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It’d taken no time at all for us to devour the entire feast, and now we were sharing a half-gallon of coconut chocolate chip ice cream while we watched The Princess Bride. I couldn’t believe that Dastien had never seen it. For whatever reason, my family watched it every Christmas Eve. Watching it with him was like seeing it for the first time again. All the jokes were a surprise for him, and I got to feel that zing of surprise, too.
But as the credits rolled on the movie, the anxiety started churning again.
Everything is going to be fine.
I just hate waiting. I wish we could’ve left tonight.
I tried. Soonest the boat could come was in the morning.
I gave his hand a squeeze. I know you did. I’m not complaining. Just anxious. A fight’s brewing and we’re a million miles away.
He put down the carton and tucked me in closer to his side. “We’ll be home soon enough. For now, just relax.”
“Doing my best, but if this thing killed Muraco, then are any of us safe?”
“No.”
I winced. “You didn’t have to be so honest.” I grabbed the ice cream and groaned when I saw it was empty. Only more of the creamy coconutty awesomeness with those little crunchy chips could help me now. It was heaven in a carton.
“We have another one. Want me to get it for you?”
“Kind of. I mean, eating more ice cream won’t fix anything exactly, but it definitely won’t hurt.”
“As you wish.” He tapped my nose as he got up.
A laugh slipped free, and I realized it wasn’t just the ice cream that was helping me feel better. Still, when he came back, I snatched the carton from him. “What should we watch next?”
“Whatever you want?”
I flipped through Netflix for a while before settling on a movie I’d never heard of. “What about this?”
“As you wish.”
I snorted. “Dork,” I said, but I was glad he’d enjoyed it so much. I hit play, and as the movie started, I realized I’d never said thank you to him.
He raised a brow. “For the ice cream? De rien.”
“No. For saving my life,” I said with a mouth full of coconut perfection.
“Just don’t make it a habit, okay?” His tone was teasing, but he was still freaked out. I didn’t need the bond to see that. The white-knuckle grip he had on the spoon was making it bend a bit. I tapped his fingers, and he sighed. He bent the spoon back to normal-ish.
I snuggled into my blanket and scooped out a giant bite of ice cream. It was going to take time for both of us to recover, but this was helping. “I’ll do my best to make sure I don’t almost die again.”
“Good.”
I jammed the ice cream into my mouth and pain hit my head so hard that I closed my eyes and dropped my spoon. It clattered to the cement floor, but the sound was far away. I slapped my forehead. “Shit. Brainfreeze.” The pain eased a bit and I was able to open my eyes. Black spots filled my vision. “What the…” Time slowed. It took too long to turn to Dastien, and the black dots expanded.
Dastien was gone.
Everything was gone. I was in a black abyss just like my vision on the beach.
Panic made my lungs grow tight and my heart race, but when magic pricked my skin, fear crashed over me.
What the hell was happening? I tried to blink but nothing changed. I was sitting in the dark. Either I was about to have the most fucked up vision ever or someone was messing with me.
I said a prayer for the vision to kick in. For the black abyss to become something else. For anything to happen that would make this into something that I could understand.
When the vision didn’t immediately start, I knew something was wrong. Really fucking wrong.
