Fire & Flood (Mythverse #1)

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

That night I have a terrible nightmare. I can’t breathe, like when I have an asthma attack but a hundred times worse. I realize I’m underwater. My grandmother floats by, her eyes vacant. She’s dead. I wake clawing at my throat. Dad finds me sobbing on the floor.

Inhaler in hand, he makes me take three deep breaths to calm my breathing.

“It’s okay, it’s just the medicine you’re taking. It gives you bad dreams.”

“It was so real.” I tell him. “I thought I was drowning. Grandma—”

“Your grandma is fine. She’s sleeping.”

He gets me back to bed and stays with me until I fall asleep again. It takes a while. The cold feel of the ocean is in my bones.

After a couple of days of rest I’m back to normal. It’s actually fun living on the beach with Grandma. She has a bunch of kooky friends. They beach walk every morning and knit in the afternoon. Although I think their knitting circle is just an excuse to day drink and gossip.

My dad and I start taking bus trips together. We go to historical sites and then find the best beach bungalows to eat seafood. It rains a lot, even for Florida, and Dad is terrified I’m going to catch a cold or worse again. He gets me a full body rain coat that is stifling in the humid Florida heat.

Every so often he oh so casually asks if I want to give Bronwyn or Toby a call and see if they want to come along. The first few times I mumble something about them being busy, but finally I can’t take it anymore.

“Dad, we’re not friends anymore. Okay? I have no friends. I am a social pariah. So let’s just go to the home of the world’s largest milkshake and make ourselves sick drinking them. Sound good to you?”

Of course, Dad being Dad, he couldn’t let it go. He waited until we were trapped on the bus together to ask, “Wanna tell me what happened?”

No, I really didn’t. How could I explain that I got drunk and kissed the star of the lacrosse team? A guy I’d been crushing on for two years. A guy who was currently dating someone else. But that’s not even the worst part. Our kiss gave him some sort of weird rash. All around his mouth and lips—even his tongue—it looked like he’d been burned or something. He told the whole school I’d given him gonorrhea. And then two other guys on the lacrosse team said I’d given it to them too.

Just like that, I wasn’t just a s**t. I was a dirty skank. Never mind that I’ve never had s*x with anyone. And that this was only, like, my third kiss. Not that anyone would believe that. My friends didn’t drop me so much as slowly back away, until they were just specks in the distance.

No one came to visit me during my week in the hospital. That’s when I realized this wasn’t going to blow over. I’d sorta nurtured a dream that Mom would love Greece so much she’d insist we stay and I’d finish out my last year of high school there. But that’s obviously not going to happen.

“Hey, Edie.” Dad nudges me. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’m a cool dad, remember?”

I laugh. My dad is such a huge dork.

I tell him an edited version of the story—minus the drinking and gonorrhea. And he says all the right things. How it takes two to kiss and how that boy was the one cheating on his girlfriend. Finally he kisses my forehead.

“You’re young. You’re allowed to make mistakes.”

And then we drink milkshakes so big we have to unbutton our pants for the bus ride back to Grandma’s.

Once a week we Skype with Mom and Mavis and it’s always the worst part of the week. Mavis is tan and glowing and has five different gorgeous Greek boys madly in love with her. She tells me about each one in great detail. Including the hot guy who was on the flight with her— Nico. If he’s anything to go by, Greece has the hottest boys on the planet.

Halfway through the summer, I start to dread Skype day. Mom never seems totally into it. It’s weird, almost like she’s nervous to stay on the line too long. I can tell it irritates Dad, but he won’t say anything to her about it, or at least not when I’m in the room. There are definitely some lowered tones when I walk away, but I try not to eavesdrop. If they’re fighting, that’s their thing.

I’m actually relieved one day when Dad says no one’s picking up. Dad freaks, though, and tries to connect five more times. Each time there is no answer he becomes more upset.

“They’re just busy,” I say. “Mavis probably has a new boyfriend and Mom—”

“No.” Dad cuts in, his voice sharp. “Your mother wouldn’t. We had a deal. She couldn’t miss a Skype. I didn’t want to worry that she’d gone missing.”

“Missing? Why would she go missing?” I stare at Dad. “What are you talking about?”

He blinks, as if seeing me and remembering I’m his daughter. “I meant if she got lost while sightseeing. I’m just…I’m going to call her cell. I’m sure it’s a time thing.” His phone is already in his hand as he speaks. There’s no way I’m getting any more answers out of him.

Later tonight we’re going to an all-you-can-eat place called the Shrimp Shack. I’ll ask him again on the bus about the Mom going missing thing. Being stuck in a confined space and questioned ruthlessly can work both ways.

Dad scrubs his face and mutters, “Not answering. Damn it.”

“Dad?” I ask. He doesn’t seem to hear me, too engrossed in whatever he’s typing into his phone.

Deciding to give him some space, I step out onto the balcony.

Grandma is already on the boardwalk with her friends. Even from the sixth floor she’s easy to spot with her bright orange sun hat.

“Hey!” I call out, waving to get their attention. One of her friends catches sight of me and nudges Grandma. Soon there’s five old people waving wildly.

I am still laughing when I see it.

My hands freeze in midair. Dogs in the condos all around us begin to bark madly. It’s like they can sense what’s coming.

A wall of water in the ocean.

“Grandma!” I scream. “Run!”

Sirens begin to wail. Grandma and her friends finally see what’s rolling in behind them and just stare in shock. Finally, they get moving, scrambling back toward the building. I lean over the balcony, watching as they disappear beneath the awning below.

From behind, strong arms wrap around me. My father pulls me away from the railing and yells, “We have to get higher up.” He jerks me back into the condo and then shuts the sliding glass door, flipping the flimsy lock—as if that will keep out what’s coming.

I can’t tear my eyes away from it. It’s a wave unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I could swear I see the shape of a person. A giant foamy head with leering mouth and two long arms reaching forward. I blink and shiver as two great watery hands slam against the beach.

The condo shudders.

We run to the condo doorway and I turn back in time to witness the wave’s face slam against the glass door. It shatters—shards of glass and water mixing as they tumble through the air—and time slows.

The glass flies toward me. I freeze, unable to move, once again proving Mavis’s theory that I’d be the first to die in a zombie movie. Closing my eyes, I scream; the sound burns and scrapes at my throat.

“Edie, c’mon,” Dad tugs at my hand.

I cough and a puff of smoke comes out of my mouth. The glass and water that had been flying at me are gone, leaving only wafts of steam.

I barely have time to process this as Dad grabs my shoulders and pulls me through the doorway. Water pools around our feet as we rush for the stairs. The sea rains down on us, the stairway becoming a river. The current is strong but Dad goes first to take the brunt of the force and I struggle behind him, using the railing to pull myself up.

When we reach the eighth floor, the water breaks—the wave must not have been this tall—and we tiredly make our way up to the top of the building and out onto the roof. The rooftop greenhouse gleams in the sunlight, but no one is inside. We’re the only ones up here. Are we the only ones who made it?

I collapse, drained, and Dad hugs me. “It’s okay,” he says as I shiver against him. “You’re in shock. You’re okay,” he repeats. He thought to grab my inhaler, or had it on him, and places it in my mouth.

“Deep breath,” he tells me.

I nod and inhale, letting the medicine open my lungs. I also let myself cry a little.

I come back to myself slowly. Where did that wave come from? Why was there no warning? What happened to my grandma and all her friends?

“Grandma!” I yell, struggling to my feet. I rush to the edge of the building.

“No, don’t look,” Dad yells after me, but I have to see.

I look out over Cape Athena and freeze. There’s water as far as the eye can see, with buildings poking out and cars bobbing to the surface.

The ocean has swallowed the land.