Crashing Tides by Gwendolyn Marie

Author:Gwendolyn Marie [Marie, Gwendolyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781674905891
Published: 2019-12-16T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Jagged stones surrounded a transparent, glistening pool of water and river. An adjacent waterfall thundered and smoothed the rocks beneath its path. Vines suffocated the girth of the waterfall while birch trees dipped in precarious angels around its shore. Nyx peeled off filth encrusted clothes without thought of proper etiquette. Seeing what she was doing, Hector turned to give her privacy and watch for the others as she undressed. When a splash was heard signaling her departure into the waters, he turned again but did not join her. Rather like a frozen gargoyle, he kept a protective watch.

“I’ll be fine,” she called out. She hated to be watched, though even more so she hated to watch Hector forgo the joys life can give. He nodded in leave, and headed back towards the others.

Alone, she ducked her head underwater, going deeper beneath the crystal waves. She let the current seize and toss her about, wishing it to wash away the bygone of the conflicts. Lips opened, allowing water to enter and rinse her mouth from the rancid vestige of the infected blood and letting the current take it away.

The prion imposed no prison to her soul. Perhaps the pathogen was no longer contagious or able to jump from host to host. The potency of the prion may have diminished over time. Soon it would die away as the last Chaot fell. Its fate to be the same as its victims—damned.

A chance remained that immunity protected her. However, Megaira had said that no one could be resistant. Either death or transformation followed the initial exposure she had said. The chance that Nyx alone was impervious to the disease seemed unlikely. Yet she still indulged the thought as her body sank deeper into the water’s permeable cold. Maybe she was too different from the other humans, therefore, the prion could not infect her. She lived without barriers preventing her actions, and so the disease could not manifest itself, for she was already wild.

Or maybe her past sealed away the answers. She had never even asked herself why she could not remember it.

The water overtook her, pulling her further into its girth. What the tide did to her body, an epiphany did to her mind. A hypothesis formed: maybe it was possible that she had been a Chaot. That was why she had no memories before the beach. It was why she often acted solely off impulse—a remnant of what she had been. But then she was somehow cured.

It would complete the puzzle, solving why the Chaot’s blood did not affect her. Though the piece fit perfectly, explaining so much, it did not make sense to her.

Memories resurfaced of when she explored the room in the Victorian house. When she had found the child’s book, she had imposed her own memories to the faded pages. Memories of when she had once read Where the Wild Things Are. But it was not simply the visual recollection, she also unearthed a feeling. She had always

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