15

There's a crowd at the beach, which means I don't see her anywhere. I'm relieved, but also hyper-aware, because it means I have no idea where she could be.

We grab a drink from the chiller that someone has brought along and head off to find somewhere to hang out.

The weather is mild, the air as still as it ever gets along this coast and the company is good. Jake and his friends always have funny stories to tell and we spend most of the time laughing. Kate leans comfortable against me and gradually everyone drifts away until only the two of us remain. The light is beginning to fade and the temperature has dipped when I notice her shivering slightly.

"Do you want to go sit by the fire?" I ask, nodding in the direction of the orange flames licking into the air further along the beach. She smiles at me and there's a spark of mischief in her eyes.

"Maybe in a while," she says as she kneels up and moves to straddle me. I moan quietly as her lips find mine. We've always connected well.

I'm confident that our location and the failing light mean that we can't be clearly seen by anybody else, and so I let my body begin to respond to the pretty girl that seems to want me just as much. My hands slip beneath her shirt and I'm working on her bra clasp when in the distance I hear a cry, the familiarity of the voice triggering a subconscious reaction in me.

I struggle and push Kate off, dumping her on the beach as I scramble to my feet and take off in the direction the cries still drift from. Behind a large washed-up tree trunk, I find three figures. As the clear strains of distress fill the air again, I lurch forward and grab the shirt of the nearest figure, spinning him around and landing a lucky punct on his nose. Now he's been lifted off her, Izzy scoots back a few feet on the pebbly surface, just as the third person, launches himself at me. He knocks me to the ground, but in the next second he's gone, and as I squint up I see his friend is yanking him away and back towards the busy end of the beach.

He turns around once and I see then that it's Whitlock. He scowls and tries to turn back, but his friend holds onto him tightly, his other hand covering his bleeding nose as they retreat.

A loud sob reaches my ears, and then a warmth crawls up my arm and envelops me.

What the fuck have I done?

~S~