Windswept

2. Skin Deep-3

Jayce kneels and rummages through her bag.

“Here.” She tosses me a sweatshirt, and curls up like a cat on the bed she’s made, using her canvas bag as a pillow. I prop myself against the wall and watch the water flow downstream until I hear Jayce’s breathing slow. My forehead finds my knees. The burning trapped for hours in my eyes becomes liquid. I am in no frame of mind to beat it back, and the black of night will cover my tears if Jayce wakes.

Where do I go from here? Will Lucas still be held hostage in Vanessa’s house come daybreak? What else will they try to use against me? My mother is invisible. My father is dead. They already have Lucas. I’m forgetting something. I can feel it stirring in my skull, struggling to come forward. My brain is too spent and scattered. I can’t fit enough pieces together to find the remaining holes.

The stars fade and the night sky purples. Light is still at least an hour away, but all I can think of is yesterday’s sunrise; of the hope I clung to, convinced and painfully naïve. I can practically feel Lucas’s calloused hand and hear his promise to keep me safe. Above all else, I can’t shake the fact that I failed him the very first time I was tested.

I peer at Jayce. I may be safer in her company, but she is not safer in mine. Her strengths appear to lie in hiding, in gaining close proximity to an enemy undetected. The enemy knows I’m here, there’s no changing that. We can’t stay out of sight and free Lucas at the same time. If she comes with me to save Lucas, she might help, but it’s a bigger possibility that she’ll be hurt, captured, or worse. Accepting her help is akin to putting a target on her back.

I stretch my legs out in front of me. Nearby, Jayce stirs, drawing a hand over her heart as she rolls to her back. She’ll wake soon. The softening night bathes her striped face in lavender. Her skin is smooth with youth. I doubt more than a year or two separates our ages. I can imagine her walking down a high school hallway, her book bag slung on one shoulder, a devil-may-care expression on her face, the laces of a sneaker untied. I cannot imagine her walking into the doors of Vanessa’s house with any chance of leaving alive.

She can’t come with me.

I rise to my feet. Soreness lingers, but the sharp, biting pain has passed. I step to the wall of bramble and reach a hand inside. Pausing, I glance back at Jayce. If I wake her, she’ll come no matter what I say.

I pick up a twig from the ground and tiptoe to the bank. I write Lucas’s name in the dirt, and then underline it with the stick. I stuff my hands inside the sweatshirt. Maris’s vial rolls into my fingers, and my attention returns to Jayce. She bares her teeth in her sleep, and I squeeze the bottle of Tenix. I am 100 percent sure Jayce will try to find me the moment she sees where I’ve gone, and if she’s going to survive it, she’s going to need all the help she can get. She probably knows exactly how to use Tenix. She seemed less phased by casting a spell on the beach of a creek than a pop quiz. She might know more about the Unseen world and the Vessel prophecy that I do, but when it comes to Vanessa, she has no idea what she’s up against. At least with Tenix on her person, she will have some sort of bargaining leverage if she can’t conjure some kind of way out.

An exterior pocket on her bag is accessible, and her head is turned the other way. I ease the vial into the opening, move further downstream, out of Jayce’s earshot, and pass through the wall alone.