“Why are you here?” he asked harshly. I closed the distance between us and touched his shoulder, but he jerked away, not facing me.
“I…I think I’m having a reverie. I don’t know how I got here.” I stumbled over my words.
“You should leave.” The ice in his voice cut deep and I instantly got defensive.
“It’s not like I can control these things, Finn! I can’t help when and where I show up.” When he reluctantly turned towards me, his eyes fell to his feet and an exhausted-sounding sigh left his body. I was shocked by what I saw. His left cheek was bloody, a deep gash ran from his ear to his collarbone, and his left shoulder was bruised with another large gut in his bicep. The trace on his forearm had dulled slightly, but remained untouched. I reached out to him, but he shrunk away.
“What happened to you?” I asked gingerly.
“Nothing.” He tried to turn away from me again, but I grabbed both of his hands, holding him firmly in front of me. The roughness of the leather wrapped around them rubbed against my palms, reminding me of how very male he was. He gave off a distinct aura of conviction and strength that made my knees weak.
“This doesn’t look like nothing. Who did this to you?”
“This time it was Cage and Ricker.” He shook his head and looked down. Then more so to himself, than me, he muttered, “I’ve got to figure this out. I’m running out of time.”
“This time? Who are Cage and Ricker?”
“They’re Sons too,” he replied, “and my roommates.”
“What? Why would they do this to you?” I could feel my anger rising.
“They’re helping me,” he dropped his head and sighed.
“I don’t get it, Finn. How is fighting with you helping you?”
“This doesn’t concern you, Stasia.” He growled at me, clearly frustrated. “It’s not something you need to know about yet.”
“Doesn’t concern me? It’s way too late for that.” I took a step toward him. “I don’t like seeing you like this.”
“Which is why you should leave.” I could hear the anguish in his voice.
“No. I care about you, Finn. I can handle whatever this is.” He looked back at me with stubbornness, then finally resignation. His shoulders sagged.
“You don’t know that. You can’t know that. It’s not up to you-“ As if he’d said too much, he clamped his mouth shut and closed his eyes. I wrapped my arms around him, laying my head against his firm chest. The tension in his muscles made it feel like I was hugging a brick wall. After a moment of hesitation, his body relaxed and his breathing slowed. My gaze drifted to his hurt shoulder, and I noticed the bruises had already receded. Pulling out of his arms, I inspected the gashes that were on his arm and neck. The gaping holes had closed and were beginning to turn a dark pink as his skin healed and renewed itself. I looked to his face next. His cheek was no longer swollen and the blood I had seen was completely gone. I searched his eyes and he attempted a grin.
“Another ability,” he replied simply.
“The other time I saw you here…that’s why you were completely healed the next day. No wonder…” I remembered the double axe. The question spilled from my lips before I could stop it.
“Did you kill him?” This brought on a full smile and he laughed.
“What do you think?” he raised an eyebrow. I stared at him in disbelief, but he just grinned.
“Fortunately for Ian, I let him live,” he replied smugly.
“Ian? That’s who you were fighting?”
“Not fighting. Preparing,” he corrected me.
“Did you help kill Nicolet?” Might as well throw out all the questions on my mind.
“No.”
“But you were there. Why haven’t you told anyone what we saw? That she was murdered?”
“Why haven’t you?”
“Cause no one would believe me.”
“Exactly.”
We walked around the periphery of the platform. “But I don’t want to talk about who I’ve killed and who I haven’t killed.” I looked up at him trying to figure out if he was kidding as chills ran down my spine, but his face told me nothing. Our conversation only confused me more. We reached the edge and I hesitantly peered down at the water below. Finn sat down with ease, letting his feet dangle. He held out his hand for me to sit next to him. My heart was beating out of my chest and I was having trouble breathing, but I wasn’t going to let him see my fear. I painstakingly lowered myself down, allowing my legs to dangle over the side, too. My breath came out ragged and I tried to calm my nerves. I rubbed my arms as a sudden blast of cold air hit me. My barely-there tank top didn’t do much to keep me warm. Finn moved closer to me and put his arm around me.
“The clothes I sleep in aren’t really made for midnight trips out at sea,” I muttered.
His eyes moved over my body, then back up to meet mine as he grinned at me playfully. “I gotta tell you, I’ve always liked your choice of clothing during your nighttime reveries.”
“You mean the lack of clothing?” I raised an eyebrow at him.
“Maybe.” He dropped his head and looked up at me pretending to be bashful; his wicked smile telling me what he was really thinking.
“From now on I’m wearing a muu muu to bed.” I crossed my arms.
“You’re going to wear a cow to bed?” Finn scrunched his nose at me, making me giggle.
“No! You’ve never heard of a muu muu?” He shook his head. “It’s one of those long night gowns that grandmas like to wear.”
“I don’t care if you wear a muu muu or a tutu, you’ll still be beautiful.”
“That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” I joked with him. “And you get extra points for making it rhyme.”
“I write love poems when I’m not rapping. It comes naturally.” He winked at me.
“If you start rapping, I promise you I’ll throw myself off this platform.”
“Well we can’t have that. I’d have to jump in after you and these aren’t my swim trunks.
Lucky for us, I don’t rap on days that end in Y.” Finn laughed, and then asked, “So, do you know where we are?”
I looked from side to side, “In the middle of the ocean?”
“Almost.” In a tour guide voice, he announced, “You are sitting on the official Frying Pan Shoals Light Station.”
“Frying Pan?” I looked up at him skeptically.
“Hey, I wasn’t the one that came up with it. Don’t ask me why they named it after something you cook eggs in. All I know is that it’s a type of lighthouse to warn ships about the Frying Pan Shoals sticking out from the Cape.” I looked out at the water, trying to see any sign of light in the distance.
“So, this is off the coast of Bald Head?” I continued squinting but didn’t see anything.
“That’s right. The shoals are really just mounds of sand built up by the currents of the Atlantic running into the current of the Cape Fear River as it empties into it. They extend at least twenty miles out into the ocean. Hundreds of ships have run aground and sunk. So the Coast Guard built the station and they let us use it as long as we maintain the tower and the inside.”
“The inside?”
“We’re actually on top of the light station. The light tower is over there of course,” he pointed to the tower on the opposite corner, “but the actual station is more like a really big square house. We’re just sitting on the roof. To get back down into the station you go through the tower.”
“Really? I just thought this was a landing pad or a platform.”
“The Sons stay here a lot. Right below us are several living rooms, kitchens, and rooms to sleep in. This is also where the Ball will be held this weekend.”