Chapter 12
Jack
The sound of Deception Point rebuilding is a specific kind of music. It’s the aggressive, two-stroke whine of chainsaws chewing through fallen cedar, the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of hammers hitting fresh pine, and the groan of heavy machinery dragging debris off the asphalt.
It’s been a month since the storm broke. Down in the town, the air rings with the constant, grinding noise of rebuilding. I’m making my own racket, but my head isn't in it.
I’m on my knees on the veranda, wrestling a new plank into the gap where the wind splintered the deck.
My hands do the work on autopilot. My beard is an overgrown, itchy mess, and I'm running on weeks of garbage sleep.
Even my clothes don't fit right anymore; my belt is cinched to the last notch, the denim sagging on my hips.
I drive the next nail home with too much force. The wood splinters around the head. I mutter a curse, drop the hammer, and sit back on my heels to stare out past the railing.
The tide is out. The exposed mudflats bake under the afternoon sun, smelling of salt and decay. The creek is just a slow crawl of brown water winding toward the bay.
I close my eyes and listen.
It’s still there.
The gift she left me. The curse.
The low-frequency thrum in the base of my skull hasn’t faded.
If anything, it’s gotten louder as the water has settled.
I hear the shift of the sandbars. I hear the pressure changes as the tide begins to turn, miles out.
I sense the vast, crushing weight of the ocean.
It’s a constant, dull roar that overlays the chainsaws and the birds, a reminder that there is a massive, wet world right at my doorstep.
The line is dead.
The ocean is out there, loud and heavy in my chest, but she isn't.
I’ve spent the last week wearing a path into the mudflats, staring at the surf until my vision blurred. I’ve stood at the end of the dock in the freezing dark, talking to the wind like a crazy person. Nothing ever came back.
I leave the hammer on the deck. I can't do this today. The quiet inside the house is too heavy. If I go back in there, I’m just going to stare at the spot on the floorboards where she bled. Or the bathtub. Or the shower.
I wipe the sawdust off my jeans and head for the driveway. The truck is a mud-caked mess, but it runs. And right now, it just needs to get me to a bar.
The drive into town is a navigation of obstacles. Power lines are still being restrung, hanging like black licorice vines over the road. Piles of wet drywall and ruined carpet line the curbs like burial mounds. But the road to the harbor is clear.
I park in front of The Crooked Anchor. The neon sign is buzzing, the ‘O’ in Anchor flickering ominously. It’s the only place in town that never seems to close, regardless of weather or apocalypse.
I push through the heavy wooden door.
The air inside is thick, smelling of stale beer, damp wool, and frying grease.
It’s surprisingly busy. Half the town seems to be here, taking a break from the reconstruction.
Fishermen in yellow slickers are huddled in booths, and contractors with dust in their hair are shouting over the jukebox.
It’s loud, warm, and aggressively human.
I weave through the crowd, keeping my head down. I don’t want to talk about the storm. I don’t want to talk about the damage to my roof. I definitely don’t want to talk about why I’m alone.
I find a stool at the far end of the bar, away from the television blaring the weather report.
The bartender approaches. We call him the Gargoyle, mostly because he looks like he was chiseled out of granite and left to weather in the rain for a century. He’s bald, gray-skinned, and moves with the slow, deliberate momentum of a tectonic plate.
He reaches under the bar, pulls out a bottle of whiskey, and pours three fingers into a chipped glass. He slides it across the polished wood.
“On the house,” he grunts. His voice sounds like gravel crunching under tires.
“Thanks,” I mutter, wrapping my hand around the glass. The cold condensation feels grounding.
The Gargoyle rests his forearms on the bar, ignoring the guy waving a twenty down the counter. He keeps his focus locked on me, his eyes a sickly, jaundiced yellow.
“You look like hell, Ford,” he says.
“Storm was rough,” I deflect, taking a sip. The whiskey burns, a welcome fire in my empty stomach.
“Storm’s been over for a week,” he says. He picks up a rag and starts polishing a spot on the bar that is already clean. “You look like a man waiting for a ghost.”
I freeze, the glass halfway to my mouth. I look up at him. In Deception Point, people know things they shouldn’t. It’s part of the geography.
“Maybe I am,” I admit quietly.
“Ghosts don’t come back,” the Gargoyle says, not unkindly. “Tides do but not ghosts.”
“She wasn’t a ghost,” I say, the bitterness leaking into my voice. “She was… something else.”
“Aye. They usually are around here.” He sighs, a sound like a bellows. “Drink up. It helps with the waiting, until you realize you’re waiting for nothing.”
I stare into the amber liquid. He’s right. I know he’s right. She told me not to wait. She told me the politics of the deep were shifting. She killed a scout. She’s probably miles down in some trench, fighting a war I can’t even comprehend, or she’s dead.
The thought creates a physical pain in my chest, sharp and jagged.
I lift the glass to finish the shot.
Then, the door opens and slams against the wall with such force that it shakes the floorboards.
The chatter in the pub dies instantly. The jukebox seems to stutter and silence itself. The silence ripples outward from the entrance like a shock wave, freezing glasses in mid-air and cutting off laughter in throats.
I turn on my stool, the hair on the back of my neck standing up. The thrum of the ocean in my head suddenly spikes to a deafening roar.
She is standing in the doorway.
Nerida.
She looks… different and exactly the same.
She is wearing a dress. It’s a floral print sundress, something that looks like it was snatched off a clothesline on the way here. It’s three sizes too small. The fabric is strained across her shoulders and hips, the seams threatening to burst. It’s so absurd that it should be comical.
But nobody is laughing.
She is barefoot, her feet caked in wet sand. Her hair is wild, a tangled mane of black drying into salt-crusted waves. Her skin is glowing, literally glowing with a faint, bioluminescent sheen that the dim pub lighting can’t hide.
But it’s her eyes that hold the room hostage. They are silver again. Bright, predatory, polished chrome. She scans the room not like a customer looking for a seat, but like a shark entering a reef, deciding what to eat first.
Her gaze sweeps over the fishermen and the contractors before locking onto me.
My pulse thuds in my ears. I slide off the stool, my legs feeling like lead.
When she walks, the crowd parts. She moves with a rolling, predatory grace, and big men—men who wrestle marlin for a living—scramble out of her way, pressing themselves wide-eyed against the walls.
She stops in front of me. She smells of brine and freezing ocean currents. She takes in my gaunt face and the sawdust on my jeans, her expression hardening into a scowl.
Without a word, she pivots to face the room. She stands tall, and the sheer weight of her presence chokes the noise right out of the bar.
“I have claimed the estuary!” she announces. Her voice is clear, bell-like, but carrying an edge of command that vibrates the glassware behind the bar.
The room stays silent. The Gargoyle has stopped polishing.
“The scouts are dead,” she continues, her voice rising. “The pack is scattered. The water from the bridge to the bay is mine. It is my territory now.”
She turns back to me. The fierceness in her eyes softens, just a fraction, into something possessive. Something burning.
“And he…” she says, pointing a long, pale finger at my chest, “… is my mate.”
She glares at the room, daring anyone to object or challenge her claim on the water or me.
For three seconds, the silence stretches tight as a bowstring.
Then, the Gargoyle clears his throat. It sounds like rocks tumbling down a chute. “Right then,” he rumbles. He picks up a glass and starts polishing again. “Estuary’s taken. Note it in the log.”
A collective breath is released in the room. A fisherman near the front nods respectfully at Nerida. “Good fishing in the estuary, Miss,” he mumbles.
“I know,” she snaps. “Stay out of the deep channels. Those are mine.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The tension evaporates, replaced by the typical Deception Point acceptance of the bizarre. The jukebox kicks back on. The conversations resume, though at a lower volume, with many side glances toward us.
I don’t care about them.
I don’t care about the town, the pub, or the laws of physics.
I’m looking at her.
“You came back,” I whisper. My voice is wrecked.
She steps close, ignoring the straining seams of the dress, and takes my hand. Her skin carries the brisk chill of a summer ocean. Then her fingers lock around mine. The pressure is bone-bruising. Whatever broke her is gone. She’s back to full strength, and she could snap my wrist without blinking.
“I told you,” she says, her silver eyes searching mine. “I rot on land. So I brought the sea with me. I cleared the threats. I made it safe.”
“For you?” I ask.
“For us,” she corrects.
A smile breaks across my face. It feels foreign, stretching muscles that haven’t been used in what feels like years. It starts small, but then it takes over, cracking the mask of exhaustion I’ve been wearing.
“You claimed the estuary,” I say, a laugh bubbling up in my chest. “You conquered a body of water for me?”
“It seemed the most efficient solution,” she says seriously, though the corner of her mouth twitches. “Now. Take me home. This skin… this ‘dress’… it itches. And I need to be submerged.”
“Yeah,” I say, squeezing her hand back. “Yeah, let’s go home.”
We turn and walk toward the door. I don’t look back at Gargoyle, but I can feel his yellow eyes on us, and we walk out into the cool afternoon air. The sun is setting, painting the sky in violent streaks of orange and purple. The town is still noisy, broken, and in the process of rebuilding.
As we walk to the truck, Nerida falls into step beside me.
She moves with an effortless, eerie fluidity, completely out of place on the concrete.
The rushing tide in my head is still there, but the dread has bled out of it.
It’s just a rhythm now. I look at the woman beside me.
By all rights, I should be running for my life.
Instead, I just tighten my grip on her hand.
I used to look at the water and see a graveyard. I used to fear the unknown things swimming beneath the surface.
I unlock the truck door and hold it open for her. She climbs in, ripping the hem of the dress and not caring a bit. She looks at me, her eyes shining with that terrifying, beautiful light.
I’m not afraid of the water anymore. Why would I be? The most dangerous thing in the ocean is sitting in my passenger seat.
And she loves me.