Page 16 of Crush
He pauses, scanning through the darkness. As soon as he locks eyes with me, he torpedos forward.
While Thorne comes to me, I swim to him, the new adrenaline spurring my limbs on and swimming through the numbness.
We reach each other, and I open my mouth to cry my thanks, but he stops any preamble by wrapping his arm under my armpit and over my chest, flipping me around to my back as his hand rests on my neck.
“Thorne—”
“Relax,” he says between heavy exhales. “Keep floating, and don’t fight me. I’ll pull you back to shore.”
Thorne Briar. My very own riptide.
I do as he says, too exhausted to argue that I could help with the swimming. His formidable kicks and sure movements spear us straight toward shore as if he were following the black line in a swim meet and racing for the win. I try to relax, keeping the stars as my compass and pretending that Thorne’s compression on my throat wasn’t sending shivers unrelated to adrenaline across my chest.
Soon, my heels hit sand, and I stumble to regain my balance. Thorne keeps his grip locked on my forearm as he half supports, half drags me out of the water.
A crowd has formed near a bonfire, the recruits back in their cloaks and rushing to help me.
“I got her. Don’t fucking touch her,” Thorne snaps out.
Helpful hands retreat into the velvet and skitter away.
“Blanket,” he says next. I dare to look at him. His hair is plastered against his head, so dark it reflects the stars up above. Maybe they’ve even taken up residence in his eyes because they’re bright with a solar flare as he scans the freshmen and Aurora, dismissing them all until he lands on Jaxon. “I’m putting her near the fire. Grab some of that hot whiskey, too.”
Jaxon nods, already marching toward us with two blankets in hand.
“You really gotta work on your ability to survive our shit,” Jaxon says to me as he settles one across my shoulders. Thorne yanks the other blanket from Jaxon’s hands and wraps it around my bottom half.
“C-Consider me a cockroach,” I respond, bending to Thorne’s will as he pushes on my shoulder for me to sit on a fallen log. “Because I keep surviving anyway.”
Jaxon chuckles, but with one look from Thorne, he backs away.
In fact, everyone has retreated, including Aurora.
“Where’d they all g-go?”
“The challenge is over.” Thorne sits beside me, a blanket casually draped across his shoulders, and hands me a thermos, which I take with bloodless hands. “Water’s no longer safe for the girls. We’re not complete masochists.”
“Oh, s-so I was your test run.”
“No, Charlotte was.” Thorne glances at me sidelong. “You were the idiot who canceled it for the rest of them.”
Retorting takes too much energy, so I lift the thermos to my lips instead. Hot whiskey burns my tongue, then my throat, but I moan in bliss.
Thorne stiffens.
Not one shiver has crested that insane body of his since leaving the ocean. Probably because he’s simply prohibited it from happening.
“Thank you for saving me,” I murmur into the thermos, mirroring his posture and staring into the bonfire.
“Don’t. It was for selfish reasons. It would look bad if I let you die so soon after enrolling at Winthorpe.”
I angle my head. “And f-fresh off a missing girl, too.”
Thorne whips toward me, his eyes flashing with temper. Yet his tone comes out mild when he says, “Finish your drink. You’re still shivering.”
We say nothing for a few moments, and I do as he asks. My trembling won’t subside, the coldness creeping into my gums, stiffening my jaw, and making it hard to blink.
Thorne curses, becoming a blur of movement beside me. I have no time to react when he yanks the blankets off my body and goes after my shirt next.