Teardrop

Prologue - part 3 of 3

The car approached the marker for mile four. Ander watched the wave emerge against the darkening sky until its white crest could no longer be mistaken for cloud. He watched it rise in slow motion, twenty feet, thirty feet, a wall of water moving toward them, black as night.

Its roar almost drowned out the scream that came from the car. The cry didn't sound like hers, more like her mother's. Ander shuddered. The sound signaled that they had seen the wave at last. Brake lights flashed. Then the engine gunned. Too late.

Aunt Chora was as good as her word; she'd built her wave perfectly. It carried the whiff of citronella - Chora's touch to mask the burnt-metal odor that accompanied Zephry sorcery. Compact in width, the wave was taller than a three-story building, with a concentrated vortex in its deep belly and a foaming lip that would dash the bridge in half, but leave the land on either side intact. It would do its work cleanly and, more importantly, quickly. There would hardly be time for the tourists stopped at the mouth of the bridge to pull out their phones and hit record.

When the wave broke, its barrel stretched across the bridge, then doubled back to crash into the highway divider ten feet ahead of the car, precisely as planned. The bridge groaned. The road buckled. The car swirled into the whirlpool centre. Its undercarriage flooded. It was picked up by the wave and rode the crest, then shot off the bridge on a slide made of roiling sea.

Ander watched as the Chrysler somersaulted into the face of the wave. As it teetered down, he was appalled by a view through the windshield. There she was: dirty-blond hair splayed out and up. Soft profile, like a shadow cast by candlelight. Arms reaching for her mother, whose head knocked the steering wheel. Her scream cut Ander like glass.

If this hadn't happened, everything might have been different. But it did.

For the first time in his life, she looked at him.

His hands slipped from the handles of the orichalcum anchor. His feet lifted off the floor of the fishing boat. By the time the car splashed into the water, Ander was swimming toward her open window, fighting the wave, drawing on every ounce of ancient strength that flowed through his blood.

It was war, Ander versus the wave. It bashed into him, thrusting him against the shoal bottom of the Gulf, pummeling his ribs, turning his body into bruise. He gritted his teeth and swam through pain, through coral reef that slashed his skin, through shards of glass and splintered fender, through thick curtains of algae and weeds. His head shot above the surface and he gasped for air. He saw the twisted silhouette of the car - then it vanished beneath a world of foam. He nearly wept at the thought of not getting there in time.

Everything quieted. The wave retreated, gathering flotsam, dragging the car up with it. Leaving Ander behind.

He had one chance. The windows were above the level of the water. As soon as the wave returned, the car would be crushed in its trough. Ander could not explain how his body rose from the water, skidded across air. He leapt into the wave and reached out.

Her body was rigid as a vow. Her dark eyes were open, churning blue. Blood trickled down her neck as she turned to him. What did she see? What was he?

The question and her gaze paralysed Ander. In that bewildered moment, the wave curled around them, and a crucial chance was lost: he would only have time to save one of them. He knew how cruel it was. But, selfishly, he could not let her go.

Just before the wave exploded over them, Ander grabbed her hand.

Eureka.

Copyright Lauren Kate. All Rights Reserved.