The Calling

by Ashley Lynn Willis

  She wanted to break down right there, to weep in his arms until her tears ran dry. A sob escaped her lips, and Justin reached out his hand and cupped her face, rubbing her cheek with his thumb.

  “It’s not over yet,” he said. “Don’t give up hope.”

  She nodded, knowing if they wanted a chance at survival, they couldn’t waste time on the side of the road. She opened the door. A rush of cold air invaded the car, and she wrapped her arms around herself as she hurried to the front of the SUV.

  Justin met her halfway around. He pulled her body close, one hand pressed against her back, the other wrapped around her neck, and he really kissed her then, holding nothing back. The heat between them exploded when his tongue parted her lips, and his knee nudged her legs open, his thigh resting against her heat.

  She moaned into his mouth, her hands exploring his muscular arms, his ridged stomach, his hard chest. The chilled air turned hot, muggy, and sensual. As much as she wanted to hold him, kiss him, make love to him, a surge of energy racked her body, bringing their moment to an abrupt end. She broke the kiss with a groan and doubled over, her stomach cramping, her muscles on fire.

  He braced his hands on the car hood and breathed through the pulse, his eyes squeezed shut, his jaw set tight.

  “Most painful one yet,” she gasped.

  Justin hurried to the passenger seat. “Let’s get to the bridge.”

  * * *

  Justin glanced at the clock. One-fifty. They were a good fifteen minutes from the Mississippi River, and time was quickly running out, the intervals between pulses shortening.

  As if on cue, a surge of energy twisted his gut. Mandy clenched the steering wheel, her knuckles turning white. He had to do something to get their minds off the inevitable and, as he racked his brain, he realized there was a story he’d always meant to tell her but hadn’t yet.

  “Do you remember the first time we met?”

  “Of course. It was Ty’s twenty-sixth birthday. You had the party at your house.”

  “No, that wasn’t the first time.”

  “Then, when?”

  “About a month before that… at Moe’s. You were sitting at the bar with Kirsten, nursing a Corona. I sat in a booth a few yards away from you with a couple of buddies, trying to work up the nerve to approach you.”

  “That doesn’t count, because we didn’t meet.”

  “I’m not done.”

  She raised her hand for him to go on. Her gesture was rigid, hinting at the strain in the rest of her body.

  “You were wearing a blue sundress that tied up the back like a corset. You had on white sandals, and your toenails were painted pink.”

  “You have the memory of an elephant.”

  “No, I don’t. You were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I couldn’t forget that night if I tried.”

  Even in the dark, he could see a blush rise to her cheeks. For a moment, a sparkle returned to her eyes, and a real smile curved her full lips up as if it were a normal night, one that promised a bright future for them.

  He burned the image of her face into his mind, just as it was in that moment. In the last seconds of his life, he was going to close his eyes and remember her, smiling, full of love and life.

  “You still haven’t gotten to the part where we met,” she said.

  A sudden course of energy clenched his gut so hard he had to swallow back the vomit.

  Mandy’s hand flew to her mouth as she moaned. “That can’t be good.”

  He watched the speedometer inch higher, the dark outline of trees sailing past them even faster.

  With no idea how much longer they had, he brushed a wisp of her hair aside, so he could see all of her features, and started where he’d left off, determined to leave her with something worth remembering. “It took me an hour, one tequila shot, and two beers to finally get the balls to walk up to you. When I reached your side, you stepped down from the stool and looked over your shoulder at me. I said hi.”

  “That was it?”

  “No. You said hi back, just before Kirsten grabbed your hand and dragged you away. I stood at the bar for five minutes, cursing myself for not getting off my ass one minute earlier.”

  “That’s kinda sad.”

  “What’s really sad is that I went back to Moe’s every night for a month, hoping you’d be sitting on that stool again. You weren’t. A month later, Ty brought you to his birthday party. Game over.”

  “I wish I’d met you first.”

  “Me, too, because I knew you were the one the second I laid eyes on you. And every time I saw you after that night, I was surer of it.”

  She blushed again, the color even more vivid because the illumination wasn’t just coming from the car. They both gazed up at the moon breaking from behind its gray veil. Dusty shafts of light filtered through the clouds, showering rays on a giant truss bridge ahead. The Mississippi.

  Mandy gasped. “We’re here.”

  In the next moment, both of them groaned with pain.

  “Oh, hell,” Justin said through gritted teeth.

  Mandy cried out. When the ripping sensation reached its peak, she let go and clutched her stomach. The SUV veered to the left. He grabbed the wheel and straightened the tires.

  “Sorry,” she said, taking control of the car, her trembling fingers wrapping around the steering wheel. She wiped a tear from her cheek. “What now?”

  He unclenched his teeth as the pain subsided. “Pull off at the entrance to the bridge.”

  Gravel crunched under the SUV tires as she pulled into a small parking lot beneath the ramp of the bridge. Before she fully stopped, Justin reached into the backseat and grabbed his bag. Her ring was tucked into a side compartment. He pulled out the black velvet box and stuffed it into his pocket. If he didn’t survive, the ring was going down with him. He didn’t want Mandy to keep it as a morbid reminder of him and the baby.

  * * *

  Mandy put the car in park and reached for the keys.

  “Leave the car running,” Justin said.

  “Why?”

  “You’re going to need the warmth. And I don’t want you losing the keys.”

  She wearily eyed the landscape. Nothing but leafless trees and an empty gravel parking lot surrounded them.

  “There’s no one here to steal it,” he said.

  He was right. No one was going to take the SUV on a deserted road at two in the morning. Besides, if Justin didn’t make it, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to drag herself out of the Mississippi alive.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  She nodded. At the same time, they stepped out of the car into the cool night. It wasn’t as cold as it had been in Kansas, maybe forty degrees, and no wind bit at her exposed skin, but her arms still erupted in goosebumps underneath her blue cotton sweater.

  At a full sprint, they rushed to the road. The bridge was empty, no car lights or sounds except the water gurgling beneath them as it swept toward the ocean. Their breaths came fast and labored, their feet pounding the cement of the bridge.

  As they hurried down the pedestrian section with huge steel trusses overhead, Mandy looked down. “We can’t jump from this high.”

  “Our best shot of the waves reaching us from the ocean is diving into the deepest part of the river.”

  “But the currents?”

  “You’ve grown up swimming, Mandy. You can handle it.”

  She nodded, picking up her pace. When they reached the middle of the bridge, she stopped. Moonlight bounced off the water, illuminating the ripples as the current passed beneath the great piers. They had to be forty feet up.

  She grabbed onto the railing and cried out when a surge of energy rocked her core, the pulse clenching her stomach like a vice. She doubled over and retched into the river. Moaning in pain, Justin fell to his knees.

  They both panted for breath as the surge passed. She knew without a doubt that only minutes of the Calling were left. This was it. The end.

  With no ti
me to catch their breath, Justin darted to her side. He grabbed her arm, helped her over the railing, and immediately followed. They stood beside each other, staring down into the dark abyss below. The chilly night breeze swirled around them, and the moon’s tendrils of light enveloped them.

  Mandy threaded her fingers through his. She was either going to emerge holding his hand, or he’d be gone forever. “Justin?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you.”

  He gazed at her with terror and pain raging in his eyes. “I love you, too. No matter what happens, remember that.”

  With their words hanging in the air, he squeezed her hand, and they jumped.

  Chapter 32

  With a thunderous splash, the frigid Mississippi swallowed Justin whole, knocking the breath from his lungs, the cold stinging his skin even through his clothes. He surfaced, Mandy’s hand still grasped in his, and pulled her from the water’s murky depths into his arms. She gasped for breath and, in the moonlight, he could see her eyes were wide with fright.

  They drifted beneath the bridge toward the shadows where the moon's rays couldn’t penetrate. As the water carried them downstream, they brushed against a pier. Justin reached out and grabbed a weathered rut in the giant concrete column. They stilled, the current rippling past them. He drew her close just as a surge wrenched his gut, the pulse clenching his muscles, wringing the life from his soul.

  Mandy screamed. “No!” She clung to him, her hands digging into his shoulders. “No! No! No!”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, burying his face in her neck, terror and sorrow rising anew. The crackle of energy that had danced above the ocean when his sister had passed was absent. This was just water, a damn river that held nothing of Triton’s power.

  Mandy pushed against him. “Swim!”

  He shook his head.

  “We don’t know when the Calling is over,” she pleaded. “Maybe, if we’re further downstream…” The desperation in her voice ate at his soul.

  “It’s over,” he said, grief thick in his voice.

  She tugged on his arm, trying to break his grip on the pier. “We have to try!” Her teeth chattered in the cold water, her body shivering against him. She could die in the river from exposure, and he refused to let that happen, not here, not because of his curse.

  Harnessing his energy, he swirled the water around her, building a gentle current that would drive her toward the sandy bank. As the water gained momentum, the force gently pulling her from his arms, something in his mind clicked. His powers.

  He pulled her back to his chest, clinging hard to her, and shoved his energy down the river like a sonar probing the depths. On and on it traveled, gaining speed as it moved through the murky river. He could see the wake his pulse had created, rising up and cresting over the shore.

  Mandy gasped. “What are you doing?”

  He closed his eyes, feeling, touching the sandy bottom, the banks, the rolling timbers dredged up by his force. He pushed his energy farther. A mile? Twenty miles? He couldn’t tell as he extended ever outward.

  With a crash of opposing energy, he hit a wall of sheer power, throbbing as if alive. Like a spider web draped from shore to shore, Triton’s net hung in the water. He could feel it pulsing, moving, inching toward them. It’d never reach them in time, but his chest swelled with hope.

  With all his power, he slammed into the coursing vibrations. Triton’s energy pulsed toward him, surging up the river, moving as he commanded. “I’ve found it,” he said.

  “The Calling?”

  He nodded.

  “How do we get there?” she asked, hope sparkling in her eyes even through the darkness.

  “I bring it to us,” he answered.

  With tendrils of his energy, he ebbed the water toward them, urging it on, faster more forcefully. The water thrashed, swirled, and bore down on the river bottom with a destructive weight. Sunken boats and timbers were dredged from their watery graves, riding the current, striking against each other.

  He stopped, his power combined with Triton’s too great, the might of the water too much. If he died before the wave reached them, he couldn’t protect her. The current and debris would surely kill her.

  “I can’t,” he said, his words barely a whisper over the gurgling river.

  Her eyes opened wide with horror. “What do you mean?”

  “I could kill you.”

  She pressed her trembling hands against his cheeks, her expression dark with fear. “If you die today, so do I.”

  He knew she spoke the truth. The desperation in her face was the same despair he’d felt when he’d refused to be counted.

  He hugged her tightly. “Then, this has to work.”

  He raised the water and sent a wave hurtling toward them; in its crest rode the energy that could save them. As the fury of the water bore down at them, Justin pushed them upstream, clear of the bridge. He closed his eyes and prayed to his god that it wasn’t too late.

  * * *

  Mandy trembled violently when she saw a wave as high as the bridge tearing down the river and heading straight for them. The roar of the fierce swell deafened her, the awe of its power overwhelming her with terror. What has Justin done? The thought had barely cleared her mind, when the wave slammed into her, tearing her from Justin’s grasp.

  The water cast her down, plunging her deeper. She clawed for the surface, for life, thrashing against the ripping tide dragging her body against the sandy bottom. Her limbs bent like reeds in the wind, swaying in the flow of the current. Water trickled down her esophagus, filling her lungs, depleting her strength, her ability to fight.

  No! She had to survive this. It wasn’t over. Fight, damn it!

  Something hard jammed into her back, causing pain to course down her spine. She flailed against the assault, her arms and legs swinging wildly. A vise squeezed her chest, forcing the water from her lungs in a long whoosh.

  Trying to escape the ache, she pushed toward the surface. When her head emerged from the water, she sucked in a strident breath, sending oxygen to her muscles. She kicked and thrashed harder, refusing to die—not yet, not until she knew Justin’s fate.

  She shoved against the iron grip pressing against her back and… oh, God, it was warm. Warm! Justin!

  The four sweetest words she’d ever heard carried high above the roar of the river. “Stop fighting, damn it!”

  As the river calmed, the wave passing them and dying out, she tried to scream his name. Only water escaped her lips. Since she couldn’t speak, she forced her body around to see him, making sure it wasn’t some blessed hallucination that heralded death.

  The pulses were gone; the racking sensation wringing her muscles had disappeared. And if he was alive, so was the baby! Tears of joy streamed down her face.

  Justin locked his arm around her ribcage, squeezing her tighter. She coughed up another lungful of water, sputtering as the muddy river dribbled out of her mouth. Her ribs burned where he grasped her.

  “Can you breathe okay?” he asked.

  She sucked in another breath, the burning in her lungs easing, and nodded. He loosened his hold on her, and she turned. His lips met hers, their warmth surprising. But the air still crackled with Triton’s Calling, and she felt none of the chill she knew the water held. No sooner had she marveled at the warmth, than the energy of Justin’s god was sucked back toward sea. Slowly, as Justin held her, the chill seeped into her bones.

  Justin broke their kiss, his eyes full of concern. “I’ve got to get you to shore.”

  Her teeth chattered in answer and, together, they plowed through the current toward the bank. They neared shore, and she thrust her feet down, slimy goo slipping between her bare toes. Slowly, they traipsed through the muck to solid ground. They stared at each other, and she knew her expression mirrored his—surprise mixed with shock and joy.

  Mandy sprawled under a tall, leafless tree, her breathing still uneven. Justin lay next to her on the sandy shore, obviously in better s
hape because, even in the cold, his breathing seemed to have stabilized.

  He turned onto his side, propped up on one elbow, and leaned toward her. “We need to get to the warmth of the car.”

  She couldn’t even think of standing, too overcome with exhaustion and sheer happiness. Her hand traced his cheek, then outlined his lips. He was there, and the baby was there, too. It worked. It really worked.

  “You realize this is the first time we’ve overcome the odds,” she said.

  He took her hand and kissed her palm. His brow furrowed, then his face smoothed in a way she’d never seen before. He looked almost peaceful as he gazed at her, the strain he’d always carried disappearing. “I have something for you. At least, I hope I still have it.” He reached inside his pocket and, apparently finding what he was looking for, he smiled. When he pulled out his hand, cupped in his palm was a wet velvet box.

  Mandy sat up, staring at the little box, her mouth agape. Her heart began to tap a fast beat again, as if she were jumping from the bridge, flying through the air toward the river all over.

  With fingers trembling from the cold, he opened the box. “Marry me.”

  A white gold ring with an emerald-cut diamond solitaire lay in the fabric-lined box.

  Mandy lunged for him. She wrapped her arms around his neck. The force of her momentum sent them tumbling toward the water, stopping just short of the muddy shore. The moment was so worth freezing to death for.

  He lay beneath her, his smile as wide as the Mississippi. “You haven’t answered me.”

  “Yes! A thousand times yes!” How could he think she’d say no?

  He slipped the ring onto her finger. “Perfect fit.”

  She held up her hand, admiring the way the moonlight glinted off the diamond facets. Though it was more a shiny blurring effect, since her hand was shaking harder than a tree in a hurricane. Could they get away with a kiss before hypothermia set in? Why not?