Free The Triad of Finity by Kevin Emerson

Shoals, Jenette’s hands on his shoulders.
    She stepped around him, to where the restaurant was still visible through a filmy window, though the sound of it was gone, and she grabbed Dean and dragged him through as well.
    Guh! Dean exclaimed as he toppled back to the sand.
    Jenette darted around and stood before them, arms crossed. Here in the Shoals, something like her former human self was visible: a small delicate face and long chestnut hair that reached almost to her waist, the white flannel pajamas with tiny smiling frogs on them that she’d been wearing on the night she’d died in a house fire. While her facial features were still human-like, she no longer had eyes exactly, but rather smoky hollows where eyes would be. Still, it was easy enough to decipher the meaning of the glare she was aiming at Oliver and Dean.
    That was awful what you were doing!
    What’s the big deal? Oliver snapped back. We’re just having some fun.
    That’s not fun. It’s cruel!
    Whatever! That girl will be fine, and even if she’s not, who cares? My cohesion’s started! She’ll be dead in a few weeks! Everybody will be! It doesn’t matter.
    It does to him. Jenette nodded over their shoulders. Oliver turned to see Nathan hovering at the edge of the inky black water, stars glowing beneath its depths. He had his back to them, slinging stones out across the calm sea, each skip making rings. And, Jenette added, it matters to me, too.
    Oliver threw up his hands. Great. You guys are like having a second set of parents!
    Why, because we care about you? snapped Jenette. We’re supposed to be trying to save the world and you’re acting like—
    Like it’s going to end, I know! Oliver couldn’t help shouting. I should know, I’m the one who’s going to end it!
    Oliver—
    But Oliver couldn’t take it anymore. No, Jenette. Illisius is coming. Any day now. It’s OVER. There’s no magic Triad, no Emalie, no nothing! Oliver hated saying these things, but it also felt like some kind of terrible relief. To shout out the black thoughts he’d been keeping inside. So, guess what? he went on, I’m a freakin’ vampire. He’s a zombie. At least let us have some fun. He started to step around her.
    Where do you think you’re going?
    I’m going back. Get out of my—
    Jenette’s hands thrust out an energy burst into Oliver’s chest, sending him soaring backward. He tumbled through the air and landed with a splash in the edge water. His shoulder cracked on a black boulder, sending a tremor of pain through his barely healed collar bone.
    He lay there for a minute, dazed, staring up at the featureless gray sky, feeling the strange, lukewarm liquid seeping into his shirt. Then he felt a warmth spreading inside him. He looked up to see Nathan bending over and pulling him up by the arm. Oliver almost wanted to yank his arm away. He didn’t even want to feel that warmth anymore, the sense of being whole that Nathan gave him, because it only made the truth worse, the awful truth—
    When you do things like that, it makes me feel like our connection is fading, said Nathan.
    Oliver looked away and shrugged. It’s going to.
    It’s not over yet, said Nathan. And if you act like it is, then they’ve already won.
    Nathan sat down on the sand, arms around his knees. Oliver crawled over and sat beside him. His clothes were dripping wet but he didn’t really feel it, as this water was more energy than liquid. His feet were still in the lapping breakwater. It made little white sparks when it touched him.
    We have to keep up hope, said Nathan. Here in the Shoals, his facial features were visible, and he looked almost like Oliver’s twin.
    Oliver huffed to himself. With Nathan beside him, he could feel that resolve, that hope, returning. It was like the opposite of what he’d been feeling since the first cohesion dream, almost like Nathan and Illisius were opposites. Made sense, he guessed: a soul and a demon.
    And with that warmth, he could see how