Page 33 of Find My Way Down to You

I wait for more from him. An explanation, a story.Anything.It never comes.

Down the twisted path, a cool breeze ruffles my curls. I notice Cary walks almost blindly, as though he’s taken this trek a thousand times before.

“How often have you done this?” I ask.

“This?”

I hear the frown in his voice. He’s still at least five steps ahead of me. Just under his word is a soft, steady noise.

Water.

The pebbled road beneath our feet turns to smooth sand. We come up on a bank bordered by tall, swaying grass. This place is smaller than the beach from earlier. The water is narrower. A piercing blue instead of glittered black.

Finally, Cary stops. I stomp around him until we’re face-to-face. “How many times have you taken someonebackto my world?”

The hesitation in his stare, the deep creases in his brow alarm me.

My body goes rigid. “You haven’t done this before, have you?”

Dark feathery eyelashes beat like the wings of a blackbird. Cary’s continued silence says a million things at once.

“You are the first.”

“No, no, no.” I inch back. “Are you serious?”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he says dryly. “Mortals do not suddenly appear in Aides all the time. Your kind is not meant to travel back and forth.”

“Well, guess what? I’m here!”

He lets out a very disappointed exhale.

My fingers dig into my curls. “I’m not anexperiment. What if something goes wrong? Will I be stuck here forever?”

Under his breath, Cary mutters, “I hope not.”

Even his sarcasm can’t dissuade my heart from racing like a captured wild animal.

I turn in a circle. “There’s gotta be another way. Let’s goback to the beach. That’s how I got here, right? Just—take me back that way.”

Exhaustion tugs his mouth downward. “That will not work. The books say—”

“Books?” I practically screech. “You mean I’m supposed to risk getting home safely or being trapped here for however long based on something you read in abook?”

Unbelievable.

He levels me with a pointed glare. Flecks of gold shimmer in his eyes. Fortunately, the glow fades as quickly as it appeared.

Cary lowers his voice. “You are scared.”

“What gave it away?” My hands can’t stop trembling.

Sighing, he extends his hand toward me. “I will not hurt you.”

I want to laugh in his face. “Did you forget what happened on the beach?”

“That was…” His gaze drops. Does he feel guilty? “I did not mean to react that way.”

“Is that an apology?”