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I don’t really mind if I’m here with them. Anything is fine. I wouldn’t complain about lying on the beach and making out, but I obligingly push myself to my feet and brush the sand off.
Elias wraps an arm around my waist, giving me a devastating smile as he presses a gentle kiss to the top of my head. Dammit, he’s good. If I weren’t already addicted to them, that brief interlude would have hooked my heart for sure.
God. It’s been so long since I’ve felt anything like this, being so completely head over heels for anyone. It’s terrifying and wonderful, and I hate feeling so damn helpless to the whims of my heart. I can’t do anything about it.
All I can do is enjoy it while it lasts.
Because I can’t lie to myself. The more it feels like they care about me, that there’s almost some chance of this working out as a real thing, the more scared I am of losing it all.
I hold their hands, Elias and Caelan on either side of me, and just breathe.
Some of the gray haze has cleared, and the mid-afternoon sun washes over the beach and bathes it in warmth. The sand stretches out in front of us as far as the eye can see, and Caelan is impatient already.
“How freakin’ far is it back?” he complains, reminding me of a child whining on a car journey, and I laugh.
“It took us an hour to get as far as we did. It will take the same time to return,” Elias says, with far more patience than Caelan has.
“All right, look. The beach is pretty and shit, but I’ve had my fun messing around, and I can’t be bothered to walk for that long. Unless you really want to hang around for whatever reason, I vote we take a shortcut through the abyss back to the pier.”
I grin. “I’m good. I’ve had my fill of beach too.” I’m pretty sure I have sand in my hair from tumbling around with Caelan when he caught me after the little ocean experiment. I’d rather not hang around and get sand in even worse places.
Elias, however, doesn’t seem quite so enthused about the plan. “Just because I will allow some travel by that method in necessary circumstances does not mean I think it’s a good idea to use it constantly on any whim.”
“Whatever,” Caelan says, then scoops me up. I yelp and wrap my arms around his neck. “Catch us if you can, old man.”
“Caelan—” I attempt to protest.Too late.
My stomach flips as the world drops out from beneath me. I didn’t even have time to close my eyes.
Not that there’s anything to see, only darkness so deep it feels like it would devour the first hint of light that dared disturb its utter completion. Yet I can’t shake the idea that there’s something beyond my vision. Something beyond my comprehension, and if I could see it amongst the endless black, it would drive me insane to even gaze upon it. It makes me nauseous, this momentarily glimpse of a world that shouldn’t exist.
‘Gaze into the abyss,’ as the saying goes, and I choke on a sound halfway between a laugh and terrified whimper I can’t bite back.
I really don’t like the abyss very much.
Caelan sets me down on the beach where we emerge, the same place as we’d appeared upon our first arrival. I find myself sinking to my knees in the sand, my legs shaking too much to hold me up.
Oh. I hadn’t even realized.
Elias is already here. For all Caelan’s taunts of ‘catch us if you can,’ Elias either beat us here or arrived instantaneously. He grips Caelan’s hair and tugs his head back harshly.
“That was utterly irresponsible,” Elias snaps.
“Ouch! Cut it out. I was just playin’ around.”
Elias grits his teeth and releases Caelan with a shove. “Thinkbefore you act. She wasn’t ready.”
“I-I’m okay,” I say through my chattering teeth.
Elias helps me to my feet, and I find myself automatically leaning into him. Partially because I’m still shaky and partially because there’s something incredibly comforting about the way his shadows, like an aura surrounding him, brush against my skin. More so than usual. It’s like they’re actively reaching out, washing away the lingering sensations of the abyss that I hadn’t even realized were clinging to me.
“Did you even remember to use your own energy to shield her?” Elias says scathingly.
Caelan scowls and says nothing, and Elias sighs.
“I’m okay,” I insist again. “No harm done.”
Elias hesitates for a long moment, gradually relaxing as I recover. He watches the color return to my face, finally sighing. “None now. But one day, there might be.”
