Page 243 of Breathe Like Hell

A mirror of the first time he’d ever touched me.

I’ll pull you up this time.

My hand found him, my fingers wrapping around his wrist as I tugged his arm up. I planted my feet on the sea floor, using my stance as leverage to force him upward.

Please.

He was resisting me, trying to stay down, and he was so much stronger than me. He always was, but even more now. His arms banded around my back, locking me against his body, trapping me in this underwater prison with him.

Is this it?

Is this the time I finally die?

Is today the day he won’t ever let me resurface?

I wanted to save him, to do what I’d tried to do on the first day I met him. I’d gone into the ocean after him, but he didn’t need me then.

He needed me now.

And I needed him.

I shoved against his chest, my fingernails digging into his skin, everything moving in slow motion so far below the waves. Maybe I could infiltrate his emotions and figure out how to steal his resistance, but it wasn’t easy to do that, and I was already tired from flying and swimming and holding my breath. Fuck.

Somehow, I managed to escape his death grip and grab his arm again.

The moment I did, I used all of my strength to swim upwards. But every small movement he made against me stole another foot I’d fought to gain. I shook my head at him, bubbles escaping between clenched teeth. No. Whether he understood or not didn’t matter. I wasn’t leaving without him.

I kicked harder, my thighs beginning to burn, my chest tightening. The ocean didn’t care that I loved him, that I needed him alive. Every bit of pressure shoving in against all sides of my body only weakened me, every bit of resistance in the water only tired my muscles. The ocean refused to help me steal what it had already been offered.

Panic began to creep beneath my ribs. Every kick felt smaller than the last.

I refused to look up. I knew the surface was still too far away.

My lungs didn’t burn in the same way they used to when I was human. I had more time now, more chances to drag Mason up with me. But even with infinite chances, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to bring him up on my own.

With my eyes shut, I quit crawling towards the surface, still gripping his arm, but focusing now on my aspect. Sigeian. There were other ways to save Mason’s life. I was decent at taking the unstable emotions from him, maybe now could be the time I figured out how to take his resistance. Force him into listening to me.

But the moment I entered his brain, I could feel him stop resisting.

He quit pulling down.

He would rather let me save him than let me try to reshape his emotions.

So I did.

I kicked and kicked, pulling him with me like a heavy weight I had to drag from the ocean floor, swimming with all my strength until we finally broke through the surface.

Mason’s skin was glowing with ultraneon, brighter than I’d ever seen it, and that terrified me. How long had he been down there? How close had he really been to death?

I gasped in huge gulps of air, my mind spinning, my pulse racing.

Mason wasn’t speaking, was hardly looking at me.

I didn’t care, though.

I just wrapped my arms around him tight, feeling his skin that was wet with seawater, warm against my palms, feeling his strength buried below the surface. I clung to him, pushing my face against his shoulder while I kicked my feet to keep my head above water, my knees bumping against Mason’s knees.

He was treading water too. No longer sinking to the bottom.