by Ines Johnson
Not a moment later, an awful noise filled the air. There was the sound of honking like a gull being strangled. Then there was the sound of high-pitched screeching, like crows fighting over fresh meat.
Vivi looked up in time to see flashing lights that hurt her eyes. Angry shouts met her ears. As she stood stunned on the black asphalt, fast-moving boats on wheels careened towards her from opposite sides. She was too disoriented by the lights and the sounds to move out of harm’s way. She stood frozen as the boats prepared to crash into her.
She heard the impact. It was a terrible metallic sound of ripping and screeching and angry shouts. But she felt no pain. Somehow, she was surrounded by water.
Looking down, Vivi saw that water sprung up from a circular hole in the middle of the street. Though the cold spray surrounded her, she felt the warmth within.
“Are you mad?” Psi shouted at her as he pulled her closer in the cocoon of his body.
They were up in the air on a pillow of gushing water as it rose higher and higher into the sky and away from the chaos on the ground. Looking at Psi, his teeth were bared to her again. His eyes blazed icy fire as they glared at her. Vivi shrank into herself.
“Are you going to throw me over?” she asked.
He blinked. The fire in his blue gaze instantly extinguished. His shark-like teeth slipped back behind the holster of his lips. He repeated her words aloud, slowly, in what looked like confusion.
“It’s what my father did when he saw that I was deformed,” she said.
Psi swallowed hard. He pressed her more firmly into his body, the tenterhooks of his fingers dug painfully into her skin. “I’m not tossing you anywhere. I’m taking you home.”
His grip was absolute, brooking no room for argument. Even if she could’ve escaped, Vivi was afraid to move. She hated heights. Her greatest fear was to experience the terrifying sensation of being cast into the air from the arms of a man whom she thought loved her… again.
So she closed her eyes and locked her arms around Psi as he held her tightly to him. He did not let her go as he carried her off into the night. Instead, Vivi’s spirits sank with the knowledge that she’d failed in her quest, her first journey off alone in the world. She’d stood on her own two feet and fallen short of her goals.
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