by Jessica Roe
“You sure?” Hue asked, standing up and cracking his knuckles nervously. He wasn't wearing a life-vest, but then there really wasn't any point. “Not that I don't trust your faerie friend or anything, but if I'm gonna throw myself into that water to drown, I want it to at least be in the right spot.”
Ward nodded emphatically. “I agree. How do we know for sure?”
Zay shaded his eyes from the sun and peered over the edge of the boat. “She said there'd be a faint shimmer over the water over where the portal will be. Something you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it. You guys see a shimmer anywhere?”
Each of them went to different points of the boat to look over, searching for something yet not really knowing what. After a minute, Nicky yelled out excitedly. “There! That's shimmery, right?”
The boat rocked gently as they all rushed to check it out. He was right. Over a small patch of water, maybe stretching twenty to thirty feet, something was definitely different in the air just above the tiny waves. Almost like rising heat but kind of. . .sparkly. Definitely supernatural.
Kacey clapped to get everyone's attention. “Right!” She was still way too cheery, especially considering the situation. “Now we know where you're going, let's get with the actual going. I've got some weights here to put in your packs, just to make sure you really sink. Don't want you bobbing back up again, do we?”
Both she and Jamaall helped put the weights in their packs. By the time they'd finished it was nearly impossible to stand, even for the muscular guys like Nicky and Ward.
Unlike Kacey, Jamaall looked somber and to sick to his stomach. He squeezed each of their hands as he passed by them.
Hoisting his pack higher, Zay moved to the front of the boat to talk. In that moment he looked much older than his twenty one years. Already the sun had started to bleach his blonde curls white, and standing before them dressed all in black and looking fierce, he looked like a fearsome, avenging angel. “It isn't too late to back out,” he promised. “No one would judge you, not even a little.” He spoke to them all, but it was obvious his words were for the scientist. She pursed her lips defiantly. Though the girl was pale as a ghost and trembling with pure, unadulterated fear, she stood tall and determined. It was possible that Gable was starting to like her.
Zay nodded once when none spoke up, pride evident on his face. “Right then, I guess this is it. This next test will be harder than anything we've ever faced before, and if we don't make it, I just want all of you to know. . .you're heroes. Every one of you. True heroes.”
Jamaall pressed a fist to his heart. “The bravest souls I've ever had the fortune to meet.”
Serious for the very first time, Kacey spared a glance for each of them and said, “If you don't return, none of you will be forgotten. Not ever.” And then, “So, do you want to jump or would you like a lil' push?”
Zay glared at her. “We'll jump.”
“Okykoky. Don't forget, you need to find the key to get home. Find. That. Key. Otherwise it won't matter if you rescue the Outcasts because you won't be able to bring them home; you'll be stuck there for good.
“And most importantly, even though you're drowning, even when your lungs are burning and your mind is fading away, you must remember the name of that one particular island. Keep that island in your brain and don't let it slip away, otherwise you could end up on a completely different island and you don't want that. You remember the name, right?”
“Lonh,” Gable murmured, more to herself than anyone else. Next to her, she heard the others repeat it, again and again and again as if to imprint it in their minds.
Kacey gave them all a sad, final smile. “I suppose there's nothing more to say than good luck, though it doesn't seem nearly enough. This is it, you guys. May God be with you in all you do. I truly hope we meet again, brothers and sisters.”
With a heaving chest, like her lungs knew what was coming and were trying to gather as much oxygen as they could, Gable followed the others to the edge of the boat.
“So,” Ward said with a shaky voice as they looked over the edge once more. As an earth elemental, water definitely wasn't his strong point. “do we do this together or jump one at a time?”
“Together,” Zay answered decisively. “We do this together. We're a team. From this point forth we do everything together.”
Beside her, Gable felt Nicky inch closer until they were pressed together from shoulder to hip. He was looking down at her, longingly and achingly. His smell, manly and spicy yet salty from the sea, washed over her and for just a second she was comforted. She memorized every inch of his handsome face – his dark golden skin, his deep brown eyes, the scar across his eyebrow from the first time he'd fought Zebb. If his was the last face she ever saw, then at least she would die with warmth in her heart.
For a moment she thought he might say something, but he decided against it and closed his mouth regretfully.
“We're gonna live,” she promised him.
He nodded, though he didn't seem at all certain he really believed her.
It hit her then that it was her fault he was even there. He was there for her. He was there because she was there. And if he died. . .it would be all her fault. He would die helping her rescue another man.
His large, warm hand encompassed hers and she held on tight.
Together they jumped.
Chapter 14
Gable
Gable was sinking. She was sinking. . .sinking. . .sinking. . .
Water rushed over her, surrounding her, engulfing her. It was powerful, much more powerful than she. Nicky's hand tightened in hers, the one spot of warmth in her entire existence, and she tried to cling on but too soon she lost her grip. She lost him. He slipped away from her and she was alone in her watery prison.
She was all alone.
The others sunk around her and she tried to keep them in her sights but within seconds they became faceless, blurry shapes as her eyes began to burn. She refused to close them though; she couldn't go through this with her eyes closed.
Already her lungs were on fire as she stubbornly held her breath, so desperate for oxygen. Despite knowing that she was doing this for a purpose, she began to panic, kicking her arms and legs to no avail; there was no way she was getting back to the surface – her pack was too heavy and she couldn't get it off.
She was dying, she knew it. This was death. She could feel her life slipping away from her and nothing was happening. There were no Dark Islands, no faeries, no Sacha. Terelle had been wrong. This wasn't the way to cross through the portal, or she'd mistakenly given them the wrong coordinates. This was wrong. She was going to die! They were all going to die!
Images of Sacha flooded her mind. She'd failed him epically and now she would never see him again and he'd be trapped forever. Never again would she feel the safety of being held in his arms, the curve of his jaw beneath her palm, never again would she hear the sound of his voice whispering in her ear late into the night.
Gable remembered his smile; his pale pink lips, the dimple she'd always loved. God, most of all she missed his smile.
But. . .there was something else she was supposed to remember, something important. Something, someone, some place. If she could just remember. If she could just clear the head pounding fog from her brain and remember. . .
LONH! Lonh. Lonh. . .
It was too late.
She began to lose consciousness and then she was fading, fading away. Distantly, she felt her backpack thud against the sandy ocean floor as she hit the bottom. Her mouth opened and she couldn't stop the water. She choked on it, swallowed it, couldn't get away from it. . .
Water suddenly gushed over her, like someone had upturned a swimming pool right over her head. And then. . .
Air!
The water fell away and she was lying on her side on a beach. She coughed and took in air like she couldn't get enough of it, gasping and heaving until she was spluttering and choking but she didn't care because she was b
reathing. She was breathing and she wasn't dying and that felt So. Damned. Good.
Zay appeared over her, completely drenched and dripping. He let out a grunt of relief when he saw she was alive and yanked her up by the shoulders, helping her out of the heavy pack so she could move.
“Thank God you're alive,” he wheezed, still recovering himself.
The sand underneath them was wet and it clung to their skin and their hair and their clothes but neither cared. Their joy at surviving surpassed all else.
But then reality set in. “Where are the others?” Gable demanded, glancing around. They were the only two on the beach.
Zay shook his head, still panting. “They're not here. They're not here, Gable.” He ran shaking hands through his curls, but his hair was so clogged up with sand and sea water that his fingers immediately caught in the tangles.
“No!” He couldn't be right! She pulled herself up onto her hands and knees, panicking. “Something must have gone wrong. They didn't make it. What if they ended up on the wrong island? What if they didn't sink? Oh God, what if they di-”
Nicky appeared from nowhere right in front of her underneath a wave of water. He coughed and groaned, and behind him came the scientist. . .then Hue. . .Cadby. . .Ward. . .
That was everyone. They'd all made it!
She cried out in elation until she realized that two of them, Cadby and the scientist, weren't moving.
Ignoring her aching chest and pounding head, Gable pulled herself up and raced past Ward to drop down by Cadby's side. Behind her, she heard Zay do the same with the scientist.
She ripped off his backpack and tilted his head back. He wasn't breathing!
“Don't you dare die on me,” she choked out. She couldn't lose him too. Not Cadby. He was one of the only people left in the whole world that she could truly rely on, that she loved. The only other person who mourned Sacha almost as much as she. They were linked in so many ways.
Pulling his mouth open, she pressed her lips against his and breathed into his mouth before beginning CPR.
“Come on, Cadby!” she demanded, her eyes filled with terrified tears. “Come on! Wake up.”
Suddenly he convulsed. He let out a hacking cough and turned to throw up a crap load of water – it was the most wonderful thing Gable had ever seen. She sat back on her heels and closed her eyes in sheer relief, praying to God for thanks for the first time in many, many years.
Cadby rolled onto his back and looked up at her, his familiar smile lighting up his whole face. “We made it.”
“We sure did.”
He laughed; a crazy gesture, yet she understood because the same exuberance was running through her own veins. Cadby reached up quickly to grab her face between both hands, placing a playful kiss on her lips. Though it surprised her, it was short and sweet and friendly and she didn't mind a bit.
Grinning, she helped him stand. Hue and Ward slapped him on the back (because they were men and they were lame and that was the only way they could show him they were happy he was alive). Nearby, Nicky and Zay were each holding one of the scientist's arms.
She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I can stand, you guys.”
“You almost died,” Zay pointed out.
“We all almost died.”
“Yes, but you really almost died. I'm not letting go of you this entire trip, you realize that?”
Shaking her head in amusement, she didn't argue any further; probably because she knew it wasn't exactly a realistic threat.
It was nice watching them, Gable decided. Those guys were a team, but they were also a family. She couldn't ever imagine fitting in somewhere like that.
Ward slung a wet arm around her shoulders. “We're all here!” he called out, giving a whoop of exhilaration. “We made it. We made it to Zawavia! The faerie freaking realm!”
Whether it was from exhaustion or lightheadedness or just pure relief, they all began to laugh. Quiet little peals at first, quickly morphing into uncontrollable bellows that had them bending over and holding their sides.
Yet though they celebrated, Gable could see a sliver of darkness in each of their eyes. It was a feeling she knew well, a feeling she'd become very familiar with in her year spent with Pablo. The experience they'd all just shared, almost dying like that, forcing themselves off the edge of that boat, knowing they could drown. . .they wouldn't forget it, not ever. Being forced to confront death head first changed a person in so many ways.
“This beach is incredible,” Cadby breathed, when they'd finally calmed down. “The sand is perfect; I've never seen anything like it.”
He was right. They'd landed – or appeared, or. . .swam? – onto a long, seemingly endless stretch of tropical beach. The sand beneath their feet was finer and smoother than silk, a shade of white Gable hadn't even known existed. Not too far away, the ocean splashed gently into the sand, playfully tossed around by a gentle, warm breeze. It sparkled with a myriad of fantastical colors – blues and greens and purples, like someone had sapped all the color from a million brilliant gemstones and mixed it together. It was unlike anything they'd ever seen on earth.
“Check out that sky,” Zay marveled. It glowed orange and red, with swirls of pink and green in the setting sun. Two moons were already rising; one silver, and a smaller in the palest green.
“But it was morning,” Nicky pointed out with a frown. “I mean, it was morning, right? How long were we in the water?”
“Time moves differently here, I guess. Different realms and all.”
“Good point.” Nicky scratched his chin. “Gotta say, it's not as different as I expected. Apart from the awesome ocean which I'd totally wanna swim in if I wasn't shitting scared of the water for life now, and the extra moon, and the time difference. . .”
“And this air,” Ward added, lifting his chin and inhaling deeply. “Have you ever breathed in anything so fresh?”
“Not in any of the countries I've visited,” said Hue. “And I've traveled a helluva lot. It feels good, right? Rejuvenating.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, aside from all that,” Nicky decided. “I guess I was just expecting the place to be weirder.”
Cadby eyed him, amused. “You look disappointed.”
“Naw, he's right,” Zay agreed. “It's definitely not as weird as I thought it'd be.”
“Um, you guys. . .” the scientist spoke up. Unlike the rest of them she was no longer facing the ocean. She'd turned in the opposite direction and was staring at something with rapt attention.
Almost in unison, the rest of the group turned. Behind them lay a vast rainforest, with trees wider and taller than anything any of them had ever seen before. They'd been so mesmerized by the sea and the sky that they hadn't even noticed it, but now they had, it was hard to tear their eyes away.
Gable felt her jaw drop as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. “Well. . .there's your different, Nicky.”
“You don't fucking say.” He shook his head, gaping.
There was something about the rainforest, something wrong. Something intensely creepy about the trees and the forbidding darkness that lay beyond the beach. Not only were the trees bigger than they were back home, but they were pulsing, as if they were alive and watching them right back. Vines ran up the trunks, though they were dark and thick and. . .oddly skin like.
Cadby grimaced. “They look like veins.”
“They're kind of horrifying,” the scientist agreed. She glanced at Zay. “We have to go in there, don't we?”
He nodded reluctantly, though he still couldn't seem to drag his gaze away from the rainforest. None of them could. It was like watching something horrific, an awful car crash that no one could look away from even though the sight of it was sickening. “We need to get off the beach – it's too exposed. Pablo's partner will have guards and they could patrol here any minute. We need the element of surprise – with our low numbers it's the best thing going for us. We need. . .” He sighed. “We need the cover of t
hose trees so we can make camp before night completely falls.”
“I kind of hate your logic right now.”
“Yeah, I know. Me too.”
They dragged themselves back to their abandoned packs and pulled out the weights.
“We should bury them,” Hue suggested. “Don't want the guards stumbling across them and getting suspicious.”
“Good idea.”
It didn't take them long to finish their task, and soon they were hoisting their considerably lighter packs and cautiously entering the eerie rainforest.
“You know,” Cadby mused as they started to trek. “Those weights were kind of a good thing. Now that I've held the pack with them, it doesn't seem so bad without them.”
The poor guy was going to have some seriously aching muscles the next day, but Gable didn't have the heart to tell him.
The air inside the rainforest, though not quite as fresh as on the beach, was still warm, but it lacked the dampness that usually came with the terrain. Gable was grateful; she was finally beginning to dry off.
Darkness shrouded them the further they walked. There were no clear paths so they had to cut their own, beating their way through thick foliage and scraping their hands raw as they climbed over fallen tree trunks and sharp rocks. It was hard, relentless work.
They'd been walking in near silence, too busy trying to catch their breath and keep themselves from falling to make conversation, when Ward suddenly came to a stop. “I feel weird,” he mumbled, holding a hand to his head. “I need to sit down, just for a minute.”
“Me too,” Cadby agreed, looking paler than normal. He stumbled, and Gable jumped to catch his arm.
“I can see a clearing up ahead,” said a worried Zay. “Come on, we can rest there.”
When they got to the clearing, Nicky immediately dropped to the ground, gripping his head between his hands and groaning.
“You too?” Zay asked, but was immediately distracted by the scientist, who slid down and pressed her face to her knees.