Page 39 of A Sea of Unspoken Things

Slowly, his hand came up and grazed my jaw until his fingers slidinto my hair, and when my mouth was only inches from his, I could hear my own breath coming faster. Like I could feel the seconds ticking down to the moment he closed the distance. But Micah didn’t move. He was waiting. For me.

His fingers tightened in my hair, igniting a chain reaction that pulled me closer, and as soon as I pressed my lips to his, his hands were on me. Opening my jacket. Tugging at my jeans. I leaned into his weight, the blanket falling to the ground, but almost as quickly as he’d kissed me back, he was pulling away from me, his mouth breaking from mine.

My chest rose and fell between us and I stilled, watching him swallow.

“I don’t know about this, James.”

Emotion curled tight in my throat. Because neither did I. Things with Micah had always felt like a riptide, and once I was in its grasp, there’d be no escaping its pull. I didn’t know if I was trying to find a home inside of it, or if I needed to break out of its orbit, once and for all.

The first time Micah kissed me, I’d felt like I’d been waiting my whole life for it. And that’s what this felt like now. Like the entire world was rotating aroundus.

Before he could decide to pull farther away from me, I kissed him again. This time more slowly. It was several agonizing seconds before his arms tightened around my body. And then we were swallowed by the firelight. I lifted the sweater over my head, not thinking about what we were doing or why. I was just chasing anything that didn’t hurt.

He pulled me onto his lap, sliding my legs around him, and a rush of gravity swept through me. The moment froze, the seconds static as my stomach dropped. It felt suddenly like I was falling again. Like I was moving through the air, about to slam into the ground. I could hear the sound of my heartbeat, taste him on my tongue. Micah’s hands found the old, worn paths they’d once taken, and I let myself pretend we were still those kids. Before I left. Before Griffin Walker. Before everything changed.

Thirteen

Even before I’d opened my eyes, I knew it was a mistake.

Pale gray light streamed through the truck window, the soft, deep sound of Micah breathing beside me. I was pressed against him, clinging to his warmth beneath the sleeping bag, with Smoke stretched out on the other side of me with one leg kicked across my body.

I’d fallen asleep in the haze of the dwindling high, listening to the vibration of the rain on the roof of the truck. I could still smell Micah’s scent on me, feel him between my legs. And I didn’t want to move for fear that the spell would be broken.

I gently shifted onto my back, letting a hand fall into Smoke’s fur, and I let my gaze follow the curve of Micah’s freckled shoulder to the line of his neck and blond stubble on his jaw. He was still deep beneath the surface of sleep when I slipped my arm around him and pressed my face into the soft skin of his back. The smell of him was still the same. The eyes and the voice. But he was different now. We both were.

The flicker of movement outside made my eyes lift to the window. The condensation on the glass blurred the shape of whatever wasthere, but the low-hanging branches of the white fir at the trailhead were rocking with the weight of it.

I sat up slowly, the cold air kissing my skin as I reached over Micah and wiped at the moisture fogging the window. I exhaled heavily when my eyes focused on what was there.

Two wide black eyes stared back at me as the fluttering wings of an owl tipped and swayed, trying to balance on the branch. A shower of rainwater shook from the needles as the bird settled, the white specks of its body curving around its shape. When my eyes traveled down to the twisted lump that was one of its feet, my lips parted. The gnarled bones and upturned talons were the same as the owl I’d seen in Johnny’s photographs. The same one I’d seen documented in his field notes.

It was Subject 44. Johnny’s owl.

I leaned forward and its head careened toward the truck, like he was trying to see me, too. Frantically, I reached into the front seat for my bag and unzipped it. My hand found the folder inside and the pen that was clipped onto it. I tucked my legs beneath me, trying not to make any sudden movements, and when I took the pen into my fingers, a desperate, urgent rush flooded through me.

The owl’s glassy eyes met mine and the pen touched down, arcing over the thick paper of the folder in a sweep of motion that happened more by instinct than intent. I knew this feeling, the mind-clearing connection between my eyes and my hand. I hadn’t felt it in years.

The heart-shaped face of the owl came together, its liquid eyes catching the rising light as I drew. My hand brushed over the folder quickly in a movement that smeared the ink, but I didn’t care. The urgency had gripped me, taking me by the throat, and I could feel it the moment the bird tipped forward, shifting its weight to take off. I had seconds. Less than that.

The lines became more fluid as my hand jerked over the paper, and just as I finished the tangled contour of the foot, the owl’s wings unfurled, catching the air. I froze, watching its feathers stretch wide, and before I’d even let the breath in my chest go, it was gone.

I blinked, dropping my gaze down to the folder in my lap, wherethe pen was still pressed heavily to the surface. The ink was gathering there in a shining pool.

Micah shifted beside me, dragging my mind from that bright light and back into the shadows of the truck. But that seemed just as impossible. When I looked down, he was watching me. He propped himself up on his elbow, the warmth of him filling the space again as his eyes dropped to the folder.

His mussed hair fell into his face as he sat up and he pushed it back, attempting to tuck it behind one ear. He reached toward me, setting a hand on my wrist and moving my arms so he could see.

The owl was hidden there in the blur of lines, but I could make it out. Its form had just been beginning to take shape, its eyes like two empty puddles. But Micah’s face didn’t betray what he was thinking as he looked at it. His gaze just moved over the page slowly.

“What?” My hand fidgeted nervously with the pen.

“Nothing.”

“What?” I pressed, heart sinking.

“I just haven’t seen you draw in a long time,” he said, his voice so deep with the morning cold that it made me shiver.

His focus moved from the drawing to the pen in my hand, and he reached out, taking hold of my wrist and turning it over so that the scar was visible between us. The pale, rope-like mark had faded over the years, but it was still raised on the skin. Micah had been standing only feet away when I dragged the broken glass over my arm, and I could still remember that look of horror on his face.