Awaken (17 page)

Not that I wanted it. Not if that nightmare
was waiting for me.

Shifting my shoulders against the cold still
clinging to me, I pulled open the bedroom door and slipped into the
hall with my clothes bundled beneath my arm. I changed in the
bathroom and folded my pajamas, leaving them in a small pile by the
door for lack of anything else to do. I didn’t want to wake anyone
by heading back into the bedroom.

The first floor was still, and Peter and
Diane’s door was closed. My stomach growled, the sound loud in the
silence, and wincing, I made my way to the kitchen. I’d been too
nervous to eat much of anything yesterday, and my body seemed
finally ready for me to make up the difference. Thankfully, Diane
had brought food in a cooler when we came up here. I grabbed the
milk and cereal, and then hunted through the cabinets for a bowl.
Breakfast made, I returned to the living room and sank onto the
couch.

Sunlight spread through the room as I ate,
the golden beams filtering past the windows that stretched up the
height of the wall, all the way to the pinnacle of the room’s
cathedral ceiling. Setting my empty bowl aside, I pulled my legs up
and then hugged them to my chest as I watched the pink and blue
morning.

The steps creaked.

I turned. At the top of the stairs, Noah
paused. For a moment, he studied me, almost as if deciding what to
do, and then slowly, he walked down to the living room.

“Morning.”

I swallowed nervously. “Hey.”

He glanced to his parents’ bedroom, and then
came over to the couch. “Sleep okay?” he asked me as he sat
down.

I shrugged a shoulder, watching him. He
appeared cautious, as if he was picking his words and actions like
they were patches of land in a minefield, but he didn’t looked
nearly as freaked out as I’d expected.

Which was odd.

“You?” I asked warily.

He nodded, his gaze on his hands.

A moment crept by.

“So,” he said. “First visit to the
ocean.”

My brow drew down. It almost seemed like
there was a question in the statement.

He glanced up at me and I nodded. Echoing the
motion, he dropped his gaze to his hands again. “Quite a trip then,
I guess.”

I didn’t know how to respond.

He drew a breath. “When I was little, my
grandfather used to tell me stories. History, he called it. But
they were stories of people who weren’t quite like everyone else.
People who had… abilities.” He looked up at me again. “Abilities
like making their eyes glow in the dark.”

I trembled.

“They loved the ocean, my grandfather said.
So much that they couldn’t be apart from it. And if they tried…
it’d draw them back. It was their home, you see. They couldn’t
really leave it.”

Noah paused. “He called them dehaians.”

My arms tightened around my knees, and then I
flinched as my skin started to sting. Panicked, I moved to tuck my
arms behind my legs.

Noah reached out, his fingers coming to rest
on my wrist.

I froze.

“It’s alright,” he said.

The spikes crept from my forearms. He watched
them, not moving away.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

Noah’s gaze dropped briefly. “A guy whose
grandfather told him a lot of stories.”

“But why…” I tried, trembling as the spikes
grew longer. “Why aren’t you…”

His mouth tightened and he seemed to struggle
through the minefield again, finding the words. “Because sometimes
the stories are real, and that’s okay.”

My brow furrowed.

“Just take a breath,” Noah told me. “He said…
he said those were your defenses. Some of them. And if you calm
down, I bet they’ll go away.”

I hesitated, and then pulled in a shaky
breath. The spikes started to retreat.

“You’re safe here, Chloe. I…” He nodded,
almost as if to himself. “I promise.”

The spikes disappeared into my arms. He took
his hand from my wrist.

“You doing okay this far from the ocean?” he
asked.

For a moment, I stared at him, shaken by the
reality that someone knew the truth and was fine. Not freaking. Not
pressuring me to go into the water.

Just treating me like I was normal, and being
fine.

“It’s not so bad here,” I whispered.

A smile flickered across his face and he
nodded. “Good.”

The bedroom door upstairs opened. Carrying
her clothes, Baylie started toward the bathroom and then spotted
us.

“Hey there.” She paused. “Everything
alright?”

I nodded. “Yeah,” I replied, feeling like for
the first time in a while, the answer was mostly true.

She looked between us. “Okay,” she allowed,
appearing a bit unconvinced. Eyeing us uncertainly, she walked into
the bathroom.

Noah watched her go, and then glanced back to
me. “So,” he said, his voice low. “If you’re doing good here, then
you want to do something like people on a regular vacation would?
Go hiking, maybe?”

I gave a small laugh, the sound lost
somewhere between relief and incredulity. “That’d be nice.”

He grinned. “Alright, then,” he said, humor
in his green eyes. “A regular vacation it is.”

~~~~~

“So when do you guys want to take a break?”
Baylie called as we headed up the next slope of the trail.

I looked back. The narrow dirt track
stretched behind us, twisting in a slow decline down the hillside.
Trees sheltered part of the path, and the sunlight cast dark
shadows from their branches. At Baylie’s heels, Daisy kept pace,
panting in the heat of the bright summer day.

“There’s a nice stretch of the river up
ahead,” Maddox offered, hefting the cooler bag higher on his
shoulder. “We could do lunch there?”

“Yeah, okay,” Baylie agreed.

I kept walking. She sounded tired and hungry,
and really, I should have been as well. I’d barely slept last night
and we’d been hiking for the better part of three hours, winding
our way through the trails near the Delaneys’ cabin. But something
about the fresh air and brilliant blue sky just felt so wonderful,
I couldn’t help but keep moving.

Noah glanced back at me as he crested the
slope ahead. I blushed and looked away, my heart picking up
speed.

And then there was that.

A smile pulled at my mouth as he continued
on. I hadn’t expected it to feel this great, having him know what
was going on. He was so calm about the whole thing, so
normal
. It was unbelievable, and more than a little
exhilarating.

Even if I worried it couldn’t last.

Biting my lip, I climbed over the top of the
hill and continued down the slope to the next turn of the trail. I
didn’t
think
he’d told his brother or parents anything, and
from the way Maddox was acting, it really seemed like Noah hadn’t.
But I wasn’t certain I could ask him to stay quiet on the subject.
In my family, it wouldn’t have been a big deal for me to keep
things from my mom and dad. I spent most of my time doing that
anyway.

But it didn’t take a genius to see that the
Delaneys were different. Closer than my family had ever been.

I just wasn’t sure how I felt about anyone
else knowing what was going on.

The trail led around a curve and then opened
onto a flat stretch of riverbank. As Daisy ran ahead of us to the
water, I followed the guys to the shade of the trees, where Maddox
was opening the cooler bag while Noah spread out a picnic
blanket.

“So,” Baylie said as Maddox fished the food
from the bag, “how’s college going?”

Maddox handed us both sandwiches. “Not bad.
My psych TA from this past semester was a real nutcase,
though.”

“Well, there’s some irony,” Baylie
observed.

“Yeah, no kidding. He kept insisting we study
nine hours a day because, you know, we were in college now, so we
needed to suck it up or whatever.”

“Seriously? What, was this a class for grads
or something?”

He shook his head. “Just a one-hundred level.
I was only taking it because I needed the gen-ed credit.”

“Oh, good grief.”

“I think he believed it was his mission to
toughen us up for college or something. Weed out people who, I
don’t know, he thought were there for the wrong reasons.”

“Like getting a gen-ed credit.”

“Apparently.”

I looked at the river as they kept talking.
The water here didn’t have the same pull on me as the ocean – maybe
because it was freshwater rather than salt. But the current was
beautiful as it swept around the rocks, and the sound of the river
provided a background to everything the others were saying.

“So’d you stay in the class?” Baylie
asked.

“Yeah. Somebody complained to the department
head, and he talked to the guy. Made him calm down a bit.”

“Wow. The other TAs aren’t like that though,
right?”

I kept eating, half-listening as the
conversation continued. Maddox had started at USC about two years
prior, and Baylie fully intended to go there as well. I did too,
for that matter, if only to stay close to her and get near the
ocean at the same time.

Though now that I thought about it, I
wondered if college would even be a possibility for me.

The others finished their lunch, and Maddox
rose to rinse the cooler bag out in the river. Still talking to
him, Baylie stood and followed, calling Daisy back toward her as
she went.

“You doing alright?” Noah asked as they
walked off.

I nodded. “Just wondering about college.”

He hesitated. “Where are you planning on
going?”

I glanced to him. His face was so carefully
neutral, it made my heart pound. “USC. Or, you know, somewhere like
that. If I get in, anyway.”

“Huh,” he commented.

Silence fell between us for a moment.

“That’d work, you know,” he offered casually,
his attention on the river. “With the coast being so close and
everything. And maybe, if you wanted, you could even come by Santa
Lucina from time to time.”

A smile pulled at my lips and I felt myself
starting to blush. “I’d like that.”

He nodded, keeping his gaze on the water,
though his lip twitched as well. On the shore, Maddox had finished
with the bag, and was now standing with Baylie, discussing pointers
for campus while Daisy investigated the nearby bushes.

Seconds slid past. Absently, I played with
the edge of the picnic blanket, trying to figure out how to ask the
question without ruining the moment.

“So,” I started, “have you told anyone? You
know, about me?”

Noah didn’t respond. I glanced at him.

Expression fading from his face, he watched
his brother. “No, not yet.”

I hesitated. “Could you maybe not?”

He looked over at me.

“I don’t want people treating me like a
freak,” I explained awkwardly.

“They won’t.”

“But–”

“Really. My dad, my brother, we all grew up
with my grandfather’s stories. Even Diane has heard them. And we’re
not…” He trailed off, as though changing his mind about the words.
“It’d be better if they knew. Better for you, better for me. I
don’t want to lie to them, and you…” He grimaced. “I heard the crap
that guy was yelling at the house. ‘Landwalker’. That’s not
something your average intruder says. So he’s one of them, isn’t
he? Both him and that Jesse guy.”

I hesitated, and then nodded.

“Do you have any idea why they’re after
you?”

I shook my head.

He sighed. “It’d help if my family knew about
you. Knew what we were dealing with.”

Discomfort moving through me, I dropped my
gaze to the picnic blanket.

“You’re not a freak, Chloe,” he said quietly.
“It’s hard, finding out you’re not quite what you always thought
you were. But you’re not a freak.”

I looked back up at him. He almost sounded
like he understood.

“Maybe think about it?” he asked.

I nodded.

Doing the same, he glanced to the river.
Baylie was laughing at something Maddox had said.

“Does she know?” Noah asked.

“No,” I admitted.

He looked back to me.

“I tried to tell her, but I just… I didn’t
know what to say,” I explained. “I don’t really know anything about
this.”

“’Hi, I’ve just discovered spikes growing out
of my arms. How are you?’”

A laugh escaped me. “Yeah. Something like
that.”

“Are you going to?”

My stomach twisted and I grimaced. I’d meant
to. Planned to. Knew I should. And yet…

“You’re not a freak, Chloe.”

“Says you.”

He reached over, putting a hand to my arm.
“You’re not.”

I watched him for a moment, and then managed
a nod.

“So,” he started, a touch of awkward
curiosity in his tone. “Have you ever… you know…”

He made a small gesture toward my legs.

I shifted uncomfortably on the blanket.
“No.”

He looked a bit surprised, but he said
nothing as he returned his attention to Maddox and Baylie.

I hesitated. “I’m kind of scared to.”

Noah glanced back to me.

“It’s just…” I grimaced, wanting to explain
even if I didn’t know how. “It’s terrifying, the idea of that
happening. Me, changing into some
thing
. My legs just being…
being
gone
. I know it sounds great on paper, being able to
swim through the ocean like that or something, but…” I shook my
head. “I don’t want it. Any of it.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad once you tried?”
he offered.

My shoulders rolled at the thought. “I don’t
want it,” I said again.

His brow furrowed, but he just nodded.

Maddox and Baylie left the riverbank and
walked over to us.

“You both about ready to go?” Maddox
asked.

Noah nodded. We stood, and I helped shake out
the blanket before we packed it away. Maddox swung the empty cooler
bag onto his shoulder and in only a few moments, we were back on
the trail.