Page 50 of Breathe Like Hell

“Twenty one minutes and fifty nine seconds,” Mason answered, lips dragging up the side of my throat.

“That’s very specific.”

“You asked a specific question.”

“I know, but you could’ve rounded up to twenty two minutes or something,” I said as Mason straightened up to make eye contact with me again.

“But I’ve never held my breath for twenty two minutes. Maybe that single second is the difference between my life and my death. I wouldn’t know.”

Right.

He couldn’t feel those limits. I thought about that fact sometimes, but I never really thought about it. In all honesty, it freaked me out. A lot of things about Mason freaked me out, though that didn’t stop me from wanting to know more.

“What’s that like?”

“Normal,” Mason answered. “What’s it like for you to hold your breath?”

“Normal,” I echoed. “But that’s not really what I meant. You can still describe something that’s normal to you.”

“It feels good.”

“Like an orgasm?”

“No. Like…” He pushed his wet hair back off his face, then laughed. “Like you haven’t eaten all day and then you get to eat something really good. And it’s filling you up and bringing back your strength and energy. Or maybe drugs. Human drugs don’t affect me, so I can’t really compare.”

“Okay.” I laughed too, feeling freer the longer we were in the water together. “I didn’t know angels felt like shit after not eating.”

“One of the many downsides of living on Earth. I’m susceptible to normal ailments like hunger and bruises. Things last a little longer, hurt a little more, than they do in Heaven.”

“Not as much neon,” I guessed.

“Not even remotely close to as much.”

“So you don’t heal as fast.”

“Correct.”

“Still fast, though.”

“Also correct.”

More than once, I’d witnessed it firsthand. Cuts from my knife, gone before they should’ve been. Bruises, healed by the next day. The gold in his blood making it happen.

“Are we going to swim?” I asked, my cheeks pushed up with a little smile.

“Is that what you wanna do, baby?” Mason leaned closer. “You wanna swim with me?”

“Mm-hmm.” I nodded.

“Then let’s swim.” He slowly released his grip on my body and let me float away from him.

I spun around towards the deep end and dove into the water, feeling the warmth on my face as I kicked deeper, trailing my fingertips along the concrete bottom with my eyes barely open. Everything was blurry and glowing from the hazy lights on the side walls. The pressure on my head increased as I got deeper, my lungs compressed and my skull squeezed tight. I pushed off the bottom towards the surface.

A hand caught my ankle and tugged me back down—only for a second, but long enough to make my pulse speed up.

I broke the surface, gasping as water dripped off my eyelashes.

“Mason,” I choked out.