Chapter 36: Splash

Nathaniel was sweating through his t-shirt, surrounded on all sides by inebriated surfers.

He saw me come into the room behind a shirtless Dake, my hair tangled and the bikini top under my dress untied. From the dismayed look on his face, I could tell he assumed the worst—and so did the other revelers in the room, their slurred whispers and stifled laughs resounding in my ears, audible over the music that had been turned down to a murmur.

Both of Lysander's eyes were equally livid as he glared at me. He, too, was drenched in sweat, his asymmetrically cut hair clinging to his neck in wet tendrils. He stood silently beside Nathaniel. He had nothing to say to either Dake or me.

How did they get here? How did they find me?

I had been gone for less than twelve hours, but somehow it felt like days since I'd last seen them. I met both of their stares head-on, trying and failing to appear defiant and unafraid. "I'm fine, Lysander, Nathaniel. Look at me. I'm right here, and I'm fine." The words slipped out more and more rapidly, exposing me for the panicked ball of nerves I was.

Without a clipboard, Nathaniel didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. He reached out to me with one and let the other hang uselessly at his side. "We have to go now, Candace. They're waiting for us back at the hostel."

"I don't want to go back," I blurted without thinking. I couldn't go back to Reality, where I was second-best to a blonde with a spray tan and a bad attitude. Here, home with Dake, I was wanted. Needed.

...Loved?

"What am I supposed to tell Belinda?" Nathaniel retorted crossly. "We've been out looking for you all day. We can't go back without you."

He was right, of course. I had to tell Dake goodbye again, but I didn't want that moment to be now, under these circumstances. "I'm not going with you." I held my chest in a futile attempt to keep my heart from breaking. "Please," I beseeched him. "Just let me have tonight. I'll go back tomorrow."

Let me do this, Nathaniel. Please, just let me tell him...

Nathaniel looked me fully in the eyes for what might have been the first time since I'd met him, but only for a split second. "Candace... You have to." His copper eyes darted back towards the front door—the windows, the driveway outside. "We need to get out of here now, or—"

Dake could withstand no more. "She said she doesn't want to go with you, mate," he intervened. He squared his shoulders, his fingernails nervously raking the insides of his palms.

I knew Dake recognized Nathaniel from over the summer, and he remembered Nathaniel's reaction when he saw us together. It had been painfully obvious that Nathaniel liked me—or at least that he used to. Dake laughed about it then, but I could tell now that the laughter was part of a façade.

That exchange from months ago had made more of an impression on both boys than I originally thought.

Lysander finally spoke up. His voice was flat and emotionless. "We can't take her with us if she doesn't want to go," he said to Nathaniel. "Leave her." He must have been bitterly angry at me for seeking Dake, a complete stranger to him, in spite of Castiel's alleged feelings for me.

...But he didn't hear what I heard when Castiel pocket dialed me. Castiel can't possibly feel for me the way Lysander says, not if he would do something like that with Amber.

Nathaniel whirled around to face Lysander. "She didn't look the other way when you went missing," he shot back. "She's our responsibility. We're not just leaving her here."

"She's not your anything," Dake insisted. "She's..."

Dake looked at me. He did so differently than he had in the bedroom. These eyes weren't lustful. They told me he wanted me, but for a different reason.

I wanted him right back, in every way imaginable.

Please don't let them take me away, I begged him silently.

Please don't go, he begged back.

That was when Nathaniel made the mistake of taking a step towards me. His fingers closed around my forearm.

"Don't you touch her!" shouted Dake, hurling himself at Nathaniel.

Before Nathaniel could let go of my arm, I felt the impact of Dake's fist on his jaw as it reverberated through him and into me.

Nathaniel used the momentum to throw himself headfirst into Dake.

Since my eyes clamped themselves shut, I didn't see it happen. But I heard it. It was a sickening wet crunch. Blood exploded across Nathaniel's forehead when it was met by the bridge of Dake's nose, the bone and cartilage underneath buckling and snapping.

Dake was the first to go down. He didn't scream. He couldn't, because when he opened his mouth, blood poured out. Overwhelmed by pain and shock, he teetered backwards and was caught by the wall behind him.

Nathaniel was second. His grip on my arm loosened and he fell to his knees, holding his head in both hands. His shirt was covered in a scarlet spray of Dake's blood. I couldn't see his face.

Suddenly, it was bedlam—a sea of squirming bodies. Some ran past me to get out the front door. Some stayed behind to contribute to the brawl.

Two of Dake's drunk friends converged on Lysander. He would fall third. There was a loud smash as they threw him against the fish tank, shattering it. In the blink of an eye, a torrent of salt water spread over the entirety of the living room floor. Lysander and his attackers tumbled onto the shards of broken glass, as helpless as the tropical fish that flopped on the saturated carpet.

From outside came the wailing of a siren and blue-and-white flashing lights. The front door burst open.

Who called the police? I wondered dazedly. And how did they get here so fast?

"Get out of here, Candy!" a faceless voice barked. "You're underage, aren't you? Run—before they catch you!"

Every part of my body felt impossibly heavy. I couldn't run. I couldn't stand up straight. I couldn't hold my eyes open.

I was the last one down. I blacked out.