7. Carol

7

Carol

Carol slept fitfully, cold and damp and torn between a thousand different anxieties. The nearness of the ocean—the sound of it, the taste and scent and shiver of it drying on her skin—must have filtered into her dreams, because she found herself underwater.

She swam through waters that should have been pitch black, even to her shark. An unearthly glow, a sort of deepwater moonlight, outlined dark sheets of rock. They lay tumbled against one another like a giant's playing cards. Carol slipped through the gaps. Ahead, the light brightened. No— bright was the wrong word for it. Too sun-like. It became… more. Softer, gentler, wrapping around rocks and ghostly weeds like—

Like him. Even in her dream, Carol's skin prickled. The moonlight glow wasn't possessive, like the strange aura that surrounded Moss, but it responded to her dream-self's presence. It deepened when she was near and faded behind her. And somewhere ahead…

Something she couldn't see, couldn't sense, but every part of her knew it was where she was meant to be.

She pushed onwards. But the faster she swam, the longer the vast plane of rock between her and whatever was ahead of her became. The slab of rock above her pressed down until there was barely enough room to squeeze through. If only she could get to the light ahead and whatever it was waiting to illuminate for her—

But maybe she wasn't meant to? Maybe it wasn't waiting for her but for somebody else.

I'll go anyway. She pressed on until there was no space for her shark body. She transformed. Her human form slipped through the gap, hands grabbing rocky outcrops, eyes straining towards whatever lay beyond the light.

There was something there. Someone. Couldn't he tell that she was searching for him? Why didn't he reach back to her?

This place was magical, and he was the most enticing man she'd ever laid eyes on, and she was…

She ran her tongue over her teeth and tasted blood.

She wasn't the sort of person people reached back to, even in her dreams.