Clear

  Maybe Sam thinks that it will take two death trippers to surface a power augmenter. I can only hope. It’s with that thought that I feel a bit stronger, only I’m still barely able to move.

  Then, Sam lightly rests his hand on me, and the substance I’m in becomes manageable. I can move a bit more now, so I grab on to Costa’s shoulders and do what I can to make him alert. I lift both feet, kicking him in the chest, until he at last focuses on me. Sam slugs him across the jaw, and I know that’s not just to ensure that Costa is conscious. It’s obvious that Costa is confused, but when Sam points up and to me, Costa nods groggily. Reluctantly, Sam pushes me into Costa’s arms, and the three of us head toward the ceiling. Just before we hit the light, Sam takes his touch from me, and my world goes dark again.

  There is a noise that sounds like waves crashing against a rock wall, and with great speed, Costa and I push through the surface, to the real world. Wood floor erupts up in the few feet around us, snapping and flying across the room, and I gasp for real air. We fall over, hard, and I hear Costa’s shoulder dislocate when I land on top of him.

  I’m shaking and panting, but we are on the floor of Sam’s apartment. Before I can even begin to grasp what has happened, the floor outside of Sam’s kitchen breaks open, and I watch with disbelief as Sam’s body shuttles through, and he stumbles to a stand. Then, with great noise, the floor underneath Costa and me and also under Sam rebuilds itself until there is no indication that anything was ever destroyed.

  I reach for my throat again.

  Sam staggers over and lifts me from Costa.

  I still can’t catch my breath, and I am roaring with a level of energy that I cannot contain. Sam’s body is hot and sweaty, and it’s calling to me. I have to have him—now. I run my hand over the front of his shorts and pull his mouth to mine. Sam lifts me and walks us to the kitchen counter. The only thing that stops us is Costa’s voice. I forgot about him the moment that Sam appeared.

  “So, we’re doing this again, are we?” Costa says with a slur. “Let me just pop my shoulder back in.”

  Brusquely, I shove Sam away, my sights now on Costa. “Bastard!” I scream. In a flash, I’ve pulled a knife from the chopping block and circled out of the kitchen, heading straight for him.

  “Don’t, Stell…” Sam tries to say, but his voice is weak.

  He’s surging, and I suppose I must be, too.

  But he can’t stop me, and I barrel into Costa, who is now halfway to a stand. I run against him until I’ve pushed him into the wall.

  “I fucking hate you.” I don’t even recognize my own voice.

  He’s smiling. “How’s that surge going for you?”

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  He trails a hand through my hair. “Bring it, darlin’.”

  The knife in my hand plunges into his gut, and Costa and I both groan.

  He tightens his fingers in my hair. “I see you have a thing for knives, too.”

  “Fuck you.” I grip the handle and shove it in more. “I want you gone.”

  “Now…” He has to pause for a few seconds. “Now, lift the knife just an inch but not too much.”

  I grunt and edge the knife higher. His sound is so markedly erotic, and I’m powerless to deprive Costa of pleasure. I can’t stop.

  “More.” He starts to slide down against the wall.

  I rip the knife up until Costa smiles again and looks into my eyes.

  “You’re so good.”

  His bare torso is leaking blood down his frame, and impulsively, I put my hand against him to feel. Slowly, I start rubbing blood across his skin and up his chest, admiring the brilliant color and the sheen.

  Without warning, Sam shoves me aside, and I catch myself on the back of the sofa as Sam yanks out the knife from Costa’s gut.

  It takes no time before he’s got it to Costa’s neck. “You don’t deserve to surge and die at the same time.”

  “Oh, Sam…twice in one day? All those times…I asked you to kill me…”

  It’s an effort for Sam to focus. Even in my state, I can see that. Costa’s allure is strong right now for both of us, his dying undeniably feeding our surge.

  While the surge is powerful, Sam’s rage is stronger and allows him to slur out words, “Better me than Stella.”

  Through blurry vision, I see Sam slash Costa’s throat, and Sam lets him fall unceremoniously to the floor. Sam’s eyes are half open when he walks to me, knife still in hand, and I immediately lift my shirt over my head and meet him halfway. In a flash, he has my shorts undone, and I shake them down while he slides the knife under my bra and cuts it off with a swift movement. His hand covers one breast, and his mouth goes over my other until he’s sucking hard on my nipple. I look down and barely register the blood coloring my chest.

  After he moves up, when I start to kiss him, to devour him, I hear the knife fall.

  Then, when he’s on his knees in front of me, my peripheral vision catches sight of Costa’s body sinking into the floor. I run my hands through Sam’s hair and push my hips against his mouth.

  Later, he’s sitting on the sofa, and I’m on top, grinding on him, while his hands dig into my ass, moving me up and down on his cock. The primal part of me is in charge, and every physical sensation that I seek comes from an animalistic urge to take everything I can from Sam and to give him everything that I have.

  I am insatiable.

  Sam and I are my only concern.

  So much so, that the couch floating four feet in the air is of none.

  THE TABLE IS COVERED in nearly everything from Sam’s fridge. I already ate half of a leftover roast chicken and two pita pockets stuffed with hummus, green peppers, and olives.

  Now, I’m halfway through an apple pie from The Finicky Turtle. “Do you have any more milk?”

  “You drank the two gallons I had.” He opens the fridge and rummages around, emerging with a bottle of vitamin water. “This helps.”

  I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “Do you need it? Did you get enough to eat?”

  He raises a beer. “I’m good. The pizza did it for me.”

  I forgot about that. Still straddling him, I’d located the phone in between the couch cushions and called in a delivery for three larges.

  “Why aren’t you and Costa morbidly obese?”

  “Death tripping seems to burn a lot of calories.”

  I burp and wave my fork at him. “Plus, sometimes, lots of fucking happens after. Must help.” I’m pretty sure I’m still slurring a bit.

  He gives me a soft smile. “There is that. You might want to slow down. Nausea is a problem.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I drop my fork. “I feel a little weird still.”

  “I know.” He’s not smiling anymore. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

  I set my elbows on the table and drop my head in my hands. “I tried to kill Costa.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why did you stop me?”

  “That wasn’t really you. It was the surge. You’re not meant to kill. I knew you’d feel bad about it after.”

  “No, I wouldn’t have. You should have let me.”

  “Stella…”

  “Fine. You’re right.” I rub my eyes with my palms. I can’t bear to think about what I did with that knife, how easy it was and how good it felt. The connection I had with Costa in that moment…I wish I could erase the memory. “You never tripped him before today?”

  Sam waits to answer me. “No.”

  “Why not? He’s tripped you enough.”

  He starts clearing the table, and I sit up.

  “It should be up to the person to trip themself. Among the many things that Costa likes, tripping me—and apparently, you—is one of them. But what he’s wanted for ages is for me to kill him. As you probably noticed, there’s a certain kind of pre-trip high that you get when someone else does it.” Sam carries dishes into the kitchen and sets them on the counter before he vomits into the sink. He hears me
move my chair back, but he waves me away. When he’s emptied his stomach, he splashes water on his face. “Fuck.”

  “You all right?”

  “No, no, I’m not all right. I’m prone to hangovers. Costa, of course, isn’t. I can’t believe I have to explain this shit to you. It never even occurred to me that Costa would trip you.”

  A loud crash from the living room makes me jump, and I’m frightened that Costa is surfacing. Instead, however, it’s the coffee table that dropped from the ceiling.

  “Should we try to deal with the rest of the floating stuff?” I ask.

  Sam shrugs. He eyes the rest of his furniture that’s still suspended around the apartment. The sofa is about five feet off the ground, but a number of other pieces are plastered to the ceiling. We got his small dining table down, but we accidentally shattered picture frames that landed too hard. The smaller items were harder for him to control, and both of us decided to try later when we weren’t such a mess.

  “I can make things float.” Sam tosses up his hands. “What the hell am I going to do with that?”

  For the first time since I was tripped, I smile because I understand something. “You’ll help me float in the Maine air.”

  “That’s right.” Sam’s face softens. “We made this power.”

  “I know. It’s crazy.” I rub my arms. I’m restless and edgy, and my body doesn’t feel like my own. “Sam? When we died or whatever…where were we? What is that place?”

  “I can’t really answer that. We just call it under. We’re dead enough to be out of the real world but not dead enough to go anywhere else—if heaven and hell even exist.”

  “I didn’t like it there.”

  “I don’t blame you. It can feel really awful. I know. Hey, are you crawling out of your skin?” Sam asks.

  I nod and realize that I’m tapping my foot on the floor.

  “Come on.” He holds out a hand, and I go to him. “A shower helps for that.”

  In his bathroom, Sam helps me undress.

  I feel tremendously weak and tired now, so I let him run the hot water and get me into the shower. “Don’t leave me.”

  “I won’t.” He takes off his clothes and steps in. “Come here.”

  I fall into him, and I let him hold me while the water rushes over us. “This feels nice.”

  “Good. It’s a tactile thing. Sensory stuff gets screwy after tripping. Sometimes, light touches feel good, and other times, you need deep pressure. It sounds weird, but I used to rake a comb over my skin to bring me down. Another time, I blew bubbles and let them fall over me. Oh, and once, I slept with bags of rice on my back. You learn to get creative. Showers usually work though, no matter what.”

  My emotions are mostly numb, but now that the surge has mostly passed, the reality of what happened sets in. “Sam…” My voice breaks.

  “I know, I know.” He keeps me against him and soaps my back using gentle rhythmic strokes. “This is too much.”

  “I can do this,” I say softly. “I am doing this.”

  “You shouldn’t have to. And you had a horrible first trip, which is patently unfair.”

  “I assumed mine was bad. Otherwise, you guys would have never gone under again.”

  “You were tripped under shitty circumstances, and that can strongly influence things. I tripped badly, too, but it’s why I could get to you so fast. I was alert and not all drugged up. If it’d been good, I could have sunk a lot lower and been the way Costa was.”

  “I don’t understand. Why was his trip so good?”

  Sam glides his hands over my shoulders and down my arms, and his touch is soothing my nerves. “Costa probably had a highly intense trip because I killed him, and he’d wanted that for years. Then, you gutted him, and he’d just tripped you. The combination of the two of us…well, he’ll be under for hours and hours. Death tripping is very often tied into emotion. No two trips are ever the same because no circumstances are ever the same.”

  “So, yours was bad because of how it happened also?”

  He nods. “I ran my body into Costa’s and threw us over the edge. He hit his head on a rock, but he didn’t die right away, which he loved. I wasn’t thinking clearly though. There was no reason for me to trip him, but watching what he had done to you…I broke my rule about not tripping others. I couldn’t stop myself.” Sam stops to kiss me.

  His passion and love are the only things letting me keep it together at all.

  “I can’t think of a worse way to go into a trip. I understand how you felt, watching me die. I don’t ever want to see that again. That’s why I went crazy and launched myself at him. Unfortunately, I wasn’t hurt enough, so I had to get back upstairs.”

  “How did you—”

  “I really don’t want to talk about it. I saw more blood today than I cared to.”

  “When you were under with me,” I start, “something happened to you.”

  Sam turns me around again and takes his time lathering my hair with shampoo. “This feels okay?”

  “Yes. The light touch is helping me. Thank you.” He’s being so sweet to me, but I need an answer. “Sam? Tell me what happened when you covered your ears during that trip.”

  He sighs. “I didn’t know about this, but it seems that I can keep my powers when I go under. When you touched me, I was entirely focused on you and how much I wanted to make everything better for you, how much I love you. Then you…you power-augmented me when we were under. I could hear everything.”

  “Everything where? What’s to hear when you’re under?”

  He hesitates. “Other people.”

  “Oh my God, Sam…other death trippers?”

  “I don’t know. The noise was excruciating. But I don’t want to go back under. Neither of us is going back. This is over.”

  Sam tips my head under the spray, and I have to catch my balance when I shut my eyes.

  “Easy there. Dizziness can be a problem, too.”

  I can tell that Sam doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. He just wants to take care of me, and I’m too drained to let him do anything but.

  “I’ll be fine. Maybe I need to sleep for a bit.”

  “Okay.” But he wraps me in his arms once again and tightly holds me. He shivers against me, and his voice trembles when he says, “I’m sorry I couldn’t surface you, Stella. I’m so sorry. I’ve never had to surface anyone, and it didn’t occur to me that it would be a problem.”

  “It’s not your fault.” I hug him with all the strength I have left. “I gather, it’s a good thing you tripped Costa though.”

  “It scares the shit out of me to think what would’ve happened if I hadn’t. The person who first trips you must be the person who surfaces you.” He lets out a sigh of disbelief. “Costa was right when he said that we don’t know nearly enough about this. But I don’t want to know more. What if I hadn’t gotten mad enough to attack him? I didn’t even mean to kill him. I wasn’t thinking. But what if he hadn’t been there? What if I hadn’t thought to have him try to surface you? What if—”

  “But that didn’t happen.” I put my mouth to his. “That didn’t happen, and I’m okay. I’m breathing, I’m in love, I’m back where I belong. Home.”

  While surge sex is pretty damn impressive, kissing after death tripping is equally remarkable. Everything about the beauty of tasting Sam is magnified, and this closeness, this total intimacy in the shower, clears my mind more than I could have thought a few hours ago.

  Sam turns off the faucet and reaches for our towels. He wraps both of us up and brings me to his bed. I slip into one of his shirts and crawl under the covers. I very much needed to be in this familiar bed.

  “Are you tired, too?” I ask him.

  He gets in next to me. “I am. But I’m going to stay awake.”

  I don’t have to ask why. Sam is watching for Costa. “You’re going to have to sleep sometime.”

  “True. But it’s not going to be tonight.”

  “You said he’d
be under for a long time.”

  “I’m not taking any chances.”

  “He’ll come back, won’t he?”

  “Yes.” Sam cuddles me in close. “But he did what he wanted to today, and he’ll need time to come down.”

  “So, sleep with me.”

  “Later. I’m okay.”

  Dawn is breaking, and in the light, I see how overwhelmed and spent Sam is. But there’s more. “Something else is wrong,” I say. “Tell me.”

  “You need to rest. And you’re shivering now. The detoxing does that. You’ve been through a lot.”

  “Sam, what is it?”

  He sighs. “I don’t know. I just…I don’t like that you were tripped at all, but I particularly don’t like that it was Costa who did it, who turned you into a death tripper. There might be a…I don’t know…a tie between you two now.”

  “There’s nothing between me and Costa. Don’t say that.”

  “Romantically, no,” he says with a smile. “Sexually, yes. You’ve felt how strong death tripping is. It fucks with your emotions. It creates sexual tension, and don’t protest because I know it was there. I don’t blame you.” He slides his hands up under my sleeves and warms my skin. “If I’m honest, I probably have some kind of tie myself with Costa because he tripped me. We were close before that, but it added an entirely new dimension. You might have that with him, too.”

  “I have a tie with you. End of story. And if it makes you feel any better, you can look at the fact that Costa tripped us both. That’s another thing that ties you and me together.”

  He laughs lightly. “So, Costa’s kind of our daddy?”

  “If you’d like to think of yourself as my brother, then a number of things are going to have to change.”

  “Okay, scratch that,” he says quickly.

  “Good. Because I won’t give you up. I can’t. And I might not know much about this, but if I’m your power augmenter, that has to mean something much more significant than who tripped me.” I nestle in more. “Maybe Costa is right about one thing.”