Page 20 of Rainse
"I want to know what's going on. Something is different. I want to make sure you're safe."
I swept my arms in a wide circle, then winced at the sharp pain in my ribs. "I'm on an island. Not in the water. I'm safe. So are you. Why risk going for a swim when there is no need?"
He turned toward me, the water swirling around his legs. “Because the sea doesn’t change without reason. I can feel it.”
“Feel it?” I crossed my arms, immediately regretting the movement when my ribs protested. “What does that even mean?”
He hesitated, searching for words. “The currents. The charge beneath the surface. Something is wrong.”
I frowned. The scientist in me wanted to challenge him—currents didn’t have emotions, they had patterns. But the fronds along his shoulders were shifting restlessly, catching the light like living ribbons. They responded to things I couldn’t sense, and that unsettled me more than I wanted to admit.
“You can’t fix the ocean,” I said, trying for humour. “Maybe it’s just having a mood swing.”
His lips curved faintly. “If the sea has moods, then this one feels angry.”
That sent a small chill down my spine. “Then come back out.”
“I will,” he promised, eyes scanning the water. “Once I know why it’s angry.”
I sighed, half annoyed, half impressed by his persistence. “Fine. Just—don’t get eaten or caught in a net or electrocuted or whatever it is that happens to Finfolk who ignore common sense.”
He looked back over his shoulder, that faint, maddening smile still in place. “We don’t get electrocuted. Usually.”
“That’s comforting.”
He took another step deeper, until the water reached his waist, greenskin shifting like kelp caught in a tide. “Stay on the shore,” he said quietly. “If anything happens, go to the rocks.”
“You’re assuming I’ll listen.”
“You won’t,” he said, not unkindly. “But I had to try.”
He waded deeper until the water reached his chest, then dove elegantly beneath the surface. For a few seconds, I could still see him—just the faint shimmer of his greenskin gliding through the clear water. Then he was gone.
The sea looked harmless enough from here. Calm, even. Gentle waves lapped at the sand, innocent as anything, sparkling in the light of the sun. But every time I’d thought the ocean was harmless, it had proved me wrong.
I sat down on a flat rock, wrapping my arms around my knees. He’d said he’d be back soon. He’d also said he wouldn’t get electrocuted, and I wasn’t entirely sure I trusted either statement.
The minutes dragged. I watched the water, scanning for any sign of him. Every flicker of light beneath the surface could have been him—or just sunlight bouncing off sand.
What if he didn’t come back?
The thought settled in my gut like a stone. If something happened to him, I’d be alone here. Completely alone. No rescue, no idea which direction to swim even if I could. My ribs ached just from breathing too deeply; I wouldn’t make it halfway to anywhere.
I should have felt angry at him for leaving me like this, diving headfirst into danger because the water felt different. But anger didn’t sit right. Not when I kept replaying the way he’d said I want to make sure you’re safe as if it mattered more than his own life.
Maybe that’s why I couldn’t stop watching the water, waiting for that flash of green. I told myself it was practical—if he drowned, I’d needed to know—but that sounded hollow even inside my head.
I tried to think like a scientist. If he was injured, maybe he’d drift toward the shallows. Maybe the current would bring him back here. Maybe?—
“Stop it,” I muttered. “He’s fine.”
The ocean didn’t care what I thought. It just kept breathing, slow and endless, like something alive.
The light changed, the sun dipping higher. Still no sign of him. My heart thudded painfully against my ribs, a dull echo of the pulse that had become too familiar—the one I sometimes felt in my chest when he looked at me for too long.
I pressed a hand to my sternum, as if I could quiet it. “You’re not connected,” I told myself. “You’re just losing it.”
A shadow moved beneath the water, far out by the darker reefs. Too large, too fast. I rose instinctively, scanning the waves.
