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CHAPTER ONE

I wake up with a start, gasping for air I have to tell Asher so

Everything’s bright and orange, and I can only see through one eye The other eye’s swollen shut; it burns when I try to open it Water slaps rubber, over and over, in endless slow applause I re down a lazy river in an inner tube, drunk from beer my older brother had snuck me when I was sixteen

“Edie? Are you okay?” Asher’s leaning over me His voice is hoarse

I have to tell hi

But I can’t There’s rope in my mouth And I can’t pull the rope away because -tied, and when I move, my shoulder starts to throb

“Is it still you?” Asher asksI don’t knohat he means

I have to tell you soh I can’t remember what it is

“I’ht?” he asks, and his voice cracks

I want to coh it’s clear that I aht now I’ve never seen him this afraid before

“We’re going to be all right We’re going to get away fro to save you,” he says, s up what I realize is a paddle, then leans over the side of the orange thing we’re riding on, paddling for all his ht

Inside s slide into place My ties, our lifeboat What I want to say to him

He’s paddling so hard to nowhere that salt water is spraying my face

And I remember

Everything

I had a death grip on the balcony railing and was looking down at the ocean with trepidation Our room on the Maraschino was six floors up, maybe four down to the waterline I couldn’t help but wonder just how deep the sea was after that

“Edie, it’s not like I booked us on the Titanic,” Asher called from the doorway of our room

I turned around to give hiaze to the sea He’d planned this trip for us A chance for us to get away froo on our first official vacation together It was just e’d needed, especially inter rolled in with a white-out blizzard that’d lasted teeks, et to the clinic where we both worked, me as a nurse and him as a doctor We met before I kneas a doctor, I swear

Our cruise had sounded fabulous up untilThat hen I realized e had felt like I’d been carrying an anchor without at the ocean like it was a Magic 8 Ball noas hoping for a sign, a yes or a no, but the only thing the waves see I’ve totally got it all,” Asher said behind s

“Okay!” I said with feigned gullibility He rolled his eyes and tossed the last of our bags onto the bed I let go of the rail and ca trip, I wouldn’t have had to pack so much ”

Asher spread his hands “Well, if you’d just listened to my plan to keep you in here naked the whole tiotten you down to one s you they have twenty-four-hour room service ”

His look—h He reached for me, and I stepped into his arms “Think of it, Edie A teek trip from LA to Hawaii and back No snow the whole way ”

“Yay, adventure!” I said from the safety of his armpit

“No We’ve had enough of adventure This”—and he swept his arrandly over the ocean, like he was Poseidon—“is a vacation ”

I hadn’t had a vacation in a very long time The road trips my brother and I had been hauled on as a kid where we’d seen Mount Rushmore hardly counted I’d had time off before, but I’d never been on a real vacation

And Asher was right about adventures I didn’t need anytooinvolved in what could charitably called hijinks or more reasonably Machiavellian death plans orchestrated by the vampire, olf, and shapeshifter communities

All of that had ended when I’d started dating Asher seven o In a way, the past seven est vacation in my whole life