Page 144 of Cherish

I, on the other hand, refuse to move. At least not yet. Because: “I’m not going anywhere untilsomeonegives me a pair of pants to wear.”

“I got you, New Girl,” Flint says and yanks a damp but serviceable pair of basketball shorts out of his backpack.

Hudson growls low and steady at him, and Flint shoves them right back into his bag.

“Hud-son,” I whine, but thankfully my bestie comes to the rescue and offers a pair of her jeans.

Everyone turns around, and I quickly change into them, rolling the hem up several times to make up for the vast height difference. Still, though they’re also pretty wet from the swim, they’re not bloody, so I’ll take it.

“We ready to get a move on?” Polo eventually asks, and we all nod. He turns and heads down a long tunnel that leads away from the beach, carved into a sheer wall of black rock that rises as far as I can see.

A couple of minutes pass before we stop again. “What’s going on?” I ask, peering around Hudson’s broad shoulders to try to figure out why we’re not moving. Please don’t let it be another lake crossing. Please, please, please don’t let it be that.

But it turns out we’re at a giant fork in the middle of the tunnel—one that breaks off in two different directions.

“What’s this?” Flint asks Polo. “How do we know which one to take?”

“I’ve only ever taken the one on the right,” Polo answers. “Every time I try to go down the left one, things get really weird.”

“Weirder than huge lakes full of monster fish trying to kill us?” Heather asks doubtfully.

“Yes.” We wait for him to add an explanation, but he just looks at us out of eyes that have seen far too much.

“Oooookay, then,” Eden says. “To the right it is.”

“Remind me to thank Jikan for creating a tunnel filled with something that freaks the chupacabra out so much he won’t even go down it,” Hudson says with a little bite.

Flint snort-laughs in response. “I’d pay to see that.”

“Oh, I’ll make sure you get a seat for free.”

I put a hand on Hudson’s back, hoping to comfort him. No one else may notice what’s going on, but it’s very obvious to me that underneath the dry, British humor, Hudson isseething.

I know it’s because he watched me almost get Moby Dicked—and he could do absolutely nothing about it.

Hudson believes in fighting our own battles and doing whatever we have to do to get a job done. But he won’t soon forgive Jikan for not giving us any advice about this world he created before setting us loose in it.

And I have to agree, it does seem like bullshit. I know the God of Time told us not to come here, but he also knows us well enough at this point to be aware that we weren’t going to heed his advice. I’m not asking for a ton of help—but a heads-up that actually would have given us a fifty-fifty shot of not dying in the barrier crossing would have been nice.

I’m sure when Hudson sees Jikan again, he won’t level his objection anywhere near that diplomatically, though. Only the fact that Polo has been sneaking across the barrier all these years in a non-fish-enticing form—probably all those spikes down his back, now that I think of it—is keeping Hudson from being pissed at him as well.

Without another word, Polo leads us through the dark tunnel and up a steep incline to the surface. As we break through into the light, I say, “Thank you. I know you didn’t have to do this for us, and I will forever be grateful that you did.”

“Hey, turns out I’m the lucky one. You taught me something about the barrier that’s going to make my life a whole lot easier in the months and years to come.” He gives me a lopsided grin. “Swim faster.”

“Too soon, Polo,” I say with a shudder, and he cackles.

“Where are we?” Macy asks as we all squint against the bright light. “This doesn’t look like Italy.”

“Italy?” The chupacabra laughs. “You’re about as far from Turin as you can get. You’re in Kansas, baby.”

“Kansas?” Heather sounds incredulous. “As in, there’s no place like home?”

“Kansas isn’t my home. And neither are these stick crop things.” Flint bats at one of the crops to prove his point.

“That’s wheat,” I tell him as I lean forward and rescue the stalk from his hands.

He shudders. “Whatever it is, I’m not impressed. Isn’t there a city around here somewhere?”

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