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My t-shirt was gone.
My shoes were missing.
The hand-woven friendship bracelet Mel had given me had torn off my wrist and most likely rotted at the bottom of the sea. Every inch of my skin was mottled and discoloured as if the very sky had taken offense to us trying to escape and done its best to scar me.
My bags were gone.
Every worldly possession we’d carefully packed and stowed was missing.
The only thing I had left was my torn and crinkly-dried grey shorts that my father had bought for my sixteenth birthday.
Stinging tears shot to my eyes.
Eleven months since our lives were normal. Eleven months of hiding, fearing, running...
Swallowing hard, choking on fear, I caught the clear-bright stare of the girl who sat far, far too close. “Please...” My accented voice sounded so different to her sunny, effortless rhythm. “Did you...did you find anyone else?”
The girl’s pretty face froze as her eyes turned even sadder. She bit her bottom lip and her gaze flickered as if to leave mine, but with a fierce inhale, she held my stare and slowly shook her head. “You were the only one.”
My chin tipped down.
My nape tingled with despair.
And I couldn’t help it.
I’d drunk enough seawater to last a lifetime and now it poured hotly out of my eyes.
My ankle bellowed as I drew my legs up to my chin.
My wrist screeched as I wrapped my arms around them.
And my heart shattered as the girl who’d saved my life scooted closer and wrapped her slender embrace around me.
She shook and shuddered with me, holding on to me so tight.
Tight enough to keep me from being washed away by my tears.
Chapter Three
*
Aslan
*
(Moon in French: Lune)
“NERI, WHAT ON EARTH—”
“It’s okay, Mum. He fell. That’s all.” The girl ripped her arms away from me and leapt nimbly to her feet. She threw me a worried look. “His family is missing.”
My heart fissured and it took everything inside me to stem my sorrow. Sucking gulps of air, I swiped angrily at my face, wiping away wetness, hissing as my damaged wrist screamed not to be used.
The girl’s mother stepped warily toward me, throwing a glance at the long bench with its sun-faded baby-blue upholstery along the wall where I’d woken and promptly tumbled off. A streak of my blood marred a white cushion, staining it, ruining it.
I had absolutely nothing to my name, and, if I was honest, I would rather be at the bottom of the sea with my mother, father, and sister—
Tears welled again; I gritted my teeth.
