by Tasha Black
Johnny Lazarus was having fun.
Not the cool kind where women throw you their underpants - the goofy kind, the kind where you grin so hard your gums show and you thank God you’re alive.
The bright morning sun ruled the cloudless sky, glinting off the glossy red epoxy of his kayak. Cool droplets of water sprayed him as he cut through the gentle swell of the waves, and he tasted the salt water on the breeze.
In front of him, Neve squealed and giggled in a bright yellow kayak of her own.
Though he couldn’t see it now, he knew she was squeezed into a skintight black wetsuit. He’d caught a glimpse when the instructor was showing them how to get into the little boats and had to look away for fear of rupturing his own suit.
Now she was a mermaid with a bright yellow tail. Her laughter rang like church bells in his head, as water moved beneath his kayak, swirling and swaying him like a leaf on the wind.
They were nearly to the island. It towered ahead of them, looming and purple, a stretch of rocky beach between the crystal blue water and those lavender cliffs. Neve wanted to have lunch with him there. He figured he would be lucky if he could let her get two bites before he tried to seduce her.
He had been drawn to her from the moment they met.
But after these last few days, he was beginning to worry that he was actually smitten.
Johnny had made the mistake of noticing that she wasn’t just beautiful or interesting or different. Neve was a woman of action. She was passionate. She was smart.
And those qualities, oh, those were the attributes in a woman that would bring a man the greatest happiness.
But right now, Neve’s gift of perception could bring them both the greatest sorrow.
If he had met her a moon from now, when the dragon in him was gone, it could have worked.
But how could he win her now? When he was at war with himself?
How would a person like Neve not realize that there was something not-right about Johnny?
The music of her surprised laughter roused him and he saw what had caused it.
A pair of sea lions frolicked in the water ahead.
Gauguin couldn’t have captured the relaxed beauty of the moment.
Neve paddled ahead, putting their friendly visitors between them. And for a few seconds, Johnny forgot about all of his troubles.
Until he saw the wisps of smoke issuing from his lips.
For a horrible instant he thought he had begun to shift.
But it wasn’t smoke.
The air had grown frigid. He was seeing his warm breath condensing in the freezing air.
A dark shape moved in the water beneath him - something big, at least as long as both the kayaks put together. It passed under him, and he lost sight of it, a primal fear clenching his chest.
He looked to Neve. She had stopped paddling just ahead of him, her own breath pluming in the sudden cold.
“Did you see that?” he asked, but she only shrugged silently and shook her head.
Johnny glanced around frantically. Where was it?
As if in answer to his question, the dark shape broke the water between them.
The giant shark hit one of the unsuspecting sea lions with enough force to propel itself clear out of the water as its massive jaws closed on its prey with a bone-snapping crunch. Time slowed, and Johnny could see the monster as it hung in the air, pure black, like a patch torn from the night sky, unlike any shark he’d ever seen.
Neve shrieked as the beast splashed back down with its prize, covering her in sea water.
Johnny’s heart beat loud in his ears, drowning out the sounds around him. The mark on his arm screamed.
He spotted the dark shape beneath the surface of the water again. The shark.
But it wasn’t a shark. Not really.
It was the shadow, the awful thing from the fire. He was sure of it.
It had come back for him.
And now Neve was in danger too.
“Go, Neve, go,” he screamed to her.
He felt something pass beneath him, brushing the thin bottom of his tiny kayak.
No, no, no. They only had to make it to the island - they were nearly there.
The murky shape beneath the water darkened as it circled back in their direction, black dorsal fin cutting through the calm water.
It was heading right for him.
No.
It was heading right for Neve.
“No,” Johnny screamed.
He paddled until his muscles burned, straining to the limit.
She was only a yard away, a foot…
His hand reached for her shoulder as the creature’s huge, toothy maw broke the surface.
17
Neve was nearly at the island, paddling with all her might.
A huge splash sounded behind her.
Don’t look back. Don’t look back.
Her arms ached with the strain.
At last she felt the rocky sand under the kayak. She unstrapped and dragged the thing and herself out of the water and collapsed onto the shore.
They made it. She looked back for Johnny and realized that for the first time all day, he wasn’t right behind her.
She stood looking into the water, not daring to go too close. She’d seen too many nature documentaries and horror movies for that.
All day she’d been admiring the smooth transparent surface, casting a blue tint on the white sand beneath.
Now the water roiled, a huge swath turning dark crimson, enormous shadows swirling beneath.
The shark must have dragged him under.
A red ring of bubbles blistered to the surface.
Please, Johnny, please be okay, she prayed irrationally.
She would never see him again, that much was clear. This was like a living nightmare.
But before the thought had fully formed, she spotted Johnny’s unmoving body, floating face-down in the shallow water.
Neve’s instincts kicked in and she sprinted through the sand into the deepening water until she reached him, reminding herself of the rules of water rescue she had memorized in a specialized First Aid class.
Do not approach the drowning person. Drowning people are likely to push their rescuers under the water, putting both your lives at risk. Instead, toss him or her a flotation device from a safe distance.
Well, she had no flotation devices, and no reaching pole. She would just have to manage.
Call to the person you are rescuing in a calm, loud voice. The more relaxed they are, the easier they are to rescue.
Neve had no idea if the shark was still nearby, and she had no intention of announcing her presence by any means that weren’t absolutely necessary. So strike that idea.
By now she was nearly to him, and so far no sign of the thing.
She reached him. He was unconscious, but maybe still alive.
Her mind went numb and then the echo of the twenty third Psalm replaced the First Aid manual in her head.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,
She wrapped an arm around his torso, and began to pull.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside the still waters,
Slowly, she pulled him toward the island.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me…
When, at last, she reached the shallows, she slung his arm over her shoulder and found the strength to pull him up onto the sand.
She laid him down gently on his side, prepared to administer CPR.
It was only when he began to cough and splutter on his own that she noticed he was naked.
And, as far as she could see, completely unharmed.
18
Johnny was in the fishing pond again, near the farm house.
There were two different swim clubs they could bike to, and he wasn’t supposed to swim here.
But Johnny liked to swim in the shaded little pond, with the trees meeting overh
ead to make an emerald ceiling, and the lazy hum of the mosquitoes and the rich smell of the clay mud on the bank as he floated and played in the water.
But today the pond water was cold, so cold.
And the fronds of soft plants that usually caressed his feet began to tangle them instead.
They wrapped around his toes, then his ankles.
Johnny tried to swim away, but they were pulling him down, down, and down…
He woke with a start, coughing sea water out of his lungs and onto the pale white sand of a California beach.
A strange sense of peace hung around him, which he at first attributed to a post-adrenaline haze.
“Johnny,” Neve breathed.
He hadn’t registered the fact that he was cradled in her warm arms, surrounded by her sweet and salty scent.
“I can’t believe you’re okay,” she said, her normally husky voice pitched higher.
He coughed again, in part to buy himself time as it all came crashing back.
The shadowy creature and the sense of pure evil it imparted.
The need to protect Neve.
His efforts to distract the creature and its immediate reprisal.
The unfamiliar feeling of shifting, his body transforming to save its bursting lungs without asking his consent.
The thrashing of his wings under the surface of the cold water, the song the dragon had sung to send the creature away, at least for now.
And then the nothingness that followed.
The dream of the fishing pond had seemed more real than all of that.
“What happened?” Neve was asking.
“I don’t know,” he told her, pushing her away to sit up even though he wanted to lose himself in her arms.
“Where’s your suit?” she asked.
She crawled around to face him.
God, she was gorgeous, droplets of water clinging to the generous curves the wetsuit only served to accentuate. The dragon puffed out its chest proudly that such a woman would be his claim.
But before Johnny could demand that the beast explain its assumption, she was at her questions again.
“Where did all the blood come from?” she prodded.
“I can’t remember. I don’t remember anything about what happened,” he told her unhelpfully.
A furrow appeared on her brow, but she didn’t push him further.
“You’re in shock and you may have internal injuries. Stay here. Do not try to move. I’m going to get a blanket from the supply shack, and see what I can do about getting us a ride home.”
She pointed at a staircase hewn roughly into the cliff face. There was a large flat ledge partway up with a small building on it.
“Will you be okay if I go up there?” she asked.
“Sure, yeah, of course,” he agreed.
She studied his face for a moment, her dark eyes luminous.
“I can’t believe you survived. I was so scared I’d lost you,” she said softly.
She turned and hurried up the path before he could register what she had said.
She probably meant “lost him” like when a doctor lost a patient - because he hadn’t been breathing.
The dragon laughed in his head, a dry sound.
Fuck you, Johnny thought right back to him. If I hadn’t half drowned, you might have killed her.
How had he allowed himself to lose control?
Distracting the shadow long enough for Neve to get to the island would not have saved her from the dragon. It would only have made her more interesting prey.
I don’t want to eat her, boy, the dragon said in his condescending way, though she does smell delicious.
Johnny jumped to his feet and began pacing the sand as if the movement would allow him to escape his other self.
19
Neve slipped her phone out of her waterproof bag.
The phone back at the sanctuary rang and rang. At last Angela picked up.
“Malibu Sanctuaries,” Angela said in a bored voice.
“Angela, it’s Neve,” she replied, trying not to scold the other woman for her lackluster greeting. “I’m on the island with a patient. There’s been an accident and we need a pick-up.”
“Neve?” Angela asked.
“Yes, it’s Neve.”
“You’re on the island?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. Okay, yeah, who do I call?” Angela asked.
Neve counted to ten in her head.
“Neve?” Angela asked.
“Please call Maurice,” Neve said as kindly as she could. “He’ll send someone out.”
“Okay, yeah, got it,” Angela said. “See you soon!”
That girl was lucky she was pretty.
Neve put the phone away and went to the cupboard for supplies.
Frustratingly, there was hardly anything here. This place was supposed to be stocked and ready for an emergency overnight. There was a supply list on the inside door, it would have been easy for the crew to note what was missing and restock.
It was sadly typical for the staff not to follow through if there wasn’t consistent oversight from management, even for something as simple as this.
Not for the first time that day, Neve allowed herself to pipe dream about the way she would run things if she were in charge.
At last she managed to find a single use thermal blanket folded into a square the size of a playing card. It was better than nothing. She grabbed the packet, and a pack of matches to hopefully build a campfire with, and headed back out.
It wasn’t like it was freezing outside, but Johnny was soaked, and naked, so naked…
Neve pushed those thoughts aside, reluctantly.
Keeping Johnny warm was the first priority if he was in shock, and he was exhibiting textbook symptoms of shock.
She stopped in her tracks.
Something unexplainable had happened, and he was saying he didn’t remember. But he was showing no desire to remember. Wouldn’t he wonder? Wouldn’t the shock make him babble anxiously about it?
What if Johnny Lazarus was not what he said?
The thought seemed melodramatic, but there was clearly a lot more going on with him than met the eye.
When she came down the last step onto the beach, she saw him standing, looking over the water.
For a moment she indulged in the view. His tall, muscular physique was almost godlike.
How could anyone so beautiful on the outside possibly be hiding something ugly on the inside? But of course, that was what she dealt with every day.
Neve felt an immediate pang of guilt when she got close enough to see that he was trembling all over. She’d been right in the first place. Of course he was in shock.
Neve shook her head to clear the cobwebs. She wasn’t normally the kind of person to let her imagination get the best of her.
She’d better not start now.
20
Johnny stared into the blue water.
It was so calm and beautiful, contrasting perfectly with the turmoil in his head.
Johnny Lazarus wasn’t accustomed to having to make explanations to anyone.
Yet, this woman. This Neve…
His woman. His Neve…
His heart ached with the need to drop all his secrets at her feet.
But he couldn’t tell her the truth. She wouldn’t believe him. She dealt with unstable people on a daily basis. She’d probably think he was mental. And he could never actually show her proof - it would put her in too much danger.
“Johnny, what are you doing?” Neve’s contralto voice carried on the breeze like music. “I told you not to move,”
He turned to watch her approach.
She was beauty in motion, the wet suit clinging to her curves, her purposeful stride and stern expression at odds with the romantic abandon of the inky black hair escaping in crinkling tendrils from her ponytail.
He realized he was trembling.
“You’re freezing, we need to build a fire,” she said, her d
ark eyes flashing.
“Open this packet, it has a thermal blanket. It’s better than nothing, I guess,” she said. “I can’t believe no one ever stocks the shed.”
He nodded and watched as she gathered drift wood, set up some rocks in a circle around the wood, and crouched to light it.
He’d never heard her irritated like this. Neve kept her patience, always. She was struggling to light the fire though.
“Oh man, I can’t get this thing open,” he said without even trying. “Can we trade jobs?”
She looked up, shrugged and reached for the packet, tearing easily with her fingernail and sliding the shiny silver thing out.
He waited until she stood to unfold it before starting the fire. At least the damned dragon was useful for something. Anything that had to do with fire was easy and painless for Johnny.
“Wow,” she said when she turned her attention back to him.
“Boy scout training,” he replied, without making eye contact. How many lies would he have to tell her? Each one cut him like a knife.
She stared at the fire in silence for a moment, lost in thought as the wood popped and crackled. She glanced once at her wrist, where a slight lightness told him a watch had occupied that spot until pretty recently, but he hadn’t seen her wear one since they’d met.
“I’d better check on Angela again,” Neve said, opening her waterproof pouch to get at her phone.
Johnny moved closer to the fire, closer to her. He wasn’t cold, but he thought he should at least pretend like he was.
Neve pivoted at the same moment, and the arm holding the phone connected with him, sending it tumbling from her grip.
“Oh,” she cried suddenly.
They watched it spin through the air, its arc taking it directly into the heart of the blazing fire.
And then Johnny made a terrible mistake.
He watched it happening as if it were in slow motion: his hand reaching through the fire, grabbing the shiny aluminum and glass box from the ashes, offering it back to her.
She took it then screamed and dropped it on the sand, pulling her hand into her chest to cradle it. The phone hissed in the wet sand. He didn’t think she’d be making any calls anytime soon.