Relief.
It flooded through him like the hit of a potent batch of dreamweed. Sol groaned. He could use a hit of dreamweed. Water soaked into his skin. His gills fluttered. There was nothing like breathing water. It was like a drug itself.
A motor droned in the distance. A large mass moved to his left, the quick triggers of fractured movements indicating it was probably a school of mullet trying to evade a pod of dolphins. He could hear the dolphin's high-pitched signatures, the echo of those staticky sounds vibrating through the water. Sol swam in the opposite direction, eager for solitude and the peace the Deep would bring.
As he coasted farther from shore, the growing anxiety surrounding his predicament slowly abated. For the first time since he'd opened eyes and realized he was alive the tension that had been building in his mind eased. His muscles began to relax with each undulation of his hips that took him into deeper, darker water. In the Deep, he didn't need to see. This was home where everything was familiar. Where the echoes of sound provided his mind with all the details he needed. He let his mind work. Most of his kind had the ability to shape things to some degree or another. Like dolphins, their signatures—those distinctive sounds they made when underwater—weren't just sounds. They acted as sight too. The sounds went out, but they'd come back like a boomerang, taking a shape, prompting a mental picture, and he was better at seeing out here than most.
Now that the initial shock of finding out he was blind was waning, he felt like a new man. He hadn't realized how trapped he'd been under the influence of Caris' Song. He felt like a fog had been lifted off his brain, a spell broken. He was free. His mind was his own again. Sight was nothing compared to controlling his own mind, his emotions. He'd learned a long time ago magic always came with a price, the giving of it, the taking away. If losing his sight was the price of freedom from the trap of Caris' Song, it was a price he'd gladly pay.
As his body grew more sated with Gulf water, he mulled over his situation. It wasn't in him to sulk. It wasn't in him to feel sorry for himself. When presented with a problem, he liked to deal with it head on and in a convincing manner. Some people thought that made him an asshole. Sol thought it made him expedient. Some entitled lander threatened your sister, you beat the shit out of him and made sure he never looked at her again. People were stupid, and Sol was smart enough to take advantage of that. People did drugs. Sol supplied their needs. You needed something to go boom, he could handle that too.
There wasn't much he wouldn't do as long as he got his money. Hell, he couldn't even feel guilty about what he'd done to Jamie anymore. It had been Jamie's choice to try and save that boy. And now look at him. Jamie was a god among men, a god among their kind. He'd done Jamie a fucking favor.
As for the boy, Sol tried not to think about Rory. He tried not to think of Rory's sister, Gina. Getting involved with her had been a mistake. Mixing business with pleasure was always a mistake, but she'd been willing, and he'd been able and as usual, he'd lost interest in a matter of weeks. When he'd heard Sterling Flores had put a mark on Gina's father, Sloan Nance, he'd volunteered for the job. He might have dumped her for a fresh catch, but he hadn't wanted to see her get hurt.
Turned out Gina had been safe, but her little brother wasn't. Turned out Flores was a piece of shit traitor, but by then it had been too late, as in the clock was ticking and it only had about sixty seconds on it. Turned out he was a selfish bastard, but then he'd already known that.
Sol had tried to do what he thought was the right thing, and it had bit him in the ass. All that, "Do the right thing," people were always trying to push on him was bullshit. Right didn't exist. Wrong didn't exist. He didn't do mistakes, and he didn't have regrets. People were who they were and did what they did and shit happened and you got over it. You took care of yourself and didn't worry about the rest.
And he'd done a damn good job of taking care of himself, which made his current situation less than ideal. He didn't like owing people anything, and he was racking up a debt to Farron he wouldn't be able to repay.
There were other places he could go. He thought about it. Losing himself in the Deep and never coming back. He could avoid his sister, avoid his father. It would be that easy. He even started swimming south. The Keys were always good this time of year. Spring Break was around the corner; the islands would be full of college girls looking for a good time, and he supposed now that the world knew of their existence, some of those girls would be looking for a specific kind of good time, one he was more than willing to provide.
But something made him pause. Something made him question. The fire. The softness of Farron's voice. The quiet gentleness of her touch. A feeling stole over him, so foreign he refused to put a name to it. He wasn't used to second guessing himself. He usually trusted his instincts and they were usually right. He didn't deal in the uncertain, but he found himself needing someone to trust, and he realized he trusted Farron in a way he hadn't fully trusted anyone before, which made little sense. He barely knew her, and still she'd taken him in and seen to his needs.
Even though his instincts were telling him to run, something else, something stronger, was urging him to stay. It was just for a few days until he could get his bearings. At least, that's what he told himself as he flipped around and headed back to shore.
He might not ever see another sunrise, but he could see the fire.
