Breathless (13 page)

No! I shook my head, hoping to dislodge the notion that rol ed my stomach in terror.
Stupid Edith.
Why did I always have to do that? Why did I always assume that every gift given to me was a moment away from crumbling in my hands? Wel , not this time. I was going to cherish every moment I had with Bastin. I wouldn’t,
couldn’t,
consider the alternative.

When I shivered Bastin rubbed his long fingers down my arms. “We need to get you out of the water,” he said.

I didn’t answer, only fumbled my way through the sticky mud until I emerged on the shore. Even then, I kept moving forward—without looking back and without saying goodbye. I couldn’t stop, too afraid that if I did I’d run back into his arms.

So I walked. And Bastin swam.

Each of us to a place the other could never go.

“Morgan saves the day again! Please, no need to thank me.”

I stopped rummaging through my schoolbag to find a cardboard cup waving in front of my face.

I took the cup and sniffed the contents. “Marble latte?”

“Triple shot.” She grinned. Today, Morgan had skipped her usual short skirt in favor of a pair of jeans that looked like they’d been run through a meat grinder. The pointed tips of snake-skin cowboy boots stuck out from under the frayed hems, dirty from dragging along the floor. “You looked a little run down first period, so I skipped calc and made a coffee run.”

“You
are
my hero.” I took the cup and greedily gulped it down, not caring that it was stil hot enough to burn my tongue. I’d only managed to sleep three hours after returning home from my night with Bastin. Remembering our kiss, I shivered happily. I’d quit sleeping al together if I could manage it. Bastin was worth it.

Morgan arched an eyebrow as she leaned against the locker next to mine. “Everything okay?”

I nodded. “I’m having a little trouble sleeping is al .” It was close enough to the truth. Sleep
was
nearly impossible when you were out in the bayou in the middle of the night making out with a merman.

“Wel , you better rest up. We’re going to having so much fun this weekend!”

I gave her a look to show her I was less than convinced. “You forget that Sir is going to be at your house. A Pap smear would be more fun.”

“Bah!” She waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t you worry, Miss Negativity. I know how to deal with Sergeant Shithead.”

“If you say so.” I turned back to my locker. Once I twisted my combination into the dial, I pul ed the door open only to have a piece of paper float out and land at my feet.

Morgan craned her neck over my shoulder. “What’s that?”

I picked up the paper with the caption, “Lady Death” scrawled on the top in permanent marker. On it, my head had been Photoshopped on the body of the Grim Reaper. The photo had obviously been taken in the school hal way with a cel phone. My face stared back at me from within the folds of a hooded cloak, my eyes worn and tired, my lips set into a thin line. One skeletal hand clutched a scythe.

“Ohmigawd!” Morgan ripped the picture from my hands. “This is hysterical! Don’t you think this is hysterical, Smal s?”

“Not so much,” I whispered. It was as if invisible hands had wrapped around my neck and squeezed. I struggled, just trying to remember how to breathe. So, this is what my classmates thought of me? That I was the harbinger of death? It was happening again. Just like before.

A tremor coursed through my body. First the accusations and then the blame. I pressed my palms into my eyes to keep tears from forming.

“Aw, Smal s!” Morgan slid her arm around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze. “Don’t let them get to you. It’s what they want. I think you should embrace being Lady Death. It’s a wicked cool nickname. Take this picture and make it your profile pic. That’l show ‘em.”

I looked at her, eyes brimming with tears that I refused to let fal . “But it’s not my fault! I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t kil them. I didn’t kil Russel . It was an accident! Just like my brother!”

“Whoa, wait up.” The reassuring smile fel from Morgan’s face. “Your
brother
?”

I turned away, horrified by what I’d let slip, and started down the hal . What happened to Wil iam was nobody’s business but my own. “Forget I said anything.”

“Smal s, wait!” Morgan snatched my elbow, but I shrugged her off. She was my friend. I could take a lot of things, but I couldn’t take the look of horror that always came when people learned I was responsible for my brother’s accident. Like I real y did belong locked up in some institution. I couldn’t take that—not from her.

Morgan backed away with her hands up. “It’s cool. Whatever.”

I didn’t say anything, just pushed past her and fled down the hal way to my next class. Running had always been my answer for difficult situations.

Only now it was apparent that like the remnant of death that clung to me like a stain, some things fol owed no matter how long you ran.

***

I pul ed my knees against my chest. “Sorry. I had a rough day.”

Bastin swept his hand in front of him, an indication for me to continue.

I sighed. “Everyone at school is blaming me for the boat accident. They’re cal ing me ‘Lady Death.’ Like I personal y murdered everyone who died.”

Bastin snorted, which brought a smile to my lips. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Right? I wasn’t the one doing a strip tease on the edge of a boat. If anything, the accident is Gabriel e’s fault. She’s the one with blood on her hands.”

He frowned. “That’s not what I meant.”

I looked at him, searching his face. “Okay. What
did
you mean?”

“I meant to imply that it’s ridiculous for the other humans to blame you for those kids’ deaths when they’re not even dead.”

My dropped as I felt the wind knocked from my chest. It took several moments before I could breathe, let alone talk. I’d heard the words he’d said, turned them over inside my head, and stil my mind refused to make sense of them. “
What
did you say?”

He inclined his head toward the water. “They’re not dead.”

My eyes fluttered and I had to tighten my hold on the dock to keep from toppling over like I did the night before. “Not dead? What do you mean not dead
? They disappeared under the water and never resurfaced. How could anyone survive that?”

Bastin continued to study the bayou. I fol owed his line of sight but couldn’t make out anything more than the ripple of waves of dark waves.

“There are ways—” He snapped his mouth shut and flexed the tendons in his jaw. “You know what? I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Bastin!” I pul ed on his shoulder. “You have to tel me where they are. Their families are worried.”

He shook his head. “Impossible.”

“Bastin, look at me!”

He didn’t.

“Bastin!” I crawled in front of him and placed my hands on his face, trying to get those onyx eyes to meet my own. “What happened to my classmates? If they aren’t dead, you have to tel me where they are. Maybe I can find them and get them back.”

He whirled his head in my direction so fast that I stumbled back, shocked at his speed. “No,” he said. “That is the last thing you are going to do.”

I shrank against the dock. “Why not?”

“Edith.” His voice lost the harsh edge and he lifted a hand to my hair and pushed it back behind my ears. “You have to forget about the others.

They’re not coming back. Ever.”

“But why?” My voice was a whisper.

“Because.” His eyes found my own and I immediately became lost in their depths. “They belong to the ocean now.”

“What?” My hand flew to my mouth, holding back the scream that sat just beyond the edge of my lips. I tried to process the information but it was like my mind had blue-screened, error messages flashing behind my eyelids. “How can they be underwater and not dead? That’s impossible.”

“It’s not.” Bastin pressed his lips into a thin line. “And it’s not that I don’t want to tel you because I want to keep a secret from you.” He refused to meet my eyes as he sat down. “It’s just that after I tel you, you’l think my kind are monsters.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “It’s not fair of you to make assumptions about what I’l think. Give me a chance.”

“Right.” He took a deep breath. “Your classmates have been taken as slaves by the tribe that attacked them. They now live underwater in the deepest part of the ocean.”

Shock paralyzed me. It was several seconds before I was able to blink, to breathe, to speak. And despite my best attempt, I was unable to hide the tremor in my voice. “Slaves?”

He nodded. “Please understand that my father’s tribe doesn’t believe in taking on human slaves. It’s a common practice between many of the tribes we are at war with.”

“But . . .” So many questions swirled through my head that I had trouble grasping onto a single one. I wasn’t sure how long I remained frozen before I was able to form the words on my tongue. “How do they survive underwater?”

“There are ways.” Bastin took my hands within his. “Please don’t ask me to explain them to you because there are consequences. Horrible consequences.”

“Okay.” A lump had formed in my throat, and I fought to breathe around it. “But is there a way to bring them back? Can we rescue them?”

He dropped my hands and turned his attention back to the water. “No.”

“But why?”

Bastin may not have been human, but he had an Adam’s apple that bobbed along his neck after a lengthy pause. “Once a human has been brought to the deepest part of the ocean, a place where sunlight does not reach, they can never return to the surface. To do so would kil them.”

Everything inside of me—my blood, my bones, my muscles—al of it turned to ice. “Never return? You mean to tel me that my classmates are underwater right now, serving as slaves, and there is absolutely no chance that they’l ever return to their families?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my God.” I shivered despite the warm night breeze. “But why? I don’t understand.”

“You don’t want to understand, Edith. It’s horrible. Once a human descends to the bottom, they can never return to the surface. The decompression would either kil them or drive them mad.”

“Wait, are you talking about the bends? Diver’s disease?”

“Partly.” He nodded. “We have ways of adjusting humans to adapt to the pressure of the ocean—just no way of adjusting them back.”

I chewed on my lip, trying to take in the horror of it al .

“Do you think I’m a monster, now?” he asked.

“What?” My head snapped up and I stared at him. “How could you think that? I have no more right to blame you for the actions of others than I can be blamed for the boat accident. It’s subjective. You said it yourself that humans are pol uting your home and making you sick. Doesn’t that make us monsters, too?”

He appeared to consider this.

“Bastin, I could never think of you as a monster.” I scooted closer and took hold of his hand. “The more time I spend with you the more I realize we’re
not
that different.”

He chuckled, a sound that broke apart the ice inside of me and sent my heart into happy flutters. “Edith, only
you
could think that. I’m a creature of the sea. You’re human. My blood runs cold while yours runs hot. We think differently, live differently,” he gestured to the water, “we
breathe
differently.”

“That may be,” I argued, “but you’re
here.
And I’m
here
. On the dock, enjoying each other’s company. Isn’t that
something
?”

He wrapped his arms around me. “Yes, it’s definitely something.”

I sighed happily. “We may be different species, but we’re the same, you and I. We’re both renegades for starters.”

“How’s that?”

“It means that you’re not supposed to be here and neither am I.”

He laughed. “Again, true.”

“See.” I settled against him, laying my head against the soft curve of his neck. “We’re not so different, after al .”

The next night, my body fought me as pul ed myself out of bed.
This is insane, Edith
. My muscles ached and my eyelids begged to remain closed. Each step outside the house drew me that much closer to getting caught, yet the threat of military school and my loss of freedom were no longer enough to hold me back. Not when Bastin waited.

I quickly slid on a pair of worn jeans and a T-shirt and slipped into the night. I found Bastin perched at the end of our dock. My exhaustion from a week without sleep was extinguished the second he smiled. The warmth that spread through my body as a result sent my pulse into a ripple of skips and hops. He stood and extended his hand, which I eagerly accepted. This time, instead of settling down to dip our feet in the water, he led me along the edge of the bayou. I hung slightly back, shielding my face from the scratching branches that Bastin didn’t seem to notice as he pushed through to a clearing where a large boulder leaned over the water.

Bastin climbed to the top with the grace of someone who’d been born with legs. I, however, had more trouble, my stil sore shoulder refusing to let me grasp the edges of the rock. It wasn’t until Bastin offered me his hand, again, that I was able to leverage my way to the top, which was just flat and wide enough for the two of us to lie next to each other.

We stayed that way for I don’t know how long—on our backs, our fingers woven together, wordlessly watching the night sky. I was getting used to Bastin’s silence and no longer felt the urge to fil the space between us with useless words.

Final y, he sighed, a happy sound. “I like touching you.”

I turned my head to find him staring at me. In that moment, I wished for nothing more than to be like him. If he wasn’t completely happy in his own silence then he was letting me know exactly how he felt. No head games. No inhibitions.

“I like touching you,” I answered. My cheeks burned as soon as the words left my mouth, though, I couldn’t figure out why I should feel embarrassed. Sure, admitting how he made me feel . . . if it was anyone else I would have braced for laughter—but Bastin’s honesty was teaching me to let go of my fear. Stil , there was something inside me, a part so terrified of getting hurt, that I couldn’t open myself completely. I only hoped Bastin was happy to fit inside the space I’d given him.