Break of Day

13) An Old Friend

"We're here, Aqua." The voice ebbed me into consciousness, swirling around my half-aware thoughts like a moth to a lantern. "Aqua."

I shrugged as something jabbed at my shoulder, trying to shift away as it continued ceaselessly. "Hey Leia, wake up. Elora's doing the cooking." The soft voice wafted around my brain like a familiar caress, twirling through my senses. Faint, hardly there and unrecognisable, but there was something distinct about it. I had known that voice my whole life. "Wake up before I pull you onto the ground." The threat was distant as I stretched my heavy limbs, barely registering them moving.

"It's alive!" A stentorian voice shattered through my thoughts, causing my heart to thrum wildly.

Blinking violently, I tried to remove the fogginess as I searched for the sound. What the hell, Carlton? Did you bring an air horn into the car? Confusion curled through me as I met deep brown eyes instead of fair green ones. They were too dark, too small to be my sister. "What?" I grumbled, entirely uncertain of where I was and who I was with.

"He said, 'It's alive!'" If I didn't love my sister so much, I would be trying to kill her. Somehow, she managed to be louder than— our father. As my surroundings washed over me, memories filtered back to the forefront of my brain. I was in Forks with my father— well, we were actually outside of Forks on the reservation.

Pulling myself up into my seat properly, I glared at my sister. "Yeah, no shit Sherlock." With a scowl, I unbuckled and pulled myself out of the car, stumbling into Mare as numb legs refused to respond. Up to my waist exploded with the uncomfortable pain as billions of pins attempted to rip through my skin.

"Perhaps we should have spent more time on our walking lessons." She was such a pain in my ass. With her arm wrapped around my waist, she walked with me towards the beach. Dad was shaking his head, several strides ahead of us.

Water droplets rode on invisible carpets through the air as the waves crashed against the rocks of the beach. Though the breeze was gentle, the waves near the rocks were angry, beating against land as if to move it further away, to get rid of it. The air was alive with the distinct scent of the briny water as pelicans bob in the swell while the seagulls squawk and hop along the dark sand, growing closer to the group circled around a growing fire. They knew that they would be getting food soon.

The water was fair grey as the sun warmed the land. My sister turned her face upwards, basking in the warmth of the sunlight as it peaked out of the rolling white clouds. The beach was strewn with huge driftwood trees— one covered by climbing kids so large left me marvelling at the power of the ocean— that had slowly been bleached a fair white by the salty waves. Though some were piled together against the edge of the beach, where the forest solemnly watched, others lay just out of the reach of the rolling waves.

The first time we had done the fire on the beach, I had asked Dad why they didn't use the driftwood for the fire. Though the years of being stripped by salt water had left them with a pretty blue-lavender flame, it also would cause them to release dixon, a toxic chemical that you do not want to ingest.

"Lizzy!"

A grin spread across my face as I met the owner of the voice. "Russel," I greeted, moving away from my sister, allowing myself to be brought into his tight hug.

Pulling away, yet keeping his hands on my shoulders, his dark eyes examined me. It was clear in the high cheek bones that he had changed over the past three—four years, losing the childish roundness that had marked his face as my best friend here. His hair was still long and glossy, braided neatly down his back and his smile was the same. Warm, inviting, engulfing his entire face with a bright glow that shown through his eyes. Even after Sarah's crash that stole both his mother and younger sister, he was the happiest person I knew. "Where the hell have you been?" Though he was several inches taller than me now, his voice still carried the distinctive youthful timbre of a prepubescent boy.