Page 105 of We Were Eternal Once

She laughed and nodded her head. “C’mon, let me introduce you to the crew. I’m Skye.”

“The crew?” I asked, falling into step with her. She moved up the beach, toward a group huddled around a fire. The beach was littered with them, spots for people to gather around holes in the ground filled with fire. Some slept on the beach, others disappeared into their cars when the sun came up.

“Yeah, the other vamps in the area,” she said.

I hesitated. Would this group be like Alexandria? Like Paris? Or would they be like the Salon of Shadows?

“Avoiding someone?” she asked.

“No,” I said, and I didn’t know if it was a lie. Did I worry I’d stumble upon you on a beach in California? That you would step into my life and tear it to pieces? That the hurt I’d felt when I buried myself would resurface?

I no longer wanted to die, but I did not know yet how to live.

“You’re a shit liar,” Skye said. “If you don’t like it, just bail.”

“Bail?”

“Leave.”

By now we were just feet from the fire. I searched the faces of the vampyrs lit by the flames, not recognizing any of them. Their eyes glowed amber, blue, purple, yellow—no red. Skye shoved her board into the dirt and addressed the crowd.

“Group, this is Noë. Noë, this is the group.”

“Hi Noë,” the group intoned. Skye collapsed onto a blanket in the sand and patted the ground for me to join her. I settled next to her. I did not feel the cold of the night like I did as a young vampyr or a human, but I still enjoyed the warmth of the fire.

“When did you get into town?” Skye asked.

“Last year,” I said.

“You’ve been watching me all that time?”

“No,” I said. “There is much to see.”

“But you liked what you saw and stayed?” Skye asked. There was a suggestion to her words, one that made heat creep up my neck.

“I suppose,” I admitted.

“Hmm,” Skye said, a smile flickering across her lips.

I quickly learned that I wanted to see that smile often, that I would do what I could to coax it from her.

Three days later I stand on the beach, the waves brushing my toes.

“Scared, Noë?” Skye teases. She’s up to her waist, her arms resting on her board.

“I drowned once,” I admit.

“Shit, that sucks,” Skye says. “Did you survive?”

I glare at her and she grins back. She likes when I am surly, she likes to prod—but never in a way that feels cruel. Her barbs are meant to land softly, to prickle instead of pain.

“Well, you’ve survived drowning once, I think you could do it a second time,” she says, stepping away from me.

The first step is the hardest. Before it, I was rooted, my toes sliding deeper into the sand with every lull of the wave. Once I took one step, it was easier to take the next.

Then the next.

Then the next.