Dreadful had been the second to run away, and I knew I had scared them. Panic and fear slammed into me as my magic sucked back inside of me.
I sucked in a breath and plunged back underneath the water, but I couldn’t catch the slightest glimpse of him. And I couldn’t swim, so I couldn’t go further out, either.
How far could he have drifted? The water was calm.
I broke the surface with a ragged gasp, tears flooding down my cheeks at how badly I’d failed him.
“Hey, I found it,” a masculine voice said.
I startled, whipping my head toward the sound to find Nightwind wading over to me in the water. He held Nebula in his palm, his skull wet and forlorn. I immediately reached out and scooped him into my trembling hands.
“I…thank you, Nightwind,” I whispered, my gratitude mingling with confusion. I thought he was a jerk for how he treated Reed, but here he was, helping me find Nebula after his group of friends bullied me relentlessly.
“I’ll walk you back, yeah?” he offered.
I found myself nodding, Nebula clutched tightly to my chest.
After getting my bag and enchanted water bottle together, we made our way back toward campus, and the sky deepened into a bruised twilight, the last rays of the scorching sun bleeding out over the dunes. The air had cooled rapidly, and my wet hair and cover-up clung to myskin, an uncomfortable reminder of the whole ordeal.
“What happened, princess? Why are you all wet?” Skel’s voice tickled down my spine, making me straighten.
We were walking past Occult Arch, and I hadn’t noticed Hemlock or Skel there. I had been too caught up in my head.
Hemlock was swaying slightly, a bottle dangling from his fingers, while Skel sat in a languid sprawl, a wisp of smoke curling from the bowl of his magic pipe.
“And when did you start hanging with this douchebag?” Hemlock slurred, his red eyes squinting to focus on him.
Nightwind's jaw clenched. “It’s not your business what she does,” he shot back, tugging at my arm, urging me to walk away.
Pain radiated up my arm since he’d grabbed the one that had been slashed, and I winced.
Skel's gaze zeroed in on the blood seeping down my arm and dripping off my fingers onto the sand. I’d left a trail of blood behind me.
“What the hell did you do to her?” he demanded, rising to his feet with an agility that shouldn’t have been possible with his high.
“Why do you even care?” My voice was a raspy whisper.
Hemlock stumbled over, reached out, andgrabbed my uninjured arm, pulling me away from Nightwind and toward Sunstone Revive.
My feet stumbled to keep up, my mind a whirlwind of confusion and exhaustion.
Skel fixed Nightwind with a glower as his fear magic whipped out at him. “Run, bitch.”
Whatever Nightwind saw in Skel’s magic turned him sheet white, and he scrambled away without so much as a glance back.
Skel turned to me with a murderous look. “Stay the fuck away from Craig Nightwind.”
“Why do you care?” I repeated, the question hanging in the air like a challenge between us.
“We don't,” Hemlock slurred and stumbled off the sunstone as the healing magic got to work on my arm.
It tingled as the flesh moved back together, and relief hit me like a wave.
Skel’s lip curled into a snarl before he turned to follow Hemlock.
The rainbow smoke from his pipe was the last thing to dissipate.
Anger, confusion, and an odd sense of betrayal churned within me.
