Page 37 of The Rising Tide
“But first,” Scout prompted, “let’s go see who can see what at Tom’s bench.”
He let Lucky lead the way, but Lucky made sure to keep his hand the entire trip. When they got there, Scout found he was clutching it tightly. He wanted to do this. The prospect of finding new magic, of solving the mystery, was exciting like he never thought it could be. But he wanted what came afterward too.
He wanted to hold Lucky’s hand—hold Lucky’s body—on the couch in front of the television again.
He wanted more kisses.
All those furtive years, dreaming of things he wasn’t supposed to have, and here he was holding the hand of a magnetic, interesting man who seemed especially protective of Scout himself, and they didn’t have time to hold hands?
It wasn’t fair.
Which was why, as they drew near the clearing, he pulled Lucky aside to allow the living to invade the spirit trap while he and Lucky… took a breath.
A breath that involved Scout’s mouth on Lucky’s and Lucky’s sharp, happy intake of breath welcoming the kiss. The others were looking around the clearing itself, checking out the bench and the view while Marcus told them what he knew of the place—which was the same thing that Scout knew—and Scout was… lost.
Lucky put his hands on Scout’s hips and drew him closer before twining his arms around Scout’s neck. Scout plundered his mouth, pulling in everything he knew about kissing and learning from the things Lucky was trying to teach him. Finally they had to come up for air, and Scout balanced his forehead on Lucky’s.
“Is this normal?” he panted. “I seem to want you alot. Like, an unreasonable amount. Do people crush like this?”
Lucky whimpered. “You think I know? I spent my whole life trying not to want somebody like this. I figured eventually I’d get a kiss and a blowjob and all the good stuff, but I didn’t think it would feel so… so….”
“Huge,” Scout breathed. “Necessary. I thought like, maybe, getting chocolates. That was nice. I could get behind candy. But I don’t need candy to breathe!”
“I never thought I’d kill anyone who wanted my candy,” Lucky mumbled before taking Scout’s mouth again.
This kiss was even more frantic, more urgent, and Scout ran shaking hands through Lucky’s collar-length hair, suddenly wondering how he’d never known he could need somebody like this. Marcus’s voice, calling them both over, was the only thing that kept them from sinking into the foliage and Scout finding out what else he’d been missing, stuck in a compound with fifty of his closest family members, very few of whom wanted to be there with him.
“Come—erm, on our way,” Scout replied weakly, and Lucky’s broken chuckle reassured him. He wasn’t the only one who wanted quiet time alone together. Good. They could do this, he thought, as long as there was being together at the end to look forward to.
He and Lucky stepped through the boundary that marked the clearing, and a frisson of something… dire swept up Scout’s spine.
He turned to Lucky, who frowned and nodded. “I felt it too. I never noticed that when I was here before.”
“He’s right,” Helen said, prowling the nooks and crannies of the clearing. She walked through where the two lovers had been recoiling from violence and stopped, shivering. “Whatever was here that is keeping these spirits locked in their pattern, it’s gotten stronger since I first came to the island.”
Scout and Lucky exchanged glances, and then they both looked at Kayleigh, Piers, and Larissa.
“Us,” Piers said, musing. “I mean, it might notbeus, but… well, it’s kind of obvious. We’re all running from something here, right? And that’s got to carry an energy with it. Hiding from—well, in our case, evil.”
“Oh yeah,” Lucky said, nodding.
“Alistair qualifies,” Kayleigh said on a snort.
“So,” Scout mused, “either we all attracted evil to this place or we activated the thing that traps energy—”
“Aren’t you the optimist,” Helen said, obviously skeptical.
“I don’t think of myself as a receptacle of evil!” Scout defended. “I haven’t done anything wrong! Lucky hasn’t either! Piers and Larissa are the definition of victim here.” He crossed his arms and glared at the older woman, who pursed her lips and nodded.
“You’re right,” she said on a sigh. “You are. None of you deserve to be running from something. None of you deserve to be pursued by forces that want to harm you. I came here because I needed to renew my faith—in people, in the world at large—and you all just saw my saltier side, I’m afraid. Carry on, Scout. You were doing some first-rate logic there, and I shouldn’t have interrupted.”
To Scout’s surprise, Marcus reached out his arm for her, and as private as they’d seemed to be, she went, allowing him to draw her against his side as though they’d been married for years and years.
“Look who can learn,” he mocked gently, and she gave him an annoyed look.
Scout wanted to know more, wanted to know their history, how they’d come to be here on this small tidal paradise. But that wasn’t for now. Now was for figuring out the spirit trap on the island and seeing if the thing that kept the spirits in was also the thing keeping the bad forcesout.
“Last night, when I was, uhm,luredout here, for lack of a better word, there were two things working,” he said, pacing. “One was… well, benign, I guess. It was known as a Wisp, and its job has always been to take people to safety. Except the Wisp didn’t take me to safety—or at least it didn’t take me to a place that was safe forme. I ended up here, and there was a big dark force wrapped around this place that really didn’t want me here. So I want to see what everyoneelsesees. Maybe with some more eyes, we can figure out what forces are working outside the clearing, and maybe get a better idea of what’s workinginside.”
