North pulled onto the highway, and started heading east. I couldn’t look around him to check his speed, but he drove faster than Luke had when I’d ridden with him.
With the bike vibrating through me, rattling my bones, I held tight. I couldn’t see forward, just side to side, and with the helmet, it made it awkward to hold him too close. I closed my eyes a lot.
Even with the roads fairly clear, it was forty minutes before North pulled off the highway. He took a road past a sign that said Folly Beach. When he started across a long bridge, he slowed enough that I could sit back a little without fear of flying off the back. My insides started to flutter more at the heavy salt taste thickening in the air.
Folly Beach’s main road was clustered with boutique shops, restaurants and bars. A couple of the bars were open still, but nearly everything else was locked up. I imagined late October wasn’t exactly the best time for tourists.
North took the road to the end and made a left. I grasped at North’s stomach, leaning back a little to try to look. There was a large hotel, followed by condos and houses on stilts. I stared at the homes, wondering why and how they built them on top of those frames like that.
It was another couple of miles before North finally stopped the bike. My legs and stomach were a mess from the excitement and the vibration of the bike rattling through me for so long. North leaned the motorcycle slightly, planting a foot on the road. He clutched at my hands on his stomach, pulling one away to urge me to climb off.
I stood with shaking knees and my skin electrified. I turned, seeing that North had stopped because the road had ended. In front of us was a road barrier, with iron beams blocking the way and a bright yellow sign warning people to stay out. Beyond it was a road that appeared to twist into the darkness beyond two large sand dunes.
North turned the motorcycle off, kicking the stand into place before stepping away from it.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” he said. He turned, glancing down at me. He removed my helmet, putting it back into his bike. He studied me for a moment. He turned and squatted. “Climb on my back.”
I wanted to tell him I could walk, but he seemed to have something in mind. I eased over, encircling my arms around his shoulders. His hands found my thighs and he lifted me as he stood. He walked around the iron barrier, ignoring the warning signs and followed the road between the sand dunes.
The moment we were beyond the dunes, the streetlights fell behind us and the only light was the moon, almost full and as bright as I’d ever seen it. A million stars tried to compete with it.
North continued down the path despite the low light. Surrounding us was what I thought at first were just random walls built into the sand. When he turned a bend in the road and I caught the shapes from a different angle, I realized they had once been buildings, and now were only rubble. Iron bar framework had twisted against time and weather, holding up the last remnants of concrete walls. There were heavy cracks in the foundation, and sand had collected in the corners, wind swept in from the dunes.
“What happened?” I asked in a quiet voice.
“A hurricane,” he said. “It blew through here and took out nearly half the island.”
“Hurricanes?” I asked. I was from Illinois. The worst we got were tornados. “They don't have those in the fall, right?”
“There's a few weeks left before hurricane season is over,” he said. “But I doubt we’ll see another one this year. You'll have to wait until next summer.”
“Have you ever been through a hurricane?”
“Yup,” he said. His fingers tightened under my thighs and he hefted me higher on his back. “Look ahead.”
I leaned over his shoulder, feeling the bristle of his unshaven cheek. I breathed in his musk on top of the salty breeze sweeping around us. Even with the moon glowing above us, I couldn’t tell what he wanted me to look at. It was a mass of shapes.
North climbed a short sand dune. I could just make out a particular shadow, a singular, slim building standing out among the slopes of sand.
When he got to the top, the sand stretched out at our feet, meeting dark waves, barely distinguishable in the moonlight. The building stood out alone atop a tiny island about a hundred feet from the shore. It was too small to be of any use that I could imagine.
“What is it?” I asked.
North’s fingers rubbed my skin gently, massaging. “It’s a lighthouse,” he said. “It used to be attached to the island until a couple of big storms wiped out this part of the island.”
“Oh,” I said quietly. Now that he told me what it was, I realized I probably wouldn’t have recognized it in the dark, since the light was out. “It’s kind of lonely.”
“Not now,” he said. “We’re here to visit.” He marched forward, until his footing became unstable over the uneven sand. He moved away from the road a little, finding a small patch of sand to stop in, where he knelt. “Want to climb down?”
I released his shoulders and he lowered until I stood. My shoes sunk into the sand. The wind swept over my face as if I was back on his motorcycle. I hugged his jacket around my shoulders.
My eyes caught on the water. Even in the dark, I could see the movement and was dazzled by the crashing sound and the tang of the salt taste in the air. The moonlight colored the water a dark blue and gray.
I grasped North’s forearm to balance my footing in the uneven sand and to feel him nearby. I was a little taken aback by the scenery and by the overwhelming sensation of being so isolated: the only two people in the middle of nowhere. “What is this place?”
“They call this the North Shore,” he said. “So I claimed it.” He knelt down, dropping onto his butt in the sand. He found my hand and tugged at me. “Sit and stay a while.”
I started to kneel, but North positioned me between his legs in the sand. He planted his legs on either side of mine and eased me back until I was relaxing, my back against his chest. He planted his chin on top of my head.
I stared off into the distance and with every moment, I lost a little bit of my voice, my thoughts going with it, until there was only moon and stars and waves from the ocean and a lonely lighthouse in the distance. Rocky, the party, the chaos at school, everything started to settle and quiet, and the nerve-wracking panic ebbed away with the tide. My fingers drifted down, brushing through the sand and feeling the texture between my fingertips. While I’d felt sand before, it took me a while to think of this sand as being from the ocean, and what I was seeing before me was so big, bigger than what I’d imagined in my head as the ocean to be. Pictures, television, never did it a bit of justice.
North seemed content with the silence. It reminded me of the time we’d spent on the roof of my parents’ house. It felt like almost a lifetime ago now. I’d been much more intimidated by North back then. With his intense dark eyes and his tall, strong body, he’d been the hardest out of all of them to even begin to feel comfortable around. When I first met him, I’d never trust him to climb on the back of his motorcycle to ride to such an isolated spot. North, the ferocious protector, and ever-surprising guardian.
As if aware I was thinking about him, his palm slid over my arm, smoothing down the outside of his jacket. “Are you warm?” he asked, his voice raspy.
I started to nod, but realized he probably wouldn’t notice. “Yes,” I said.
“What do you think?” he asked. “I know it probably isn’t the best time to visit. It’s probably better during the day.”
“It’s perfect,” I said, surprising myself again at calling one of his dates perfect before I could think of anything else to say. “Do you come here a lot?”
“Haven’t been here in a while. We’ve been busy.”
I felt my cheeks warming. “I heard that’s happening a lot lately. Something to do with a girl.”
North grunted, the warm puff of air meeting the back of my scalp. He dipped his head and his nose buried into my hair. “Not just any girl.”
&n
bsp; My lips trembled as I tried to think of something to say. I stared hard at the lighthouse and the waves, finding it suddenly difficult to focus with North against my back. “Oh?” was all I could manage.
His hand found my hip under the jacket but above my shirt. I sucked in my stomach a little in surprise, but his palm smoothed over my shirt and around my waist, above my belly button. “I’m not complaining,” he said. “Although keeping up with you is turning into a full time job.”
“Sorry,” I said.
He chuckled, and his hand on my stomach brushed lightly from side to side. He tilted his head and his other hand found my chin, directing it to where he wanted. “Look,” he said. He pointed out toward the east, at the expanse of ocean. “Can you see it?”
I thought at first he meant the stars, until a red light flashed in the distance. I squinted, wondering if I’d been seeing things, but the red light returned once, briefly, before disappearing again. “What is it?”
“A ship. Probably a couple miles out.”
“That far?”
“It’s a pretty big ocean, Baby.”
I watched out at the water line, occasionally catching the red light again. Sometimes a white light joined it. I touched the sand below us, crumbling it in my hands, letting it filter through my fingers. It kept me grounded when my mind was dreaming about ocean waves and ships.
“We’ll go out one day,” he said. “Silas and I were talking about a boat.”
“Like that one out there?”
I felt his lips against my head turning upward and I sensed he was smiling. “Maybe something a little smaller. Something to sail around the coast. Maybe take it over to Europe one day and see France and Greece and home again.”
“Home?” My heart suddenly faltered. We weren’t home? Home was with us, wasn’t it?
“Germany,” he said. “Where I was born.”
I blinked against the wind that picked up, but my mind was trying to sort the information. “You were born in Europe?”
“Yes,” he said.
“I never... I thought... I mean for some reason I thought you were from here.”
“Because I don’t have an accent?”
I nodded a little. “I suppose that’s it.”
“I grew up around military bases. My father insisted I was taught English.” His lips lowered until they met with the back of my head. “Sang,” he said against my hair.
“North?”
He breathed in against my hair, lowering his face until his mouth met my ear. “Do you like me?”
I couldn’t help my smile. “Yes,” I said. “Do you like me?”
North’s hand on my stomach tightened. His lips moved against my ear, but no sound came out. When moments passed and he didn’t answer, my heart wanted to stop. What was wrong? Why didn’t he say yes like he usually did?
“Yeah,” he finally said, with a heavy sigh that blew my hair against my neck. “Yes, Sang Baby, I like you. Probably a lot more than I should.”
My heart that was pounding so hard a moment ago stopped suddenly, along with my breath. The wind and the waves seemed to still. I wanted him to tell me what he meant and didn't want to miss a word.
But North drew quiet again. I sensed that he was struggling. I shifted slowly so I wouldn’t spook him. He let go of me, withdrawing his hands. I turned, getting on my knees in the sand so I could face him.
He leaned back on his hands. At first his eyes remained on the ground between us. He slid his eyes up after a moment, finally meeting my gaze.
There was something wrong. I could feel it from him. “What?” I asked.
His lips twisted. He shook his head. “Never mind,” he said. “I can’t.”
I let out a slow, frustrated sigh. The whole I can’t and I shouldn’t thing was too confusing, so limiting. “I thought we told each other important things. Can’t what?”
He looked up at me again, and it was as if I’d yelled at him like I’d done before. He looked hurt, defeated. What was wrong with him? Was it the Academy? Maybe there was some Academy rule that prevented the guys from doing certain things. Saying what they wanted. Doing what they wanted.
And it struck me in that moment. The guys got close, but there was an invisible line somewhere. Kota had hinted at it somehow. Like when he kissed me on the brow but not anywhere else. There were times the others got close, like Nathan, but never took it further. I’d been watching other couples kissing, holding hands. Karen even suggested sex, and everyone at school probably thought Silas and I had done that. Could a school like the Academy take over a life so much that North couldn’t tell me something that he looked desperate to tell me? Could they control who he kissed? Who they touched?
My thoughts propelled me up. I rose from the sand, finding the zipper to the jacket and unzipping it, sliding it from my shoulders.
I’d had enough sitting, enough looking and wondering and not getting an answer. I couldn’t stand to see the pain in his eyes. If he wasn’t going to tell me, or couldn’t, I’d force the moment to change so he wouldn’t feel pressured to. I’d distract him. I’d protect him from himself.
“What are you doing?” North asked, gazing up at me. Those dark eyes glinting in the moonlight.
I passed him the jacket. “I’m going to go touch it,” I said. I kicked off my shoes and dropped my phone on top of them. I didn’t want to risk dropping it in the darkness.
His eyebrows lifted in confusion. He clutched the jacket, taking it from me and putting it in his lap. “Touch what?”
“The ocean,” I said. I turned from him, starting off across the sand. I walked quickly, wanting to run away from North’s dark eyes and the secrets that I might never find out. Knowing there was a secret he couldn’t tell me was worse than not knowing any such thing existed.
Because if it was a secret, it meant it was Academy. It was the only thing they couldn't talk openly about with me.
And my heart stung, wondering if the Academy found something wrong with me, or if it was a general rule not to get too close to a girl. They’d been told not to get close to anyone at Ashley Waters. Did that include me? It seemed impossible that the Academy would make such a rule. Why would a school care? I’d come so far with them. They’d told me they wanted me to join this family, this group. At the same time, I wasn’t allowed in. I wasn’t allowed to get that close. Maybe that was why everyone around us was so confused, including me.
The only answer I had was that the Academy told them to stay at a distance from me.
I was forbidden territory.
I focused on the swirl of waves in front of me. I wanted to dip my toe in. I wanted to touch something, when I wasn't sure I could touch the guys and what it all meant.
The first time North called my name, there was a warning tone, like he wanted me to stop. I’d heard it before, usually when the other guys and I were doing something silly together and he wanted us to quit.
I dashed forward. I didn’t want him to be so protective of me that I couldn’t do something as simple as touch the water without him giving me a lecture that the water was too cold or something else. I’d never seen the ocean before. I’d never felt the water. Not that I expected it to be different than water from the sink or a pool, but it was different to me. I didn’t want to miss the chance the first time I was here.
When my bare feet reached the damp sand as the wave washed back out, North called again for me, his tone much more urgent. It caught me so off guard that I turned, the bottoms of my feet chilled against the soaked sand.
North was running after me. I didn’t know why. I stepped backward, looking from side to side, wondering if perhaps there was something I was at risk of stepping on and didn’t see. A crab? A jellyfish?
A wave crept up over my ankles and rose quickly to encompass my calves, almost up to my knees. The water surged. I lost my balance at the press and tug of the wave, falling.
The chill in the water didn’t scare me as much as the pulling. The water, unrelenting,
yanked me away from the shore. I had fallen on my back and felt the sand against my hips. I tried to sink myself to stabilize so I could catch my footing and stand, but the water made the ground slippery, and the sand released too easily to act as a foothold.
Just when I was being pulled under another swell of water, an arm threaded around my waist and I was pulled up. I sputtered. I’d been so desperate just to find some traction that breathing hadn’t been part of the equation yet.
North yanked me up out of the water. I clutched to his black T-shirt. He pulled me around until I was chest to chest with him. He caught my thighs, lifting until they were wrapped up around him. He hugged me close as he slogged forward through the water toward the sand.
The wind knocked around us, catching through my clothes as if I’d been wearing nothing at all. The only warmth I found was in North.
“Goddamn it, Sang,” North said as he marched.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped out. What just happened? It was so sudden. “I just wanted to stick my foot in it. I didn’t mean to—”
“You can’t, Baby,” he said. “Not here.” He dropped into the sand on his knees, holding me to him, pressing my body into his. His hands found my back and he rubbed harshly, as if trying to pull me in closer. “I was trying to warn you.”
“I didn’t know...”
North grunted. “I know,” he said. His head dipped down, until his lips dropped into my hair. “Anywhere else you probably could, but the water's too dangerous here. Ever since the hurricane, the tides claimed this part. You can’t go out into the water here. Riptides.”
“What’s a riptide?”
I felt his mouth open once and then close. He pulled back. A hand slipped up cupping just under my jaw against my neck until he had me looking at him. “Sometimes I forget.”
“Forget what?”
“You’re so smart, Sang Baby,” he said. His thumb traced along the edge of my jaw. I felt the urge to tilt my head back slightly, as if encouraging him to do it again. “You’re so smart, but there’s just so much you haven’t experienced, that you don’t know about.”