Page 21 of Phoenix Academy: Mayhem

Promises things. Escape. My mother pinching my cheeks. The taste of wild onions and stewed rabbit meat. Sighing, I push my shoes off and pad towards the shore of the lake, staring down at the still blue water.

Xavier comes to stand beside me, his glasses pushes up against the bridge of his nose, hair hanging in long braids. "I don't see the door anywhere. Do you think it's in one of the trees? Or besides it?"

"Who cares?" His twin brother stretches his arms up above his head and inhales deeply, eyes fluttering closed. "We're still alive, which is basically a miracle down here in Hell. This place seems to be protecting us. It might have hidden thorns and traps and shit, but I'm not gonna worry about things that haven't fucking happened. Especially when I need to wash myself off."

Reggie yanks off his shirt, brown skin rippling. Light dapples his chest and abdominal muscles, coming from seemingly no source, bouncing off his dark cheekbones and broad shoulders. His pants soon follow, kicked into the grass with abandon. Throwing a smirk in my direction, he runs straight towards the lake—and dives in headfirst, his palms clasped together, rippling below the water like a dolphin.

I find suddenly that I'm having trouble breathing.

There's heat and desire deep within me, begging to be released. Sparks flutter in my chest and heat splashes across my cheeks. I want Reggie in a way I've wanted little in my life. Just watching him make laps across the surface of the water wakens a deep, strange hunger in me.

Suddenly I understand the phrase climb him like a tree. Also why all the girls in teen movies and women in rom coms go mad over the dumbest of the male species.

"The water does feel cool." David walks over to the edge of the lake and crouches in front of it, carefully dipping his fingers in. "I'll let Reggie find out if it's poisonous or not, though. As a matter of science."

"I feel like I haven't washed up in days." There's longing in Xavier's voice, and he looks over at me with something like hunger in his eyes. "Do you think we could? Or should? It seems so dangerous... but then again, everything here is."

Looking over my shoulder at the demons prowling around us in the darkness, just barely kept at bay by the strange protections of the grove, I find myself agreeing.

"Whoever made this place—and it definitely seems like it was made, probably by a mage or a witch, hopefully the latter—I doubt they wanted demons to kill us. Otherwise they already would have." I'm not sure I agree with myself until I hear the words fall from my lips and find that I quite like them. "Also, we need a break. All of us. To rest and... restore. Sleep maybe? If that's something people do in Hell. So we might as well take a dip first."

"Can't argue with that logic." David stands up and strips off his shirt, revealing skin paler on his chest and abdomen than it is on his tanned arms. "X, promise to mourn me if a tentacle monster rises up and drowns me."

With that he's off, wading into the water until it's hip deep, then smoothly launching off from the bottom and swimming further in. The lake is large, stretching out towards an impossible horizon. David and Reggie meet in the middle and swim off in opposite directions, their heads floating above water, shoulder muscles working overtime to glide them through the depths.

Though I reach out with my naturalistic senses for some kind of threat, I find none lurking anywhere beneath the solid blue surface of the water. Nothing in the trees, either. And while I'm not normally the type to dive in headfirst, and my venture to the abandoned school has already proven a stupid idea, I can't stop myself from swaying towards the water with longing.

A breeze picks up and pushes my hair in front of my face, blue tendrils dancing, reminding me of what I've been through to get here. I've lost so much to the cruelty of my soulless father and the strange destined fate that is my phoenix nature. If I could go back in time for just an hour, I would choose to be out in nature with my mother and sister, living in quiet peaceful moments like this one.

"You can go in." Xavier's voice is mild but slightly sad. "It's okay. I get it. I wouldn't want to be stuck out here with me, either."

"That's not it." I blink at him, startled by his self-pitying energy. "I was just thinking about... about before. With my mom and sister."

"Oh." He rubs the back of his neck, looking sheepishly embarrassed. "I'm so stupid. Here I was, assuming you were thinking about me, like I'm more important than everything you've been through."

"It's okay. Things are... weird between us."

"Weird doesn't begin to cover it," he confesses. His brown eyes seem to glimmer with gold from the magical sunlight that beams down at us. "Do you think, maybe, we might be... something more than just friends? One day?"

I don't even know what a day is down here. My sense of time has gone out the window. But I can tell this is important to him, and the truth is, it is to me as well.

"Once we're out of here, we'll figure everything out. I promise."

The words sound hollow, so I follow them up by daring to step close to him, feet in the cool grass. Getting up on my tiptoes, I press my mouth to his cheek and softly kiss him. His hand comes up to brace the middle of my back, palm gently curved, ready to pull away at any moment if I object.

"There." I smile at him softly and take a moment to inhale his scent: old library books, musk, cinnamon and warmth. "Why don't we join the others now? Since they haven't been drowned by sea monsters yet."

"Yeah." Xavier sounds a little dazed. He takes his glasses off, folds them, and tucks them into the pocket of his blazer. "I think... I think I would like that."

I can't help but shake my head at him a little. "You and your brother are so different. It's a wonder you look alike at all."

"A lot of people say that." He casually tosses his blazer on the ground, revealing his naked chest, then carefully removes his slacks, folds them up, and places them on top of the blazer. I avert my eyes as he turns to me and adds, "But the truth is Reggie and I are more similar than we seem at first glance. For instance... we both really, really love pranks and roughhousing."

Then he grabs me around the waist.

Grins as I gasp and squirm in his strong grip.

And carries me, slowly but surely, into the shallow end of the lake.

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