Page 8 of Hook, Line, and Tentacle
I take another step. Then another. My boots don’t make much noise over the worn wood floor untilI round the corner—then they squeak hard as I freeze.
He’s shirtless, his back to me, muscles taut and carved in hard shadow. The hoodie lies in a crumpled heap at his feet, soaked through again, somehow. I don’t know how, because it wasn’t raining.
His spine looks too long, the skin darker at the base, where it hits the waistband of his jeans, slick and wet with something I don’t think is water. Something that gleams blackly in the green light. Something that moves on its own.
It curls and disappears before I can process it. I blink once, hard. I’m about a hair away from physically rubbing my eyes. “Cal.”
He turns. His eyes aren’t gray. They’re liquid black. Deep and lightless and infinite.
We stare at each other.
I don’t move. My brain scrambles to make sense of what I’m seeing—the tension under his skin, the ripple of something not-human barely held in check. There’s a throb of heat low in my belly, a flicker of something that should be fear, but isn’t.
His gaze holds me, void-like and bottomless. He doesn’t say a word.
That’s when I bolt. Back out into the hall and up the stairs two at a time until the attic door slams behind me in the howling wind. I press my back to it and drag in the fractured breath that chased me up here.
I don’t know what I saw, but whatever it was, it wasn’t real. There’s no way. It was the light, the storm, that weird as fuck dream still clinging to the back of my eyes.
Itwasn’treal, whatever it was. It can’t be.
Chapter 3
Craving
It’s late when the wind starts screaming again. I’m not sure if I was asleep or not, but I’m definitely not now. I should be used to it, the storms—it’s been over a week in Easthaven—but I’m still city-soft and unaccustomed to this kind of noise.
The whole attic shudders around me. Lights flicker. My phone buzzes once with a weather alert, but I don’t check it. I already know. The storm’s breaking, and it’s not subtle about it.
My skin feels too tight. My clothes cling damp to my body even though I’m dry, and I don’t think it’s sweat, either. Every nerve is strung out and lit up like a line pulled taut, humming with static. I pace the attic once, then again, my bare feet slapping old wood. I sit, then stand, then sit again, restless and aching and wet in a way that isn’t anything to do with the rain.
The light overhead flickers twice. I stare at it like I canwillit to stay on. Then it dies with a sad little buzz.
Shit.
My teeth sink into my bottom lip, and I glance at the window, then the door. No. I should stay up here. I don’tneedthe light. It’s late, and I’m only going to sleep anyway.
I keep staring at the door anyway. I’m sure Cal has a flashlight, or candles. He seems like a practical kind of guy. Good with his hands.
My thighs clench almost involuntarily.
I know it’s a bad idea, especially after what I saw earlier—whatever the hell that was—but I can’t stop myself moving. The stairs are even louder in the dark. Each step creaks under my weight like it’s specifically trying to tell on me, but I keep going, barefoot and careful, hands skimming the walls on either side for balance.
At the bottom, I pause. The door that leads to Cal’s space—the black one that screamsstay away—is cracked open. Both deadbolts hang loose.
There’s a thin line of light spilling out across the floor. Not bright enough to see clearly, but enough to know it’s there. Warm,green-gold, alive.
Something slides over my toes, and I jerk back instinctively, hitting my heel hard on the bottom step. My breath hisses out between my teeth at the pain, and I press a hand to my chest as I look down.
Seawater. A tiny rivulet winding from under the door like it found a crack in a hull. It curls around the balls of my feet, then pulls back again, slow and very deliberate.
It moves like breath, or the tide.
The air is thick. Not just humid but heavy in a stormy kind of way, enough that I can feel it settle on my skin. It’s warm and charged. There’s something behind the door pulling at me, drawing me closer by the ribs. I’m not in control of it, the same way it felt like I wasn’t in control when I came downstairs in the first place.
I don’t knock—I just push as lightly as I can. The door creaks open wider beneath my hand, and I step inside without being invited.
This space isn’t anything like the bait shop. It’s something older, carved out of stone and salt, dark with shadow. It’s not what I expected, somehow, although I didn’t expect any of this. The walls are slick with condensation. My fingertips ghost over rough stone as I step lightly over uneven floorboards. Dim light filters from somewhere overhead, the same green-gold that spilled under the door.
