Cassie slept late into the afternoon the next day, which was unlike her. Normally she was an early riser, whether she wanted to be or not. But she must have needed the rest, because she woke up feeling refreshed and with a clearer head than she had the night before. Cassie's argument with Adam had left her feeling confused and upset last night, but today was a new day. And it was beautiful and sunny, not a cloud in the sky.
After getting dressed in her most comfortable jeans and favorite blue sweater, Cassie decided to head out for a walk. She wasn't quite ready yet to talk to Adam, or anyone really, but hopefully while she walked, the words would start coming to her, and she'd return home knowing just what to say to make everything right again. What Cassie needed was to better understand her own feelings. She wasn't a jealous person, and she didn't want to be. But she also couldn't ignore what was bothering her about Adam and Diana. She owed it to both of them, and to herself, to be honest. She knew they had a history together that she couldn't compete with.
Cassie tied her sneakers tightly and went out the back door. She trudged through the maze of her grandmother's herb garden and across the surrounding acre of swaying green grass. She stepped over a few soggy piles of stray leaves and along the path of sand and dirt that led to the leaves and along the path of sand and dirt that led to the bluff.
There she found Nick out by the water's edge. He'd taken his leather jacket off and tossed it on the ground beside him. The wind off the water was blowing through his white T-shirt as if he were flying. It fanned his dark brown hair up from his sober face. Watching Nick when he didn't have his defenses up was like overhearing a secret. It made Cassie feel special to witness it but also a little bit guilty.
Cassie had wanted to be alone, but now she wanted nothing more than to be with Nick. Not in a romantic sense, of course. She loved Adam, but that didn't mean she and Nick couldn't be friends. So she went to him, preparing herself the whole way for his rejection of her company. But she felt she had to try at least. Nick may have been dark and brooding, he may have been unpredictable, and most days he could even be called rude - but there was a solid center beneath all that, and it was pure, like the crystal ine core to a rough rock. Cassie had seen it, and she was determined to break through his tough exterior to reach it again. She missed his friendship - even though she knew she was pushing him to be friends when their breakup was still so fresh.
"Hi," she called out to him from a few steps back, not wanting to startle him.
He turned slowly, unsurprised to see her, almost like he was expecting her.
"Hi," he said, which was invitation enough for Cassie to join him.
"How are you?" Cassie asked.
"Okay. How are you?"
"Good."
It was awkward, definitely, but as they persevered through it, they began to slowly settle into their old habits.
Nick teased her, pretending to be cruel, and Cassie rolled with his punches, laughing too loud. She'd wanted this for so long, she didn't want to mess it up, but there was one thing she couldn't let go.
"Can I ask you something?" she said, when there was a lull in their conversation.
Nick nodded, his jaw strong. "You can ask me anything, but it doesn't mean I'll answer you."
Cassie grinned. "Did you come out here hoping to see me?"
"Wow, you're conceited." Nick cracked up laughing.
"Is that a yes?"
Nick stopped laughing then and just smiled. He was so stingy with his full-toothed smile, Cassie had forgotten how beautiful and bright it was when it happened. Its scarcity only made it that much more valuable.
"Maybe the thought of you coming out here vaguely crossed my mind," Nick said. "I have missed this between us."
At last. This was the Nick she knew.
"Me too," Cassie said.
"Now I get to ask you something." Nick flashed his bad-boy grin. "Is Adam driving you crazy yet?"
"Nick!"
"Nick!"
"He is. I know he is. Don't even try to deny it."
"No comment," Cassie said, laughing. But then she added, "I guess I'm still getting used to his - "
"Smothering?"
"His goodness," Cassie scolded. "Now be nice." Nick suddenly appeared lighter, happier. Maybe all he needed to feel better was to take a good shot at Adam.
Cassie let her eyes go soft on the ocean. "I promise things will go back to normal," she said. "For you and me.
For all of us."
But the moment those words left her lips, dark clouds formed overhead, too fast to be natural. They were ominous clouds of the sort you'd see in movies about the apocalypse. Nick grabbed Cassie's hand, and they took a few cautious steps back, away from the ocean.
"What's happening?" Cassie asked. "Is it a tornado? Do you even get those around here?"
"I don't know what this is." Nick scanned the surrounding area for a safe shelter. "We have to get out of here. All these trees. We have to try to run to your house." They started running, but they only made it a few steps when streaks of furious lightning began flashing all around them, seemingly right at them.
"Keep running," Nick screamed. "And cover your head." Ice-cold rain poured down, pelting them like needle-pointed arrows. The sky was completely black except for the lightning, which, when it flashed, ill uminated the angry wind in the trees. The blustering sand and litter stirred up from the ground. Cassie strived to keep her eyes closed to the debris but also open enough to follow Nick's course of escape.
"We'll never make it," Cassie screamed breathlessly.
"We should try a spell, to stop it."
"No!" Nick yelled. "No magic. Keep running." One flash after the next, the lightning and thunder reminded Cassie of fireworks.
"It's them, isn't it?" Cassie cried out. "The hunters." Nick stopped running for a second, and Cassie also stopped, breathing heavily. Nick's thick neck was pulsing; his chest was heaving. "I think so," he said. "It could be a trick to get us to use our magic."
Then a lightning bolt struck a willing target - one of the many elm trees nearby. It cracked and sparked from the blow.
Cassie shielded her eyes with her hand like a visor, watching the elm shiver and smoke. "Seems like they might already know we're witches, don't you think?" Then another tree right beside that one was hit, and then another, each one closer to Cassie and Nick than the one before. Finally, a fiery bolt crashed at the ground right next to Cassie's feet. She screamed, and Nick pushed her out of the way, shielding her body with his own.
Cassie and Nick were both on the ground now, she beneath him. His broad muscular body was heavy on hers.
"Are you okay?" he asked. Rainwater dripped from his face onto hers.
"Yes," Cassie said. From beneath him she watched the trees that had been hit succumb to wild orange flames. It was the most furious fire Cassie had ever seen, with Bill owing black smoke rising up from it like a ghost.
That could have been me, Cassie thought to herself. If Nick hadn't thrown her out of the way, she would have been dead.
It was a sight to see, those once great elms darken and wither to ash so fluidly. Their rugged brown bark melted at the will of the heat, like a chocolate bar left out in the sun.
Whatever the hunters were trying to prove, they'd proven it. Clearly they were powerful, and they were willing to kill.
They weren't witches, but this kind of control over the elements looked like black magic to Cassie. What kind of witch hunters used the same tactics of evil witches?
"They're so close," Cassie said.
Nick let some of his weight off Cassie's quivering body beneath him. "And they're getting closer every minute." It seemed to Cassie like there was no escape. She and Nick could get up and keep running, but the lightning and thunder would follow their every step until it finally hit its bull 's-eye, striking them down with a ball of fire that would burn and bend their bones like the brittle branches of an old elm tree. Or they could lie right there on the ground, unmoving, clutching each other and closing their eyes to it all. They could go with it easily, rather than try to fight it.
Dying side by side with Nick was better than being shot down from the sky.
And then as if it had all been a dream, the rain suddenly came to a halt, the lightning stopped, and the sky cleared the way for the sun. The day returned, eerily and beautifully, the way for the sun. The day returned, eerily and beautifully, to the perfect color photograph it had been before. If the trees at their side hadn't still been steadily burning, clouding the air around them with bleak black smoke, Cassie would have believed she'd imagined the whole nightmarish scene.
"I guess we passed the test," Nick said, standing up and brushing off his jeans. He ran his fingers through his soaking-wet hair and then offered Cassie his broad hand to help her to her feet.
"How is that?" Cassie asked, taking Nick's hand. "By not dying?"
"It's a pretty good start." Nick put his sturdy arm around Cassie's drenched sweater. "Let's get you home." Cassie looked up into his mahogany eyes gratefully.
She'd never forget the way he'd protected her. Without a moment's hesitation, he was willing to die for her.
"I'm only going home if you're coming with me," she said.
"Well, I'm sure as heck not staying out here," Nick said playfully, trying to make light of the situation.
"Nick." Cassie refused to take another step until he looked her in the eyes and acknowledged what had just passed between them.
"What?"
"Thank you," she said.
He shook his head and looked away again. "You don't have to thank me."
"Yes, I do."
Nick started to laugh awkwardly, nervously. The kind of laugh that comes out when you're trying not to cry. Then he laugh that comes out when you're trying not to cry. Then he pulled Cassie in toward him and kissed her affectionately on the forehead, like a big brother might do. "No problem," he said.