Awaken (4 page)

“Is she alright?” Baylie cried as Maddox
grabbed Noah, pulling him nearer to the ship.

Still coughing, I nodded and took Baylie’s
hand. She tugged me toward the hull and helped me find a grip,
while Noah braced me against the side, keeping me from sinking or
being forced away by the waves. Air burned on my throat, and my
lungs still felt choked. My hair plastered my face, the auburn
strands a tangled mess from all the jostling, and with my free
hand, I swiped them away.

“Fine,” I managed. “What happened?”

“No clue,” Noah said. He sounded angry and,
as he scanned the ocean around us, he looked it too. A few feet
away, his brother’s expression was the same.

“There,” Maddox called, pointing.

I followed his gesture and spotted a large,
white boat racing toward us, the markings of the Coast Guard on its
side.

Baylie made a noise of relief. “Oh, thank
God.”

I seconded the feeling, though as the boat
drew closer, I couldn’t help but look back at the horizon and the
rolling waves. I’d heard people had all kinds of visions before
they died – saw their life flash before their eyes or whatever.
Shock, adrenaline and God knew what other chemicals could make your
mind do all sorts of things when your life was on the line.

Yet that hadn’t felt like a bunch of synapses
firing because my brain was freaking out from lack of air. That
hadn’t felt like panic at all.

My hand rubbed at the place on my shoulder
where the boy had grabbed me.

That had felt real.

Chapter Four

The Coast Guard ship cut through the surf and
I ducked low beneath the waves, knowing they probably wouldn’t see
me – or believe what they saw, if they did – but not wanting to
take the chance. Overhead, the people still tread water by the hull
of their capsized boat, not a single one of them seeming dehaian
except for her.

And she only barely.

I stared at her, at a loss to figure out what
had just happened. I’d been swimming near the beach to see if Ina
had decided to spend the morning on the sand – and planning what
I’d say to her if she had; I’d been looking for
hours
– when
something had changed in the water. It’d been subtle, and not
nearly to the degree of last evening, and for a few minutes, I’d
been struggling just to find the source.

And then I’d heard her screaming.

I dropped lower in the water as the white
ship drew up beside the capsized boat. By the hull, the blond guy
held her close, as if worried she couldn’t swim, while on her legs,
iridescent threads appeared and then vanished almost as quickly as
they formed.

She was fighting it, obviously. With so many
humans around, that made sense.

But she’d also been absolutely panicked in
the water.

Of course, to be fair, maybe that made sense
too. With what I’d seen, I couldn’t exactly blame her.

The water had gone mad. I’d swum toward the
sound of her screaming beneath the waves to find her being dragged
down like she’d been caught in a net. Despite the fact we were
barely any distance from the shore, the temperature had dropped to
levels ordinarily found in places even deeper than Nyciena, with
darkness to match.

And when I’d come close, it’d all started to
go away.

I shook my head, baffled. Never in my life
had I heard of anything like what I’d just seen, and given my older
brother’s proclivity for reef camping stories, that was saying
something. The girl changed the ocean when she was near it – a
statement that on any level should have been impossible. No one
affected the water like that. No one could. Boat-sized maelstroms
didn’t just appear out of a calm sea either, and they didn’t bring
with them darkness and temperatures normally only found in the true
deep.

The Coast Guard pulled her and the others
from the water. A few moments passed and then the white ship
started back for the shore.

I watched them go. By any definition, this
was weird. Truly, truly weird.

And maybe it was time to finally just ask her
about it. She was going around like a human. Didn’t mean I couldn’t
too. I’d simply wait for a time when she was away from the others
and then talk to her and figure this out. But regardless, I wasn’t
ready to turn around and go home.

Kicking hard in the water, I followed the
boat.

Chapter Five

“What do you mean ‘what happened’?” Maddox
demanded. “We were just going along and then all hell broke loose!
You saw that, right? You couldn’t miss it!”

The Coast Guard crewman gave him a warning
look, and Maddox made a furious noise, throwing his hands up.

Sitting on the deck with Baylie and Daisy, I
watched him storm away, only to be brought up short by another
crewmember. Rising to his feet, Noah went to calm his brother down,
though one of the Coast Guard intercepted him before he got far. To
a person, we were all under watch till they got back to the dock,
where hopefully the guys’ parents would be waiting.

“They
have
to have seen that,” Baylie
whispered. “Right?”

I didn’t know how to respond. From everything
the Coast Guard had said thus far – which wasn’t much – they’d
simply received a call from a passing ship that a boat had
capsized, and they’d rushed out. No one had said anything about
churning water or waves that seemed to come from everywhere at
once.

Apparently, that’d only been witnessed by
us.

And
us
was looking crazier by the
minute.

I shifted uncomfortably under the scratchy
blanket they’d wrapped me in moments after pulling me onboard. I
understood why the others wanted someone to corroborate our story;
for insurance purposes alone, it’d be nice to have an official
statement saying we hadn’t just randomly decided to destroy Peter’s
boat. But for my part, there was no way what I’d seen
wasn’t
impossible, and admitting to it out loud wouldn’t help
anything.

My gaze slid toward the open water. I pulled
it back again, forcing myself to look at the deck and praying I
wasn’t actually insane.

With her shoulder pressed against mine, I
could feel Baylie shivering beneath her blanket, despite the nearly
boiling warmth of the summer day.

“You okay?” I asked.

She looked at me, confused.

“You seem frozen.”

Her eyebrows climbed. “That water was like
ice!” She paused. “You mean you’re not cold?”

I hesitated. I hadn’t felt cold in the least,
and too much more of this blanket and I’d probably melt.

But I couldn’t say that.

“Too freaked out, I guess.”

She tugged the blanket tighter around her
shoulders like it wasn’t the itchiest thing known to God or man.
“Guess that makes sense,” she allowed.

I swallowed hard, looking at the deck
again.

Thankfully, Peter and Diane were indeed
standing on the dock when we got in, and as we disembarked from the
ship, they seemed more worried about us than anything. Talk of
calls to lawyers and the local police commissioner finally allowed
us to be packed into the car, rather than kept for further
questioning – though the Coast Guard made it clear they wanted to
hear from both parties without delay.

Peter smiled and shook hands and handed out
his lawyers’ business cards, and then bundled us all out of there
as quickly as possible.

For which I was incredibly grateful.

“I’m just
so
glad you all are okay,”
Diane said for the twentieth time as she pulled her sedan up to the
house. Ahead, Peter came to a stop as well and then climbed from
Maddox’s sports car, saying something to his sons that I couldn’t
hear. Whatever it was, the guys didn’t look angry or defensive as
they got out after him, though, which I took as a good sign.

“Yeah,” Baylie answered for us both.

I managed a smile and then pushed open the
door. Baylie followed, still wrapped in the blanket, though she
seemed less cold now. Together, we trailed the guys inside.

Diane made a beeline for the kitchen and
busied herself with putting a kettle of water on the stovetop,
while Maddox disappeared into the next room, still talking in a low
voice to his father.

“You alright?” Noah asked, coming up beside
me.

I nodded, eyeing the impending tea with
nausea twisting my stomach. The whole place was hot enough to have
a roaring fire nearby, and they wanted tea? What were they
thinking?

It occurred to me that it was strange that,
alone of everyone in the room, I’d be this warm.

“Actually,” I said to Noah, my throat
suddenly tight with the effort of not throwing up. “I… I don’t
think I’m–”

The world tilted and everything went
dark.

~~~~~

I opened my eyes to Diane in front of my
face.

And I could see the ceiling behind her.

Jerking away, I tried to turn to the side,
only to find Noah there.

A groan escaped me. “What happened?”

“You passed out, honey,” Diane said.

My brow furrowed. “Huh?”

Memory started to play back.

I wanted to groan all over again.

Drawing a breath, I moved to sit up and,
quickly, Noah put his arm around my shoulders to help. All the
embarrassment in the world didn’t stop goose bumps from rising on
my skin at his touch and I felt a blush race up my neck. Behind
him, Baylie hovered, a worried expression on her face, and as I
braced myself on the cold tile floor, she reached out, offering me
a glass of water.

“Thanks,” I said, taking the glass. Peter,
Maddox and Diane were all watching me and I managed a smile, though
I kind of wanted to melt through the ground. Trying to ignore my
mortification, I focused on taking a drink, while the others
straightened and gave each other concerned looks.

I could feel the blush getting worse.

Avoiding their eyes, I set the glass down and
then pushed up from the floor. My legs wobbled, my whole body
feeling thick and strange, and as I reached my feet, Noah kept his
arm on me, steadying me.

I swallowed, quivers running through my body
for a whole other reason.

Diane gestured toward the living room. “Why
don’t you go have a seat in there?” she offered.

Noah led me down the short steps into the
sunken room off of the kitchen. The white couch was softer than its
sterile appearance gave it credit for, and the breeze coming
through the open window carried the smell of the sea.

I closed my eyes as I sat down, breathing in
the salty air. The nausea from earlier was gone, and I could only
hope the weird feeling in my limbs would fade soon too.

Time slid, and I jerked awake to Noah nudging
me.

“Don’t sleep,” he warned quietly.

I nodded.

“What happened?” he asked, keeping his voice
down as he returned to the chair several feet from the couch. In
the kitchen, Diane picked up the cordless and headed for the hall,
while Maddox and Peter had once again disappeared. Baylie was
perched on the barstool by the kitchen island, absently running her
bare foot over Daisy’s fur and watching me, the same worried look
on her face.

I hesitated. I didn’t know what to tell him,
since I had no idea myself.

“Maybe stress?” I tried with a lopsided
shrug. “I mean, what with falling overboard and everything…”

His brow furrowed. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Silence returned to the room, broken after a
few minutes by the sound of Diane coming back from the hallway.

“Well,” she said as she set the phone in its
cradle. “It seems things are going to have to be cut short.”

“Why?” Baylie asked.

Diane sighed. “I’d hoped perhaps Chloe’s
parents would approve our doctor taking a look at her, but they’re
insisting on having their physician back home check her out.
They’re going to be here soon to pick her up.”

I blinked. “Wait, what?”

“Well, honey, I had to call them. You passed
out. And I’m really sorry, but since they were on vacation not too
far from Santa Lucina anyway, they just want to come get you
now.”

I’d been wrong. The nausea wasn’t gone. Not
by a long shot.

And I was so dead.

I swallowed hard. “Ah. Right. Did they, uh,
say when they’d be here?”

“They weren’t sure. Maybe this evening.”
Diane smiled. “But hey, we’ll have a room set up for them long
before then. The more the merrier, eh? You just focus on feeling
better.”

I nodded as she headed back down the
hall.

My gaze went to Baylie. By the kitchen
island, she was studying the ground, her expression
flabbergasted.

She noticed me watching her, and her eyes
twitched between me and Noah.

“What is it?” Noah asked us.

I hesitated. I hadn’t really intended to tell
anybody, besides Baylie who already knew. It wasn’t anyone else’s
problem. I’d just figured I’d deal with the fallout of my mom and
dad being angry when I got home, and enjoy my vacation until
then.

So much for that.

“I didn’t tell them I was here.”

“What?”

I winced at his expression.

“They weren’t going to let her come,” Baylie
explained. “They’re, well, a bit crazy and since we were talking
about going to the ocean, they sort of…”

“Freaked,” I supplied when she trailed off in
search of a word to describe the Chernobyl-level meltdown they’d
had at the mere suggestion of this trip.

“But,” he said, looking confused, “they’re on
vacation here too.”

Baylie scoffed. Noah’s brow furrowed.

“My parents would rather die than come
anywhere near the coast,” I said. “They kind of have a thing about
water.”

I looked away, grimacing as the pieces
clicked. They must have left the second they figured out where the
Delaneys lived. And the address wouldn’t have been too hard to
learn; Baylie’s parents probably knew it by heart. All my mom and
dad had to do was ask.