Chapter 2
The music blared in my car so loud it ached through my bones as I sailed down the highway.
The Sentient Sea was an hour away from Peregrine City, renamed after the Awakening a century ago when the monsters emerged.
Many had come from those subterranean depths, which was another reason why Peregrine City was such a locus.
I’d loved swimming there from an early age, and I couldn’t resist the constant pull to the sea, an inexplicable draw.
While more monsters swam at Breakneck Beach, my preferred one, I liked being around them.
I felt safer knowing those who could navigate the waters best were swimming alongside me.
Out in that sea, I found a freedom I dreamed about every night when I lay down to rest.
A freedom I might never experience if I followed Angus Durand’s orders.
What else could he leverage against me at this point?
Well, I still held onto a few things. My stomach soured, and I clutched the steering wheel tighter. I didn’t know why I bothered forming any attachments. Too often, my family weaponized them against me, and Angus had the reach to ensure his orders were followed through.
I rolled down the window and sucked in a lungful of the salt air.
It soothed a part of me that was always broken, a balm to those jagged pieces.
I let the golden sunlight wash over me, as if the rays were absolution, clearing away my troubles.
And once I dove into the sea, the rest of my worries would drip away as well.
The familiar signs for Breakneck Beach flashed into view, and my heart thumped a little harder.
I made the turn off the highway and caught the first glittering glimpse of the sea.
The upset that had been plaguing me since the board room, since the conversation with my father, felt light-years away.
Maybe I could swim as far out as possible and find an uninhabited island.
Though I’d be far too lonely. Maybe a character flaw, but I’d always had a compulsory need for others.
Of course, I’d been starving for company, attention, my whole life.
The beach grew closer and closer, and I basked in the scent of the salt of the sea, the crisp wind whipping through the open window and sending strands of my hair flying in all different directions.
Breakneck Beach looked pristine, with the perfect blue sky dotted by puffy white clouds above, the calm, undulating waves of the sparkling cerulean water below.
Why this cove was bluer than the rest of the area was a bit of a mystery, but most associated the color intensity with the monsters who preferred to swim there.
I might not have packed a bathing suit, but I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to dive in.
After I found parking in the lot, I made quick work of getting out and then slipped off my woolen socks, my expensive cap-toe shoes.
I carried them in my hand as I strode down the walkway, the slight sand dunes obscuring patches of the beach.
The second my toes sank into sand, I let out an audible exhale.
I meandered up the travel-worn path between the dunes that led right to the shore.
When I stepped into view of the sea, the crash of the waves filtered in, soothing me more.
Already, a few monsters lounged on the beach.
A kraken sprawled beneath a bright blue umbrella, their tentacles splayed out.
A shifted kelpie—similar to a black horse, but with coal-red eyes— strode along the shoreline where the waves lapped in.
A mermaid splashed around farther out, their bright red hair standing out amid all that blue.
The soft granules of sand bathed my feet in warmth, and I bent down to roll my pant legs up as I strode along to find a patch of empty sand where I could leave my belongings.
My parents always hated that I came here, so over the years I’d stopped telling them.
They didn’t approve of a Durand associating with monsters, but they also didn’t approve of anything I did, and this was the beach where I felt safest.
I began to strip off my shirt, button by button, as if I could shed this skin and become someone else.
Someone who wasn’t born with the Durand name.
Someone who was free. The sun warmed my skin, and I soaked in every bit of it I could muster.
I tackled my pants, kicking them off and leaving them with my discarded shirt, socks, and shoes.
Down to my boxer briefs, I basked in the comfort of the beach and headed toward the water’s embrace.
The sea beckoned me, glittering perfection, and I wasn’t immune to the lure.
The waves rolled up over my feet, and the burst of cool water sent a shock through me. I waded a little farther in, loving the ebb and sway, the tug at my heels every time the waves receded. This was the place I needed to be after that hellish morning.
The idea of going from my current prison to another…
a shiver ran down my spine. Maybe I should run away from it all, detonate my current life and try to start over somewhere where no one knew me.
The ache spread through me with an intense yearning.
I waded deeper, the ocean swirling around my knees now.
The cold had lessened, my body acclimating.
In the distance, a few mermaids swam together, splashing, moving with an effortless grace.
If only I’d been born there, in the sea.
I wouldn’t be as trapped as I was on land.
I strode deeper into the water, up to my chest, the brine churning around me.
The waves lifted me up with each rise, and I loved the bob out here, how I could surrender to the rhythmic motions of the water.
The buoyancy made me feel for those brief, precious moments like I could be free.
Like I wasn’t trapped in the prison of my birth.
If only.
I dove under the water and exulted in the feel of it surrounding me. If I had gills like some of the monsters out here, I could swim for hours and never tire, breathe without having to come up.
I kicked off and emerged above the water again, my arms moving automatically to carry me farther out.
The waves rolled past me, the tug gentling as I swam past the shoreline.
Three or four mermaids frolicked out here, ducking under the water then popping above it.
Their giggles were buoyant, life-giving, capturing the sheer joy of being in the deeper water.
I swam with the smoothness of practice, even though I didn’t have the natural grace of those around me who were attuned to the sea.
Still, I continued to propel myself out into the brine, needing to escape everything I was leaving behind on shore. The disappointment to my family. The threat of an arranged marriage. The feeling of being trapped that had plagued me from birth.
Out here, it was me and the roar of the waves, the salty, swirling crests, the comfort the depths offered.
I plunged down below again, far enough out that I couldn’t touch the ground anymore.
The shore was a good swim away, but I needed to be farther, to bob and sway with the currents.
My body moved automatically, with the practice of thousands of swims over the years, and I raced forward, as if I could escape all the problems barreling my way.
When I emerged from below the surface of the water, the sky above caught my attention.
It had been blue and cloudless when I’d arrived, but scorched clouds reigned now, casting a darkness over the water.
Already a few of the people on shore had started to pack up.
My heart thumped a little harder, and I pivoted my direction. I needed to head back to land.
Thunder boomed, followed by the brilliant, blinding flash of lightning.
Oh, fuck.
I needed to get out of the ocean now.
The rain started pattering a few drops as I knifed through the water, making my way to the shore.
Within a few seconds, though, those several drops turned into a deluge.
The water churned all around me, the peaks getting taller, the waves more perilous.
Shit. I plunged beneath the water, focusing on my movements rather than the dangerous storm that had rolled in.
Otherwise I’d be freaking out. Even beneath the water, the turbulence affected me, though, the currents stronger.
I faced resistance with each stroke, even as my arms moved in automatic arcs, my legs slashing through the water behind me.
I popped above for breath, but the storm had conquered the horizon.
Rain pelted my face as I gasped noisily.
Black stretched as far as the eye could see on the skyline, and the water reflected that as well, an inky churn to it that hadn’t been there before.
The lightning flashed again, the crest of the waves turning a brilliant white for a few moments, and then the sea-trembling boom of the thunder followed.
I continued moving toward the shore, the churning waves growing higher. The current yanked me to the right, and I kicked out, trying to stay on task. Yet the resistance increased by the second, and my stomach bottomed out.
The water dragged me to the side, no matter how hard I attempted to swim forward in the direction of the shore.
A rip current.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Normally, you flowed with a riptide, and I’d floated along with some of them before to swim back once it had carried me a bit farther out—however, this was in the middle of a storm.
If the lightning strikes weren’t dangerous enough, the wild waves and currents were even worse.
I resisted the tug, trying to swim out of it with all my might, but the water dragged me to the right with a pull I couldn’t fight. I was one small person against the wild, capricious sea.
I didn’t wonder who would win.
Terror rushed through me in a fierce sweep.
The thunder boomed again, an omen, the scorched skies an active threat. The rain poured down from the skies in sheets now, and each time I bobbed up for breath, the water threatened to drown me on the surface too. My lungs strained, and my limbs were on fire, but I kept moving.
I tried to search for the shore, but everything had grown impossibly dark.
Rain obscured my vision with every blink, and I focused on slicing my arms through the water to keep myself aloft.
A wave dragged me up, up, up, and dread shot through me.
Because I knew what would follow.
For a singular moment, I was on top of the wave.
The shore formed a dark line that seemed farther away than before. Impossibly far.
Then the wave dropped, and so did I.
I plunged under the water with a threatening force, plummeting beneath.
And out here in the middle of the ocean, the depths were a different beast.
I tried to swim, tried to push my way forward, but water was above, around, beneath. The darkness threatened to consume me as I thrashed my way through, trying to find any sort of bearings, shunted beneath the surface.
My lungs spasmed, and the panic formed a second heartbeat. My chest burned, that tightness increasing by the second.
Oh gods. I attempted to look up, to lunge ahead, but no matter what, I couldn’t seem to find the surface.
And I was running out of breath.
The current tugged at my heels, and I resisted all I could.
Yet it yanked me forward.
The last thing I caught in my shaky vision was a blackened blur rushing toward me at top speed.
Then everything turned dark.