He grabbed me tightly by the arms and squeezed hard. I didn’t cry out or move. I refused to be intimidated by him any longer.
“You think Thayde can protect you all the time?”
“I don’t need his protection.” I gritted my teeth and let The Fire start to seep from me. Akin held on tightly, even though I could see pain in his face.
“I could break you,” he said.
“I could burn you,” I answered.
He smiled that nasty, evil smile I hated and continued to hold on.
“All it would take would be one hit to the head and I could do whatever I wanted to you.” He pulled me in close, my nose nearly touching his. “Whatever I wanted,”
I was through with his threats and I released a large amount of the energy. His hands sizzled and he immediately let go, his hands bleeding.
“Stay away from me,” I warned, “or next time, I’ll kill you.”
I turned and walked away, my heart beating so loudly it was all I could hear. I didn’t go to the gyro shop but headed straight to the ocean. Stripping down to the bikini I wore underneath my clothes, I dumped everything into my backpack and zipped it up. A morbidly obese man in a Speedo and a straw hat sat a few feet away, watching me. I walked up to him.
“Hi!” I said as nicely as I could, “Could you watch this for me?”
He leaned forward and took my backpack. “Sure.”
“Thanks!” I smiled graciously and turning, walked into the surf. As soon as I wasn’t able to touch, I swam for the breakers. They were easy enough to get through. On the other side, I checked for people and then phased.
I had to find Thayde. This whole thing was getting out of hand and he needed to know what was going on. I knew he was at Neridia. If only I could get there.
Diving, I located the first downed boat I remembered seeing the first time I ventured out with Thayde. After my landmarks or watermarks or whatever you called them faded away into the blue, I swam in the general direction as fast as I could. Soon, land was a sliver in the distance.
At that point, I wished I could swim as fast as Thayde. I wasn’t looking forward to diving down into blackness and searching about for the underwater city on my own. I didn’t even know if I was in the right area, but I had to find Thayde and the last thing I was going to do was wimp out on myself.
I started too quickly and nearly smacked into a dolphin. Dolphins aren’t terribly huge, but it was daunting being in the water with something bigger than I was. It squeaked at me and stopped swimming long enough to watch what I was doing.
“Hello pretty thing,” I said, admiring its sleek lines and happy, smiling face. It squeaked again and started to follow me. That was fine with me. At least I wasn’t alone.
Down I went, the dolphin by my side. I passed a group of hammerhead sharks. All they did was ignore me. Relieved, I continued my descent. After a while, I looked toward the surface but couldn’t see it. A rush of cooler water flowed over me and though I had stopped swimming, I could feel myself being pulled along. I was caught in a fast moving current.
Swimming under me, the dolphin watched me sideways through one eye. Below us was complete blackness and I started to feel uneasy. Could I go through with this? Now I wasn’t so sure.
I could feel my confidence fizzle away and I looked about me. Nothing. One thing I didn’t like about the ocean was the fact that once you got into the dark water, you couldn’t tell if there was something next to you. I didn’t like not knowing what was lurking just a few feet away from me.
My mind played tricks on me. For a moment, I thought I saw a great white shark, but it turned out to be a huge silver tarpaulin caught in the current. I was shocked to see such a large piece of garbage in the water. It was disgusting. I wanted to catch it and dispose of it properly, but there was no way I could swim with it. It slid past me and disappeared from sight.
“I don’t think I can do this,” I said to my loyal comrade-in-arms. When a large whale passed underneath me, I panicked and quickly made my way to the surface.
The dolphin surfaced next to me, spraying the both of us with water. I looked to see if anything else had followed and there was nothing. Sighing in relief, I scanned the horizon for the sliver of land. Nothing but waves.
How far had I gone? Bouncing in the waves, I stretched to see over the top of them, but no matter how high I rose, I couldn’t see land. Completely disoriented, I panicked. This was probably the stupidest thing I’d done yet. Tammer had warned me about the currents and specifically asked me not to go out on my own. Brilliant, Morgan. Just brilliant.
“You look lost,” a deep voice a few feet away called.