Free Breathless: A Firelight Novella (HarperTeen Impulse) by Sophie Jordan Page B

know they can’t always be there to make decisions for me. I’m going to have to sprout my wings—no pun intended—and fly out on my own.
    “I—” I stare into the distance, where Tate’s Jeep turns off the road and fades from sight. All of a sudden, my chest feels so tight it hurts—I imagine this is the sensation someone gets when they’re underwater for too long and out of breath. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to take a quick walk. Clear my head.”
    “Sure. That sounds fine.” Mom smiles reassuringly and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “No hurry.”
    I set off toward the dock and then veer off into the thick press of trees. It’s comfortingly familiar. It makes me think of home. The pride. The mists licking my skin. I pause, reveling in the wind and earth all around me … the smell of water so close.
    I could leave now. Return to all that I know. All that I’ve ever known. Safety. Security. I halt abruptly. My hand reaches out for a tree as though I need to grasp it to steady myself.
    What about my life is safe? I’m draki.
    My entire life, my upbringing, my training, school … it’s all been to protect and defend my life and the lives of my kind. The threat of hunters, being captured, discovered … It’s always there, hovering like a dark cloud. Living with apprehension is nothing new. So why am I letting fear rule me now?
    I look down at the small box in my hand, remembering it. I flip open the lid and gasp. I fall back against the tree, staring down at Tate’s shark-tooth necklace. The one that belonged to his mother. I pull it from the box with shaking fingers, emotions flooding me.
    Blinking burning eyes, I push off from the tree, rushing blindly through the woods, a nameless force guiding me. I feel the water like my own heartbeat, hear it, inhale the crispness, the whiff of algae, sensing it before it ever comes into sight.
    I burst from the trees into the clearing, jerking to a stop at the sight of the Jeep—the boy sitting on the shore. He’s here. Like I felt, like I knew he would be.
    He twists around to see me.
    “Az.” He moves to his feet in one easy motion. Everything about him is rigid, wound tight and alert as he gazes at me, his jaw locked. “I thought you were leaving.”
    “I am.” Was …
    “Then what are you doing here?”
    My lips move, words forming, hanging. I don’t know. There’s no deliberation. No time to formulate. I can only stare. Only feel my heart beating wildly inside my chest. “I wanted to take a walk.”
    “So you came here?”
    My hands move, motion to the water. “This place has come to mean something to me.”
    He looks to the water and back at me, his eyes burning and intense. “It means something to me, too.”
    And I don’t think we’re talking about the pond anymore.
    He takes one step for me, then stops, pulls up hard.
    I shake my head, pressure building inside my chest like a dam ready to burst. I hold up the necklace, the shark tooth dangling in the air. “This means something to you, too.”
    “Yes.”
    “Then why give it to me?”
    “I wanted you to have it. I don’t know … it felt right. Like giving it to you somehow makes sense, which I know doesn’t make any sense. Only it’s true.” He smiles crookedly and that dam breaks inside me. With a choked sound, I’m moving. My legs eat up the distance separating us.
    He meets me halfway, his arms going around me. My hands fall to his chest, flatten there. His heart beats fast into my palm, almost like it’s rising up for me, reacting to my touch.
    My eyes search his. “Tate …”
    He brushes the hair back off my cheek. “Why are you running away?”
    I inhale sharply though my nose and the breath is almost pained. He knows . He knows that I’m scared. That I’m running away from him. It’s not my overprotective parents. It’s me.
    How does he know? How does he see me?
    But isn’t that what you love about him? That he sees you? For the first time someone sees