Breathless: A Firelight Novella (HarperTeen Impulse) (6 page)

I nod even though I know he’s going to be standing here for nothing tomorrow night.

I can’t see him again. I can’t go with him to meet his sister. I can’t keep pretending. Not with the way my skin pulls and tightens around him. There’s too much at risk.

He angles his head, studying me like he’s trying to figure something out. “You’re not going to be here, are you?”

My face warms. What? He reads minds? “I didn’t say that.”

He’s too intuitive. He buries his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “That’s okay. I’ll be here anyway.” He steps away, walking backward, his gaze still fixed on me. “Hope you change your mind.”

Then he turns and leaves me standing there.

My skin relaxes, ceases to snap and swim with heat. Suddenly the night feels cold.

T
he next day Mom is good on her word and Dad joins us in the lake. We tease him relentlessly. To say he’s a poor swimmer wouldn’t be fair. As a draki, he has above-average coordination. Still, Mom and I swim laps around him and torture him in a game of Marco Polo.

“All right, you two. You’ve had your fun. Let’s head back and start dinner.”

I look from my parents to the distant dock, and beyond that to the narrow, two-story house. “I think I’ll swim a little bit longer.”

Mom and Dad exchange looks, communicating silently about whether they should allow this or not.

Mom faces me again, her gaze narrow and piercing. Not just in an intense, concerned motherly way, either. She’s a draki at her core, too. A species that has evolved through cunning and sharp instincts. Just like me.

“All right. Don’t be long.”

“I won’t.”

“And watch out for the boats.” She motions up and down the lake. “They drive too fast through here.”

I angle my head and give her a look that says,
You really think I’m going to get hit by a boat?
Me?

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be cocky. And don’t …” The rest of her words fade, the warning implicit.
Don’t manifest
.

I nod and give a small wave as they head for shore.

Alone, I swim in place, my legs and arms barely moving in order to keep me afloat. It’s a mindless effort. Like blinking.

I rotate in a small circle, arching my neck, feeling the delicious drag of current through my long hair. My fingers sift through the water as I spin. I pause, eying the random boats cutting down the center of the lake. The opposite shore beckons. It doesn’t look too far.

With a quick glance around me, I dive under, telling myself that I’m not disobeying Mom
exactly
. My gills always appear when I’m in the water. I can’t control that. I haven’t manifested.

I block out what my mother would reply to
that
and glide under the water’s surface, my arms stroking wide and slow, my pores contracting, skin luxuriating in the slick taste.

Fish avoid me, their dark, gleaming shapes darting away as I approach. Water pulses in and out of my gills beneath my swimsuit. A boat roars above me, churning the water into white foam, and I know I have to be about midlake by now.

Scanning the surface, I ascend, making sure I’m not going to pop up in the midst of any swimmers or boats.

I break the surface slowly, eyes first, then the rest of my face, nose, lips, chin. I swim toward the opposite shore, my
movements languid. I pause as something moves in the lake ahead of me. Another swimmer. Right in my path. As he comes closer, I make out that it’s a guy. His face and shoulders cut above the water, arms flying out over his head in hard strokes.

As he nears, his face comes into focus. Even though he’s wearing goggles, I recognize him. My stomach dips and spins like I’m caught up in a tidal pool. I debate sinking down into deep waters again and letting him pass, but I hesitate, and then he sees me. Too late.

In the back of my mind I wonder if maybe I didn’t want it to be too late. If I didn’t want him to see me.

He slides his swim goggles up onto his head. “Az?” A slow smile curves his lips.

“What are you doing out here?” I blurt.

“Practicing. Got keep in shape in the summer.”

That’s right. He’s the swim champ.

I nod. Water sloshes up my chin. “You cross the lake?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s far.”

“I’m used to it. What about you?” His points to our dock, a tiny speck in the distance now. “Did you swim all the way from there?”

“Yeah.”

He whistles and winks.

“I can swim well.” I turn and start for home.

He glides alongside of me. “Yeah. I know that.” Water-
coated and bathed in the fading sunlight, he’s even better looking than I remembered. His arms and shoulders tantalize me and I struggle to keep my gaze forward, not wanting him to catch me ogling. “It’s just that this time of day visibility is tricky … and boats really fly through here fast sometimes.”

He’s lecturing me? I’m both annoyed and flattered. I already get this from my parents.

“I’ll be okay.”

“I’ll just swim with you the rest of the way.”

I shrug. Together we fall into an easy rhythm crossing the lake.

“So why swimming?” I hear myself ask. “Why not football?”

“I guess it’s because of my mom. She loved to swim. When she was alive, we always went to the beach. At least once a year.” As he talks I notice he reaches up to stroke a small shark tooth necklace, almost as if to make sure it’s still there.

“Did she give you that?” I nod at it.

“It was hers. When she was a little girl, she actually found the tooth on the beach, when she was making a sandcastle. What are the odds, right? She always said it was a good-luck charm guiding her through life. She was a great swimmer, too. She wanted to go professional.”

“What happened?”

He shrugs. “She did all right. Swam in high school.
Taught little kids to swim at the Y for a while after she graduated, before she married Dad. She liked teaching the little kids. My sister. Me.”

She wasn’t good enough to make it. He doesn’t say it, but I hear it just the same.

“She must have been proud of you.”

His hand brushes the shark tooth again. The gesture is so tender … as though by touching it he is connecting to his lost mother … as though she’s still with him. My heart squeezes a little for this boy. I only just met him, but I’ve shared more with him than any boy back home. It’s wrong, but undeniable.

Looking up, I see we’re almost to my dock.

“So. We’re still on for tonight?”

“I didn’t say yes.”

“But you want to.”

I shake my head. “Now you’re just arrogant.”

“No, I’m perceptive.”

I splash him with some water, and he catches my hand, pulling me so that we tread water directly in front of each other. I feel the imprint of his hand on my water-slick skin.

We’re so close I can examine every glistening bead of water on his olive-hued flesh. The urge to lean forward and taste the water dotting his jaw overwhelms me. Longing eddies through me, pooling in my belly.

Mortified at the impulse, I start to swim away only to be pulled back by that hand on my arm.

His gaze sinks into me. “I really want to see you again.”

The water surrounding us feels suddenly hotter, thicker. Ripples of current swell around us and I know this is me. My emotions … my desire manipulating the water.

He’s bound to notice if I don’t put some distance between us.

“Az?” His eyes are on me, devouring, intent, questioning. “Tonight …”

I shake my head, my gaze riveted to his lips. Too beautiful, too well carved to resist.

The current around us intensifies. He notices it then. Still holding on to me, he frowns and looks down.

Panicked, I don’t think, I simply act. Surrender to the impulse rushing through me like flood waters. Unstoppable.

My free hand clasps his shoulder. Using it as a handhold, I haul myself against him and press my damp lips to his. There have been a few other kisses in my lifetime. Pecks. A few longer ones behind the meeting hall. Nothing that compares to this.

My lips taste him, sunlight and water and strong …
male
.

I sigh, deepen the pressure of my mouth on his. Then I gasp as he reacts, awakes to my lips. His hands close over my back, where my skin quivers—my wings pushing and swimming beneath the surface, eager to break free.

Terrified, I jerk away with a splash. Without glancing at him, I swim for the dock.

“Az! Wait!”

I don’t wait. I don’t look back. I haul myself up onto the dock, snatch up my towel, and run for home.

A
t ten minutes to eight that night, I gnaw the edge of my thumb until it’s raw as I pace a hard line in my room. I peer out the window several times, trying to detect if he’s already down by the dock.

I told myself I wouldn’t meet him. All through dinner I held fast to the decision, confident it was the right thing. Especially after that crazy kiss.

Only now, so close to the hour, I can’t hold myself still. Suddenly, I’m not too concerned with what’s right and logical. I only care about how I feel. How he makes me feel when I’m around him.

If I don’t show up at eight o’clock, I will never see him again. A panicky feeling swells inside me, making me pace faster. Why would he keep coming around? Not showing up would be my answer. The final rejection. He wouldn’t return and that would be that.

A desperate kind of anxiety wells up inside me. If I float through the remainder of the summer here with Mom and Dad and then return home to the pride, I will always wonder. I will always regret.

I know this. Feel it like a deep, unremitting ache in my bones. And I want the ache to stop. To go away. I want all those exciting sensations when I’m around Tate. Even if they’re dangerous, I want them.
Him
. I want to feel awake and alive. When I’m home with my kind, I can go back to feeling safe and asleep inside. Dead.

My clock reads seven fifty-eight. With two minutes to go, I race lightly down the stairs on the balls of my feet. A quick peek inside the living room reveals Dad asleep in his chair. Mom’s nowhere around—probably already in her room for the night.

I slide into my flip-flops and then slip outside, running across the grass toward the dock, a giddy little giggle building up inside me. I’ve only ever felt like this when I’m flying. Descending in a tailspin toward the floor of treetops, my stomach bottoming out the second before I lift up.

Tate stands there, his outline tall and strong against the night, and my heart clenches inside my chest just like it does when I pull up at that last second, a beat away from crashing into a nest of limbs and leaves.

He moves toward me as I halt breathlessly in front of him. “I didn’t think you were coming.”

“Sorry. I lost track of time.” I lift my chin somewhat defiantly, unwilling to admit that he was right earlier today when he said he knew I wanted to come. I especially didn’t want him to think I was here because I wanted a repeat of that kiss. I didn’t. I couldn’t …

“C’mon. I parked over here.” He motions toward the woods.

We walk side by side, taking a different path than the one I used to get to the pond.

It occurs to me that I’m going off alone with a veritable stranger. I should probably care. But I don’t. I can’t imagine this happening any other time … me getting into a car with a human I’ve known less than forty-eight hours. Everything about it shouts
crazy
. If Jacinda pulled a stunt like this she’d never hear the end of it from me.

And yet here I am.

Foolish as it may seem, I feel safe with him. Well, aside from the dangerous sensations he rouses in me. He seems so … solid, reliable, and strong. There’s a goodness to him. I see it in his eyes. In the way he carries himself. Even the way he moves through water. Centuries ago he probably would have worn armor and ridden a white stallion. He’s the kind of guy who could probably be trusted with a secret....

I drag a deep breath into my lungs, commanding myself not to go there. I dare not even think it.

We step onto a dirt road. His Jeep is parked off to the side and he walks me to the passenger door, pulling it open for me.

“Thanks.”

For the five seconds I’m alone in his vehicle, the silence and swirling press of my doubts choke me. I’m relieved when he joins me inside and starts the engine.

“I don’t live far,” he says.

I nod, hands clasping my knees.

“Anna knows you’re coming. She’s excited. I told her all about you.”

I shift my weight nervously. “What did you tell her?”

He grins. “That you can outswim me.”

I wince. I should probably have held back in that race.

“Course she doesn’t believe me. I hold the school record. You’ll have to tell her yourself.”

We pass through the town. I’ve seen it before with my parents, but I’m still enchanted with its quaint glass storefronts and town square with the gazebo positioned in the middle. It’s like something out of a movie.