Page 30 of Angel of Water & Shadow

“Saved me? Oh please, you ran into me on a train trestle at midnight.” I resisted the urge to march towards him and poke him in the chest, deflate it a bit. “Do you even know my name?”

He rocked on his heels and for a beat looked away before settling into stillness again.

I scoffed. Of course, he didn’t know my name. He hadn’t asked. He hadn’t cared. “It’s River.”

“River.” He repeated it purposeful, slow, like he was savoring it on his tongue. Ending with a softer R than a local would say. British, maybe? The accent faded the more he spoke. “Well, if it weren’t for me, you’d either have walked off a trestle by now or been flattened by a car. You could just say thank you.”

“Neither of those situations called for you to fly in like Superman.” I combatted his glare with my own. “Is that your thing? Because if it is, I’m the wrong girl. I’m not helpless, it’s called an episode. I can’t control it—neither can you. But I guess you got to be the hero after all. So…thanks.”

Ryder’s look hardened. “I’m anything but a hero.”

Something in his face told me he was done with this conversation. Well good, ’cause so was I. Without a goodbye, he stepped backwards. It didn’t take long for him to blend in with the shadows, unfurling at his shoulders as if they might become wings and he’d take flight. Not even halfway down the street, he disappeared altogether.

By the time the adrenaline started to thaw my frozen muscles, my lungs worked to catch up on that whole intake-of-oxygen thing. Then again, I imagined his arrogance would leave anyone breathless.

A loud bang came from the construction site on the other side of the alley. Flinching, I turned towards the sound but held firm where I was standing. There was a solid chance Ryder was messing with me and I wouldn’t indulge him, no way.

I squinted into the darkness, trying to find the source of the noise in the vacant pile of beams. “Ryder?” I called. “I know you’re there!”

There was no sign of him.

Kneading the raised flesh on my arms, I continued towards my original destination—the bus stop—when I heard it again. Another crash, this time closer. As in right next to me, just beyond the screen-in fence. Was he following me again? I didn’t wait to find out.

“This isn’t funny,” I said as I increased my pace and ran towards the main road. The beep of swiping metro cards was music to my ears, even as hydraulics lifted the vehicle away from the curb, ready to depart.

I’d be damned if I didn’t join the last group of people stepping onto the platform for final boarding—I was over this. The freezing air choked me as I shifted into a sprint, and even though the succession of crashes from whatever pursued me grew hot on my tail, I didn’t look anywhere but forward.

Ignoring the driver’s scowl, I waved my hand between the doors before they could seal shut, then darted to the very back. When the bus finally lurched forward, I pressed a hand below my collarbone to slow my thundering heart.

Collapsing into a sweaty rumpled slump in the gray plastic chair, I rested my head against the window and stole a glance at the unlit concrete. I assumed this’d been the work of Ryder, just to mess with me, until a pair of glowing red eyes glowered back from among the beams. I blinked and they disappeared. Or had they even been there?

A more ominous idea formed—maybe my brain was progressing from hearing things to feeling things—to seeing things.

My muscles trembled, and my heart leapt so fast it felt like it would bruise my rib cage.

The stuffy heat inside the bus compartment wrapped around me as the construction site disappeared into the distance. With my appendages now thawed and working, I unzipped my backpack and crowned myself with my headphones. Sweat lined my fingers, staining the screen as I pressed play.

The melancholic guitar riff temporarily washed away whatever I was running from. Fear. Reality. My own fucking mind. I wasn’t even sure what I was trying to escape anymore. Because the Voices had already escaped me, and I never thought they’d do it—pick up and leave.

But they did—they had abandoned me.

I pressed my palms into my eye sockets, then brought my fingers to my mouth until I bit the little nail growth I had back to nubs. Chewing, chewing, chewing, like every sliver of keratin I spat was one more worry I shed.

Where were the Voices? Better yet…what were they? Something more than a figment of my grief? Something that summoned sprites and red eyes and invisible flames…? I bit the inside of my cheek—it was a question that’d hovered on the tip of my conscious, but I’d never allowed myself to fully think it. Because that would mean…so many things.

So many things I didn’t dare tackle yet.

The next song riffed through my headphones, slowly diffusing my tension as the acoustic strings lured my paranoia into a slumber. Two of the Voices had returned earlier. Well, tried to. Hints of their inflections had lined the sounds in the alley, but they came out low, mumbled, like a hand covered their mouths to prevent them from speaking.

I wanted to say it was for the best—that three’s company, and four’s a crowd. That the missing one, the third, the most brash and resolute that they were better off without me, was the one I could do without. But I couldn’t, even if I’d told them otherwise during our fight at Grad Night.

Something leaden weighed over my heart. My necklace. I balanced the pendant in my palm, pinching its raised pattern into my skin, a tide of calm washing through me.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’d reach inside the darkest, hollowest parts of my skull and figure out what happened to the Voices—what was happening to me.

I yawned past a growing, gnawing concern that I’d likely have to visit my most forbidden memory. I didn’t have enough brainpower for that, not after this hellish evening.

For now, I let the bus rock me and my eyes grew heavy, even as unease prickled alongside my limbs that had already fallen asleep.

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