Chapter 244
That night, I dream of thunder.
But it’s not thunder.
It’s the sound of something older, deeper—something vast and primal shifting in the darkest trench of the sea.
The dream begins with stillness. I float, alone, in the ocean. The water around me is too calm, unnaturally still, and the surface above gleams with an oily, pearlescent sheen. There's no sound—no fish, no waves, no heartbeat but my own—and yet, the pressure in my chest tells me something terrible is coming.
The ocean hums. The world begins to vibrate.
Then, without warning, the sea is torn open.
The horizon splits like a curtain yanked apart, revealing a monstrous wall of water—a tidal wave so high it blocks out the sky. It crashes over everything in its path, a towering, roaring wall of devastation that seems to move in slow motion and all at once. I see an island—lush, green, and teeming with life—swallowed in seconds. Palm trees are torn from the ground like weeds, buildings reduced to splinters, people screaming as they vanish beneath the black wave.
The ocean is consuming the world.
I try to run. My legs burn as I sprint up a crumbling cliffside, cliffs that crack and slide away beneath me as if the earth itself is trying to flee. The wave crashes behind me, drowning the jungle in seconds, ripping through ancient trees and stone ruins like paper. I scream, but no one hears. I don’t know where Wake is.
“Wake!” I shout into the sky, but the air splits open, and something answers.
Leviathan.
He rises from the deep like a mountain, his massive coils writhing out of the sea in impossible lengths, his body wrapped in chains made of light. His head, crowned in jagged bone and glowing with ancient runes, crests over the flooding world. His eyes are vast voids, blacker than the deepest trench, and they turn toward me.
The chains around him burst apart like thread.
I stumble backward, but the ground beneath me cracks wide open. Boiling geysers explode from the fissures, blasting steam and scalding water high into the air. The heat peels bark from trees, skin from bone. I fall. I hit the ground hard. A scream cuts through the steam—but not from me. I look up and see people running, burning. Being hunted.
The Elder Kin.
They slither, soar, and strike in horrifying unison. Their sleek, armored bodies tear through panicked crowds, pulling people under and dragging them into the sea. Their eyes glow with the same unnatural light I saw in the Marble. They are controlled, trained, and unstoppable.
“Wake!” I scream again, desperate, clawing my way through mud and shattered earth.
But he’s not there.
Everyone I know—Cora, Delphinium, Peter—they vanish, swept into the wave or ripped apart by claws and teeth and roaring sea monsters.
And Leviathan only watches.
Massive.
Horrifying.
Endless.
He’s not a beast. He’s not even a god. He’s hunger incarnate. A need that can never be filled, a void so wide it pulls the light from the sky and drags it screaming into its belly. He swallows islands without slowing. The tide is red and rising. People are running, but it doesn’t matter.
The ocean rises again, reaching for me now, a hand of water shaped like a claw, curling around my body, lifting me into the air, choking the breath from my lungs. I’m in the water.
And I don’t know where Wake is.
I scream his name into the wind—"Wake!"—but the sky rips open in response. I search the waves, the wreckage, the ruin. He’s not there. He’s not anywhere. He’s gone.
The panic rises like a tsunami inside me, tearing at my ribs, twisting around my lungs. My hands start to burn—then crackle, then spark—and lightning dances up my arms as the ocean tilts sideways.
And I wake up.
My eyes snap open to the ceiling of the facility, dim and low and sterile, and I’m gasping like I’ve just surfaced from drowning. My whole body is drenched in sweat, and my hands—
Shit.
They’re glowing.
I barely register Wake’s voice—"Phoebe?"—before the crackle of electricity erupts around me, static arcing from my fingers into the sheets.
Wake reacts fast.
Too fast for me to stop him.
He’s on top of me in a blink, his hands wrapping tightly around my wrists, pressing them into the mattress as the lightning pulses erratically beneath my skin.
“Phoebe!” His voice cuts through the haze. “Stop—look at me! Look at me!”
I do.
And just like that, it’s over.
The power fizzles out, draining from my fingertips like water down a drain. My vision sharpens. The dream melts away in pieces, jagged and searing.
And Wake is there.
Above me.
Holding me still.
Breathing hard.
His hair hangs loose, damp against his brow. His eyes—dark, sharp, familiar—lock onto mine with worry and something else I can’t name.
Relief breaks through me like a wave. I launch myself upward, nearly knocking him back, and crash my lips into his. I don’t mean to be gentle. I don’t want gentle. I need him.
His breath hitches, surprise flashing across his face—but only for a moment.
He pulls back slightly, his hands still on mine. “What the hell was that?” he asks, voice low.
Wake’s face is above mine, framed in dim golden light from the bedside lamp. His eyes, dark and fierce, are all I can focus on. The sound of his voice cuts through the last echoes of the dream, grounding me.
He’s here.
Not lost. Not gone.
Just here.
My chest heaves as I suck in a ragged breath. The glow in my hands flickers, then dies.
Relief hits me like another wave, but this one doesn’t drown—it releases.
Without thinking, I lift my head and press my lips to his. It’s desperate, clumsy, more relief than passion. I just need to feel him. I need to know he’s real.
He kisses me back, hard and fast, like he understands exactly what I need.
When he pulls back, he whispers, “Phoebe.”
I shake my head, unable to put it into words, not without breaking apart. “Please, Wake… I can’t think about it. I just—I need you. Right now. Please.”
His eyes flicker, dark and unreadable. Then they soften.
Understanding.
Without another word, he leans in and kisses me hard. There’s no teasing this time, no playful smirk—just his hands anchoring me, his breath mixing with mine, his body heat pressing me into the moment until the storm inside me begins to turn, morphing into one that’s more familiar.
If I can’t have control of my fate, if I’m destined to be consumed, I want Wake to be the tidal wave that finally takes me under.
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