Page 45 of Incompatible

Alex never asks either, but I can tell he’s tempted to go swimming after only two days here. He keeps glancing at the lake where my cousins are splashing and goofing around.

So one morning I go into town with Uncle Zenith and ask him to stop by a sports store so I can buy a long-sleeve rash guard. Only with that do I finally feel ready to swim with Alex.

Alex also wears a swim shirt, just with short sleeves. Omegas going through puberty rarely go bare-chested. Many of them have nipples that are larger than those of betas and alphas, and some feel self-conscious about it, although of course not every omega is like that. Some look more like betas in that regard. I don’t know why Alex chooses to wear his, and I don’t ask. It’s not my place. But he wears a shirt too.

Over the past year I have grown a full inch and now I’m exactly six feet tall, while Alex has barely grown a quarter or maybe half an inch, and he still hasn’t reached five feet. We must look pretty ridiculous with that height difference when we walk into the water, but that doesn’t keep us from having fun.

We splash each other, swim, dive, and mess around in the lake, and in those moments I don’t let myself drift into the dark. With Alex beside me it’s always easier.

The time we spend together is so easy and pleasant that it sometimes lets me forget absolutely everything horrible from my past. I feel like an ordinary boy who can finally relax, and Alex, his aura, and the way his eyes smile at me let me learn, even for a moment, what it feels like to be at peace.

Unfortunately it ends quickly, because the entire brigade of my cousins soon crashes onto the beach. Now I’m forced to keep an eye on them, which is incredibly irritating, although Alex has no problem with any of it, he invents games for the boys and genuinely enjoys their company, and they like him a lot.

That same afternoon everyone wants to go for ice cream in town.

From my uncle Van’s summer cabin to the center of the small village where his property is located is about four miles; it’s a long walk, but everyone wants to go on foot instead of taking the car.

So we set off as the whole group: my three brothers, Alex, me, Gabriel, and Veyron.

The walk is pleasant, although after about four miles Gabriel starts complaining, asking where the ice cream shop is, whether it is still far, and how much longer we have to walk.

Luckily Alex manages to keep him busy with charades and word games and at last we reach the town, although I already know the walk back on foot will be a disaster. So I prepare myself to call Van, but first we all buy ice cream, and of coursethe debate about which flavors to choose and how many scoops takes so long that the vendor starts rolling his eyes.

Eventually Alex steps in and helps the undecided ones make their choice, which ends in generic vanilla and chocolate for the complainers.

Because the sun is very bright, we all sit down along the ice cream shop’s wall to find some shade, and all my brothers and cousins have hair in tones ranging from chestnut to brown with a reddish shine, which usually goes with fair skin, sometimes slightly freckled like Veyron’s, and none of them like sitting in the sun for too long in order to avoid getting burned. Alex, with his pink-blond head, also avoids too much sun exposure.

Alex chats with Veyron about his passion, which is rock climbing, and I lick my ice cream absentmindedly while watching the road that runs along the garden of the ice cream shop.

Suddenly I notice dark streaks overlapping my field of vision. A growing sense of unease spreads through me, because I saw them when those men from my dad’s past came to our property, and I saw them before Alex and I were attacked, so now when I see that strange dark smear again my heart speeds up.

Then something unexplainable happens.

Exactly at that moment little Gabriel, who is sitting right next to me and Alex, turns toward me with terror in his face and screams,

"Save us, Bay, save us!"

He reaches his hand toward the road but I see nothing there, and I am already about to say something that would embarrass him, something about how he is causing unnecessary panic…

And exactly then a huge truck tire comes hurtling toward us at incredible speed, apparently torn off a vehicle that must have been speeding down the road.

I have literally one second to react, but even within that second my mind calculates that neither I, nor Alex, nor Gabriel, nor Veyron have any chance of surviving it if it hits us at full force.

But I cannot allow anything to happen to Alex. That is out of the question. So I launch myself forward and with a sharp full-body thrust I hit the flying tire with both hands just seconds before it smashes into the table where we are sitting, which would have crushed our chests.

I put all my strength into forcing it off its path. To my enormous shock, the tire actually ricochets off me to the side. It smashes into other tables, knocking over flower pots and decorative stands that line the ice cream shop’s garden. Then it slams into the fence separating the shop from the neighboring property, breaks it, and finally comes to a stop under the next building.

It all happens so fast that the only thing filling my ears is the loud scream of my brothers, and the only child who does not scream is Gabriel, who sits there surprisingly calm. I turn to look at him in shock, wondering if he actually predicted this, and if so, how.

Alex jumps up, shaking, "Oh my dear Fate, how did you do that?" he cries, grabbing my hands and turning them over, and I see that the skin on them is badly scraped and torn open, the flesh is raw and bleeding, but other than that I have no injuries.

"Oh my goodness," Alex groans, lifting his shocked eyes to me.

Then Gabriel speaks almost calmly. "Bay just saved our lives. If he hadn’t done that, the table pushed by the tire would have hit our chests and crushed them."

He says it with certainty, like he somehow watched the whole thing happen before it even happened.

I stare at this kid, wondering how he could possibly know that, yet something in his voice makes me believe he does.