Broken Dreams

Chapter 5

Water. Everywhere. It was biting my skin and freezing me to my bones. I was moving through the ice water, but I was sinking and floating and being dragged by the current all at once. I couldn't tell which way was up.

At one point Domino's hand slipped from mine. I was being thrown into rocks, seaweed, the bodies of my pack- I felt like a bug in a hurricane. I started kicking out and my head broke the surface.

"Domino! Bliss! Belle!" I screamed. The salt water burned my throat. I was about to start screaming again when a wave broke over me. I was sent smashing around, breathing and swallowing the salt water.

"Max! Kim! Starl-" I broke off to cough as another wave hit me full in the face. There was nothing I could see but cold black water and rocks. I turned my head and met the cliff face. With shaking hands I clung to the rocks as the waves battered me.

There was a cave in the stone and I scrambled in, shaking with cold. I could barely see a hand in front of me but I knew my palms were cut and crusted with salt.

I took off my jacket and curled up, using it as a blanket. eventually, my teeth chattering so hard they almost broke, I fell into troubled sleep.

The first thing I thought when I woke was: Where is my pack? The weak morning sun filtered in through the cave entrance. I scrambled up on my hands and knees, wincing. I was stiff with cold and almost frozen solid and covered in blood, gravel and sand.

Gritting my teeth, I dragged myself to the entrance and looked down. On a ledge only a metre from the slightly calmer ocean was a body. Her limbs were spread like a starfish and black hair hung like rope around her face.

"Kim! Kim!" I shouted. The sorceress didn't move a muscle. I started climbing down, my feet bare and torn to shreds. When I got down I knelt beside her, put my hands on her nose. She was breathing ragged and shallow.

I thought of all the things that had happened in the last six months and started screaming. I fell to my hands and knees, shaking, my mouth open. Loud retched sobs tore through my burning throat.

Juniper? Kim? A voice called in amazement. I looked up, wiping the grit off my face with the back of my hand. Swimming towards us was a red and grey wolf with a limp scrap of silver fur on his back.

"Alistair! Who's that?" I called hoarsely. His eyes fell on Kim and he didn't answer, only swam faster. He scrapped at the stone with his paws and I was forced to put my arms around his neck to pull him up.

Alistair started going human, the silver wolf on his back floomphing on the ground. Her mouth parted and a trickle of salt water ran out onto the stone. Beside me, Alistair was shaking Kim and almost dying when she reached up and kissed him.

I reached out and put my hand on the wolf's chest. There was no beat, no rise and fall of her lungs. Who was it though? I lifted the wolf's head in my lap and hugged her, tears and ocean water mingling on my cheeks.

"June? That you?" A voice screamed. I looked up. A little way out in the water was a raft with four people on it. Domino, Max, Starling and one of the twins.

They came closer, and I realised the wolf I was cradling was Bliss. Belle and Starling were first to sense the change in their girlfriend and sister. They leaped off the raft and splashed through waist deep water to get to her.

Max was paddling and Domino was hunched over holding his arm. They helped us all onto the raft and we managed to get to a beach.

Belle and Sterling stayed on the sand, holding the silver wolf that they both loved. The rest of us dug deep into the sand. Belle simply watched as we lowered her sister into the hole, and then she turned and ran.