Page 86 of Crashing Tides

The goods are already ruined. My face is broken, probably in more than one place. If I survive this, I’m going to be lucky to be described as ruggedly handsome. But I don’t dare dispute him. I can’t take any more pain.

We walk for a long time. The short one has produced a lantern, and it guides us through a long, rocky passage. The moonlight fades to a pinprick in the distance. With every step, I feel more lost.

It’s hard to breathe. My lungs refuse to expand. But when I try to slow down, I’m fiercely jabbed in the chest, and that makes everything worse.

Dark spots invade my line of sight. I start to wonder about internal bleeding. Then I stop wondering. At this point, it would be a blessing. Better to die here and now than experience whatever is in store for me.

I think about my mom, how scared she must’ve been when she died. How she couldn’t breathe, the way she grabbed my wrist, the cold, smooth call button beneath my fingertip. I jabbed it over and over while she clung to me. I remember shouting, but I can’t recall what I said, only the faces of the nurses who burst into the room, the wailing of machines.

I’m going to die, and there won’t be any machines to scream for me. No one to hold my hand. No one to wheel my body down to the morgue, or to put me in a casket, or arrange a funeral.

I’m going to die here and I’m going to be cut into pieces, and nobody will know what happened to me.

My face is a mess of blood, tears, and snot. Only the distant sound of the tide keeps me company. I attempt to draw the water to me, even though it’s fruitless. I can’t control a raindrop. Why would I think I could command the tides?

But I can’t stop. I try to conjure fire, the one thing I’m actually good at, the one thing that might get me out of this alive and nothing happens. Not even a puff of smoke.

Maybe they did something to me. As far as I know, nothing will stop the fae from conjuring, but I can’t cast anything right now.

We come to an abrupt stop. Behind me, there’s rustling. I don’t dare turn around, but the hair on the back of my neck stands up.

The dim light brightens. I squint my eye against it, blink fiercely when a door is illuminated before me. It’s bloated with water. But when the short man tugs at the handle, nothing happens.

The wood is so rotten that we could probably just crash through it. I expect my captors to bust it down, but that doesn’t happen. Instead, the lantern is lifted higher, and I find myself staring at a scorched handprint.

Goosebumps rise across my skin. At first, I don’t understand why, and then I realize—the magic here is so strong that even I can sense it. There’s a strange familiarity to the chill under my skin, the sudden knowing that flashes in the back of my mind, gone before I can fully grasp it.

“Hold still,” says the shorter man, digging his fingers into the meat of my shoulders, forcing me steady. My head swims.

The tall man stands behind me, unties my wrists. “Remember,” he says as the rope falls. “If you run, your boyfriend’s next.”

I don’t dare move. Not even when they take my right hand, force it into the imprint.

Nothing happens.

“Fuck,” one hisses. “Fuck, you said this was Tobias’s son.”

I lurch at that. Remember that stupid sketched human heart, my mom’s handwriting. Nancy + Tobias + ?

“He is Tobias’s son,” the tall one snapped. “He has to be. Everything matches up perfectly.”

A strange hum emanates from the door. It’s pleasant, harmonious, soothing even as my bones start to feel like they’re vibrating.

Something deep within me wells in answer. Magic, I realize. All the magic I couldn’t feel before, couldn’t access, is pulling to the surface in response.

The wood grows hot beneath my palm. I start to worry that it’s going to burn, but that doesn’t happen. Instead, the door creaks open almost immediately.

“Holy shit, it worked,” breathes the tall man. For a split second, he’s distracted. This might be my only chance to escape.

I turn to kick him in the nads and run. I don’t care if it’s fighting dirty, I want to get the fuck out of here, now. But before I can move, he’s grappling with my wrists, forcing them together. It doesn’t matter how I wrench and pull. The knot is tied within seconds and I can’t break free.

There’s something familiar about his hands. I recognize the shape of the nails, the hair sprouting from the second knuckle, the mole near his thumb.

Who is he?

The smaller one shoves the door open. All at once, my head feels like it’s going to explode. Pain bursts behind my eyes, shoots down my jaw and into my spine. I drop to my knees, panting. A scream builds in my throat, fizzles out.

I shouldn’t be here. I know it in my bones. There is something here that is the antithesis of my being, and it will dismantle me piece by piece until there is nothing left.