Ocean's Fire by Stacey Tucker

Author:Stacey Tucker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SparkPress
Published: 2017-11-23T05:00:00+00:00

Daylight peeked through the foggy blanket around Skylar. The days were no longer cooling at night, so the air had taken on a permanent mist. Hours had passed, but Skylar was still unable to move from the alleyway. Her cheek had found its way to the cold cement ground, her hair splayed around her. She heard footsteps but didn’t stir. She opened one eye to see the toes of a pair of familiar black Converse staring back at her.

“Leave me alone,” she said, her scratchy voice barely getting the words out.

“I should,” Ocean said. “But it’s not in my good nature. Get up.”

“How did you find me?”

“I got an anonymous tip,” Ocean said.

Skylar didn’t think to press it and rolled to sitting. “It’s too late,” she said. “We had sex. And then I saw him eat some guy’s heart, and he said the only reason I’m not dead is because I’m now carrying his baby.” She stared at her hand. “Now that I think about it, he never said the word baby, but he did talk about nine months from now and the end of the world.” She hiccupped in a stuttered breath. “No, that’s not right either.”

Ocean sighed. “Well then, let’s get you and your baby up off the ground. If you’re going to be a mother, you better start acting like one.” She bent in half and scooped Skylar off of the pavement.

“You can’t be serious,” Skylar said. “He ate a human heart. Well, he took a bite and spat it out. Who does that? What does that?”

“An experiment gone horribly wrong,” Ocean said as she draped Skylar over her shoulders. She guided her down the alleyway, then helped her into the familiar passenger seat of her maroon ’90-something Pontiac Firebird.

Ocean got in and the car roared to life. Skylar jumped.

“Still purrs like a kitten,” Ocean said, patting the dash.

Skylar watched the lights pass by as she leaned her head on the car window. The hum of the moving car made her relax slightly. For the moment, she felt safe. She was numb from too many things happening at once and appreciated Ocean’s silence.

Ocean veered off on a dirt road ten minutes from campus. Skylar realized she must have driven past it a hundred times and never noticed it. The land they passed through was heavily wooded, and Skylar was certain Ocean’s car wasn’t equipped for all the potholes.

The road ended at a palatial gate flanked with iron eagles, wings outstretched, welcoming them home. The gate opened, and the car came to a stop in a circular drive in front of a grand stone house. It appeared to have been there long before America’s founding fathers. The sunrise peeked over the horizon and reflected off of the honey-colored Cotswold stone.

Skylar got out of the car with her mouth gaping. “Where are we?”

“My place. You can rest here,” Ocean said.

Gleaming green marble lions protected both sides of the dozen limestone steps leading up to the front door. Behind the lions sat six-foot-tall iron urns.

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