Find Me (Immersed Book 1)

by Francesca Riley

  Ignoring the sudden quivering in her legs, she considered the distance pragmatically. This wasn’t a swim. It wasn’t even a dummy run. Just wading through water to find a friend. She’d swum for her life two days ago. She could do this. First, she walked back up the beach to the dry high tide line and removed her clothes, stashing them in her shoulder bag. Leaving the bag there, she retraced her steps to the water’s edge.

  Gathering her courage, she stepped into the shallow swathes washing the firm sand, and waded out. The waterline crept higher with a teasing chill. Her heartbeat increased, her breath hissing, although the water beneath the surface wasn’t particularly cold.

  The rocky mound was further than it had looked. Or the sand dropped away more steeply here than she’d realised. She held her arms above the rising water, trying to hold back her creeping fear as the water tickled up her ribs.

  When it touched her collar bone she halted, trembling. Without the threat of harm to distract and drive her on, her nightmare fear pressed closer. The whisper of stormy breakers echoed through her mind.

  Clawing back control, she pictured Hunter and held him in her mind. The dark echoes receded, and she forced herself to lower her arms. The cold water felt like silk on her skin. She stared at Lithus Rock, focusing. She could do this.

  Kicking off from the bottom, she pushed lightly forward. A few strokes and it sank in: she was swimming – in the sea, freely, by choice, without fear. A heady rush of euphoria made her giddy.

  She turned her head, arching her neck to avoid a small wave. It smacked across the side of her face. Deeper now she felt the warmer currents invaded by cold, icy strains stroking her. A quiver of panic checked her. She concentrated on breathing, her heartbeat louder in her ears. Another wave doused her face, followed in quick succession by a third that filled her mouth.

  She coughed, spitting, tipping her head as far back as she could. Roaring sounded nearer and the familiar dizzy weakness began to saturate her brain. No, she willed, not now, not now.

  Resisting with all her strength, she called Hunter’s face into her mind again. His charcoal eyes, full of sorrow she was sure he didn’t mean her to see; eyes that lit up when they smiled at her. The roaring diminished a little. His expressive mouth, his lips sometimes tight with tension, but more often soft when he looked at her. The thundering faded further.

  No one could look like that, she told herself. She had to have imagined it, embellished what was there. But the expression in his eyes when he looked at her…she hadn’t imagined that. That was real. It was why she was here.

  And then she was fully present, in control, pulling through the water, now only a few arms’ length from the rock face. Something brushed her fingers, and she recoiled before realising it was seaweed – she’d reached the submerged rock of the small island. Despite her instinct to flinch from the fronds slithering under her hands, they meant she’d made it.

  Kicking hard, she felt along the strands until her fingers touched a place to stand about an arm’s length below the surface. Gripping the barnacle and seaweed-encrusted rock, she drew her legs beneath her. She stood, wobbly on the uneven surface, jostled by low waves. Her footing gave way and with a sharp cry she fell backwards into waiting arms.

  For a terrifying moment she relived the hungry grinning presence of Mark and Stevie, and cried out, twisting and thrashing. The arms released her, and strong hands firmly gripped her arms and propelled her gently forward to grasp a rocky hold again. The cold grip on her arms vanished, and in a swirl of water, someone was beside her. Heart pounding, Skye turned, blinking rapidly to clear both her eyes and her mind. The pounding didn’t cease, but the reason for it abruptly changed. It was Hunter.

  22. Revelations

  Side by side they clung to the rock, nudged by low waves. Hunter’s chest rose and fell rapidly as if he had sped to reach her. Drops of water spiked the dark lashes rimming his eyes like anemones. She felt her own ordinariness tighten like a mask on her face.

  “I frightened you,” he looked distressed.

  “You did?” Skye struggled to connect her thoughts together. Oh – the flailing and struggling. “It wasn’t you,” she shook her head. “It was – those guys. I thought you were them. Just for a second,” she reassured.

  “Skye, what are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “Looking for you.” She felt stung, and foolish. “I thought you wanted me to come.”

  He shook his head, “Never at a risk to you, Skye. Never. I didn’t mean for you to swim to me, alone!”

  There was an odd pain inside her chest. She’d been wrong about their connection. It was all her. She looked away with hot eyes. A movement of the water brought him close, their legs brushing, and she glanced at him again. His face was inches from hers. Her breath caught. In his eyes she saw that same expression she’d seen the day he’d risen through water below her. As if her being there was impossible, and at the same time – perfect.

  Returning his gaze, she felt again as if she were losing something of herself to him. Every time they met she fell into a faster moving tide that swept her further out of her depth. Each time it was harder to find safe ground again.

  “You’re cold,” he said at last, “You need to get out of the water.” He was right. Her trembling from the shock of her scare had been replaced by shivering from cold. “There’s an easier place to climb up further round,” he said. “Let me help you.”

  Taking her hand, he drew her with him, edging around the rock to the ocean-facing side. There, he floated her forward until her feet found the surface of a wide submerged ledge. Above them was a path of sorts, leading up to a wider jumble of ledges, like ancient steps shaken out of alignment.

  Together they clambered up. Reaching the wide ledge at the top, Skye sank down onto the smooth dry rock, pressing her hands to the solid warm surface. Stretching her legs out, she eased her tense muscles. Water streamed off her. Gulls wheeled and cried above, as if objecting to her presence.

  “Sorry,” Hunter said quietly. She looked up. Still standing, he was silhouetted against the mottled sky. His wet hair hung nearly to his shoulders, water trails trickling down his smooth torso. Patchy sunlight fell through a break in the clouds, catching the drops of water on his skin, turning his eyes to shimmering slate. She reminded herself to breathe.

  “Told you I wasn’t used to talking to people,” he said. “Can I start again?”

  She nodded.

  He sat beside her. “Hello.”

  “Hi.”

  “I’m glad you’re here, Skye. It was just the idea of you at risk. Like I said, it scares me. And while I’m apologising – it was childish, leaving the way I did yesterday. An eternity, and I still haven’t managed to grow up. I’d realised... It doesn’t matter. I was stupid. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Hunter. I get it. We’re different. But that shouldn’t stop us from being friends, should it?”

  “Actually, it should. This is where I should go, leave you to your life. But...I can’t.”

  “I don’t want you to.” She held his gaze. He reached out a hand and smoothed a wet strand of hair from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear the way he had before. Her insides melted a little as his fingers brushed her cheek.

  “You found me.” His soft words sounded awed.

  “Or you found me.” It felt that way to her.

  “Skye,” his voice was almost a whisper, simply saying her name, savouring it. She could hear the smile in his voice as if it tasted good. Perhaps it was the same as saying his name, as thinking it, felt to her. She could happily have spent the rest of the day staring at him in dazed silence, but she wanted to hear his voice, wanted to know more about him.

  “So,” she said tentatively, “About that naïve git? Could you tell me more?”

  “Not bored of him yet?” he smiled.

  “Not a chance.”

  He looked down at his hands, gathering his thoughts. “All right. The Seers,” he began. “Persuasive, self-ob
sessed. No conscience. Remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “And ambitious,” he added dryly.

  “The treason thing, right?”

  He nodded. “The treason thing. All Hell broke loose. We ended up in the sea. The Seers tempered the curse, temporarily removing who we were, binding us with the ocean.”

  “Temporarily? That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “That would have been the plan. But they misjudged the ‘conduit’. We became part of the water, giving some of us this …existence.”

  The way he said conduit made her insides twist. She knew he meant him. What had gone so wrong back then? But she couldn’t push for details. Instead she asked, “Hunter, before, you said ‘an eternity’... How long ago did this happen to you?”

  “We don’t know. When we surfaced for the first time, it wasn’t a raw, wounded landscape we awoke to. It was worn by countless years. And who could we ask?”

  She ached at the desolate look on his face, wishing she could help somehow.

  “What happened is a guess, based on what we’ve become, and what the Seers were, and the single word I remember of their incantation: Nemaro. One with the sea. And also...no one. Or nothing. The name we’ve adopted. It’s what we call ourselves now.”

  “Nemaro,” Skye murmured.

  Hunter nodded.

  “You’re so cold,” she ventured hesitantly. “Like water. Does blood run through your veins?”

  “Yes, blood, as cold as water. But when we perish in water, we become dust and stone, like our cursed city, Lithus. One of us got caught in a propeller once. All that was left of her was a shower of stone fragments sinking through the current.”

  It was a horrific image.

  He hesitated. “We – my clan – we’ve adapted. Some don’t see us as cursed, but as victors, surviving death. We’re practically immortal. But we can be killed. And the world has changed around us, bringing speed and death never seen by our kind before. What seemed permanent has become fragile. Even for us, life can turn to death in an instant, especially when these two worlds collide.” He gestured towards the distant village behind them.

  “Have you ever tried to break it? The curse I mean?”

  “Only the curser could break it. And from what I can gather, that whole line died out after we fell. But again – who could we ask?”

  They were silent a while, and Skye tried to find something more removed from hurtful memories. “The way you speak – sometimes you sound the same as me, and sometimes you sound kind of…old-fashioned. You know about some modern words, but others you’ve never heard before.”

  He was silent longer than such a simple question seemed to require. At last he looked at her. “If you found someone in trouble – at risk of dying – would you help them?”

  “Of course. At least, if I could, I would.”

  “Let’s say you could. Then you would?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if, as you helped them, they...invaded you? Whatever kind of person they were, you tasted them, felt them, whether you wanted to or not. Would you still do it?”

  Skye tried to imagine it, but it was impossible.

  “To keep a drowning human alive, they must be mesmerised. But in doing so, just as before we began this existence, we see into their souls.”

  “Mesmerised?” A prickling sensation ran over her skin.

  His eyes were guarded. “Yes. It suspends the effects of water on humans. But it opens them to us, lets us walk through their soul for a time. We’ve all learnt from people we’ve had contact with: their language, phrases, aspects of their lives. It’s an intrusion for both, necessary for human preservation, and often harrowing for the Nemaro. But not always…” he paused.

  “Hunter, your people sound...amazing. I can’t even imagine how that must feel. After everything you’ve lost, you go through that to help us mere mortals to survive the sea. You guys are like, I don’t know, sea superheroes.” She smiled at her silly phrase. “The others – your clan – are they here too? In the Bay I mean?” Skye felt a stirring of uneasiness. “Will I meet them?”

  “That’s not a good idea, Skye.”

  She was surprised by relief. “But – why? Are they really so bad?”

  “We’ve changed in some ways. Primal, rather than aristocratic. But more selfish than ever, in constant motion, trying to fill a void of emptiness. We’re like burning ice, incapable of comfort or consolation.”

  She felt a sharper scrape of warning, her skin prickling.

  He frowned, concerned. “Are you cold? You must remind me, Skye. I forget how different we are.”

  Skye shrugged, grateful he’d put her reaction solely down to temperature. “It was just someone walking over my grave.”

  He stared at her. “Your grave?”

  “It’s just an expression.”

  “Not one of my favourites,” he muttered, glancing away. Then he went still, his body tensing, his eyes fixed on a distant spot out in the water.

  Skye followed his line of sight, but failing to see anything, tried to draw his attention back to their talk. “So, they are here?”

  Hunter hesitated, but after a moment his tense stance relaxed, and he looked away from the sea to her again. “Not right now. And for a long time, after something happened, the others completely avoided this place.”

  “Something?”

  “An...encounter ended badly. One of our clan was lost.”

  “Lost? You mean...”

  “He died.”

  “I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to lose someone.”

  “Yes. Your mother,” his voice was a murmur.

  Skye cleared her throat. “So... The encounter.”

  Hunter’s face became a still mask. He gave a slight nod.

  “Do you mean, an encounter with a person? Humans have been with Nemaro?”

  “Yes.”

  “And...?” She sensed he’d been waiting for this.

  He looked directly at her, his expression inscrutable. “It never works out.”

  She felt the spark of hope for something undefined sputter. “For both?”

  “For humans.”

  “You mean...mortals and permanent immersion – not so good?”

  He nodded.

  “The encounter,” she pressed. “Was it like me? Like...you with me?”

  “Yes. But not like us. I would never...” He stopped, looking conscious.

  “What?” Her stomach tightened. “You look like...”

  “Like what?” his voice was low.

  “Like you just had a thought. A bad one. Maybe...about me.”

  “You’re very perceptive, Skye,” he said softly. “It’s one of the things I love about being with you. You’re right. I had a thought about you. Bad? I guess it depends on your perspective. But it’s gone. Don’t worry. I won’t ever do anything to hurt you.” A strange tension hovered between them.

  “Anything else you’re burning to know, Miss Skye?” he raised his eyebrows lightly, clearly determined to draw them out of darker waters.

  Only about a million things, she thought. “Your swimming shorts.” She felt silly, but her curiosity was stronger than her embarrassment. “What’s the deal with clothes for your people?”

  Hunter laughed out loud, surprising her. She couldn’t help giggling in response.

  “Well?” she demanded.

  “Okay,” he smiled broadly. “It’s like before our fall. And like you – if humans didn’t wear clothes, traipsing about naked, it would be chaos, wouldn’t it? Bare everything? Carnage!” Hunter laughed again.

  “Stop laughing at me,” Skye dug him with her elbow, her cheeks flaming.

  “Sorry,” he grinned. “It’s a fair question. Nemaro are passionate. We need to preserve some moral niceties to function as a cohesive clan. We cover up close to the way we always did for the same reasons we always had. Modesty, social order.”

  He thought for a moment. “Clothes are also a connection to what we o
nce were, or who we could have been. They don’t behave the way ordinary fabric would in water. What adorns us, for want of a better word, becomes part of us, an extension of us, impermeable, and only as memorable to us as our own skin after a while. What we remove perishes according to its age.”

  His face grew solemn. “From time to time, we come across...new clothing. Sometimes simply lost luggage, sometimes...found elsewhere.”

  Skye didn’t need clarification about what ‘elsewhere’ meant.

  He looked down at his shorts. “I found these decades ago.” He glanced at Skye. “Literally found, floating in the water, no one inside them in case you’re wondering.” Hunter shrugged as Skye looked down, embarrassed at how accurately he’d guessed her dark suspicion.

  “Okay, thanks for clearing that up for me.” She spoke flippantly, trying to stay light. But his words had opened another train of thought. She took a few careful moments to frame the words.

  “Have you ever...?” She couldn’t finish the sentence. “Passionate...” she tried again. But her courage failed her. She suddenly didn’t want to know. She could guess, but guessing and hearing weren’t the same. And it really wasn’t her business. Embarrassed, she couldn’t look at him, fearful of what she may have started.

  Hunter was quiet. This silence was different. She stared at the horizon, stomach knotting, feeling her face flatten.

  Finally, he said, “In Lithus, physical beauty was prized. Collected. Not long before my world ended I found that I was considered...collectible. One of the Seers had a daughter. Spoiled, volatile. Powerful. She decided I was her property.”

  Skye felt as if something sharp slid between her ribs. The breath that she expelled wasn’t replaced by another as he spoke.

  “At first I was flattered. And then I thought it must be ‘love’. But I was one of many. I also learned she had plans to share me.” She looked at him. His eyes looked bruised. “When our world ended I was spared that particular trial. But even knowing of it was enough to make me find the thought of her attentions utterly repellent.”