Page 39 of Crashing Tides

It turns out that I’m going to feel like shit either way. Guilt smothers me like a tidal wave. I try not to let it show. “OK, well, I’m not sure if you noticed, but you saved my fucking life. Don’t apologize.”

He doesn’t say anything. I wonder if he’s worried that I know his secret. If he thinks I’m going to blackmail him. “I won’t tell anyone,” I promise, and I mean it.

There’s no answer, but he puts his arm around my waist, hangs on tight.

We mosey onward in silence. I can’t stop thinking about my legs—where did they go? What happened to them? I should’ve looked. I’m never, ever setting foot in the ocean again. I’m never going to know exactly what I looked like and I kind of regret it.

Duncan claims I had fins like a betta fish. That probably means they’re kind of… long? Maybe shimmery?

Fuck, I should’ve looked. I was so afraid that I was going to be stuck like that forever that I didn’t even bother. And now I’m never going to know, because like hell am I ever going through that again.

The silence is overwhelming. A hundred thoughts roll through my mind. I finally give voice to the most pressing. “Does it always hurt?”

“Yeah.” He stumbles over something, catches himself before he falls. I tighten my grip around him.

“I’m sorry.”

“S’OK.” He shudders, pauses to inhale deeply. “You don’t owe me anything,” he says abruptly, and I stop in my tracks.

“What?”

“For trying to rescue you,” he clarifies. He sounds almost drunk. The words are kind of runny in a way that I can’t really describe.

Oh, no. He probably has a head injury. I look around, hoping a team of paramedics will come charging out of the darkness, but no such luck.

“I thought I rescued you,” I quip, hoping to lighten the mood.

“I guess so. Thanks.”

A thought haunts me, spinning through my head like a ghost. I can’t help but ask, “Why did you bother?”

“I didn’t want you to die.”

But none of this makes any sense. Jumping in after me was dangerous. Suicidal. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

He sputters. “I—What does that have to do with anything? Haven’t you heard of basic human decency?”

“But you aren’t human,” I point out. I know next to nothing about wolves, but I’m pretty sure they aren’t exactly renowned for pulling people out of the ocean in the same way as, say, dolphins.

Wait. Are there were-dolphins? Because I really, really hate that idea.

“Neither are you,” snaps Duncan, offended. “Would you let me drown?”

“Probably not,” I answer, but I don’t add that I would’ve gone about rescuing him from the same situation very differently. Starting with a call to the coastguard and 911.

“Exactly,” he says, sounding pleased.

As we walk, he keeps losing his footing. Eventually, he pulls to a halt, and says, “Any chance you’re well enough to conjure? I keep stubbing my toe.”

I have no idea what I could conjure that would be helpful in this situation. All the spells I know are nauseatingly basic. Navigation spells, first aid spells, even shields are all beyond me. “You want me to… fix your toe?”

“What?” I swear I see his eyelashes flutter in the moonlight. “No, it’s not that serious.”

Thank fuck.

“I just want to be able to see,” he continues.

I deflate. “I thought we weren’t really supposed to waste power on spells like that.” Especially now, when everything hurts, and I want to lie down in the sand and take a nap.