Page 5
“Breathe, Ali, I’ve got you. I’m right here,” Arlo calls from below.
I shake my head, pulling even more air into my burning lungs.
“Close your eyes.” His voice is softer now, like he’s coaxing a scared kitten off a tree branch. “It’s not that far. Please, trust me.”
Trust him.
I clench my eyes shut and Sable’s face flits through my mind, wasting away beneath the threadbare blanket where I left her. I can’t afford to freeze. She needs me.
After a few moments, I let go with a gasp.
The fall is short, but it presses all the air from my lungs.
His hands find me before the ground does, grasping my waist and pulling me in hard against his body. For a breath, he’s holding me in the way I’ve always tried not to imagine. My legs lock around his hips instinctively as he stumbles a step.
I don’t remember the moment he pulled his hood down or when my gloved hands found his shoulders, but I’m aware of every cord of muscle straining to hold me. I’ve never been this close to him or any other man, and my brain short-circuits.
His hands shift, and one strong arm coils around my lower back, drawing me so tight against him that I can feel my pulse between my thighs. I watch his throat bob as he swallows, and when my gaze rises slowly, I notice the flecks of green threaded through his soft hazel eyes.
“See, I’ll always catch you,” he murmurs, his warm breath ghosting my lips and fogging the air between us.
I’m all too aware of his hand gliding up my side beneath my cloak and shirt, his cold fingers splaying over as much skin as possible. The farm and Madam Claudia’s rules feel so far away, as if this wall that protects our island from the brutal tides could also protect us from the consequences of whatever this is.
His eyes dart between mine and my mouth, and his head dips just a fraction, but I’m not brave enough to lean in. It would be so easy to close the gap, to ask for more, to give his hands and mouth permission to be greedy.
He catches my hesitation and leans all the way in, letting his lips land just faintly on the edge of my mouth as he kisses my cheek. Stubborn tears sting the backs of my eyes as he lets me slide gently onto my feet and turns away.
I can’t let myself go the way I want to.
I just can’t.
CHAPTER 2
• Alessia •
THE STENCH HITS us before we realize what’s causing it.
“Fuck,” Arlo mutters, gazing down the shoreline, tugging his hood back up against the wind. When he takes a few steps away, I realize what he’s staring at.
Fish.
Hundreds, maybe thousands, of them. Covering the beach in a silver-gray carpet of death. Some are fresh, their bodies still glistening, mouths gaping open, tails curled. Others have been here longer. Their flesh is dissolving, sinking into the wet sand. Seabirds circle above but won’t land.
Arlo stares at the beach with the same shock I feel. “Well,” he mutters. “That explains the licenses.”
I crouch beside a large silver fish, half as long as my forearm. Its scales are dull and peeling. Its eyes have gone cloudy white, filmed over with a milky coating that makes it look blind.
“I wonder what happened to them?”
Arlo doesn’t answer because we both know what this means. Every surviving kingdom left in our fractured world depends on the sea. If the water itself is turning toxic, if the fish are dying in numbers that cover an entire shoreline . . .
I stand up. My hands are shaking, and I am about to turn to look at Arlo when a strange shape farther down the beach pulls my attention. Arlo sees it too, and his eyes narrow.
“What is that?” I ask.
We walk closer, stepping over fish carcasses. From a distance, the object doesn’t look that big, but it grows as we approach. Soon, we’re standing in front of an enormous slab of dull, gray metal jutting sharply from the sand. It stretches at least thirty feet, maybe more, disappearing into the dune. The visible piece is flat and wide, tapering to a rounded edge. Beneath it, half-buried, there is a curve of something bigger, a long cylindrical body, its surface buckled and split in places.
I brush my fingers along the cold metal. It feels rough with salt deposits and looks battered by the ocean. Along the curved body, rows of shattered windows stretch in a long line.
