1
GEDEON
I’d been taught that when you closed your eyes for good, nice and warm memories would envelop you in their embrace, cocoon you while you drifted away.
But my journey had taken a different route.
I had ended up being the only soul finding sanctuary in this secluded bay, the beach hidden by the rocky cliffs. The sea sparkled in the moonlight, the water black, the waves non-existent, as though nature itself had paused in wait for something.
Something pivotal. Life altering.
Little did it know, it had already occurred.
The night sky shimmered with white dots the size of damp sand grains sticking to my dark jeans and well-worn boots. Even after my life had expired, those gods Kali imagined living among the stars had ensured my attire matched that of my past life.
With my elbows on my bent knees, I scratched my jaw. The coarse stubble pricked my fingertips, the sensation lacking compared to how Kali would stroke from my chin to my earlobes right before kissing me and then grinning—a sign she was about to demand something I wouldn’t like.
Rising, I brushed the sand off my pants and wandered down the shoreline, alongside the tiny ripples of glasslike water claiming the bay’s territory. The brine permeated the crisp air so intensely, I tasted it in my inhales, the saltiness beckoning me to rub my neck, precisely how Zion had done once. How he had pulled me close by my nape.
He had lit something up within me, an ember I had long thought gone, and now, I reveled in the flames.
A rush of wind whipped my leather jacket, and the chill slithering under my black hoodie reminded me of how Kali’s and Zion’s wicked smiles used to warm me from the inside out. How his teasing remarks would raise my temperature, and how her love for pastries would make me ruminate if I should learn to bake myself.
Merely ten weeks had passed since Kali had sunk her knife into my abdomen, yet I already missed them.
But my old life, my compound, was theirs now. The second that blade had sliced me open, I had been reduced to a ghost. My time had come, whether by natural causes or not, but such a fickle thing as death couldn’t hinder my efforts in ensuring their dream of freedom came true.
I would take myself out of the equation to increase their chances of success a million times over.
15 YEARS OLD
“You pri?—”
Zion dunked my head into the sea.
Freezing water numbed my senses, yet I floundered in his firm grip on my hair. Despite knowing better, I instinctively inhaled?—
Salt burned my nostrils, the liquid fire trickling into my lungs, and I clamped my mouth shut. This wasn’t the firsttime Zion had provoked me by creeping up and shoving me underwater this summer.
But the pressure on the crown of my head disappeared, and I broke the surface, coughing and blinking away the seawater. Wiping away the snot dripping from my nose, I swore, “I will kill you.”
His laugh pierced the roar of waves rippling around his hips. “Not if I get you first.”
“Who said I would do it now?” Digging my toes into the seafloor, I took a single step towards him, relishing how he retreated to keep the distance between us. “I know how you spend your time. So believe me when I say that Iwillcatch you.”
He hiked his shorts higher, the soaked material clinging to his skinny body. “Oooh, I’m so scared!”
“You better watch your back.” The too-bright autumn sun hovering above us made me squint. “Because you will pay. I swear it on your sister.” I gestured to Ayla wading through the sea, her bright pink t-shirt soaked all the way to her waist.
His younger sister was pouting, a habit she undoubtedly had picked up from her older brother.
“What?” Zion threw his arms wide right as a white-peaked wave crashed into his back. Struggling to stay upright, he hissed, “What do you want, Ayla?”
She fixed him with a glare. “Mom said you have to look after me.”
He swiped his hair away. “What do you think I’m doing?”
“You’re ignoring me,” she seethed. Two years younger than him, yet she had mastered her brattiness to perfection. I loved her. “I could have drowned!”
