Fairies 1 - A Fairy Tale - Maggie Shayne by FairyTale

Author:FairyTale
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 2015-09-08T12:05:41.810000+00:00

A wave slapped her face, sloshing water into her mouth, and she realized that her anger and her energy were spent. Only remorse for what lay ahead of her remained. Tears fell to blend with the waters of Cayuga. "I... just... don't ... want to."

But you know you have to.

Another wave slapped her. She swallowed more water, and turned to look back toward the shore. And then her heart skidded to a halt in her chest, because she'd swum so far the shore was a hazy outline in the distance.

She blinked in shock. "Oh, God, what have I done?"

Closing her eyes, she called on that wild one inside, knowing instinctively she was the stronger one. The braver one. "Have to try," she told herself, and she began swimming shoreward.

Ten strokes ... twenty. Why didn't the shore look any closer? Forty... fifty. She paused to catch her breath. The water's caress was chilling her overheated flesh, and her lungs were beginning to ache. A sob tore at her breastbone, but she battled it into submission, and launched herself shoreward once more. But she knew her progress was minuscule at best. Before she'd made it halfway, she was too exhausted even to keep her head above water. Damn, she'd been an idiot. A fool. She'd let the caged one take control, and it was going to cost her. Her longing gaze swept the shoreline once more. "It's too far..."

Try!

Slap! She spit water out of her mouth, and nodded tiredly. She had to keep trying. She was a lot of things, but not a quitter. Not a coward. She began paddling again. But her muscles screamed in protest, and burned with every movement. Another wave splashed her, pushing her under. She fought to the surface, choking and spitting, and then another swept her under. Her arms ached and her legs cramped when she broke surface yet again, straining onward. A few more strokes ... and that was all. She tried, but it was simply impossible to go any farther. Impossible. And she'd given it her best shot.

Numbly, she lifted her arms again, tried to kick her feet, but the merciless water pulled her into its cool embrace, and closed over her head.

He'd almost reached her when she went down for the last time. Dammit! It was all but impossible to keep an eye on her with the morning breeze rippling the surface, and those swells out there where she was. He'd been looking for her, intent on telling her what he knew and asking her what the hell was really going on.

But she hadn't been in the house, and when he'd looked outside, he'd heard her. Her anguished cries to a deaf god had blasted the anger from Adam's mind. Where do I belong? What the hell am I doing here? Pain arcing through the dawn sky so clearly it hurt to hear it.

And the questions... he didn't want to analyze them now. He told himself that it was normal for a person who'd never known her parents to feel an identity crisis now and then.

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