Shadowed (Unbound, Book 2)

Chapter Forty Three

The dock creaked as I stepped onto the first panel. Slow but steady, every movement I made towards the end where the yacht sat echoed below where water lapped softly against the boards. There was no looking behind. Just feeling Calin's gaze was almost enough to turn back and that wouldn't help my memories return.

But rather than push for recollection, I tried to clear my mind. To just feel. Without that, a deep enough connection to get my memory back wouldn't be possible. Even if it lasted only a minute, it would be worth feeling uncertain and filled with discomfort, trepidation, and low-down, pee-in-your-pants afraid. Just one minute. Then I could stop feeling so lost, completely without direction, and like I would recover.

The yacht, once I finally reached it, was abandoned. I looked back to Calin, already sure he was watching, and asked with a simple gesture of my hand if it would be alright for me to board. Even from a distance, I saw him nod, which meant this was Devland's yacht. This was the boat that I toppled over. It was the vessel that stole my identity.

A surreal sensation took over my body as I stepped from the dock and onto the boat, like I was here but somehow removed. The water still looked calm but the boat swayed just enough remind me I was floating. Calin was wrong, though. How had I been seasick on the class trip if I felt fine now? It felt no different than keeping my feet firmly on the ground. If not getting queasy on the water was a part of my amnesia, getting sick was something that I never wanted to recover.

I put my hand on the top rail and closed my eyes, tilting my head to the sky. The breeze, soft and cooling, brushed the stray hair from my ponytail against my face like feathers dancing light as air on my skin. I looked down, opening my eyes to see the railing, and felt nothing. Loosening my grip, I left but one finger on top and started to walk.

Which was the spot? Where, exactly, had I toppled from? After a full lap of the deck, my hand never leaving the rail, I felt nothing. Not sick, not a memory, not a sense of familiarity. Another round proved the same lack of results. How was that possible? The place that took my memory should be what brought the biggest reaction, but I felt nothing. Numb.

Going below deck was pointless. If I didn't get anything here, there would be nothing else to find. I made my way back to the deck, but paused before going back to Calin. On the left-hand-side of the dock, about two feet from the end, was a step that lead to a lower dock where access to row boats was much easier. Pausing, I looked down to Calin and indicated wanting five more minutes, and then stepped down.

I looked out at the water. The wind picked up, blemishing the perfect glass reflection with ripples. Choppy, an image of Duvessa flashed, spitting water. I reached out, feeling dizzy.

The single board placed as a step wobbled like a teeter-totter under my weight. I stumbled forward, falling face-first and bracing my landing with my palms in front of me. My wrists felt like they popped, my face hanging over the side of the lower level's dock, so close to the water, my nose nearly got dunked.

Another image came to mind, this time of Duvessa splashing water and glaring. I blinked and looked straight out to the water, still on my hands and knees. Reality blurred again. A flicker of Duvessa came back. Her mouth was moving but no sound emerged. Calin was laughing. The view shifted to him, and I was at his side, looking just as green as he'd said I'd been. It was eerie, like I was drifting above the scene and watching myself from afar.

I blinked again and my vision cleared. My heartbeat slowed to acceptable levels, my breathing regulated, and my reflection in the choppy water fractured. I took a deep breath and pushed up to try and stand. Halfway to sitting, I felt resistance, and my necklace pulled my neck down.

But then it was free.

My necklace snapped at my nape and fell. I reached out to catch it, but missed. The amulet dangled from the board it had snagged on, dipping in the water. Slowly, I sat up, keeping one hand on the chain so that it didn't take divers to find. I crossed my legs and leaned forward, getting ready to untangle the chain from the wood.

A glint of light shone up through the water as though the sun was reflecting the amulet from below instead of above. My fingers paused. I narrowed my eyes and held my breath. When it didn't happen again, I started to untie it from where it snagged. How did knots form when it was yanked off my neck because it looped a splinter as I tried to pull back?

With four knots untangled and a cramp set deep in the joints of my fingers, it was free. I placed my palm below and the other hand on the chain so it wouldn't drop. Again, I moved slow, only catching it at the last possible moment. My fingers dipped into the water, but the amulet and chain were safe.

Smiling, I sighed with relief and started to pull it up.

An electric shock, not at all unpleasant, travelled through my body. The necklace dropped. I fell flat on my stomach and reached into the water, not caring that my jacket was soaked from the elbow down. With my arm dangling in the cool water, I stopped pushing, no longer bracing my weight with my stomach and hooking my feet in the cracks of the boards to keep me from falling in while reaching as far as I could. I laid my cheek on the wood and stared out over the water and kept my arm submerged, comfortable.

It was time to give up. Why fight for something I could neither control nor knew anything about? What was the point? Not for the first time, I wanted to let go and wait until I could simply start new, go somewhere where my lack of memory meant nothing because everyone I met wouldn't know who I had been. All that mattered is who I was now.

Why should I be responsible for stopping Duvessa?

All I had to do is let go.

The kind of calm only Calin induced settled over me, a sense of freedom I wanted to relish in. I looked over my shoulder, but Calin wasn't there. For the first time in my limited knowledge, I had found peace all on my own. It felt... amazing.

Liberation was a powerful tool.