Page 4 of Reaper and Ruin

I burst into tears at the sight of the shadowed figures crawling out of the ocean. I rushed forward into the frigid water to meet them, my gaze running over first Whip and then Levi, looking them over, making sure they were okay.

They were both on their feet, drenched and shivering but whole and well.

X’s feet trailed along the sand between them, his head hanging limp.

“Oh my God! Is he okay? X!”

They hauled him up onto the beach, lying him out on his back. I dropped to the wet sand at his side and pressed my fingers frantically against his neck, checking for a pulse. I foundone easily then bent down, lowering my ear toward his chest to make sure he was still breathing.

Relief crashed over me at the rise and fall of his chest, and I rolled him over onto his side, in case he had water in his lungs that needed to come up.

Levi and Whip had both crashed to the sand, the two of them exhausted from swimming in clothes and shoes and tugging a fully grown man back to shore. I wanted to check on them too, but X was in much worse shape.

“I don’t understand. Why isn’t he responding? He’s got a pulse and he’s breathing…”

“Levi knocked him out.”

I widened my eyes. “You what? Why?” And then a second later I added, “How?”

Levi shook his head, then winced, like the movement caused him pain. “Just know it was a lifesaving measure.”

I didn’t really know what that meant, but at the same time, X’s body convulsed violently, and he coughed up a spout of ocean water.

I thumped him on the back, even though I wasn’t at all sure that’s what you were supposed to do for someone whose lungs might be full of water. But I didn’t know how else to help.

Eventually he groaned, and I helped him roll onto his back again. I hovered over him, taking out my phone and switching on the flashlight so I could see better.

He was vaguely gray, his lips a bluish purple that concerned me.

“I’m calling an ambulance.”

But X shook his head and reached up, stroking a hand down the side of my face adoringly. “I’m already dead. Too late for that.”

I couldn’t help the flicker of a laugh that crossed my lips. “You aren’t dead.”

He blinked. “But this is Heaven.”

Whip snorted from a few yards down the beach. “If this is Heaven then I’m pretty glad I’m going to Hell. Because this sucks.”

Levi pulled a piece of seaweed out of his hair as if to prove the point.

X struggled to lift himself up onto his elbows and I helped him. He moved his arms and legs and got himself up to sit, testing they all still worked. Apart from one side of his face swelling and some bleeding cuts and grazes, he seemed to be in one piece.

He really was staring at me like I was an angel who’d fallen from Heaven though.

“Omelet,” he whispered, though a whisper with X was never really all that soft. “I’m alive.”

The laugh I let out was tinged with a sob of relief. “Yes, you are. Thanks to Whip and Levi.”

X held his hands up in front of his face, wriggling his fingers and staring at them in amazement like he’d never seen them before. He scrambled up onto his feet, and Levi stood just as quickly, catching him by the arm when he stumbled. But the off-balance wobble didn’t deter X any. He flipped his middle finger up and shouted into the dark night, his words all aimed at the whirling ocean. “Stop trying to kill me, already!”

“Technically a pool tried to kill you the first time,” I murmured.

He frowned at me. “Omelet! Whose side are you on? Mine or the water’s?”

“Definitely yours,” I assured him.

He nodded, satisfied with that answer.