by Amie Gibbons
And I hadn’t exactly been on top of my PT since I’d left the FBI.
I wasn’t out of shape or overweight by any means. I’d actually put on muscle.
But without someone making me run in workouts, I won’t.
Grant glanced back at me.
“Need help, Ryder?” he asked dryly.
I shook my head. “Little winded.”
“Need me to take your pack?”
“No!” I said with more emphasis than I meant. “Thank you, sir, but I’ll let you know if I really need the help. Until then, I want all of us to have supplies in case we get separated.”
He gave me that mini smile again and nodded. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
“I learned from the best.”
He was proud of me!
He was proud.
Something welled in my chest, making my throat feel all tingly, and I almost wanted to cry.
Grant was actually proud of me.
And he thought I’d grown up.
Maybe now we could-
Whoa!
I cut that thought off.
It didn’t matter where we were, or if he thought I’d grown up now, or anything.
He was with Heather. They’d been together for a year. That wasn’t nothing to him. He’d only dated someone long term like that once, and that woman had become his wife.
“I wish you’d been around the past ten months,” AB said outta the blue.
“Why?” Grant asked after a moment, probably as taken back by the comment as I was.
“Because you helped me more in one hour of talking than my friend last year did in months of trying to get through to me,” she said. “I never would’ve been able to stand up to Thomas like that without you. And I mean, that was after months of therapy and stuff, but you really helped solidify that, if that makes any sense.”
“Yes,” Grant said, voice giving away nothing. “Not exactly the time.”
“I know, but we’re walking, and I’m bored,” AB said. “So my mind starts wandering and it wanders over to him. I know it shouldn’t, but it does, because I’m fixated, and I’m working on that. And it’s a lot less than it was, but I’m still in it, I’m still there, just not nearly as much, and he dominates so much of my mental space.”
She took a breath, looking like she was struggling with the pack a little more than she expected too.
“I just mean, thank you,” AB said. “I think me cutting him off like that was a good step. Before this, I would’ve been a wreck, thinking I’d blown any chance with him, that I should’ve done things differently, and tried to save the friendship. Thinking I could still fix things. But I need to be done. I need to get to the place where the door is slammed in his face and it’s not me being mad and regretting it later, or being mean to get back at him; just me being done.”
“You talk as much as Ariana,” Grant said.
“Not usually,” she said. “But I babble when I’m scared, and right now, I’m fucking terrified. And then my mind goes to him, because I’m scared and he scares me, so there’s that, and I… wow, I do sound like Ari.”
“And I’m over here just mindin’ my own business, not doing nothin’,” I said, pouring on the accent thicker than honey. “I wasn’t even talking.”
Of course, the words taking my breath away probably had more to do with that than anything else.
I dragged in a deep breath.
“Thin air here to you guys?” I asked. Not even bothering to waste the breath to ask if that sentence made sense.
“Shouldn’t be,” Grant said. “It should be roughly the same as ours.”
“And we’re at sea level,” AB said. “Could be the magic affecting you that way. I mean, we took care of your sight, but we really have no way of knowing how much the magic here could affect you in different ways. It could be getting into your lungs.”
She paled, eyes flying wide.
I whirled on instinct and pulled my gun, pointing out at the beautifully lapping waves.
Nothing.
“Ooooookay,” I said, turning back around.
Grant had pulled his gun too.
Following my lead.
“Sorry,” I said, tucking the gun back in its holster. I’d switched to one at my waist, so I could get to it quickly if needed.
“Why?” AB asked, pointing between the ocean and me.
“I saw your face, and I thought something came outta the water or something,” I said. “It was a reflex.”
“Ohhhhhhh,” she said. “I was just thinking that the air here might affect me. Like, I’m not supposed to eat or drink anything, so the air might poison me and drive me insane.”
Grant shook his head. “The air shouldn’t be enough.”
“I know, I know,” AB said. “I mean, I went over all this before coming out. This is my area, I know this stuff, but… I mean… Thomas’s…”
She flinched, taking a deep breath as she clenched her hands. “Thomas’s semen in me, and whatever got absorbed by my… uh, tissues in there, shouldn’t have been enough to affect me, but it did.”
“Or,” Grant said in a soft voice, “it has nothing to do with his magic, and everything to do with him traumatizing a virgin, and a virgin imprinting on her first. No matter how many times he has tried to convince you you’re in the wrong for having feelings due to sex, he is wrong.
“Sex creates emotions, especially in virgins. He keeps telling you you shouldn’t have feelings, because he can’t take the guilt of knowing he used and abused a virgin and hurt her. He has convinced himself it was you being crazy, and now he’s decided it was his magic.”
He said this all slowly and carefully, like he was magically searing the words into her so she could digest them and hold onto them.
Maybe he was.
Who knew what his powers were?
“Thank you,” she said. “I needed that. I think… It’s hard to remember I wasn’t in the wrong, that it’s normal to feel strongly for your first, when I have him telling me every chance he gets that I’m crazy and obsessive because normal people don’t get feelings from sex.”
“And that’s him being in the wrong,” Grant said.
“I know,” AB said with another deep breath. She wrinkled her forehead. “I think I’m having a harder time breathing, but I think it’s from the pack. It’s a little heavier than I was thinking. I’m not really a hiker girl. Like, I mean, I’ll go on hikes, especially back home, but not with a pack or like hike in with equipment to camp. I don’t camp. I hate bugs and being out in the open like that.”
She wrinkled her nose and made a face. “Why hasn’t the sun set here?”
“Huh?” I asked.
“Sorry, brain jump,” she said. “Just, why is it still daylight?”
“Because here it’s only afternoon,” Grant said. “Just because time is flowing along at the same rate as our world doesn’t mean they’re in the same time zone.”
“Oh,” she said. “Don’t know why I assumed it would.”
“Do you want to talk more while we walk?” Grant asked.
She sighed. “I don’t know. I think so, but it seems kinda stupid, considering how much danger we could be in. Or are in and don’t realize. I mean, you know?”
“Nothing is happening,” Grant said. “And I’m keeping watch.”
“Okay,” AB said, “so, I don’t know how much you know.”
“Nothing besides what you told me in the store,” Grant said.
“Right,” she said. “I keep assuming people know things, and then they don’t, and it’s a thing. Anyway, you know I lost it to him, and all that drama. And now I’m just obsessing about him saying that crap about don’t threaten him. I mean, what was that? Where did that come from?”
“That was him making a jump like you do,” Grant said. “He’s had someone take that tone, do that gesture, or say those words with him before, and it was connected to a threat, so now he associates that with a threat, even though you weren’t t
hreatening him.”
“I keep seeing him flirting with Emily,” AB said slowly, eyes takin’ on that far away cast they got when she thought about him. “How he obviously leaned over and was looking at her ass when she walked out of the room, then turned back to talk to me like everything was normal. I mean, I almost snapped at him then. Didn’t because I was in the middle of working out the equations, that helps, math keeps me grounded, but… now I keep seeing that on replay.”
Grant nodded slowly.
“It’s just, I thought I was better,” AB said. “I was doing so much better. I wasn’t obsessing, and I was working through my issues in therapy. And then he popped back up and I… I am not better.”
“You’re better than you were,” I said, staring past Grant down the long line of sand.
How far could this wall go?
Well, it probably went around the whole freaking city, so could go a while.
“It kills me that he’s right,” AB said. “That I am obsessed with him.”
“But you have accepted that,” Grant said. “And you are working on it. You being obsessed doesn’t excuse what he did back then or how he’s reacting now.”
“The evil others do, leave with them,” AB said, like she was quoting someone. “Yeah, I know. My friend Paul loves that quote.”
“I think admitting it will help you more than anything,” I said. “Soon as you know it’s a problem, you can deal with it. Before, you were arguing against it, like it was some huge insult you had to prove wrong, and now you’re like, yep, I am, so? Like… like you’re getting okay with it.”
“So I’m exactly like him,” AB said like she just figured something out. “He’s in denial and can’t deal with it, and I was in denial too, but now I’m getting better because I’m not.”
“Yes,” Grant said.
How long had we been walking?
It really hadn’t been that long, only a few minutes, but still.
I was gettin’ tired.
“Sir,” I said. “Hate to say it, but I think I need you to take my pack. I’m having a hard time breathing and keeping up.”
“No problem,” he said, holding out his hand.
I took it off and handed it to him.
He shifted so he carried it over one shoulder and his over the other.
It didn’t even faze him.
I breathed a little easier.
“Thanks. Not sure what’s wrong with me, but I…”
I shook my head.
“You’re not weak,” he said. “Stop thinking that.”
My head jerked up.
I hadn’t even really thought that.
At least, not loud enough for him to have possibly heard it.
“I know you, Ryder,” he said. “Keep up your strength. We need you to get out.”
“Anything you want to talk about, Ari?” AB said. “I’m over here talking about me and going in circles, and you guys, I mean, I don’t want to be all self-centered and obsessive.”
I shook my head. “I’d rather listen to you. If I start to think, I’m going to freak out. I couldn’t even let myself think of what we were doin’ here cuz then I would’ve freaked. Us coming to this place, it’s stupid. It’s right up there with us traveling through time last year.”
“What?” Grant asked.
“Oh, right,” I said. “You weren’t there for that one.”
AB laughed nervously and cleared her throat. “That one was dumb of us.”
“Like, so dumb, we should’ve known it was a setup,” I said. “It was some magical virus that infected people. Convinced me that goin’ back in time was…”
I dragged in a deep breath. “Sorry. It made me think it was a good idea, and it wasn’t. We went back in time to solve this spiral of karma in Alabama. I can’t believe it’s been that long since we talked. This was right after the last time we talked, after Halloween.”
I shook my head. “Anyway, something had set karma off, so the real Karma came down and hired us, well mostly hired me, but the others helped, to-”
Something grabbed my ankle and jerked, and I cut off with a scream as I belly flopped on the hard sand.
The wind was knocked outta me and my brain sloshed back in my skull. I couldn’t even draw breath before it dragged me backwards into the waves.
“Ariana!” was the last thing I heard before I got dragged into the water.
It clogged my ears and swirled harder than it looked like it should’ve as the undertow grabbed onto me.
Or maybe it was still whatever had dragged me in here.
I pushed up on my arms and managed a gasp of air before it wrapped around my knees and dragged me backwards.
Into deeper water.
And I couldn’t push up far enough on my arms to suck in oxygen anymore.
The water whirled around me and I tried not to gag as my lungs screamed.
Hold the phone!
What had I learned last year?
I wasn’t just a psychic.
I was a witch.
And my power was somehow tied to water.
This thing just dragged me literally into my element.
This may’ve been a different dimension, but magic was magic.
And water was mine.
I forced my eyes open, and the salty sea didn’t so much as sting my eyes behind their lenses.
How the heck were the glasses still on?
The water practically glowed with power that shone over the slid down lenses, and it still made me want to puke.
But something about the water made it seem less.
Almost like water dampened (pun intended!) the Fae magic that made up this place.
Like maybe the water separated it?
I took a deep breath of the water, letting it burn down my lungs, and my body took the oxygen in from the water, turning it into something I could use.
This place, it wasn’t just on the edge of water, it was an island.
I sent my magic out in a burst, drawing a map of the lands over my head.
Water stretched out as far as the magical eye could see. It wasn’t an ocean like we thought of them.
It was a world of water, with islands peeking out, the earth maybe ten percent of this world.
I swear I saw this in a movie somewhere.
I knew, like the water was bringing me the info, that the Fae lands were these little islands. None were bigger than the UK or so, and some were more like little chains. They didn’t have enough land for their people.
That’s why the tribes were constantly at war.
And the only thing that kept them from wiping each other out completely was that Fae magic was earth based, and the water helped dampen it so they couldn’t cast spells too far out over it.
They kept breaking into our world cuz they’d run outta room in theirs.
I took another breath and shot another sonic shot out, pinging around me specifically.
The water writhed around me, and I risked a peek over the top of the glasses.
Ugh!
Bad idea!
The thing that had ahold of me rose from the bottom of the shallows, maybe ten feet below me now, as it dragged me out to sea.
And it looked like a giant, hairy piece of seaweed with segments that jerked.
What was it with these things lookin’ like spiders?
Like, really?
I squinted and pointed at the thing, focusing and pulling up my magic.
It shot outta my finger as a boiling blue jet, turning the ocean to steam around it, and slammed to the right of the plant holding me.
Dammit!
I really needed to work on my aim.
I shot again, holding the jet and turning until it hit the seaweed spider leg (yes, that’s the name I gave it and it freakin’ fit) and cut the stupid thing off at the bottom.
Screeching filled my ears, and I slammed my hands over them, kicking to break the surface.
I treaded water, looking around.
I wa
sn’t far from land. Only maybe twenty feet out.
But Grant and AB where nowhere to be seen.
I screamed, sending out a pulse through the water.
Two figures bounced back.
And they looked like they were fighting against something.
“Take me to them,” I commanded the water.
It swished in a wave around me, pushing me across the water like I was riding a dolphin.
I dove in, drawing power from the ocean around me, the salt still not stinging my open eyes as I searched for my drowning friends.
AB held a knife, but her fingers were limp, and it was about two seconds from floating away from her.
She couldn’t hold her breath long.
Something told me if I had this ease of control over water in this magical world, her fire personality wasn’t doin’ too great in the water.
Even without powers, something told me fire personalities could feel the dampening of water.
For one, she always said she liked me because I calmed down her fire and helped her calm her reactive temper.
Grant thrashed against those seaweed spiders, cutting with…
Was that a sword?
Nice!
I swished up to them, and shot a burning laser jet of water at the weeds dragging AB’s limp body down, cutting them off.
They screamed again, and I stuck my tongue out at their stumps as the dead plants drifted away.
I turned with my laser on and cut through the ones holding Grant at the bottom.
I pointed up at him to tell him to get up.
He shook his head.
“I can breathe in here,” I thought at him. “You can’t.”
“What!”
“I’m a water witch. I’ve got AB.”
His eyes flew wide, but he kicked his legs, swimming up and toward shore.
I pulled AB to me with a wave of water, and used it to push us both to the top and crashing to shore with no finesse.
We hit the sand in a heap, and Grant was right there, helping me drag AB up the beach.
He was still gasping, and the bags that’d been on his shoulders were water logged, but somehow he hadn’t lost them, cuz they were laying on the ground next to him.
AB’s was still on her back, and I took it off and rolled her over, putting my ear to her mouth.
She wasn’t breathing.