Page 22 of Find My Way Down to You

“God, August,” Max groans, the last syllable breaking wetly. “I don’t have time for this.”

My back stiffens. “What’s wrong?”

“Th-there’s—” She pauses to clear her throat. “There’s a dead girl. In one of the dorms down the hall from the party. Someonefoundher. Everyone’s freaking out. We don’t know what happened.”

With every word, my heart races.

I’m dizzy. Max is still talking. I hear her, but distantly.

“I don’t even know who she is,” she is saying, breaths as shallow as mine. “I’ve seen her before…I think? She’s so tall and pale. Always wears her hair down—”

“Does she have black hair?” I ask.

Max sniffs. “Yeah, why?”

I flop down on the edge of the fountain.The girl walking through the hall with Cary. But how could she be back in the dorms already? Did they ever leave? Did I…imagine everything?

My eyes dip to the water. I blink, confused.

In the ripples I see them: Cary and the girl. They’re upside down, and not on campus anymore. Somewhere different, stranger.

The moon is half-full, throwing a soft silvery glow on the water’s surface. Maybe it’s a trick of the light. Except, no, they’re there, talking. Oblivious of me watching.

“August?Are you still there?”

I pull my phone from my ear. My free hand trembles as I reach for the water. “It’s not possible,” I whisper.

Cold creeps up my skin as my fingers break the surface. The image doesn’t fade. It buckles and re-forms. I sink my wrist into the water. I wait for whatever I’m seeing to just be an aftereffect of my grief.

Instead, I feel a light grip, like getting your feet caught in the wet sand. Then a stronger tug. I try to lurch back, but my arm can’t escape. It’s as if the water wants me, refusing to let go until it wins. And it does.

Before I can scream for help, I’m dragged into the fountain.

Under, under, deep into the darkness.

4

The water welcomedme, warm and flowing. Slipped across my body as gentle as fingers. Embraced me like we knew each other. I was submerged but not drowning. Then it spit me out, fast and abruptly, a bad taste in its mouth.

Now I’m on my hands and knees, coughing. My skin is feverish, but inside, ice runs like an aching stream through my blood. Heaviness weighs on my muscles.

Yet, I am…completely dry.

Like I was never in the fountain.

Bile stirs in my belly. Between my curled hands, something soft and grainy slips over my palms.Sand.

Slowly, my eyes blink open. How did I get to the beach?

No. This isn’t the deep brown sand of Leadbetter Beach. It’s salt white. Instead of an indigo sea, the water is black as a starless sky. It sings almost the same—long and sweet as it rollscloser, but there’s an undercurrent of something else in it.

Somethingwrong.

This isn’t Santa Barbara.

This isn’t home.

Panting, I push to my feet. A warm breeze thick with scents of brine and sugar tickles the back of my neck. I look up. The sky is a vast canvas of pink swimming through purple. Like the edge of sunset without a sun anywhere in sight.