20
Kaige
The Amtrak jerked to a halt,almost throwing me out of my seat. I caught my balance, rubbing my eyes blearily. The conductor’s voice carried robotically over the speakers. “Last stop, Festival Beach. All passengers must now leave the train.”
I’d reached my destination. And in the two-hour ride, it felt like I’d slept a lifetime. In fact, it was the deepest sleep I’ve had in a while. The buzzing haze that usually filled my head, fueled by insomnia and too many energy drinks, had cleared, leaving me shockingly refreshed.
Wouldn’t it be nice if I could feel this way without shelling out for a fucking train ticket?
I was in too good a mood from the rest to feel that sour about it. All the stress that had propelled me to the station had faded away. I yawned and grinned, and then noticed the kid from the family in the seats opposite me staring. He was coming out to the beach with Mom and Dad like I’d used to—about the same age too, four or five.
I aimed my smile at him, but he looked away to his mother, who was taking down the luggage from the overhead rack. “Mommy,” he hissed, as if he thought I wouldn’t hear him, “what’s on that man’s arms?”
He meant the vine tattoos that encircled my biceps, disappearing under the sleeves of my T-shirt. He didn’t know they wrapped around my chest as well. They’d just felt right when I’d had them designed. I wasn’t totally sure whether they reflected the trapped sensation that I was all too familiar with or an attempt at reining myself in for my own reasons.
The mother glanced at me and made a face. She dropped her voice lower than his. “Let’s go, sweetie. And remember, you don’t speak to men like him.”
Men like him.As if I’d been so different from her son when I’d started out. As if it was strangers who’d mess you up and not the people who should have been taking care of you.
“Kid,” I said. The boy startled but turned his wide eyes on me. “Monsters don’t always look so monstrous. Don’t go by appearances.”
The mother’s lips pressed flat, and the father urged the boy down the aisle away from me. Fine. I didn’t want to hear any more of their shit anyway. I heaved myself out of the seat and headed down the aisle in the opposite direction toward the car’s other doors.
As soon as I stepped out onto the platform, the humid air condensed against my skin. The train ride had only taken two hours, sure, but I might as well have come to another continent. The smells of sand and salty ocean water wafted over me with the heat, and the sun beamed down from a smog-free sky. I fucking loved Festival Beach.
I navigated the crowd heading out of the station. Most people around me were tourists, judging by their dorky sun-hats and Hawaiian shirts or sarongs. No one wanted to waste the last few weeks of summer.
The beach lay just across the street from the station. I walked straight across the road and the boardwalk, kicked off my shoes, and sank my feet into the sand. Hot on the top and cool down beneath, just like I remembered. The perfect combination.
The sun glinted off the deep blue water up ahead. Memories rose up as if tossed by the ocean’s waves: running across the sand so fast it sprayed out around me in my wake, spreading my arms as if I were an airplane about to take off into the air. Mom and Dad laughing as they watched, their arms hooked together. Dad coming down to the edge of the surf with me and helping me sculpt a sandcastle.
I could still picture every detail of the last one we’d made, complete with four turrets and a ring of little pearly shells along the outer walls. Mom had applauded and snapped pictures. Then she’d swept me up into her arms and carried me right into the water, where we’d paddled around until my skin was sticky with salt and my fingers pruned. My eyes had started stinging, but I’d never cared about that.
I opened my eyes now to the squawk of seagulls flying above me, and those flashes of the past disintegrated. Despite my train sleep, tension was starting to creep back into my chest.
As if I could outrun it, I walked down to the water and then half a mile along the ocean, rolling up my jeans and letting the foam tickle against my bare calves. The Atlantic water was chilly even this late in the season, but it kept my mind on the present. Plenty of people were splashing around in the ocean, enjoying the relief from the muggy weather.
Right near the train station, couples and families had crowded the beach with a patchwork of towels and umbrellas. Gradually, I left the babble of their happy voices behind me. That atmosphere didn’t fit who I was now anyway.
I walked on until the beach got rockier, dark crags of stone jutting from the sand here and there after the boardwalk had ended. No one was venturing this far today—except me.
I wandered on even further just to be sure I wouldn’t be disturbed, and then I hunkered down on the other side of one of the boulders. Folding my arms behind my head and stretching out my legs, I closed my eyes and just listened to that rhythmic hiss.
I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep again, but all of a sudden I was jolting awake to the sound of my name. A figure was standing over me, framed by the pink tones coloring the sky that was now shifting toward evening. Her ponytail tossed in the wind.
“Kaige?” Mercy said, crouching down next to me. “Are you okay?”
My pulse lurched, and I shoved myself upright. “Mercy?” It couldn’t really be her, could it? I was still dreaming, or she was a hallucination. Frank would be so happy to know he’d been right and all those energy drinks had finally fried my brain.
But then her tanned, solid hands came down on my arm. Electricity buzzed through me as I registered her touch.
She was here. She was real.
The last of the sleep left my eyes, and I stared at her, horrified. Of all the places… “What are you doing here?” I asked.
She looked at me sheepishly. “Wylder told me about this place. You… seemed pretty upset when you left. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
I shook my head to make sure I was hearing her correctly. “Wylder told you?”