Page 55 of Autumn L.A.W

“Don’t jinx it,” Sahara said.

He lifted his mug a fraction, as if toasting. “To not jinxing it, then.”

She clinked her mug lightly against his.

Up there, at a bolted-down table with terrible coffee and a closed notebook between them, Sahara allowed herself one small, treacherous thought: Maybe, just this once, I don’t have to carry every weight alone.

CHAPTER 13

The storm found them in the middle of nowhere. Ezra had taken first watch, not that the obelisk cared about shifts. It just hummed in its container like an ancient baritone practicing scales, and the ship creaked right along with it.

Sahara finally fell asleep, despite her reluctance, wrapped in the soft, relentless sway of the Atlantic.

She dreamed about stone. Sand burned white-hot under a foreign sun. A crown waited on a faceless figure. A guardian wept without eyes. The obelisk wasn't speaking in words so much as engraving meaning directly into her bones.

Your name. Your duty. Your return.

The storm rose like a giant lifting its shoulders. Rain hammered the steel deck. Somewhere between lightning and thunder, Sahara stood up in her sleep and walked.

She slipped past the crew and out a side door. Wind punched the breath out of her lungs. She steadied her breathing, then moved between towering stacks of shipping containers. The color bled out of the world. She looked like a ghost touring a graveyard made of steel.

The call tugged. The ship rolled. She didn’t notice either.

In the mess, Ezra sensed Sahara on the move. He dashed back to their tiny cabin, and just as he feared, she wasn’t in her bunk.

He found her on the deck, rain turning her hair into dark ropes, bare feet steady, but her eyes seemed to be gazing at another century.

“Sahara,” he said calmly. “Come back inside now.”

She didn’t hear him or didn’t care. Lightning flared, white and merciless, and she stepped toward the containers as if they had politely called her name.

Metal ladders were built into the sides of the containers. She began to climb one.

He didn’t speak again. He simply went to her. One arm wrapped around her waist, the other bracing both of them against the slick rail as the ship lurched. Ezra felt as if they were riding on the back of a whale.

She weighed more than she looked. Or it could have been that he was fighting against every ounce of stubborn resolve packed into one fit, sleepwalking witch. But Ezra wrestled her away from the edge, away from the containers, away from the storm.

“I’ve got you. Stay with me. We’re going below deck. No objections accepted.”

She sagged slightly. Once they reached the stairwell, it was as if gravity had been waiting politely to pounce. By the time he half-carried, half-dragged her into the mess hall, she was shivering hard enough to rattle her teeth.

Her eyes still weren’t really present.

“Sahara,” he whispered, smoothing wet hair back from her face. “You’re dreaming.”

Nothing. Just that faraway look. He had to bring her back to the here and now… somehow.

So, he did the first ridiculous thing that came to mind.

He kissed her.

Not dramatic. Not hungry. Just a soft, anchoring press of reality, mouth to mouth, like tapping on a fishbowl to remind the fish that there is, in fact, glass.

She inhaled sharply against him.

Her hands clutched his shirt. Her body woke up all the way. The room tilted back into existence one piece at a time. Rain on metal, the low hum of the engines, the faint smell of overcooked coffee, and finally Ezra’s face, too close and too worried.

She blinked. “Did you just Sleeping Beauty me?”