THIRTY-nine

I’m only partly relieved to see another car in the small parking lot at the beach. The other half of me is terrified. Blake clasps my hand as we walk down the path and make our way along the sand next to the base of the cliff.

The air is colder than it should be this time of year. And there’s something else off about it all … an unnatural smell that wafts on the wind, a hint of sulfur. I hold my hand out, using my power to form a mini pressure system that forces the air to flow around us. Only then do I let myself take another breath.

“There’s something in the air.” I say.

Blake nods. “I know. I feel it.”

“I mean literally. Something’s here that shouldn’t be. I’ll try to keep it away from us, but hold your breath if you get hit by a gust.”

“Do you think Austin would really hurt her?” Blake asks.

“Maybe. I don’t know.” My gut is telling me he would. “Don’t look in his eyes. His promises are empty.”

We see the fire first. It’s a huge bonfire, with stacks of wood that rise several feet out of the pit. The flames flicker and stretch, higher and higher. Instinctively I reach out to them, test them. The fire recedes on my command, quieting down to a slower burn.

Haley’s laugh carries across the beach. She whoops and throws her arms around Austin’s neck. He stumbles back, folding her into his arms and spinning her around in a circle. From here they look blissful, romantic.

Blake stops. “She looks okay to me.”

Haley’s voice is too loud. “Let’s go skinny dipping!”

My veins turn to ice. “She’s not okay.” Haley doesn’t know how to do anything she can’t learn from watching others or practicing in her room. Haley would never suggest skinny dipping. Okay, maybe in a hot tub, but never in the ocean. Haley can’t swim.

I let go of Blake’s hand and run the rest of the way to where Austin is still holding Haley in his arms.

“Easy.” Austin’s voice is soothing, lilting accent and all. “You’ll get to swim soon enough.” He grins when he sees me. “For a moment I was worried you weren’t coming.”

“Let her go.”

Haley’s eyes are so dark I can barely make out a thin ring of turquoise. “Brie! Are you stalking us now?”

Blake steps up behind me. As he does, the wind shifts, changing directions and blowing toward Blake. I have to react fast to stop it, convinced now that whatever is in the air is dangerous.

“Haley, listen to me. I’m not stalking you. You know me better than that. And Blake is here too. We’re here to help.”

Haley’s laugh is too high. “Last time I checked, Austin and I were doing just fine on our own.” She moves her lips to his neck and kisses a trail to his ear. Her smile is too big. It’s not the coy smile that took her two years to perfect, the one that shows just a hint of teeth, and the promise of more. “We’re going skinny dipping!” She lets go of Austin and stumbles away, pulling her long-sleeved tee over her head. The cold wind whistles around her but she doesn’t flinch.

“You can’t swim.” I keep my voice low. Embarrassing Haley in front of Austin and Blake won’t help me convince her to come with me.

“You think you’re so great now, don’t you? So you got a boy to notice you. La dee dah!” She spins in a circle. When she stops in front of me her face is contorted into a grotesque sneer. “I bet I could get him too, if I wanted. Except I would never do that to you. I have boundaries.” She unbuttons her jeans and starts peeling them off.

“Haley!” I grab her arm. “Listen to me. This isn’t you talking. He’s in your head. Don’t let him do this.”

She shakes off my hand and continues pulling off her clothes until she’s standing on the beach in only a thin pair of black lace panties and matching bra she’s managed to keep hidden from her mom since she bought it at the mall three weeks ago. When she looks at me again, her face is almost wistful. “Why can’t you understand?” She looks over her shoulder at Austin. He stands in the firelight, smiling at her with his crooked grin, looking for all the world like a smitten boyfriend. “I love him. It’s not like before.”

The air turns colder, even as I push the wind away. It’s too cold.

“Haley.” Blake’s voice is smooth. He touches her shoulder, fighting fire with fire. She can’t look away from him. “Aren’t you cold?”

Haley blinks, a lost look in her eyes. “Blake?” Her arms come around her chest and she rubs her arm, finally feeling the chill in the air.

Too late, Austin realizes what’s happening. No longer content to sit back by the fire, he’s on us in three strides. Haley is already grabbing for her clothes and shivering.

“Good.” Blake keeps his voice low. “Get your stuff. We need to go home.”

The golden light that flares behind us is so bright we all turn at once.

A ring of gold surrounds a patch of darkness so black that it seems to swallow everything. The light-ring grows and changes shape until it forms the outline of a man. Not a man. A god.

The creature that stands before us is like nothing I’ve ever seen. It almost hurts to look at him. It’s not so much that he’s illuminated in sunlight as it is that he’s the sun itself. His light and heat shine on everything in his orbit. The cold air turns to a warm tropical breeze; hot waves dance along my skin. He’s wearing what looks like a suede cloth, draped across his chest and tied around his waist, barely covering him. His boy-band good looks, so approachable as a human, are now anything but. His face is chiseled—sharp lines cast in granite with the skill of a master, so perfect that it’s a shock when he flashes that crooked smile and my insides warm to an uncomfortable degree.

Haley drops her clothes in the sand and moves toward Austin, enchanted. She doesn’t even notice the silver flash behind her.

With Blake’s appearance, the beach is lit up like it’s high noon, silver and gold light attempting to outshine each other. Blake’s sword is drawn; his eyes watch Austin warily.

Austin holds out his hand to Haley and pulls her to him. She sinks into him, her eyes still huge. He strokes her hair as he whispers in her ear, and from a distance it almost looks like he cares about her. But I hear the last word he says as he pushes her away. “Swim.”

Haley turns her back on him and starts to walk toward the water. I grab her arm but she pulls away easily. “Leave me alone.” She starts to run.

A flash of lightning strikes right where Blake is standing. Blake disappears, before I can tell whether he’s been hit. I spin around, looking for him.

Austin’s laugh heats me through. It’s a stark contrast to the icy cold heart that beats inside him. “Who’s it going to be, Brianna? You can’t save them both.”

I call the wind, using it to blow Haley backward, doing what I can to keep her from making it to the water.

Blake appears with a flash to my right. “Go after Haley. I can take care of myself.”

“He can’t kill you,” I say, remembering Austin’s comment about not being able to interfere. “If he kills you, he’ll be banished to the underworld.”

Blake grins. “So it’s a win-win.” He disappears again as I run to Haley.

She’s fighting against the wind. It’s strong enough that she falls to the ground. She struggles to get on her hands and knees, crawling with tiny steps.

“Haley!” I call her name three times before I’m close enough for her to hear me in the howling wind. A sandstorm rises around us, beating us with a million tiny bits of pebble. I smell an odor on the wind again, a stagnant damp smell that reminds me of underground. I hold my breath but it’s too late—I already feel the air swirling in my lungs, coating my thoughts with a filmy drowsiness. Haley is a blur of movement as the wind stops.

I’m barely cognizant of her moving closer to the water; my mind is cloudy and dark. I just know that I have to stop her. It’s like walking in quicksand. My feet feel so heavy, it takes all my concentration to keep them moving forward. I know I can’t hold my breath much longer. I’m not even sure why I’m holding it in the first place. Then, just as I’m about to suck in a huge breath of air, my head clears. I push the wind away from me as quickly as I can before taking in big gulps of oxygen.

I hear the splash as Haley dives into the water. I call to the water, manipulating the waves to push her back toward the shore. I wade in until I’m almost waist-deep, reaching for Haley’s arm. She dives under just as I make contact. She slips away. Her hand pops out of the water a few feet closer to shore. I surge forward. She’s only knee-deep in water, but she’s still face-down, panicking. I grab her arm and pull her to her feet. She struggles against me, even as she’s coughing and choking, until she finally stops coughing long enough to get some air in her lungs. The air is fresh now, with no sign of the putrid odor that hung in it before.

When Haley looks at me, her eyes are clear and blue. She looks down at her wet, nearly naked form. “Brie?” Her voice is shaky. “What’s going on?”

There’s a clash of metal hitting rock, and we both look up to see our boyfriends-turned-gods facing off by the cliff wall.

I grab Haley’s arm. “Come with me!”

She doesn’t move at first, her eyes glued to the spectacle in front of us. “Is that … ?” She can’t bring herself to finish the sentence. “Oh. My. God.”

It is quite a sight. Two men, too beautiful for words, bathed in the light of the stars and the sun. They fight, the clang of their swords ringing out across the beach.

I grab Haley’s arm again and pull her away. We run along the beach until we’re far enough away that the night becomes dark again. I lead her up the path to the parking lot.

Joe steps out of a white convertible just as we come over the crest. He takes off his leather jacket and places it around Haley’s shoulders, ushering her into his car.

“Stay with Joe,” I say. “No matter what.” I calculate the odds of my coming back in one piece if I really try to banish Austin. They’re not so good. “If I don’t come back, don’t worry,” I tell Haley. “Austin won’t have any reason to hurt you.”

Haley nods, but her eyes are vacant, lost. “What about you?”

“I have something to take care of. Don’t worry. I can handle it.”

I have no idea if the words are true. It hardly matters. I can’t sit by and do nothing anymore. My days of being a scientific observer are behind me. It’s time to take action.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Of course.” I hug Haley close. “You’re my best friend.”

She hugs me back. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

I don’t know if she means my telling her everything, or being her best friend. It doesn’t matter. I plan to follow through on both.

There’s a flash and a large boom from down on the beach. I leave Haley in the car and run back down the path. I don’t stop running until I get to the firepit.

Austin stands behind Blake, his arm tightening around Blake’s neck. He holds Blake’s sword in his free hand. “You’re just in time,” he says to me.

Blake’s eyes plead with me. “Brianna, go back. He can’t kill me, right?”

“Is that so?” Austin runs the sword along Blake’s chest, drawing a thin line of blood.

Blake doesn’t flinch, but I feel the effort it takes for him to stay strong. The sharp stinging sensation ripples on my own skin. “It’s a trap, Brianna. Get out of here.”

Austin laughs. “A trap? For who? I have no intention of hurting her. You, however, are a different story.” The sword cuts deeper.

I fall to the ground as Blake does, the pain slicing through me, as real as if the sword were breaking through my own skin.

Austin’s golden voice carries across the sand, reverberating in my spine like a deep bass. “Do you feel his pain too? So sorry. I’m afraid it’s going to hurt quite a bit more before I’m through.”

Blake vanishes from Austin’s arms, and in a flash Austin is gone too. I push myself onto my hands and knees, still trying to get my bearings as the pain begins to ease. The next flash of light is behind me, farther up the beach. Blake is drawing Austin away. His silver light flickers as he struggles to reappear.

Austin appears in front of him, his back to me, sword raised. He thrusts the sword toward Blake’s heart. A killing thrust.

Before I can even think, I’m on my feet, consumed with fire. There’s a silver flash and a ball of blue flames dancing in the palm of my hand. I throw it at Austin’s back without a second thought. Just as the fire is about to hit its mark, there’s another, golden flash. Austin is gone.

The relief I feel, at the realization that his sword never made contact with Blake, lasts only a fraction of a second. Then my fireball takes the sword’s place, hitting Blake square in the chest.

My heart explodes in the same instant. It breaks into a million tiny shards, which rip through my body like jagged bits of shrapnel. Even as I scream, I plead with Blake to hang on. But he’s pulling away. There’s a tearing sensation so strong it’s as if my body is being torn from the inside out.

As my soul splits in two, everything goes black.