The pebbly bottom bumped against my back. I swallowed my breath, and sharp pains stabbed through my chest. Need air. But I was safe here. For now. How much longer could I stay underwater?
Not long. My lungs burned, reaching capacity, and panic squeezed my insides.
I kicked until my face breached the surface. Gulping for each inhale, I gasped and choked while scanning the sky and shore, blinking rapidly to clear my vision.
The Drone wasn’t there.
Water splashed at my back. My heart stopped. I wasn’t alone? The splashing grew dizzyingly closer. Before I could turn around, arms came around my waist from behind. I was seconds from swinging a punch, but the moment of fear gave way to the soothing warmth of a familiar body.
“Evie. Shhh.” Jesse’s voice wrapped around me in soft, raspy echoes. “You’re okay.”
I clutched the arms around my waist as a wave of questions rushed up my throat and poured out in waterlogged chokes.
He hugged me tighter and rubbed a hand over my spine. “Cough it out. There you go.”
After a few more wheezing spasms, I managed a quiet breath. “Did you see him?”
“Who?” He twisted me around and pulled me up against the wall of his bare chest, his hands clenching against my head and back. “I saw…” His chin tilted up, eyes on the sky. “I don’t know. A huge fucking stork?”
Definitely not a stork. Did that mean the Drone was alive? Was he still here? I clung to Jesse’s neck, shoving my arms beneath the bow and wrapping my legs around his thighs. I wasn’t wearing clothes, but he didn’t push me away. Instead, he moved a hand around my waist, holding my body against his, while the other cupped the side of my head.
His gaze landed on mine and widened. “Jesus, what happened to your face?” He swiped his thumb over my cheek.
I flinched. “The Drone. He was here.”
His expression blanked. “You crossed over?”
“He fucking hit me. How can a dead guy do that?”
I’d tried to make physical contact with Annie and Aaron once, but my fingers just waved through their airy forms.
“He can’t. Spirits are just lingering memories holding on. They can’t hurt you.” He padded around the swelling egg. “Not like this. You must have slipped, hit your face on a rock.”
His words didn’t match the horror creeping across his face.
“He flew at me, Jesse. With swinging claws.” I glared at him. “Claws he didn’t have when he died. And I didn’t mistake the punch across my face.” I sucked in a breath, knowing he needed a few moments to work through his denial. “Do you think—?”
“We watched him die.” His tone was low, his eyes hard as they darted up to the dusky expanse of sky.
“We watched him fall.”
I’d stabbed a knife in his chest as he stumbled backward into the canyon. Could he have flown out of sight and missed the lava? His face was burned, but his hair wasn’t singed. How was that possible?
Jesse glanced around, chewing on his lip. “Think about it. If he was really here, why would he leave?”
Even more perplexing, this place didn’t weird me out anymore. It was as if all the niggling feels had vanished with the Drone. But that was beside the point. Jesse still didn’t believe me.
I pulled in a slow breath, which did little to calm my irritation. “I’m naked in a pond, coughing up water with a goose-egg on my cheek from my mortal enemy who’s supposed to be dead.” I jerked my arms out, wobbling in his hold. “And the guy who was supposed to be guarding me thinks I imagined the whole thing.”
“Hey.” He wrestled my arms back to my sides. “Stop. I believe you, okay?”
Hugging me closer, he rested his chin on my shoulder. I was spectacularly aware of every heated point of contact with him. His hands on my head and waist. My breasts pressed against his chest. My ankles hooked beneath the wet denim on his ass. My body hummed with sensory overload.
He had held me in similar bare-chested positions before but always with a purpose. To fuel my control over aphids. To ward off my nightmares. This though… This was different. I didn’t want him to let me go, and evidently, neither did he.
His arms wrapped tighter around my back.
I rested my head on the hard flex of his shoulder. “I felt aphids when you disappeared. What happened?”
“They slipped past the perimeter Georges and Tallis had set up. Too many to count. I was trying to lead them away from you.” He kneaded strong fingers along the crook of my neck. “They’re getting smarter. More methodical.”
Or the Drone was directing them, telling them how to move under our radar, to surprise Jesse. To kill him. I bit down on a shivering breath.
He lowered his brow, settling it against my shoulder. “I heard you screaming my name. I couldn’t break away.”