by Maggie Hall
Air. I was breathing in air. Clarity came rushing back to my mind. I grabbed on to Stellan, whose mouth was suctioned over mine, giving me all the air from his lungs.
He detached carefully, holding up one finger. I flailed, shaking my head frantically, definitely not enough oxygen in me yet. I let out bubbles, so I had empty lungs again as he rose once more, then came back, holding my face between his hands, and I drank in the air greedily, unable to stop myself from clutching his head to me, pulling him as close as I could. This time, I realized water was leaking into my mouth, too, a briny taste on my tongue.
I was still dizzy, not quite there. I remembered somewhere in the back of my mind a lifeguarding class I took when we were living on the coast. This kind of rescue breathing was not advised because the victim always panics and takes too many breaths. But the lifeguard had said she’d seen it work where the two people breathed back and forth for a few seconds to get the victim’s lungs working normally again.
Stellan tried to pull away, but I pulled his head back to mine. At first he resisted the air going back into his chest, but then he got it. There was so little light down here a couple feet below the surface, but I could see his eyes staring straight into mine until mine fluttered closed at the euphoria of breathing, in and out, in and out. I almost forgot Stellan’s mouth was on mine until he gently closed off our lips and detached my hands from where they’d clawed into his hair. The air we were passing probably didn’t have any oxygen left. He held up a finger again.
This time, I was alert enough to think about what was happening as he slid back down beside me, his hands pushing back the hair swirling around my face. I felt a ridiculous flash of guilt for just a second. But I wasn’t kissing him. This was clammy and salty and terrifying and entirely unsexy. He was literally breathing life into me, and I pulled him close hungrily again, emptying my lungs to make room for more before I brought his lips to mine. Unlike the last two times, I was aware of his chest contracting against me as he emptied his lungs into mine and let me breathe back and forth with him for a second.
As I took the last of this breath, I realized the voices above had stopped. Stellan looked up, too, his blond hair floating out around his head like a halo. He let go of my face and rose to the surface again, slowly peering out of the water. He must have decided they were gone, because he popped the rest of the way out, swimming quickly away. I didn’t know what he was doing, but I knew he’d come back. And sure enough, a second later, he was shooting toward me underwater, something in his hand. My lungs ached again, out of air so much faster now that they’d been traumatized.
He gave me one more lungful of his breath, and I could feel heat at the corners of my eyes. Even surrounded by water, I could tell I was crying as the dreamy panic lifted and the reality of what was happening set in. Stellan pulled away and swam behind me. He plunged whatever was in his hand into the material of my dress, and I felt a pull, then a sudden lightness.
I shot to the surface. My head broke into the cold dry dark, and I took gasp after sobbing, coughing gasp of air air air air.
Hot tears streamed down my cold cheeks and my whole body quaked. Stellan popped up beside me, and there was finally enough light for me to see he looked terrified. He took my face between his hands, examining me.
“Are you okay? Can you breathe?” he whispered.
My throat was raw. My eyes burned. My lungs felt like they couldn’t possibly expand enough to hold all the oxygen I wanted. I nodded.
Stellan muttered what I could tell was a string of curses in Russian, and I wanted to apologize, for whatever I’d done that had gotten me stuck down there, for being who I was that made it necessary for us to hide. For putting him in danger, too. But I couldn’t form the words, and before I could, he planted a hard, clammy kiss on my forehead.
The curses weren’t anger, I realized. They were relief. He pulled away quickly, like he was expecting me to shove him off the way I usually would if he did that.
Instead, I threw my arms around his neck.
He didn’t hesitate for a second before he pulled me to his chest, like he’d been waiting for it.
I wasn’t sure if it was how grateful I was or if I needed to rest or if I just needed a hug that badly, but I wrapped myself around him like I’d never let go. I was shaking hard enough to make waves in the water. My tears rolled over his shoulder, and he held me tight, murmuring into my ear in Russian. I couldn’t understand a word, but it was the most soothing sound in the world. After a second, I felt him release the side of the boat and wrap his other arm around me. He was treading water to support both of us so he could hold me tighter, and all I could do was press my face into his neck with a silent alive alive alive thank you I’m alive.
Elodie’s voice echoed out over the water. “Stellan!” Then, more quietly to Colette, “Where are they? I swear, if they’re not even here and we had to flirt with those disgusting men for no reason . . .”
“Here,” Stellan croaked. I unwrapped my legs from his waist, realizing what we’d look like, soaking wet and clinging to each other in the shadows. He didn’t loosen his grip on me at all.
Two heads peered over the deck, silhouetted by the deck light. Elodie sniffed, and I could feel her raised eyebrows of scorn from here.
“Can you swim?” Stellan said quietly. I nodded, even though I didn’t really want to let go. He kept an arm around me as we made our way back to the ladder.
Before we climbed up, I turned around one more time. Stellan’s hair was slicked back, throwing the angles of his face into even higher relief. His T-shirt was ripped at the shoulder. I had to restrain myself from throwing my arms around him again, and he opened his mouth like he was about to say something.
Heavy footsteps sounded on the deck. I groped for Stellan again, ready to hide, but Jack’s voice boomed out. “What’s going on? Where’s Avery?”
Stellan let me go like I was burning his hands, and Jack ran across the deck to pull me the rest of the way up.
• • •
I’d been in the plush terry-cloth robe for ten minutes, but I hadn’t stopped shivering.
“At first they just said they had to search the boat,” Elodie was explaining. “It wasn’t until we’d talked to them for a while that they told us there had been a vandalism incident at the temple and they’d gotten reports of the suspects being in this area.”
“They were actually police?” My fingernails were a sickly blue, and I tucked my hands under my legs. “It was all because of that brick?”
“It looks that way,” Elodie said. “But we thought they were—”
“So did we,” Stellan said. “And we almost drowned while you asked them which town has the best shellfish.” After they’d gotten us towels and robes, we’d settled in the lower cabin, where we couldn’t be seen through the windows, just in case.
“What happened?” Colette leaned forward, her rosebud mouth a perfect circle of shock. She’d been flitting around the boat like an agitated bird, tucking extra blankets around my legs, trying to get me to eat, making a pot of tea, then another when I said I didn’t like peppermint, even though I really didn’t want anything at all. Now she was sitting next to Stellan, bandaging the scrape on his shoulder.
Stellan met my eyes across the table. I’d felt nothing but numb since we got out of the water, but I suddenly, fiercely wanted to keep what happened between us. I didn’t want Elodie declaring that we’d finally found an excuse to make out. I didn’t want Jack to be jealous and have to pretend he wasn’t. I didn’t want to try to describe what it was like to really, not-exaggerating almost die and have Stellan save my life in a manner so intimate, I actually felt embarrassed looking at him now.
Stellan’s lips parted, and he looked away. “We didn’t drown after all,” he said simply. He took the bandage from Colette and stood up. Her hands dropped to her lap and she started to get up after him, but he
turned away without noticing. “And now I’m going to go take a really hot shower. Turns out the Mediterranean is still vraiment cold in June.”
Colette sat back down awkwardly, and I leaned back, only to realize I’d been tucked under Jack’s warm arm the whole time. He wrapped me up in the blanket, pulling me to his chest, and I watched over his shoulder as Stellan disappeared down the hallway.
CHAPTER 16
Elodie and Colette were still sleeping when I woke up the next morning. The last thing I remembered was Colette making me eat soup while I sat in a nest of blankets on her bed. I must have passed out, because I woke up to find the covers tucked around me and Colette and Elodie sharing the next bed over. Two more days, was my first thought. The Saxons had left Beijing yesterday, were passing through London today, then headed to DC. I had two more days until the Circle marriage countdown clock ran out.
I pulled on a sweatshirt and slipped out of the room. Stellan was sitting on one of the bar stools.
He looked up when I came onto the deck, and set a little cup of espresso on the bar. A violent wave of unexpected emotion crashed over me, so strong I stopped still.
I was drowning last night. I was drowning and he saved my life, but all I could think of now was what had happened right after.
We could just have easily have swum straight to the swim ladder. I would have thanked Stellan, then cried on Jack’s shoulder. Stellan would have joked about having to save me and ribbed Elodie and Colette for almost killing the purple-eyed girl.
That would have been what I’d expected. What actually happened wasn’t.
Stellan broke the eye contact I wasn’t able to break and took a sip of his coffee. “I was surprised to see Bishop all alone in his bed. I expected a glad you’re not dead make-out session keeping me awake all night.”
The spell holding me in place broke.
“Good morning to you, too,” I said, my voice still scratchy and throat aching. I leaned on the end of the bar. Obviously any awkwardness was coming from me, and he thought nothing of it. That was a relief.
I gazed out over the bay. It looked so unthreatening this morning, the pinks and yellows of the sunrise glinting off the water.
“The training thing,” I said, but stopped myself. I didn’t realize I was going to say that. It made sense, though. Two days. If we couldn’t solve the clues, maybe I really would have to confront the Order directly. Despite any doubts I might have had yesterday, I wasn’t wrong. No matter how much Jack disapproved, I knew I’d do whatever it took to save my mom, even if it was dangerous. We were getting into last-resort territory.
Stellan’s face shifted into an infuriatingly triumphant smile. “What happened to the thanks but no thanks of twenty-four hours ago?”
I felt my face blaze with annoyance, and maybe a little embarrassment. I turned to go. “Never mind. I’ll practice by myself.”
“Hey.” Stellan reached out, his hand on my upper arm. “I didn’t say no.”
I looked down at his hand, and he removed it. “It’s not that Jack is a bad teacher.” I looked over my shoulder toward the bedrooms, trying not to feel guilty.
Stellan shrugged and looked down at his own bare feet. “Give me a second.”
I barely had time to put on shoes and retrieve my knife before he reappeared. I tucked the knife into the front pocket of my sweatshirt, and Stellan rooted through the fridge.
“Bringing breakfast?” I asked.
He pulled out a paper-wrapped package. “No,” he said simply, cocking his head toward the end of the docks. “There’s a hidden cove down on the beach. Come on.”
At this time of morning, the only people we saw were a couple swimmers far out at sea, bright yellow and white swim caps bobbing along in the turquoise water, and a few early risers having breakfast on their boats’ sundecks. I pulled a baseball cap low over my eyes, anyway.
The cove was tucked away on the far end of the beach, white sand stretching to the foot of a rocky, brush-covered cliff. We had to take our shoes off and wade through the shallow water to slip past a fall of dark boulders, and when we got there, Stellan was right—we were completely hidden from the walkway and the rest of the shoreline. The gentle lapping of the waves echoed off the rocks all around, completing the illusion that we were shut off from the world.
Stellan put his shoes back on, but I squished my toes in the sand. “This place is beautiful.”
Stellan looked down at my bare feet and then up over my leggings and sweatshirt. The knife tucked into my pocket burned into the skin of my stomach, and I shifted self-consciously.
“Well?” he said. “I need to know what I’m working with. What have you learned?”
I took a deep breath and took my knife out, tossing its sheath on a rock.
Stellan laughed. “Oh, definitely not. I didn’t come down here to die.” He picked up the sheath and slipped it over the knife, taking the whole thing carefully out of my hand.
“This is better to practice with.” He picked up a piece of driftwood as big around as my wrist and snapped it in half. He handed me a piece about six inches long and kept the other half for himself. “Well?”
I wondered if he was being more careful with me because of last night. He was probably thinking I couldn’t handle this.
I cleared my throat. The piece of wood felt different in my hand than my knife. “Jack taught me how to stand. And hold the knife. Mostly self-defense stuff. He thinks I shouldn’t count on fighting with the knife, so he hasn’t taught me much about it, but I looked up some tutorials online . . .”
“You’ve been watching YouTube videos about knife fighting?” he said incredulously. “No wonder you’ve been having a hard time.”
I frowned. “What do you want me to do?”
He shrugged. “Stab me.”
I adjusted the stick in my hand, planted my feet, and—
Stellan threw his elbow into my “knife” and knocked it six feet away. He lifted his chin in the direction it had gone. “Try again.”
This time, I made a point not to prepare much so he wouldn’t know which way I was going. I stabbed at his side, but he sidestepped effortlessly. “Again.”
I lashed out at his shoulder. Sidestepped again. At his side. Straight on, like I was trying to stab him in the heart. He grabbed my wrist with one hand. He was so much stronger than me, he pushed my hand back until it was against my own chest. I jerked away.
“So the baseline’s nothing,” he said.
“You knew I wasn’t good at this,” I grumbled. I hated being bad at things.
“All right.” Stellan shrugged out of his gray hoodie so he was just in a thin white tank that showed the tops of his scars creeping over his shoulders. “Let’s look at this differently. Tell me what you’ve learned.”
I tore my eyes from him and described the stance I was supposed to take.
“Show me.” I did, and he corrected me, nudging my bare feet a little farther apart with his boots and pushing down on my shoulders. “You’ve got to loosen up. At least half of fighting is being ready to dodge, defend, or attack. That can’t happen if you’re tense.” He put his hands on my shoulders and shook them. “Relax. More.”
The second he let go, I felt my shoulders rise back up to my ears.
Stellan sighed. “Next?”
He corrected my grip and my striking posture. “You’re not entirely terrible,” he conceded. “At least you remember a lot of what you learn. What else?”
Besides what Jack had taught me and the videos I’d watched, I’d read a lot on the Internet. “I learned about where the best places are to—if you want to, you know. Hurt somebody.”
“Or kill somebody,” Stellan corrected.
I felt myself hesitate, but nodded silently. He gestured for me to go on.
“The arteries,” I said. “I read that they, um, they bleed a lot.�
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The sun had just popped over the cliff, and Stellan squinted into it before directing us into a shady spot. “All right, arteries. Like where?”
“The, um, the carotid artery? In the neck.” I looked at Stellan’s and could just make out the throb of his pulse.
He nodded. “Come here. Put down your stick.”
I did, warily.
“You’re right. You so much as nick the carotid artery and it’ll bleed everywhere. Stab it good, and the person will be unconscious in fifteen seconds, dead in a minute. But . . . Give me your hand.” He pressed the tips of my fingers to the side of my own throat, pressing hard enough I could feel my pulse speed up. He moved my hand around, exploring the area. I felt my hard swallow. “Feel that? This is where the carotid artery is, but it’s under a lot of muscle, even on someone as small as you. On someone bigger . . .” He moved my fingers to his own neck. It was harder, much less pliable than mine. “That artery is buried deep. And that’s if you can even get a person in the position necessary to reach it.” He lowered his chin to his chest and brought my hand to his neck again. I could barely reach past his jawline. I pulled away, and there were red marks on his neck from my fingertips.
“If you have the element of surprise and are strong enough and have a big enough knife, you could take off somebody’s head. You will probably have none of these things, so the carotid artery’s going to be hard for you. Next?”
I tried not to think about Prada, about Luc actually taking off someone’s head, followed by Stellan stabbing someone else in the chest. It seemed like so long ago now. “Um,” I said. “The heart. The heart is pretty much the place to stab someone, right?”
This time, he took my hand without asking and pressed my fingers to his chest. “Show me exactly where the knife would go.”
“I . . .” I felt awkwardly around the left side of his chest for just a second. “I don’t know. Somewhere around here.”
He moved my hand lower than I’d had it and pressed down hard. “Pretty small area,” he said, pushing up and down so I could feel between two ribs. “Through the back is easier.” He pulled my hand behind him so it probably looked from afar like we were embracing. His back wasn’t quite as muscular as his chest, and I could feel the ribs more clearly. “But it’s still a space barely big enough for a blade, and you’d need a lot of practice to get that kind of precision.”