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My tongue thrusts into her mouth along with my air. She takes that too, kissing me back just as hard. My cock pounds with unsatisfied need.
This is the kiss of death, and oh, but I am a willing sacrifice. Each second that passes, the oblivion invades all the more.
And I know I’d give it to her again. Over and over. Until there’s nothing left but her. My eyes open again, needing to see her even if it’s the last time.
Her eyes open as well. Slowly. They lock onto mine.
Confused and something else—something that sparks low and deep, that makes my blood thrum even here in the ocean’s dead hold. I feel it in the way her legs wrap around mine, the soft press of her chest against my ribs. The kiss lingers even though the air’s gone.
Let it be me, I pray. Let me be the only one drowned in this darkness.
No matter how I beseech the Gods, though, this is a place of illusion, and that means she is the cause of it. Still, I cling to her, the urge to protect an overwhelming need that claws at my insides, demands I be her sword and shield.
Together, wrapped in my arms, like witches of old, we sink deeper and deeper. Even witches, powerful as we are, die when drowned.
CHAPTER 5HAVEN
Multiple incident reports from [redacted] High School describes a pattern of accidents—falling objects, injuries among peers and instructors, malfunctioning lights—occurring exclusively in the patient’s vicinity. There is no observable evidence of dissociation, aggression, or psychosis. Patient denies awareness or involvement, but is clearly suffering some post-traumatic stress, sleep disturbances, and grief following the loss of her parents.
Recommend continued therapy.
—A NOTE FROM DR. M. ELLISON REGARDING PATIENT HAVEN WARDWELL, AGE EIGHTEEN
Sunlight bathes the room in a soft yellow light when I wake the next morning. I realize that I must have fallen asleep on the window seat because my neck is sore and my back is screaming for relief. Unfolding myself from the position, I stretch out both my arms and legs, relishing in the sharp cracks as my joints pop and release all the tension built up overnight, before hopping down.
“Good morning!”
The unfamiliar voice sends a jolt through me, and I damn near jump out the window. Whirling to face the speaker, I put one hand over my racing heart and release a slow breath as I catch sight of the grinning girl sitting propped up on the twin bed against the far wall. My roommate—or so I assume.
“You scared the shit out of me,” I admit, shaking my head.
She laughs, a husky sound. Tossing back the dark gray covers of her bedspread, she swings her legs over the edge of the mattress and rocks forward, her toes touching the hardwood floor beneath.
“Sorry about that,” she says. “I’m Elodie—your roommate. You were kinda passed out when I came back, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“I appreciate it,” I tell her. “Though I didn’t exactly mean to fall asleep on the window seat.”
Elodie is a pretty girl, her legs long beneath the patterned sleep shorts she’s wearing and the mass of corkscrew curls framing her oval face giving her a soft but fierce appearance. She nods to the other twin bed in the room, still stacked high with boxes that I never bothered to even open.
“Looks like you just got in,” she says. “You were probably pretty tired.”
“Yeah.” I grimace at the boxes. “Sorry about the mess. I’ll get it taken care of today.”
Elodie shrugs and then stands up, stretching her own arms up over her head and revealing a toned, flat stomach beneath the baby tee she’s got on. “Don’t worry about it. Do you want some help unpacking?” She drops back down and eyes the boxes on my bed again. “I’m free until later tonight.”
I contemplate refusing her offer, but Elodie takes the decision right out of my hands as she marches to the bed and peers into the first box. “Oh, you’ve got some books in here,” she says, grinning at me. “We can set those up on your desk.”
And that’s it—Elodie spends the rest of the day, between snacking on a collection of chips and cookies she shares, helping me unpack my life as she tells me all about herself. She’s a bubbly kind of person, and from all the names she drops—friends that she eats lunch with, friends from classes, friends that she parties with, friends from her hometown—it’s clear that she is also probably well liked and extroverted. Listening to her chatter makes the time spent unloading all my things and finding places for them around the room go by fast.
It’s as I’m placing my own copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray next to a set of old leather-bound collector’s editions at the back of my desk that I remember the man I’d met the day before. And he, inadvertently, reminds me, too, of the second one—the man from my dreams. The two hadn’t looked much alike, but there’d been something within both of them that reminded me of the other.
Glancing over my shoulder as I slide the book into place, I give Elodie a casual once-over. She’s humming to herself as she breaks down another cardboard box and sets it beside the door to the hall to be taken out to the dumpsters later.
“So…” I plop down on my bed and watch her. “How long have you been at Ipswich?”
“I’m a junior,” she tells me, “and before you ask, no, I wasn’t a transfer. I’ve been here since my freshman year. I just like living in the dorms because it’s close to classes and I don’t have to wake up early.”
“Do you mind if I ask about some of the students here?”
