by K. K. Allen
“Hey, Kat?”
My chest is practically a faulty cage for wild butterflies at this point. “Hmm?”
“You should know you’re not the only one who’s new at all this. I wanted to tell you earlier, but I don’t know. I guess it’s kind of strange for some. I mean, I don’t think it’s strange. It’s my decision and all.”
I lean back to look at him, confused, and too shocked to feel elated by what he just told me. “What are you talking about? New to what?”
He bows his head then flips his lashes up to look me dead in the eye. “This,” he says again, like I’m supposed to read between the lines. “Flirting. Dating. Kissing.” There’s a long stretch of silence between us. “Sex.”
I swallow over the quickly growing lump in my throat. For some reason, I’m having a lot of trouble processing what he just told me. “But you’re you. I don’t understand. You’ve never even kissed anyone else?”
He lets out an awkward laugh and shakes his head. “I have. Just… not like the way I kiss you. And dating is like a foreign concept when you’ve lived on the sea most of your life. You dream about it. You want it—desperately—but for some reason, no one has ever appealed to me the way you do.”
My breath hitches in my throat as a swell of emotion captures me. “And sex? You’re telling me you’ve never…?” I snap my mouth shut, unable to finish my own sentence.
He shakes his head. “No, Kat. Never.”
A flood of relief brings tears to my eyes, and I blink them back without understanding why I’m so hyped up with emotion. “Why?”
His brows bend together. “Why haven’t you?”
I shrug. “Because I haven’t had a connection before that felt worthy of stripping myself bare for anyone else.” I search his eyes. “It’s just never felt right.”
Johnny nods. “Until now. That’s exactly how I feel.” He presses his forehead to mine. “Everything feels right with you. I can’t explain it. I just don’t want you to think I brought you out here today for any other reason than because I’m crazy about you.”
A tear slides over my cheek as I cling to his neck. He lifts me onto the counter and spreads my knees so he can stand between them. Then he’s kissing me hard on the mouth like he needs my lips to survive. He steals my air, then I steal his. A constant battle of ever-flowing energy chains us together in a way that’s incomprehensible. There’s only one explanation.
Johnny is my one true love. My soulmate. My Fated. Whatever anyone wants to call it, I know we’re meant to be together.
My heart is full, but I also feel the weight of our surging energy like mine might deplete any second. “If we’re going to keep kissing like this,” I say with a smile, “then I’m going to need some dinner.”
He smiles back and nods, playfully lifting his hands from me. “Yes, food first. It’s almost ready.”
I slide off the counter. “You have until I get back from the bathroom.” I point my finger at him, as a playful warning.
He winks and leans down to kiss my cheek. Then he flips a switch and points down the stairs to an open door of a bathroom I hadn’t seen before. “Right there.”
I jog down the stairs and close the door behind me. I use the restroom then take my time to reenergize through my emerald. After a few breaths, I finally feel like my strength has restored and I’m ready for whatever this night has to offer. Rose and Charlotte probably won’t be back for hours, so I’m in no hurry to leave.
I start to wash my hands, but there’s no soap on the counter. I pull open the glass cabinet and spot a bar instantly. I grab it, and the plastic container beneath it slips out, landing with a thwack against the tile floor. As I pick it up, an odd sensation strikes my chest. A buzzing starts in my head, and I know it’s my senses alerting me of something.
I stare down at the plastic container, my hands beginning to shake, then I open it slowly. The moment I see its contents, my world goes dark for a second. I blink back a flood of tears, fall back into the wall with a loud thud, and sink to the floor as a loud sob erupts from deep in my chest.
“Kat? Are you okay?” Johnny calls from the kitchen, and I know it’s only a matter of time until he’s heading my way.
Blood pulses through me at a frantic tempo as I search through blurry eyes for an escape. The sound of footsteps approaching makes me gasp, and I lock the bathroom door before sinking back down into the corner.
Another tear falls down my cheek as I clutch my mom’s gold heart locket to my chest.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The door rattles with each pound. All I can think about is what comes with the flood of memories that my mind has suppressed until now. The sensation of the fragile gold chain snapping from around my wrist. The loss of something so dear and precious. It’s all becoming vividly clear. Arabella must have taken me to the surface like she said, but whoever grabbed me from the water after that was the one who stole my bracelet. And now I know who that was.
Why would Johnny steal it? I shake my head, remembering what Rose told me about bonding it to me. How did he steal it?
“Kat, are you okay? I heard a noise.”
Johnny is worried. Or angry. I really can’t tell. I can barely make sense of my own thoughts, but I’m certain he’s been lying to me this whole time. He was there the night I almost died. He gave me mouth-to-mouth and cleared my airway so that I could breathe. What was the purpose of that if he only planned on taking away my protection from Erebus?
According to Rose, there were only two ways that the bracelet could be removed. Through passing it down to my child or by my one true Fated mate. My chest squeezes, and my next breath feels like it's being sucked through a narrow straw.
Is it possible for Johnny to be both an Equinox and my Fated? I shudder at the possibility and try to push it away. I need to get out of here. I need to talk to Rose.
Tears flood my eyes as I search for a way out, but there is none. Even with my magic, I wouldn’t know how to break free from these walls. I have to leave the way I came in, which means I need to confront Johnny.
“Kat, answer me before I break this door down.”
“I’m fine,” I call back, but my voice shakes with my nerves.
There’s a shuffling of feet by the door. “Can you open the door? I’m worried.”
Are those words real? Has he been playing me all along? Every kiss. Every touch. Every word. Has it all been a ploy to steal my energy and kill me? If so, then why didn’t he kill me when he stripped me of my protection that night? Nothing makes sense. Nothing feels real.
“I’m just… not feeling well.”
A heavy silence follows. Then I hear a quiet curse. “Kat…” His voice is gentler, like he’s trying to coax a wild animal. “Open the door, and we’ll talk about it.”
He knows I found it. I stand up quickly and wipe my tears.
“Come out now, Kat, or I’ll have to force my way in.”
My senses respond to his threat with a surge of power. It starts in my stomach then spreads into my chest until energy radiates from every inch of me. The bathroom door shakes before it’s thrown open so hard, it surprises Johnny and even me. He’s pinned in the hallway behind the open door, giving me time to make my escape. I dash for the stairs as fast as I can, but it’s not long before I hear Johnny’s quick footsteps behind me.
He yells for me to stop, and the deepest parts of me want to listen, but I can’t take the risk. He knows I’ve seen the locket. He knows I know. I’m no longer safe.
Has this been his plan all along? To get me alone in his boat, make me fall for him, then… I can’t even complete my thought as my stomach churns with a dark and devastating sadness. By the time I reach the living room, he’s already at the top of the stairs.
Panicked, I spin around. “Stop!”
Johnny freezes, and it’s like we’re in some kind of standoff.
“If you come any closer, I’ll use my powers.”
His brows bend together, and he tilts his
head. “Your what? Kat, let’s just talk about this.” He takes a step in my direction.
Instinct sweeps over, and my arms push out in front of me, creating a blast of energy that barrels toward him in streaks of green. I really only meant to shield him from me so that I could buy some time and think this through, but I still don’t know my own strength. Fear clutches my chest when I see Johnny’s surprised eyes following the path of my powers. Just as the light is about to strike, he throws his palms up, mirroring my movements. Blue energy radiates from his palms then shoots out toward mine.
I gasp as our powers meet in a deafening collision of wild sparks. There’s a translucent wall between us now where our energy ebbs and flows. My heart pounds erratically. If I had thrown my power on a Normal, they wouldn’t still be standing. They certainly wouldn’t be using my own energy against me while striking back with a force of their own.
Why couldn’t I see it before? How did I miss all the signs? Johnny is Enchanted—either by Equinox or something else. My heart doesn’t want to believe he’s evil, but all the signs point in that direction. A quiet cry slips past my lips.
I didn’t ask for this life. To finally have the one thing in this world worth living for then be forced to give it up is unbearable. He stands before me, yet out of my grasp. Now, he is forbidden to me, a temptation above any red fruit.
A pained look flickers across his expression, like I’ve hurt him, but he hurt me too. The knowledge of what he did is far more powerful than the tears that threaten to surface. I must will them away. To reveal my own pain would only complicate things. One thing, I know for sure—this is how things are destined to be.
Forcing my eyes away from his is my only hope at this moment. His heated stare stays on me. I can feel it burning a hole straight through my core.
How did it happen that the one I’m fated to love would turn out to be the one I need to kill to survive?
A green glow coming from my chest forces me to look down. My emerald is radiating its own energy now. Before this moment, my gem was useless in Johnny’s presence. Perhaps the shield between us allows me to take from the stone. It’s worth a try.
I grab the emerald, hold it to my chest, then close my eyes. I whisper a silent message to the night, and my powers respond with a crack of lightning striking just outside of the boat. The distraction is enough to pull Johnny’s eyes away from mine, making him lose focus. I propel more energy toward him as his energy shield drops, throwing him against the wall.
“What the hell, Kat? Stop. I’m not going to hurt you—”
I shake my head and hold out the gold locket. “You stole this from me. Why?”
He grits his teeth, and his arms shake like he’s having trouble keeping up his energy. “Because I was instructed to.”
“By who?”
His jaw tenses, but he doesn’t give me an answer quick enough.
“There’s no reason you would take this from me unless you’re…” Tears flood my eyes, my heart breaking by the second.
“Unless I’m what?”
Johnny is a good actor. His confusion would convince most people, but not me. As hard as it is for me to admit the truth, I know Johnny is dangerous. There were warning flags from the very beginning, but I chose to ignore them all.
I keep my strength up to hold him back, but I can feel myself faltering. “You’re my enemy. I should kill you.” My voice shakes. Deep down, there’s a part of me that isn’t convinced. But isn’t that something Erebus would do? Trick me into making me think someone like Johnny could actually love me.
Johnny’s eyes flutter wildly as he shakes his head. “What?” His shriek is more like a growl.
I hold out the locket so the Equinox’s engraving faces him. “This is the symbol of the Equinox.”
His eyes narrow in on the symbol, his expression darkening by the second. “The what? Kat, I have no idea who that is.”
“Stop lying!” I shake while forcing back more tears. “You’re working for him. It’s the only possible explanation. You wanted to strip me of my protection. That’s why you took my bracelet.”
Johnny is still trying to claw his way forward, but my power is too strong for him to penetrate. At least I can be confident in the fact that I’m stronger than him.
“I didn’t know you when I took your bracelet. All I knew was what I was told and that was that you were dangerous, more so with that locket on your wrist.”
I narrow my eyes on him. “Who told you that I was dangerous?”
He shakes his head, his face crestfallen. “I can’t tell you that, Kat. But you have to trust me. I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“So, you believed this person enough to steal from me, but you won’t give up their name?”
Johnny bows his head in shame. “I can’t.”
As much as I want to, I can’t risk believing him for a second. I take one step at a time backward toward the entrance. “Please don’t follow me, Johnny. Just leave. Go far away and don’t come back. Or I will kill you. I’ll have no other choice.” I say this with as much control as I can muster, but even as the words come, I want to cry.
I turn away, run as fast as my energy will take me, and propel myself off the end of the boat until I’m flying through the night. I dive into the water and swim down deep, to the bottom of the bay. Arabella told me once that sea sprinkle isn’t obvious to the human eye, but I should be able to find some, even in the dark.
There it is. A brilliant white light glows bright between the sand. I quickly take a pinch and put it to my mouth before my air runs out.
My first breath comes, just as my fluke appears in place of my legs. I stay close to the bottom of the bay and move toward Island Grille’s shore, not looking back until I’m on solid land. When I do, Johnny’s yacht is gone.
Rose, Charlotte, and Arabella walk in through the front door of Summer Manor a few hours later. It’s well past midnight, but I haven’t attempted to sleep. I’m too wound up from the events, and part of me fears that Johnny will come for me when I sleep. What a horrible death that would be.
I’m curled up on the couch in the great room, a wool blanket wrapped tightly around me. My hair has dried, but I can still smell the saltwater. The same numbness that consumed me after my mother’s death has returned. My thoughts run rampant—so rapidly that I can’t process them all. So many questions. So much heartbreak.
Charlotte and Arabella move to either side of me. Rose stands in front of me—a worried look on her face. I know they’re talking to me, but I’m too deep in my own thoughts to climb my way out and listen.
Someone shakes me. I hear Arabella scream, “Kat!”
The panic in her tone wakes me from my darkness, and I catch her worried expression. There’s a prickling behind my eyes, and I’m not sure I can stop the tears this time. I open my fist without saying anything, revealing what I found, and gasps escape all three women.
Arabella snatches the locket from me and examines it. “Where did you find this?”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “Johnny’s boat. He’s the one who ripped it from my wrist on the Fourth of July.”
The women gasp. “What on earth?”
I blink back a fresh set of tears. Just speaking about tonight out loud has my emotions cycling through me at uncontrollable speeds. “Someone told him to remove it. He listened.” I shake my head. “I don’t know why. Or who. He wouldn’t tell me much. A-And I don’t want to believe that he would have hurt me, but how do I know?” I look at their faces, hoping to find answers there.
Rose looks completely flabbergasted while Charlotte seems to be connecting the dots much faster. “He couldn’t have removed it from you unless—” Rose gasps midsentence, her hand rising to her mouth as it dawns on her. “He’s your Fated.”
My heart squeezes at words I desperately want to be true while simultaneously heartbroken by the turn of events. “Even if he is, how do I know he’s not an Equinox helping Erebus in whatever grand scheme he’
s up to?”
Arabella hands the locket back to me. “Trust me. Johnny is not helping Erebus, and he is most certainly no Equinox.”
While her confidence eases my mind some, it doesn’t help with all the confusion.
“Where is Johnny now?” Her expression reveals a level of concern I’m having trouble discerning.
There’s a pang in my chest. “I told him to leave and never come back—or I’d kill him.”
“No,” Arabella moans and shakes her head. “Kat, we need him.”
I look up at her, my mouth agape. “You need him? For what? Arabella, he stole my bracelet. You’re not the least bit concerned?”
The women look at each other again before Charlotte speaks. “Do you remember what I told you about the key to protecting the sea?”
My brain starts clicking through our last conversation. “The Poseidon descendant?”
Charlotte nods. “All we knew about him before tonight is that he was lost. He travels alone, lives on or close to the sea. Isaac got wind of someone in Apollo Beach who fit that description.”
Memories of Johnny’s scent, his comfort with mammals, his knowledge of marine biology, and even his stories of his parents flood my mind. Why did I not make the connection before?
“Johnny is a descendant of Poseidon?” I ask, but I already know the answer. “It makes so much sense.”
Arabella gasps. “So it’s true!”
I shake my head, trying to quickly form the pieces in my mind. “It all makes sense.” A jumble of frustration twists like angry vines, creating a knot in my chest. “But why would he steal my locket?”
Arabella stands up straight. “We’ll get to the bottom of that. Do you know where he is or where he could have gone?”
I bite down on my lip. “He lives at the marina, but I don’t think you’ll find him there.” Not after I threatened his life and told him to leave Apollo Beach.
Arabella takes off, shouting behind her. “I’ll be back.”
She’s out the door before I can get another word out of her. So I turn to Charlotte and Rose, narrowing my gaze on them. “It’s time to talk. I’m tired of the secrets you’re still keeping from me. It seems I’m always being surprised and nearly killed because of the information you refuse to give me. I’ve been without my bracelet for a month. One whole month. What is Erebus’s end game? You have to have some idea.”
