Page 133 of Carnal Urges

I wish it wasn’t in my nature to play with fire. I know the only thing that happens is that someone gets burned.

The sun is a distant ball on the horizon, shimmering pale as it rises above a restless sea. The ocean is choppy this morning. Dark and white-capped from the stiff onshore breeze.

I head straight toward the water.

I want to feel it on my toes. Feel how different it might be from the crystalline water of Lake Tahoe, the water I spent all my summers in from the time I learned how to swim at five years old. Water so pure, I could see all the way down to the bottom as I peered over the side of my dad’s little fishing boat.

Hopefully, the sea air will blow through my head and erase all these memories that are rising like ghosts from their graves since I told Declan my story.

The origin story of a warrior who doesn’t feel so strong anymore.

Is this what love is? Weakness? I felt so much more powerful before I ever set eyes on Declan’s face. Now I feel as raw and unsteady as a newborn foal.

Like I used to, all those years ago before I remade myself into something harder.

There’s a yacht moored far offshore. A sleek white thing, glinting in the sun like a newly minted coin. Several other smaller craft bob on the water down the coastline. A trio of sailboats flit over the waves to the south. North? I’m not sure which direction I’m facing. Now that I think of it, how do I know I’m really on Martha’s Vineyard at all?

My entire reality is based on what Declan has told me since he ripped me away from safe moorings in New York.

You could be anywhere. He drugged you, remember? You could be hallucinating all of this. You could be on the moon.

Exhausted, my heart as heavy as my legs, I walk over the rolling dunes down to where the sand is damp and firm underfoot. The sneakers I plucked from the closet are too nice to get wet, so I take them off and hold them as I meander down the beach. I dodge incoming waves as they crash and reach frothy fingers toward my feet.

I don’t know how long I meander, picking up shells, but suddenly, a cold prickle raises the hair on the back of my neck.

It isn’t the wind, of that I’m sure.

Frowning, I stop and look around.

The beach is deserted in both directions. Aside from the house I just left, there are no other structures within sight. The only thing I see that could be considered out of place is Spider, sprinting toward me from his post at the hedge of privet.

He’s waving his rifle in the air. Hollering words that are swallowed by the wind.

Four more armed men in black suits appear behind him, running toward me.

On instinct, I whirl around.

My brain registers eight of them, sleek black figures rising from the sea with scuba tanks strapped to their backs and weapons in their gloved hands, before the one closest to me grabs me and drags me into the water.

“She’s awake.”

“You sure those handcuffs are enough? I think we should put the leg chains on, too.”

“I bet you do. How’s the nose feeling, Cliff?”

“Fuck you.”

The voices are male, coming from somewhere nearby. They are the first thing I’m aware of. Next, the headache makes itself known, throbbing steadily behind my eyes to the beat of my heart. There’sa sour taste in my mouth, my head weighs a thousand pounds, and my right hand feels like I’ve been smashing it against a wall for hours.

I’m also wet. My clothes, my hair, all of me. I lick my lips and taste salt. Seawater.

A door opens and closes. I open my eyes and look around.

I’m in a square gray room. A single fluorescent bulb flickers on the ceiling. The floor is bare cement, and the only furniture is the metal chair I’m sitting on and a dented metal table pushed against the wall to my left.

On the wall directly in front of me looms a large panel of sleek black glass.

Looking at my reflection in the two-way mirror, I realize I’m chained to the chair.