Bloodlines (ON HOLD)

Chapter Two

Taryn

It felt good breathing crisp air into my lungs, even with the slight taste of salt intermixing. The wind gently blows my long, dark brown hair back as I sprint towards the turquoise sea. As I reached the white sandy beach, the overwhelming beauty made a smile creep onto my face. It felt like I belonged here and that a piece of me was left here, each time I came.

  I twisted my small locket in my hand. I’d never opened it before, but it was somehow special to me. I’d found it in the weakly-built shack on this shore when I was just six. Only ten years ago today, I’d found this secret place and found this little locket when I was looking for a place to escape from my adoptive mom. This place, as far as I knew, was all to me. I was the only one who knew about it. Even then, I felt that this locket, that sea, and that shack was meant to be for me. It kills me that I don’t have the heart to break the necklace open, but it was still pretty to the eye.

  The locket itself is pure silver, shaped like a small circle. On it, vines are intertwining, forming a perfect heart.  Flowers are traced around the heart, also, giving it a royal look.

  It’s sort of funny to think about it... a girl who has no recognition of her real family, living with a poor, penny-less woman who is barely home, due to being a workaholic, having a nice expensive necklace. It does explain why I have so much freedom to come to the beach, though. I mean, it’s nice to have a little settling freedom, but it’s not always great to have no one there when you need them.

  The only person I’ve ever had there for me is Ladon. I’ve known him since the first day of kindergarten, when I walked to school all by myself because my mother forgot about me. Ladon and his dad had walked straight over to me and introduced themselves. I didn’t have anyone to talk to the rest of the day so he soon became my best friend, just shortly after we told each other everything you could possibly tell a new friend when you’re in kindergarten. If I need him, he’s just at my fingertips. It’s like it’s his sixth sense to know I’m hurting.

  Right now the sun is a brilliant light blue, with the sun poking out from the clouds. Every ray shining, I can feel, caresses my skin as I run and dive into the crystal-looking waves. The white foam at the tip of each wave dissipates as the water hugs my physique. The water chills my senses as it turns from ice to warmth.

  Opening my eyes underwater is just like someone wearing glasses. My eyesight is heightened in it. I’ve never had the need for the gawky rims of glass to make my sight better, but I knew they did wonders for people whose eyesight was almost so bad that they could pass for being a blind person. That’s what I saw underwater… everything. My sea green eyes pick up every detail.

  The white grains of sand are dancing around me, and the clear water let’s me see for miles. But eventually, I run out of a thick-inhaled breath, resurfacing for air.

  My eyes can’t help but scan my surroundings when I take a deep, yearning breath. For some reason, it’s always been an instinct for me. It’s exactly like my unusual talent of using knives to hunt or spar.

  Yet again, I look at the once-beautiful grass hut in the distance, remembering how I was dumbfounded and hid in it when a storm came, and the time I fell through a negligible crevice in the faint brown floors, right into the wet sea.

  Then, something caught my eye, right through the water that was seamlessly dripping from my curly eyelashes. It was just a shimmer of a figure… moving right behind the shack. I only saw it for a second, but I knew it was there. Someone was watching me.