Awaken

coming over his head. “What?”

I didn’t know whether I wanted to grab him by those wide, muscular shoulders and kiss him or shake the living daylights out of him.

“Why are you undressing?” I asked.

“Pierce, there isn’t much time,” he said, sitting down at the edge of the dock. “You’re a skilled rider. You should be able to handle Alastor without any problem. He’s not really as wild as he acts. He’s simply not used to polite society. He only needs a little taming.” Bending over to unlace his tactical boots, he glanced up at me from beneath some of the long dark hair that had tumbled across his eyes. “A bit like his owner, as you keep assuring me.”

I shook my head again. “How could you know anything about my riding skills? You’ve never seen me on a horse. I used to ride back in Connecticut, but you couldn’t possibly have seen me then, because you and I weren’t —”

My voice trailed off. Together, was what I was going to say, until I remembered that just because we hadn’t been together didn’t mean he hadn’t been watching me … or watching over me, as I’m sure he’d have preferred to think of it. Death deities couldn’t always be counted on to follow modern social niceties, such as “Don’t spy on people.”

Remembering how often I’d eavesdropped on my parents, I realized humans couldn’t always be counted on to follow this rule, either, so I didn’t hold it against him.

“John,” I said. “Why are you taking your shoes off?”

He’d neatly folded and draped his shirt across his boots, lined up side by side next to the closest post.

“I don’t want to get them wet,” John explained matter-of-factly, climbing to his feet. “Here, take care of this for me while I’m gone, will you?” He passed me his tablet. “I know you don’t need it — you have your own. But maybe your cousin could use it … or your friend Kayla. That way she won’t have to keep shouting across the beach at Frank ….”

I assumed he was joking. I remembered a time when he never joked, just brooded, and could only attribute the change — like the fact that refreshments and blankets were now being given out along the docks — to my influence.

But I was going to have to teach him that there was a time for jokes and a time to be serious, and now was a time for the latter. The sight of his clothing stacked into such a tidy pile made my pulse stagger. After my friend Hannah had died, I’d spent a lot of time online, researching suicide. I’d wanted to figure out how she could have done what she’d done, only realizing later that I wasn’t going to find the answer on a website.

One thing I did learn, though, was that people who take their own lives by leaping off bridges and cliffs often leave small stacks of belongings next to the place from which they jumped, things they feel they won’t need in the afterlife, such as their shoes, eyeglasses, and wallets. The police called them suicide piles.

The sight of John’s shirt and shoes piled up like that — not to mention the fact that he’d given me his precious tablet — instantly reminded me of those piles.

“Where are you going that you think you don’t need it?” I asked John, thrusting the tablet back at him. “And why do you think you’re not coming back?”

“Of course I’m coming back.” John tucked the tablet into the tight sash of my gown, next to my cell phone. His smile was reassuring. “I told you. I’m going to fix this.”

“How?” I demanded, my voice beginning to rise. “By sacrificing yourself for everyone else, exactly like in my dream?”

He stared down at me, confused, the smile wavering a little. “What dream?”

“Remember that morning I woke up in your arms, crying? It’s because I dreamed about how you died,” I said. “I was on the Liberty. There was nothing I could do to save you. I watched you drown.”

It was the first time I’d admitted to him that I’d known every detail of the stormy night he’d been thrown overboard from the deck of the Liberty: how he’d been left to be tossed about on the waves as punishment for the crimes he’d committed at sea: mutiny … and murder. Even though he’d committed those crimes for a very good cause — to save the lives of his fellow crewmates, Henry, Frank, Mr. Graves, and Mr. Liu — he’d still been found guilty in the eyes of the law … and apparently in the eyes of the Fates as well.

But knowing they hadn’t felt guilty enough to let him die — they’d granted him the gift of eternal life, after all — hadn’t made my dream any less horrifying … or the fact that during it, it had felt as if someone had carved out my heart and thrown it, still beating, into the waves after him.

Now it appeared that nightmare was about to be reenacted while I was awake.

“Pierce,” he said.

He attempted to raise his hands — to touch my face, I suppose — but I wouldn’t allow it. If he touched me, I’d shatter like glass.

“Admit it,” I said, my voice gruff with emotion. “I’m about to watch you drown all over again. You’re going to go out there and try to stop those boats from wrecking. Isn’t that how you got yourself killed the last time? It’s what you do.”

“No,” he said. He seemed to be having a hard time suppressing a smile. “Because I can’t die. I already did and came back, remember?”

“You can still be hurt,” I reminded him. Now I did touch him, but only to hold up one of his own hands to show him his knuckles, thick with scars.

“True,” he said. His eyes were glinting way too brightly. “But I heal very quickly, remember? And someone has to try to stop them.”

“You said there’s no way to slow them down at that speed.” Icy tendrils of dread began to squeeze my heart. “So what good is it going to do if you try?”

“I didn’t say slow them down.” I recognized the glint in his eyes. It was the same dangerous look John always got right before he was about to do something reckless. “I said I’m going to try to stop them.”

I sank my fingernails into his hand. “John. No.”

“Pierce, it’s the only way,” he said. The dangerous gleam grew into another one I recognized: stubbornness. He was going whether I liked it or not. “At least I can protect the docks.”

“But what about you?” Cold slivers of dread now arced out from my heart to travel down my spine. “Who’s going to protect you?” I nodded to my diamond. I didn’t dare release his hand to point at it, for fear he might disappear. “My necklace — you saw what it does to Furies. Take me with you. I can kill them.”

His fingers were already slipping away from mine, despite how tightly I’d held on to them.

“I know you can, my bloodthirsty little love,” he said, his grin wider than ever. “The problem is that the Furies know it now, too.” Instead of moving away from me, he wrapped his arm once more around my waist, drawing me close to his bare chest. “The last place you should be is out here in the open where they can find you. You’re our weapon of last resort. We can’t afford to lose you.”

I looked up at his lips, hovering just inches above mine. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed those lips until they were as close as they were now. I could feel the heat from his thighs through the thin material of my dress, the strong sinews in his arms beneath my hands.

“I’m the one who can’t afford to lose you,” I said.

“But I can’t die,” he reminded me. “I only know what it’s like to feel dead inside. That’s how I felt until the moment you appeared on this beach … remember? You marched up to me and started telling me how unfairly you thought I was treating everyone. That’s when I started feeling alive again for the first time in … well, a long time. That’s why it hurt so much when you left —”

“Why do you have to keep bringing that up?” I asked. His close proximity was making me feel a little breathless. “I’ve apologized a million times for throwing that tea in your face —”

“Because that was my fault. I didn’t handle that situation, or others involving you, in the” — he searched for the word he wanted — “gentlemanly fashion I should have. But I swore if I got a second chance, I’d make it up to you. It hasn’t been easy. Sometimes it’s seemed as if I’d lost you. That made me feel dead again inside.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off his lips. “So then why are you in such a good mood?”

“Because,” he said. He was holding me so close, I could feel his own heart beating against mine, strong and steady. “I think I have the answer to my question.”