Kill Switch (Devil's Night 3)

My mouth went dry, trying to puzzle this together. What was this?

I stepped on a spout, the water spraying everywhere and splashing me, and I sucked in a breath, getting a little wet.

But I kept going, tracing the spouts with my toes as I walked and finding a path. I kept my arms out at my sides, my fingers tracing the water and where it created walls and turns, coming to dead ends and veering around corners. The water shot up well above my head, and as I rounded the paths, finding little alcoves and hiding places, my sleep shorts and top stuck to my body and my hair grew cold and wet down my back.

I closed my eyes, my throat swelling as I mapped the water, gauging the huge circle and all the spouts inside creating this intricate wonderland of nooks and avenues, and I…

Oh, my God.

Tears pooled, realizing. He hadn’t taken away the fountain. He’d replaced it.

My eyes stung.

It was a fountain maze.

I stood there in the center, towers of water shooting up and spilling around me as the tears started to fall. Hiding me in a world within a world.

Just like his fountain growing up.

Just like the treehouse.

Damon, what did you do?

My head fell back, and everything crumbled. My heart, my head, my hate, and my grudge, and I just wanted to see him. To feel him and put his forehead to mine and feel him breathe. To have him pick me up and hold me in here, where the water and the walls were high enough to hide us.

I loved him. I still loved him.

Goddamn him.

I cried, the music inside the ballroom drifting out through the window, and I ran my hand through my hair, everything inside just wanting out. I was tired of stopping myself. Of spending more time resenting than getting on with it.

I wanted to fight and scream and laugh and smile and kiss and taste and wrap my arms around him more than I could stomach never feeling him again.

I closed my eyes, starting to spin as Lana Del Rey’s “Dark Paradise” drifted out of the ballroom through the open window, and I swept my leg, arched my back, and shot up on the ball of my foot, dancing and twirling as the music filled me up and took me over. My arms sliced through the water, splashing and whipping the spray, and I danced and danced and danced, running my hand over my stomach, my drenched hair flying around me and sticking to my face and body.

To dive and fall.

To have a lifetime of searching for something.

Or to have five minutes of everything.

I slowed as the music ended and stopped, the chill of the water seeping into my bones, but I felt awake for the first time in years. I was alive.

I wanted it. I wanted it all.

I pushed my hair out of my face and over the top of my head, breathing in so deep, because my lungs felt so much bigger all of a sudden.

“Winter?” someone called.

Crane.

I walked across the fountain maze, smiling through the towers of water and smoothing back my hair as I made my way to the edge, following his voice.

“Where is he?” I asked.

Crane was silent a moment, and then said, “Occupied at the moment. Would you like me to give him a message?”

Occupied.