Page 1 of Ominous: Part 1
Prologue
Eden
Before
“You understandI would never do anything to hurt you, right, baby girl?”
I lift my head, my eyes locking on his dark green ones. I see the circle of black around his iris, shards of emerald glistening from the lights surrounding the pool. His icy fingers are splayed along my jaw, his thumb brushing over my mouth, and I don’t realize the significance of this moment until he points it out.
“I think it’s the first time you haven’t flinched when I’ve touched you, Eden.” There’s a roughness to his words, like he’s swallowing down an emotion.
My teeth start to chatter, and he smiles. His eyes rake down my body, clad in his sweatpants, the drawstring pulled tight. A hoodie, Trafalgar wrestling. Black, the letters are etched in an aqua blue. On the back, at the hem, is our motto just below a dragonfly.
Tempus edax rerum.Time devours all things.
Everything he owns overshadows me, and I used to worry he would eclipse me entirely. I’d disappear behind him, and he wouldn’t be able to find me. Or worse, he couldn’t care enough to look.
Now, I’m the sole object of his affection, and I. Am.Terrified.
But soon enough, it will be over. And that is the best and worst thing about being so close to Eli Addison.
Time devours all things.
He glances past me, toward the sliding glass door of his back porch. Does he know his dad is coming? Eli hates when he leaves, but he really can’t stand when he stays, either.
“Remember what we talked about that first night?” Eli asks, shifting his gaze back to me as he squats down at my feet, dropping his hand to my thigh. The sky is dark overhead, and I recall walking from the library after we first met, side-by-side. I remember thinking I had found someone who sees me.
I remember thinking I should run far, far away.
I was petrified. I think, on some level, he was too.
Our entire lives were about to change.Would I take it back?
He squeezes my leg, hard, as if dragging me back from inside my head. He’s tried to work on that for quite a long time.
I’m on one of the patio chairs, and it swivels, my green Vans slipping against the bottom rung. I can turn easily, my fingers clenched tight around the cold armrests. North Carolina’s Decembers shouldn’t be this cold, but before the clouds set in, I watched little flakes of snow drift toward the pool, the cover still retracted this late in the season.
Glancing past Eli, I see the blue-green surface illuminated by underwater lights.
We spent a lot of time in there.
He would duck under, again and again, while I timed him holding his breath.
I tried it once, too.
The first time he invited me to his house, and he showed me his favorite hobby, I was scared. For the very first time, something he did truly unnerved me.
Maybe that was all the start of the end.
“I won’t die, Eden.”
Bringing me back to this moment, another lifetime it feels like, he asks, “I think you might’ve been happy then. But you’ve just been low, haven’t you?”
It’s true. I have. I nod once, thinking of when I was high. When I could fly, and when we were both in the clouds.
Slowly, he turns away from me, staring at the glittering ink of the pool. I think this boy belongs in the water. If he ever does die, if he ever goes back on his word, it just might be the water that kills him.
His hand tightens again on my thigh, like he’s holding on. Like I’m a lifeline.
