by Tracey Ward
I vow to make it my bitch the way it’s always done to me.
I do everything I can to bring it in gently. I picture it the way Nick described the ending of the dreams—like a tide going in and out. I try to amp the hum as slowly as I can, nice and easy, and I do it for him but I also do it for me. I don’t want to just dive headfirst down the rabbit hole and let the force of gravity and madness drive me home. I want that accuracy, and I know the only way to get it is to either let Nick pump all that extra power into me or to slow my roll, focus up, and do it right.
When the hum gets going, a little faster than I had planned, it feels incredible—like a million effervescent kisses across my skin and through my hair. It hits every nerve, every cell, and wakes me up from the outside in. It bubbles and tingles down through my skin to my muscles and my blood, straight into my heart, where it sets off a chain reaction through my spine and into my marrow. I’m aware of every part of me, every single atom, and they’re all singing and alive.
I can feel Nick there as well. He’s lit up like a supernova. He’s a thousand suns shining out at me. He should scorch me out of existence. I should be a pile of simmering goop and ash at his feet—but I’m not, and there’s only one explanation for it: he has it under control. He always has, he always will, but the sheer magnitude of the power that rests peaceful and patient inside him is intimidating. A little terrifying. Also comforting. He knows it’s there, I know he feels it, but he’s so careful. Brody warned us that the strength they gave Beck was put inside the wrong guy. Since meeting Liam and seeing his skill, I’ve felt like they gave my ability to the wrong person, to someone who simply can’t handle it, but whatever mistakes they may have made with the rest of us, they were dead-on with Nick. He’s the perfect combination. The right mixture to be something inhumanly, impossibly, undeniably magnificent. They did exactly what they set out to do with all of us—create the perfect weapon.
Then they turned it against themselves. Despite the hubris, the insanity, and all the other countless mistakes they’ve made over the years, this one—Nick—will be their fatal flaw.
“Where the hell have you two been?!”
Ugh.
It’s Campbell.
I open my eyes, the rush fading. The bubbles dissipate as my body becomes aware of its surroundings again, and even though it’s exactly pinpoint where I was supposed to land us, it’s not where I want to be. I want to be in the ether—inside the champagne bottle, where my blood bursts with electricity that runs warm and smooth through my veins. It’s weird to want it, to crave the Slip—something I’ve feared for the better part of my life.
“The beach,” Nick responds. He’s doubled over, his hands on his knees, but he’s not throwing up. He’s breathing deep and even. “Did some parasailing. Built a sandcastle.”
“Nice gear,” Campbell replies hotly, pointing to my bright green messenger bag and Nick’s red backpack. “Is this what you did with our money? Went shopping?”
“We got you one,” I tell him sweetly.
“With my own money? Thanks, SB. You’re a peach.”
Nick pulls another backpack out of his own and hands it to Campbell. “Here. You’re welcome.”
Campbell scowls at it. “It’s purple.”
“It’s blue.”
“In what world? Hey, Super Seer,” Campbell shouts to Brody. “What color is this?”
Brody barely glances at it. “Purple.”
“His eyes don’t lie,” Campbell tells Nick.
“Well, whatever,” he replies with a shrug. “It will still work.”
“For what? Why do I need a metrosexual backpack?”
“To carry your crap. Food. Water.”
“Porn,” I throw in. “Comics.”
Campbell smirks at me. “They’re one and the same, sweetheart. I can be brought to completion by a Danger Girl. Number two only. One was trash.”
“You’re very discerning.”
“It’s like a fine wine.”
“What is?” Brody asks. “The comic or your—”
“Nope!” I shout. I point an angry finger at Brody. “No.”
He smiles, leaning back against the truck casually. “What’d I do?”
“Crimes against humanity, man,” Nick tells him. “That’s imagery even brainwashing can’t scrub out.”
Campbell snorts, throwing the backpack over one shoulder. “I’ll have you know I am majestic.”
“You look like a peacock.”
“You look like Dora the Explorer on a bender,” I say.
“You look like an idiot with a purple backpack,” Brody tells him with a yawn. He pushes off the truck to stretch his arms high. “Well, as fun as this is, we need to move. We’ve burned a lot of time here.”
“Wait, I got you a present,” I tell him, suddenly remembering. I search through my bag until I feel the hard plastic under my fingers.
Brody freezes. “You got me a gift?”
“With your own money,” Campbell reminds him.
“With my money,” I snap, glaring at him. “And everything we pulled out of your account is in your pretty purple backpack, so calm yourself down. Here, Brody. I saw these and thought of you.”
The bright blue sunglasses with painted yellow palm trees look so small in his hands compared to mine.
He takes them from me gently, rolling them over in his palm. “Thank you,” he says almost inaudibly.
“You’re welcome.”
“I… yeah. Yeah, they’re great.” He slips them on over his eyes before lifting his head to smile at me. “They’re perfect.”
“You don’t have to really wear them.”
He pushes the glasses more firmly onto his face in reply.
Brody wears the sunglasses even when it gets dark that day. He wears them through the night, and when I ask him why he says it’s because it doesn’t matter—he can see just fine. What I meant was why is he still wearing them at all, they were kind of a joke, but the Ray-Ban knockoff shape looks good on him and he seems so comfortable wearing them that I don’t ask again. I let it be and I smile every time I look at him.
It takes us nearly four days to drive to North Carolina. We alternate drivers constantly but there are times when all of us need a break to stretch our legs. It slows us down, Campbell complains, and we move on. When we finally reach the small town Smithfield that Kimberly Fry calls home, I feel like the filthiest animal on the planet. I haven’t showered in about a week. We all took a dive in a freezing cold river a couple days ago, sharing a communal bottle of shampoo to wash everything, but I feel dirtier now than I did before.
I saw Campbell in his underwear. Worst of all, he saw me.
We get to Smithfield in the middle of the night. It’s a tiny town of only twelve thousand people, with a huge outlet mall and a great, old main street. We find Kimberly’s address easily enough, but the lights are all off, it’s three in the morning, and strangers knocking on a door at this hour in a part of the country playing fast and loose with gun laws are looking to get shot.
Luckily we find a motel to park in for the night so we can visit Kimberly first thing in the morning. It’s small, it’s old, it’s four of us packed into one room, but there’s a hot shower, clean towels, and a bed that’s not riding on four wheels and bad shocks. When Nick and I lay down to sleep first shift, I swear I’m out before my head hits the pillow.
∞
It’s sunrise on the dock. Nick stands at the end of it with his back to me, his silhouette burned black against the brilliant yellow, orange, and pink of the coming dawn. The colors reflect off the crystal clear calm waters of the lake, creating a perfect mirror image of the sky. It looks like it goes on forever, and with Nick at the helm, it could.
I walk slowly down the weathered gray boards until I’m standing beside him at what feels like the edge of the earth. It’s almost dizzying, and I notice that the closer I get to him the more fish-eyed the world becomes. The lake and the sky and the sunset are surrounding us
almost completely, and when I look down at the water I wonder what it would feel like to jump in. Would it be warm? Would it even be water or would I fall into the sky? Would I fall into nothing?
I take a nervous step back from the edge.
“You okay?” Nick asks, watching me intently.
I force a smile. “Yeah, I’m good. It makes me kind of dizzy is all.”
“Do you want me to make it normal?”
“No. I’ll get used to it.”
He turns back to the water, his hands stuffed loosely in his pockets. “I could feel this coming all day. The dream.”
“You knew it was coming? How?”
“I could tell back in Kandahar too. All afternoon I’ve smelled it in the air, even when it shouldn’t be. I could smell the meadow behind us. Grass and wildflowers.”
“Why didn’t you tell me it was coming?”
He shrugs. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up. What if I was wrong?”
I smile, nudging him playfully. “When are you ever wrong?”
“Careful,” he warns with a sideways grin, “you’ll give me a complex.”
I gesture to the lake. “It’s beautiful. We’ve never been here at sunrise.”
“It’s my favorite time of day.”
“I’m not surprised you’re an early riser.”
“I learned it from my dad.”
I pause, surprised to hear him talk about his dad. I’ve heard only bits and pieces about him in all the time we’ve known each other. I know he was a PJ, he was Nick’s hero, and he died in combat. And that hero part is something I’m assuming, not something I was told. I don’t think I’m too far off base, though.
“He liked to get up early?”
“Yeah,” Nick answers quietly. “He’d wake up early on Saturdays, before the sun even came up, and he’d come get me. Same days we’d go fishing, sometimes we’d go for a drive, but most days we’d go into the IHOP in town and have breakfast together. Just him and I.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It was.”
I don’t know what to say beyond that. My only great moments with my dad were when I was really little and they were still trying to pretend I was normal. Even in those memories, I see him with a pinched expression—a troubled, angry look as he stared down at me and wondered what was wrong. I don’t know if he was angry at me or angry at the world for what it’d done to me, but any concern he had for my wellbeing ran out when I was sixteen, so I guess it doesn’t matter now. All I know for sure is that the sight of me always made him angry in some way.
“He would have liked you,” Nick says suddenly.
“Who? Your dad?”
“Yeah.”
I chuckle, not sure I believe it. “I ruined your career and your life. It makes me kind of hard to love.”
“I’m not having any trouble with it. Besides,” he takes my hand, pulling me closer to the edge next to him, “he would have liked you because I like you. And I don’t like anybody.”
It’s a sweet to say, all of it, and I’m riding high standing beside him in our dream, holding his hand and watching a sunrise he’s designed. It’s perfect. It’s peaceful. It’s beautiful.
It’s killing me.
The fish-eyed thing is making me nervous. It gives the impression that there is no retreat, that I can’t go back down the dock and get away from this water, and for some reason I really, really want to. I want to get on solid land. The thought I had about jumping in to see if the water would be warm has morphed into a nightmare scenario of perpetually falling into the endless depths of the watery sky, like a song set on loop that I can never stop hearing.
“Are you healing all right?” Nick asks, watching me absently scratch at my shoulder.
I hadn’t realized I was doing it, but it’s something I was doing a lot of in the waking world over the last couple days.
I drop my hand from my shoulder, shrugging. “Yeah, everything is back to normal.”
“Already?”
“I took the bandages off when I took a shower tonight.”
“And you’re completely healed?” he asks dubiously.
“Yeah. The skin isn’t even pink.”
“Is there a scar?”
“A small one. Nothing huge.”
“I’m sorry for that. I wish I could have stitched it better.”
“Stop. You did amazing.” I feel his eyes sitting heavy on me. Thinking. “What’s up?”
“Your shoulder shouldn’t be healed yet.”
“Well, it is. Has been since the last Slip.”
“Maybe Slipping accelerates your healing.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” My palms are starting to sweat. “Hey, do you think we could step back onto the shore?”
“The view is bothering you,” he says knowingly.
“It’s kind of off-putting,” I confess. “It’s beautiful, but it’s making me anxious.”
“Why?”
“The Void.”
“Your fear of vanishing into nothing?”
“Yep. Always had it. So if we could get off this dock or you could make the view normal…”
It happens instantly. It’s not gradual at all. One second we’re surrounded by the sunset, the next it’s all normal. He even adds a few ripples to the water to make it less like a mirror, clearly defining the difference between water and sky. It’s jarring how fast it happens, but I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Thank you.”
“No problem. Now will you do me a favor?”
“Sure. Anything.”
He pulls his free hand from his pocket and opens his palm for me to see. Inside sits the white stone. “I want you to try to shape it the way you did with the bird.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, picking up the stone. It feels oddly cold for having just been in his pocket. “Why?”
“You got a lot of confidence from molding the black stone. You got to see that your power is nothing to be afraid of. I think it would help you with Slipping if you got a taste of that again.”
“I Slipped just the other day. It went perfectly.”
“You weren’t alone.”
I pause, my eyes carefully avoiding his.
“You’ve never done it on purpose alone, Alex,” he pushes. “You’re scared to.”
I roll the stone around in my palm the way I’ve seen him do. It’s not nearly as smooth for me. Also I have to actually try. I think the stones dance for Nick, all on their own.
“You should make more of these for me to bring out of the dream,” I tell him, stalling.
“I will. After you do this,” he replies, seeing right through me.
I sigh, looking up at him. “What do you want me to make?”
“Whatever you want. It doesn’t matter. I just want you to remember that you can do it. That you can do anything.”
I wrap my fingers around the stone, pouring heat into it to chase the cold away. It warms against my skin slowly and I close my eyes, focusing on that heat. I try to add more and more, pushing all of the power and energy into the stone that I can. I come at it the way I come at Slipping. I look for the hum. I reach for it, and when I find it I slowly build it bigger and bigger. I try to control it the way I want to control the Slips. Gradually. Smoothly.
It’s easier than it was the first time I did it with the bird. I know when the stone is listening. When it’s absorbing what I’m putting into it. When it’s ready to run through my fingers and be molded into anything in the world that I want. What I wish for most of all in that moment.
I don’t know when I closed my eyes, but I have to open them to see if I did it—if I passed Nick’s test and I have the stones to be Zeus like him. To be a god in my own mind.
When I look down into my palm, I burst out laughing.
“I did it!”
There in my hand is a small white boat, the same kind of basic rowboat that Nick and I have been out on over the water a couple of times before. The same kind of boat we were on when he
kissed me for the first time.
“Why did you pick a boat?” Nick asks, delicately lifting the stone from my hand to examine it.
“Because it reminds me of you,” I tell him with a wan smile. “It reminds me of us and this place and feeling safe.”
He grins at it as he moves it around and around, looking at every side of it.
“So,” I prod. “Do I pass? Do I get an A? What’s my prize? I want a juiced up Lancer Evo, but I’ll take a kiss.”
“How about another challenge?”
“That’s not a very good prize. Kiss, please, now. And if you try to hand me a thimble, that will be adorable but annoying. I don’t recommend it.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Does it have something to do with the Kardashians?”
“Kiss. Now.”
He kisses me. It’s long and lingering. It’s sweet and playful.
It immediately has me thinking of the soft, tickling grass of the meadow behind us.
But when he pulls away his face is serious. “Are you ready for your next challenge?”
I let my shoulders sag theatrically. “Not really.”
“It’s a big one, but it’ll help. I promise.”
“All right. What is it?”
He doesn’t answer me. Not right away. He stands there staring out at his sunrise, and something in the pit of my stomach goes cold.
“Nick?”
The hillside begins to shrink. A few trees blink out.
I step closer, grabbing his hand. “What’s happening?”
