Chapter 5 #2
Somewhere farther, beyond manicured hedges, I spot the beginnings of a structure wrapped in elegant vines.
“I do not end lives.” Cary tilts his head to the light. “I only go where she calls.”
“She?”
“Death.”
I wait for more from him. An explanation, a story. Anything. It never comes.
Down the twisted path, a cool breeze ruffles my curls. I notice Cary walks almost blindly, as though he’s taken this trek a thousand times before.
“How often have you done this?” I ask.
“This?”
I hear the frown in his voice. He’s still at least five steps ahead of me. Just under his word is a soft, steady noise.
Water.
The pebbled road beneath our feet turns to smooth sand. We come up on a bank bordered by tall, swaying grass. This place is smaller than the beach from earlier. The water is narrower. A piercing blue instead of glittered black.
Finally, Cary stops. I stomp around him until we’re face-to-face. “How many times have you taken someone back to my world?”
The hesitation in his stare, the deep creases in his brow alarm me.
My body goes rigid. “You haven’t done this before, have you?”
Dark feathery eyelashes beat like the wings of a blackbird. Cary’s continued silence says a million things at once.
“You are the first.”
“No, no, no.” I inch back. “Are you serious?”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” he says dryly. “Mortals do not suddenly appear in Aides all the time. Your kind is not meant to travel back and forth.”
“Well, guess what? I’m here!”
He lets out a very disappointed exhale.
My fingers dig into my curls. “I’m not an experiment. What if something goes wrong? Will I be stuck here forever?”
Under his breath, Cary mutters, “I hope not.”
Even his sarcasm can’t dissuade my heart from racing like a captured wild animal.
I turn in a circle. “There’s gotta be another way. Let’s go back to the beach. That’s how I got here, right? Just—take me back that way.”
Exhaustion tugs his mouth downward. “That will not work. The books say—”
“Books?” I practically screech. “You mean I’m supposed to risk getting home safely or being trapped here for however long based on something you read in a book?”
Unbelievable.
He levels me with a pointed glare. Flecks of gold shimmer in his eyes. Fortunately, the glow fades as quickly as it appeared.
Cary lowers his voice. “You are scared.”
“What gave it away?” My hands can’t stop trembling.
Sighing, he extends his hand toward me. “I will not hurt you.”
I want to laugh in his face. “Did you forget what happened on the beach?”
“That was…” His gaze drops. Does he feel guilty? “I did not mean to react that way.”
“Is that an apology?”
“You startled me,” he says instead.
I snort. “I bet you’re a ton of fun at surprise parties.”
“We do not—”
“Forget it.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. When I finally look at him, Cary’s expression is as smooth as the river’s surface. “Are you sure you can do this?”
“August, I will not let any harm come to you.”
There it is again. The twist in my belly. Sureness moving through my blood despite everything that’s happening.
I believe him.
“Okay,” I whisper, then take his hand. His skin is cooler than Milos’s was. Not as silky, but still oddly nice. His grip is as confident as it is careful. “How do we do this?”
He motions toward the water.
We move slowly. At the shoreline, Cary turns to face me. He steps backward but never trips. His eyes stay with mine. They steady me as the cool water licks at my ankles, then my shins.
The stream rocks gently.
I chew on my lip. “How far do we need to go?”
Cary continues to hold my gaze. “Not too far.”
“Okay,” I repeat, suddenly warm. Not from his attentive stare. Or his fingers tightening around mine. But from the river’s song. A soothing serenade that hushes the pounding of my heart.
“You need to—” Cary pauses. Cautiously, he pulls on my arm. “Be closer to me.”
I swallow, wary. “How much closer?”
His mouth pinches. “Much.”
We’re chest-deep in the water. Cary searches my face for permission. My breath comes too fast as I nod.
After a long, awkward moment, our bodies are pressed together. My hands on his shoulders. His arms around my back. The water is forced to move around us rather than between.
He smells sweet. Not like the garden’s flowers. Something else. Fruit, maybe. A smell I know but can’t name currently with his fingers on the small of my spine.
“Are you okay?”
The question surprises me. So does the gentleness in his voice. I stare at the single curl resting against his forehead, then ask, “What now?”
“Wait.”
“For?”
The calm in his eyes is the only response I get.
I close my own. Concentrate on anything but him. Like the notes of earthy musk hanging on the breeze. From the cypress tree I saw near the shore. Absently, I hum an accompanying melody to the river’s song, the music gathering in me in a way I’ve avoided for too long.
A whisper breaks through. “Breathe.”
I do.
“Again,” Cary instructs.
My next inhale is deeper, measured. The ache of fear flees my chest. His arms go tighter around me.
Suddenly, the water pulls on me like at the fountain on SBS’s campus. Except this time it’s tender.
“One more breath,” Cary tells me.
My lungs expand. A shiver chases up my spine as the river kisses my collarbones, then my neck. Cary doesn’t let go.
I keep my eyes closed as we sink and sink.