart,” Whip’s voice came back through the darkness.
I burst into tears at the sight of the shadowed figures crawling out of the ocean. I rushed forward into the frigid water to meet them, my gaze running over first Whip and then Levi, looking them over, making sure they were okay.
They were both on their feet, drenched and shivering but whole and well.
X’s feet trailed along the sand between them, his head hanging limp.
“Oh my God! Is he okay? X!”
They hauled him up onto the beach, lying him out on his back. I dropped to the wet sand at his side and pressed my fingers frantically against his neck, checking for a pulse. I found one easily then bent down, lowering my ear toward his chest to make sure he was still breathing.
Relief crashed over me at the rise and fall of his chest, and I rolled him over onto his side, in case he had water in his lungs that needed to come up.
Levi and Whip had both crashed to the sand, the two of them exhausted from swimming in clothes and shoes and tugging a fully grown man back to shore. I wanted to check on them too, but X was in much worse shape.
“I don’t understand. Why isn’t he responding? He’s got a pulse and he’s breathing…”
“Levi knocked him out.”
I widened my eyes. “You what? Why?” And then a second later I added, “How?”
Levi shook his head, then winced, like the movement caused him pain. “Just know it was a lifesaving measure.”
I didn’t really know what that meant, but at the same time, X’s body convulsed violently, and he coughed up a spout of ocean water.
I thumped him on the back, even though I wasn’t at all sure that’s what you were supposed to do for someone whose lungs might be full of water. But I didn’t know how else to help.
Eventually he groaned, and I helped him roll onto his back again. I hovered over him, taking out my phone and switching on the flashlight so I could see better.
He was vaguely gray, his lips a bluish purple that concerned me.
“I’m calling an ambulance.”
But X shook his head and reached up, stroking a hand down the side of my face adoringly. “I’m already dead. Too late for that.”
I couldn’t help the flicker of a laugh that crossed my lips. “You aren’t dead.”
He blinked. “But this is Heaven.”
Whip snorted from a few yards down the beach. “If this is Heaven then I’m pretty glad I’m going to Hell. Because this sucks.”
Levi pulled a piece of seaweed out of his hair as if to prove the point.
X struggled to lift himself up onto his elbows and I helped him. He moved his arms and legs and got himself up to sit, testing they all still worked. Apart from one side of his face swelling and some bleeding cuts and grazes, he seemed to be in one piece.
He really was staring at me like I was an angel who’d fallen from Heaven though.
“Omelet,” he whispered, though a whisper with X was never really all that soft. “I’m alive.”
The laugh I let out was tinged with a sob of relief. “Yes, you are. Thanks to Whip and Levi.”
X held his hands up in front of his face, wriggling his fingers and staring at them in amazement like he’d never seen them before.
He scrambled up onto his feet, and Levi stood just as quickly, catching him by the arm when he stumbled.
But the off-balance wobble didn’t deter X any.
He flipped his middle finger up and shouted into the dark night, his words all aimed at the whirling ocean. “Stop trying to kill me, already!”
“Technically a pool tried to kill you the first time,” I murmured.
He frowned at me. “Omelet! Whose side are you on? Mine or the water’s?”
“Definitely yours,” I assured him.
He nodded, satisfied with that answer.
Whip pushed up to his feet wearily. “Well, as fun as this has been, can we get the hell out of here before the cops show up? That explosion might have been written off as thunder, but it’s only a matter of time before the sun comes up and people start noticing there’s a whole chunk missing from the side of the cliff face.
And I don’t think we need any more attention coming our way. ”
I agreed and got myself beneath X’s arm, even though he was supporting his weight just fine by himself. I just needed to be near him, to have the reassurance of his arm around me.
Whip coughed pathetically, and I reached my free arm out to him, but he just squeezed my fingers as he passed, leading the way back up the path I’d come down. Levi fell into step beside him, his arm jerking every time Whip stumbled, like Levi was just waiting to catch him.
I eyed the two of them from behind, worry for and gratitude to both of them filling me all at once. But X’s mouth clearly hadn’t been damaged in his fall, and it was running at a million miles an hour.
“Isn’t this beautiful?” he asked. “What a wonderful night.”
I squinted through the rain. “It’s pouring. It’s freezing. We’re all soaking wet, and you nearly drowned.”
“But I didn’t! Twice now I have been brought back from the dead! I’m like Jesus, Violet.”
“Maybe those bobblehead Jesuses they sell at the gas station for your car dashboard,” Levi muttered from a few steps ahead of us.
X ignored him. “I have risen from the dead!”
“More like lugged from the ocean with sand in your ass crack,” Whip countered. “And the only thing rising is my blood pressure.”
X acted like they hadn’t even spoken. “Look at the stars. They’re so bright! Feel the wind on your skin!”
“I feel it,” I agreed. “It’s freezing and miserable. Can we just get back to your van?”
X turned on me, clutching my upper arms tight in his fingers. “It’s a miracle.”
Levi sighed. “The only miracle is that Whip hasn’t killed you yet.”
But nobody was putting a dampener on X’s apparent new lease on life. “I was saved tonight, you guys. Saved!”
Whip trudged on, his grump mode resurfacing. “If you thank the Lord for his divine intervention after you nearly fucking drowned me, I swear, I’m going to cut you.”
I glanced at Whip sharply. “He nearly drowned you?”
Whip waved his hand dismissively. “I’m fine.”
I wasn’t so sure. He coughed violently, and I knew I was right to be concerned.
X pointed at the dark shadowy trees. “Look at that tree. Isn’t it just beautiful?” He glanced back down at me. “I’ve been given a second chance at life. I’m going to use it so well. I’m turning over a new leaf. Being a better person.”
Levi glanced over at him, vague amusement in his tone. “So you’re saying your life flashed before your eyes and now you’re a changed man?”
“Yes! Exactly that! You see me, Levi! Thank you!”
Levi squinted at him. “I see you being crazy. You think you’re going to stop killing and live on the straight and narrow just because you swallowed some seawater?”
X made a face at him. “What?” He snorted on a laugh. “I’m not giving up killing. Are you crazy?”
All three of us stared at him.
He grinned back. “I’m going to get a nose ring!”