“It’s so bright,” I murmured, weirdly not afraid. How could I be? This was me. A part ofme. Even if I didn’t understand it yet.
“’Bout fucking time,” Ezra grumbled, and then took a sharp right.
I opened my eyes just in time to see someone side-swipe us and tackle Ezra to the ground. I flew off his shoulder and landed on the soft sand with a grunt of pain. We were near the parking lot, so fucking close, and I clambered to my feet and dove for a car.
I took refuge behind a large truck, my chest rising and falling like it couldn’t find the air to fill it. Frantic calls wondering where I went carried over the music still playing, but I listened harder to try and make out the grunts of Ezra fighting off whoever attacked us. Nothing. Daring to peek under the truck, all I made out were flip flops and bare feet running back and forth.
No tussling, and some of the stragglers even turned around and went in the opposite direction. A large hand landed over my mouth as I was pulled back against a muscled chest. Instinct made me scream before it registered that no one would hear it. Still, I kicked and fought whoever dared grab me, fighting against both my assailant and the nightmares this encounter drew from the depths of my mind.
“Shh, shh,” Ezra’s voice whispered in my ear. “It’s just me.”
When his words registered and I stopped trying to impale him with my elbow, he lifted his hand from my mouth. I immediately threw myself as far from him as I could while still being hidden behind the truck. Before I could lay into him for sneaking up on me like that, he closed the space between us once more and held a finger to his lips.
“You need to turn it off,” he demanded again. I’d never seen him look more serious, but I still didn’t take well to someone telling me what to do. Especially when it was obvious I didn’t know how.
“I’m not a fucking light switch!” I said, baring my teeth in a snarl. “I don’t even know how I’m doing this.”
He shook his head with a curse. “It must have been the ocean.”
“What?”
“I’ll explain later,” he replied, grabbing my hand and pulling me deeper into the parking lot. “But keep trying.”
The next hour was excruciating. We made our way from the beach, heading for the nearest safe location, my dorm, but it wasn’t a peaceful walk across campus. This damn siren bell, or whatever Ezra called it, hadn’t gone away, and it turned people we ran into all kinds of crazy. Cars drove up onto the sidewalk with their drivers hanging out the doors; people pressed against classroom windows until the glass cracked.
Ezra froze their tires, doorways, and even someone’s shoes. We ran again. Every quarter mile or so, he would freeze something large: a potted plant, a bench, a trash can. I flinched with each wave of magick, and he frowned. After a moment of silence, he reached out and grabbed my hand once more. His thumb rubbed a soothing stripe along my wrist, and I watched him follow the small movement.
“I’m sending off flares,” he said, gesturing at the most recent ice sculpture. “And leaving a trail for my cousin to follow.”
I nodded. It made sense. I couldn’t control my reaction to the feel of magick, but I appreciated him explaining it to me. We approached the main green space on campus, the only path left available from here to my dorm, and froze at the unexpected number of people before us. Crap.
Summer meant campus traffic. It meant people moving out of dorms and others just moving rooms. It meant ultimate frisbee and blankets for tanning. It meant giant-ass crowds outside, enjoying the weather and having a direct view of me. Which sucked because the second they saw me—
The first ear-splitting shriek came from the group of girls in bikini tops to our right. Then an answering call came from a dude passing by on his bike. Before I knew it, it was like a scene from 28 Days Later, with all the zombies running at me, and I just knew I was about to be ripped into itty bitty pieces. Would they fight over the chunks of me that were left, or stop once my head fell off my shoulders?
“Come on,” Ezra called, pulling on my hand until we were running.
The gardener's shed was the last barrier between us and the wide expanse of green space. An older building, it was well-maintained and had solid brick walls. The windows were small, and the door appeared solid. Ezra froze the doorknob and broke it with one strong twist. He pushed me inside, quickly followed, and slammed the door shut before grabbing anything he could to brace it.
I helped him drag the potter’s table over just as the first wave reached us. What sounded like hundreds of hands, but was probably only ten people, rained down on the tiny windows and shuddering door. We added bags of soil and mulch, large pots, and finally spare wooden beams to our barricade.
It held, and I let out a sigh of relief before sinking to the floor against the back wall. Ezra sat beside me, a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face. A chuckle bubbled past my lips, pure disbelief sustaining it. I wasn’t sure how long it would take until the group out there dispersed; maybe I’d have to hide in here until nightfall and sneak into my dorm. Either way, I was glad to finally have a chance to rest.
The rabid calls and pleading for me to come out were less disturbing the longer our barricade held, and eventually I tuned them out completely. I drew odd shapes on the dirty floor to pass the time, but grew bored with it, and I wasn’t really in the mood to start up a game of tic-tac-toe.
“Can you explain what’s happening to me?” I asked when I failed to come up with any other topic to pass the time. More than anything, that’s what I wanted to know.
Ezra glanced down at me and raised a brow at my stick figure interpretation of the hungry zombies outside. “I told you, it’s your siren call,” he said, like that told me all I needed to know. I huffed at the shitty explanation, and he continued with a good-natured grin. “It's the most powerful tool of your kind; incredible when used for the right reasons. When a siren uses their call, people are drawn to them—to varying degrees—but uncontrolled, the victims have been known to get a bit… manic.”
“Manic is a good word for it,” I muttered. The banging on the door tapered off, but now they’d resorted to scratching at the wood. Which was somehow worse. “I don’t even know how I’m doing it, and I can’t get it to turn off.”
He nodded, already accepting that I wasn’t going to be the one to get us out of this, and guilt grew within me. It was my fault he was here. Sitting this close, I made out several scrapes and bruises along his arms and shoulders. Who knew how many were hidden under his shirt? Each one of those marks was because of me. Because he protected me. God, and I was such a bitch to him earlier too.
When I first saw him at the party, I was pissed at my body's reaction. My heart stalled, and my chest tightened until I couldn’t breathe. He was gorgeous, and his playful smirk only made being attracted to him more dangerous. I knew his reputation. Too many of my sisters cried themselves to sleep after a single night with him. They always wanted more, but he’d already moved on to his next conquest.
I had him pegged as a player the first time I saw him, yet somehow, I found myself drawn to him over and over again. Through our interactions, I learned he was more than a silly boy unwilling to grow up. He was actually an honorable man, loyalto his friends and family, and serious when he needed to be. I wasn’t sure what exactly went on the night I was kidnapped—I was unconscious for most of it and blocked out the bits I was awake for—but something in him changed after.
If we were in the same room, I felt his eyes on me. His hands made their way to my skin at the slightest opportunity, and he drew me out of the rage-fueled shell I found myself trapped in, without even trying.
