Vitality (Vitality Series #1)

Chapter 42 Breathing in Water

Ava felt the damp cold scrape through her again, and the pain started drumming at her bones. Her heart was aching. She woke to unwelcome light against her eyelids, pulling her from her dream, a memory long gone. The cave walls loomed over her as she opened her eyes. The sun barely touched the horizon yet; any mere light was smothered by a thick gray blanket against the sky. The fire, still going, was licking against the cave, the hot glow reaching where the light could not. Verina had retreated deeper into the cave, quiet in a still slumber. Ava was relieved that her eyes were closed.

She stood up with difficulty and walked to the cave's entrance, abandoning any warmth from the fire for the cool, lofting wind with its nipping moisture. Fog smothered the beach so dense only a soft illumination of the nearest surroundings could peer through. The waves coming into the shore crashed blue and black, pushing up the fog at its edges and retreated back into emptiness.

Layton sat there on a log to the right, peering out into the quiet canvas, looking almost ethereal and dream-like — but human as ever; it was the ocean she had jumped in, and now she was drowning in it. Ava wanted to strangle herself for ever falling for someone so hard... for ever falling for anything so hard.

She knew it was pointless to run. Her only hope was him. Her feet disappeared in the fog as the mist dispensed around her and lofted back together behind her. Layton became clearer as she approached... The sight of him was repulsive to her now. Her body stiffened as he became clearer, until finally she came to sit down on the edge of the log, staring carefully ahead.

Layton's head turned down, and she could see his chest rise as he took in a deep breath. Then he said, "I feel as if you keep asking me to breathe in air and I keep breathing in water." He ran his fingers against his chin and then let his hand drop back down between his legs.

She closed her eyes as a red-hot searing pain traveled from her head to her stomach.

"I'm not asking anything from you, but for you to let me go." Her head was still looking straight ahead. The only way she was going to endure this and find strength was to avert her eyes as much as she could.

"This situation is not comfortable for you, but sometimes there are things that take precedence over such things; no matter what it washes away in the process. For instance." He turned his head towards her. "You need stitches. I couldn't give them to you last night, because I would have likely torn you apart instead — but if I don't, you'll lose more blood than you can handle and your chances of infection will rise; I can already sense a change in your body. I don't care if you don't want me touching you — I am going to stitch up your wound. Unless, of course, you want to die." His raw black eyes narrowed. "But we both know you're a bigger fighter than that."

She narrowed her eyes before taking them off of him again but didn't say anything.

"It's true, no?" he asked, wrapping his hand around her wrist. She scowled as he pulled her in front of him to sit there, holding her mercilessly with his gaze like an archangel who had found his prize in war. He would swallow her whole.

But she would not allow his eyes to penetrate her soul, and she evaded them.

He pulled down her bandage, while assessing her reaction. The smell hit her nostrils, and she winced, turning her face away and extending her neck and shoulder to let him fix it, praying that he would not bite her. The more she thought about it, the more she feared she'd ever have to see that face again.

Layton reached for a medical bag he had sitting behind the log, waiting, and Ava laughed at him. His eyes bent curiously.

"What, were you waiting 'til I was in a coma to do it? Or were you just going to drag me out if I didn't come out here?"