Chasing Sunrise

Thirty-Three

I felt like I was floating, and like someone was slowly peeling my skin off. It felt like sunrise, almost. Was this death?

From the pain came an awareness of my body, how I lay prone and suspended. Someone had a hand braced against my chest.

More pain, like a thousand knives slicing my skin, and then the familiar sensation of molten metal and my body swelling up like a blister. This was definitely sunrise.

I began to move, and the hand on my chest held me down, or under actually.

I was being held underwater, I realized, as I tried to thrash my arms. The pain kept building and I felt the water around me get warm and start to bubble. I didn't feel like I needed to breathe, either. That was bad. I set my jaw and opened my eyes, feeling the sting of water right up against my eyeballs and able to see nothing more than a dark field above me. I had a hazy impression of someone standing next to me in the water, still holding me down.

The pain was getting more acute and my field of vision began to turn a blinding shade of white. I forced my muscles to go slack. If this was how I died, then so be it.

Water churned around me as the pressure on my chest shifted. The person ducked down underwater with me and had his arms around my waist. It was Corban. I knew his touch. A hand cupped my cheek, and he pressed his lips to mine.

No, I thought. This would kill him.

I brought my hands up to his chest, intent on pushing him away, only his response was to hold me closer and deepen the kiss. I found myself clutching the front of his shirt. Water was boiling around us, or so it sounded like, but he weighed me down, like an anchor, and kissed me like he'd been waiting for the chance for centuries.

My arms went around his neck, my fingers raking through his wet hair. The pain in my body burst, but I stayed intact. A sensation like a cleansing pulse went through me, and the water around me, originating from his kiss.

I finally managed to get my hands against his chest again, and this time I did push, tearing myself away from him. I bobbed up in the water, my face breaking the surface as I gasped down a deep breath of air. The air was full of steam, but the water was only warm, not boiling hot.

My eyelids fluttered open and for a confused moment I looked around. I was in Cassie's studio. My mind slowly pieced together that I was squatting in the pond at the bottom of that infernal waterfall.

And Corban was slumped over in the water, face down.

I panicked and threw my arms around his torso, hauling him up out of the water and heaving him towards the edge. A wave sloshed over the lip of the pond and spread across the floor of the studio, but I managed to get Corban's upper body to follow it so that he lay on his back, head lolling, so I had to cushion it with one hand to prevent him from cracking his skull. He lay half out of the water, gasping and coughing. I wrestled him onto his side so that he'd be able to expel any water he had in his lungs.

He coughed and heaved while I backed away across the pond. I didn't want to risk touching his wet clothes, in case the wetness prevented them from being a barrier to my tainted skin.

Slowly he got his arms under him and hauled himself the rest of the way out.

"Corban?" I said.

He was still too busy coughing up water to reply.

I climbed out of the pond and pressed a finger to my throat. I had a pulse, all right. I was breathing. I was human once more; full immersion had prevented me from burning up in the sunrise.

But wait, I thought, how had Corban gotten me into the house when I was a vampire?

I looked up at the stairs, and there saw my aunt in that stupid bathrobe of hers, standing anxiously, wringing her hands.

"You," I said. "I told you not to invite me—"

"That's drinking water, you know," she cut me off. "I hope you're ready to pay for a delivery from the water truck. I'm going to have to drain the whole system."

"Um... fine," I said.

"And don't tell me who I can and can't invite in my own house," she snapped. "It's my house." She turned on her heel and stomped her way up the stairs. A moment later, the front door slammed.

Next to me, Corban began to chuckle.

I looked down at him, relieved that he had come around, and his eyes were open. There was something about his eyes, though. They were the same shade of blue, but they weren't quite as ethereal.

I watched as he put two fingers to his own throat, his mouth quirking in his signature, wry smile.

"What?" I asked.

He reached out and put his hand over mine.

I pulled back, but he sat up and did it again.

"It doesn't hurt," he said. He flopped back down on the floor. "It doesn't hurt."

Then he passed out.

*