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“I would never replace you, Landon.”
I reach out and stroke his arm. “Please, don’t let death consume me before I get to fondle your flesh once more.”
“I won’t. Come on. I’ll carry you. Get on my back.”
“I’m not going to make you carry me on your back while you swim! How horrible of a person do you think I am?” I ask as I climb onto his back and sink onto him—it’s much easier to hold the book like this.
Even though my brain is being extracted by Zacia’s claws as I squeeze on, I make sure to clamp my free hand over one of his pecs as I go for a ride. It’s impressive how much faster he can swim carrying me than waiting for me.
“Why didn’t we do this earlier?” I ask.
“I didn’t want to hurt your pride.”
“Um… somehow allowing me to swim using my own body was hurting it worse,” I assure him.
When we finally reach land, I continue clinging on, wondering if he’d notice if I stayed attached all the way back to the car. I’d lost both sandals at one point and the pain from Zacia’s claws is now like a dull friend.
“Dammit, my phone is dead… were we in the water that long?” August asks as he gives it a shake, like that’ll help.
“We were in there at least a year.” Sadly, I see mine is out of commission as well. As long as my fifteen thousand photos of Zacia and August are saved, it’ll be fine.
“Jump down and I’ll help you with Zacia,” he says as he pries me off. Grudgingly, I hit the ground and bow my head as he works at extracting Zacia’s claws from my head. She isnothappy, but we get the life jacket off her and put her on the ground. It’s not like I’m afraid she’ll run away, I can just grab her with my power and pull her back—honestly, I doubt she’d run off anyway.
Now that everything is settled, I examine my book. “August! Look at how pristine it is! There’s not a single droplet of water on it! It looks as beautiful as the day it was born—”
That’s the moment I hear a gunshot as the bullet tears right through the center of the book, ripping it out of my hand where it lands in the shallow water and floats off.
A gasp escapes me as my head snaps around to face whoever the fuck just decided that death was on their horizon. A bird frozen mid takeoff makes me realize that August has stopped time.
“Who the fuck just did that?” he asks as he scans the thick wooded area that appears quite vacant from here.
“MY BOOK! They will die,” I growl as I look around but find that August is quite right, I see no one. Although, they might be hiding behind a tree after taking the shot that signified the start of the end of their life.
“Come on,” August says as I scoop up Zacia before he pulls me after him. He can only keep time stopped for around a minute, so we won’t even get too far before it starts up again, but it’ll at least give us a head start. Life swings back into motion, and suddenly, I realize there’s a man standing about five feet in front of us whodefinitelyhadn’t been there before.
“Hello, Chrono and Leviathan. It’s a pleasure to finally—”
“My BOOK!” I yell as I use my telekinesis to grab onto a rock and throw it at him as fast as I can, but before it hits the man square in the forehead, he disappears.
“Motherfucker, I’m going to murder you,” I growl.
“Oh?” a voice behind me says as I turn quickly, and August yanks me out of the way while the man stares at me. Then he gives me a huge smile. He appears to be somewhere in his thirties, about as tall as August but more lithe. He has brown hair that’s messy and calculating blue eyes. “It’s an absolute pleasure to meet both of you. Truly, the pleasure is all mine.”
“Clearly, because there is no pleasure on my side at all. I willmurderyou. You shotmy book.” Rage is consuming me, and he will soon feel it firsthand.
“Oh! Whoops. My bad,” the man says, with a bit of a cock to his head and a grin. He’s enjoying this far too much, which means that I need to make him regret life.
“My…bad?It’ll bemybad when you’re dead,” I growl as I lift another rock.
“Don’t you want to hear who I am, and why I’m here?” he asks as he leans his rifle against his shoulder.
“Not in the slightest. There is not even an ounce of my being that cares,” I say as I send another rock at him. Again, he disappears, and this time, when he reappears, he’s inches in front of August. August takes a swing at him, but before he can land a hit, the man’s gone again.
“Fucking hell,” August says as the man reappears about ten feet from us.
“Sorry to disappoint, but no matter what you do, you cannot hit me,” he says with a grin. “I am untouchable. I am—”
“Fucking annoying,” I growl as I fling the rock hard. The thing is… I don’t think he’s our time stopper. No, I think he’s going invisible. So the reason we aren’t hitting him is that the moment he turns invisible, we have no idea which direction he’s going. He might have some type of increased speed to move as well, but if I just keep flinging shit, one of these times I’m going to get lucky.
