the ground. Dorothy turned and found the two of them rolling around in the mud again.
She let her eyes close for a fraction of a second, annoyance thrumming inside of her.
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
The last time all three of them had been together, things had gone just as poorly. She still remembered that moment on the docks outside the Fairmont. Roman and Ash would’ve fought to the death if she hadn’t intervened.
Since showing up in New Seattle a year ago, she’d had this fantasy that she might just shove the two of them in a room together and force them to work out their differences but, now, she could see that it wouldn’t be that simple. She hated the both of them in that moment.
But she couldn’t just let them kill each other. She couldn’t bear to lose either of them.
She waited until the boys had separated, and then she grabbed Roman from behind, using a hold he’d taught her months ago: she merely grabbed his arm and pinned it behind his back, wrist cranked upward to send pain shooting through his forearm. It was a move designed to use an attacker’s own strength against him.
Roman gasped in pain and shot her a furious, betrayed look.
“Ash,” Dorothy said, and she was surprised by the sound of her own voice, low and pleading. “Please. Just go home.”
And now Ash turned his gaze on her, hurt. Dorothy felt something inside of her clench. He looked back at Roman.
“Fine,” he spat. His lip was bleeding. He glanced at Dorothy, opened his mouth like he was about to say something else, and then shook his head, apparently deciding against it. Shoulders bunched up around his ears, he turned to go.
36
Ash
Ash should’ve just asked Dorothy and Roman to give him a ride, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He opened his mouth wide, stretching his jaw again. His face throbbed where Roman had punched him.
“Asshole,” he muttered, even though no one was there to hear him. He was standing on the beach, staring at the anil out on the water, waves lapping against his ankles. The only thing he could think to do was swim out to the anil and see if whatever had allowed him to travel through time the first time would work again. He was . . . more than a little nervous.
He bounced on his toes and clenched and unclenched his hands, working up his adrenaline. And then he dove into the water.
The swim out to the anil was rough. Waves crashed over his head, and the undertow pulled at his feet, wanting to drag him under. He used all his adrenaline from the fight, all his anger and frustration to propel himself forward.
He couldn’t make out the anil through the water in his eyes. It was a glimmer of silver light, and then it was yellow liquid pouring through the waves. Blue lighting. Holding his breath, Ash dipped below the surface of the water. He felt that pull, again, but this time he didn’t think it was the ocean. It was the anil tugging him toward it, calling to something deep inside him. Acid rose in his throat. There was a strange, static electricity prickle inside of his gut, starting where the piece of the Second Star had lodged itself into his body four weeks ago.
The air around him grew thicker, and the water seemed to dissolve so that he wasn’t floating through the waves any longer but hanging, suspended, in the thick and heavy air. It felt like he was falling and flying all at once. He opened his eyes and saw that everything had gone black. Distantly, he thought he could make out the pinprick glimmer of stars.
The piece of ship inside of his body stung, painfully. His lungs began to burn. He pulled upward with his arms, thrashed with his legs.
He was underwater again. His brain spun, trying to figure out what was happening. Did it work?
Or . . . was he drowning?
You don’t die like this, said a voice in the back of his head.
The water was cold and unforgiving. It pounded at Ash’s temples and stung his eyes. He could make out a distant flicker of light above him.
Gathering his strength, he swam. Up and up until he surfaced, gasping. He was conscious of water rising and falling all around him, carrying his body aloft on crashing waves.
NOVEMBER 8, 2077, NEW SEATTLE
Ash could see the bubble of the anil in the distance: swirling