Shai Soi

Chapter 23

Sadie laughed. We were nearing a river. My arms started to hurt from Sadie's bony shoulder. "Ha! Points, Rebecca. But Nathaniel's right-"

"Ugh, the worst words in existence."

She nodded her perfect head. "True."

"Hey!" He exclaimed.

We laughed. I liked it when I got her to laugh. Sadie always seemed tense around me. It was nice knowing she wasn't all glares and coolness. We splashed off the bank. Water clogged my shoes making them feel even more like lead. My whole body ached.

 "Losing your shara and gaining it back hurts... a lot."

"Like the world's worst hangover," Nathaniel agreed. He stumbled over a root. A tree twig slapped me in the face.

"Pfft! How would you know what a hangover feels like, Mr. Slithan?"

"Let's just say Sadie and I like to test the waters." His eyes glowed with their own light. He shared a mysterious look with Sadie.

She snorted. "Very stupid waters."

Speaking of which, we stumbled our way through the stream. It was now up to my knees. Nathaniel was the tallest of us so he took my weight when Sadie sank to her waist in the mud. The valley's soft mud made wading even more difficult. My shoes constantly got stuck in the thick clay. We started upstream.

Nathaniel adopted his best teaching voice. "Another privilege to being a Chai  is our tolerance for alcohol is many times greater than a normal person's, so it takes a lot more to get us tipsy. But you still get one heck of a hangover."

" 'Tipsy'- ha. I love your sense of humor, Nathaniel." Sadie commented pulling herself out of the mud.

"Just one of my winning factors." He winked at me. I gagged. "I'm going to say that was the shara talking."

"Whatever you need to hear," I reply drowsily. The sound of the water trickling over stones became very distracting. I forced my eyes open.

Sadie smiled. "I think I like you, Rebecca. Got great observation skills."

I chuckled. I was glad I was on Sadie's good side, after all her friends bullying me at school. I didn't forget how she'd almost called me 'Reject', though. Maybe being a Chai will help her opinion of me grow. In time. But frankly, all I wanted to do was sleep. I would have time to get to know her later.

"Thanks, Sadie." Nathaniel propped me up against a rock. We'd reached a small rapid. The river continued upstream, behind a huge wall of rock. It ascended in many levels. Whitetips bubbled over raised stones. "Rebecca, we need to go under water for a second, think you can do that?"

"Uh..." was my response.

He and Sadie shared a look. "I'll go first, and you can send her under?"

"Yeah, okay." Nathaniel's brow knotted. "You alright?"

"Nathaniel, I feel like I've been run over. No, I don't feel alright. But I'll feel worse if you two don't hurry up."

Sadie shrugged. "Okay, then. Send her under as soon as I tell you to." With that, she turned into a weird pink-ish fish and disappeared under the small waterfall.

"Can you shift?" I shook my head. If I changed one more time, I'd explode. He nodded like he'd expected this. "Okay, watch your feet."

He held my waist as we waded mid-stream. The current was much harder than what I'd thought. My knees buckled. "Hold on, Bec." From the hand at my waist surged animalistic strength. My legs steadied, and I got enough balance to stand on my own. Nathaniel still kept a hand on my shoulder. I guessed he was somehow feeding me shara. I didn't know shai could do that. Maybe they couldn't. Maybe it was a Chai thing. I didn't care. As long as it kept me from blacking out.

"Go through the water. There's a small pocket of air. Sadie's waiting for you on the other side of the rock." He took his hand off my shoulder. The shared strength drained out of my pores faster than you could say 'Quidditch'. "Got it?"

My only response was falling into the sheet of water. It flattened my hair in seconds, stray drops tickling my scalp. My hoodie clung to my body, suffocating me. I hit my head against a wall of river stone. Ouch. The space was soggy and wet, and my submerged jeans chaffed against my legs. The water was freezing. I missed Nathaniel's warmth.

Bec?! Nathaniel's panicked voice echoed in my head.

I'm here.

Oh, goodness. I felt his hand brush my arm ad he joined me under the small waterfall. Sadie's waiting for you. What are you doing?

Getting a concussion, apparently. I'm very tired. Can I just stay here? It's peaceful... My heavy head started dipping under the water. My forehead peeked from the surface as my toes scraped the bottom. The rushing water making my eyelids heavy.

"Rebecca!" Nathaniel yanked me higher. "Rebecca, you gotta work with me here. Just go under the wall, that's all you need to do." The space was small. We were nose to nose. In my delusional state, I remembered thinking I liked it there.

What's taking so long? Has she drowned? came Sadie's voice. She didn't sound that concerned.

Something about it spurred me to move away from Nathaniel's face. I forced myself to stop thinking about the way the water  drippedfrom his hair into is eyes. "Go under the wall, Rebecca." The wall? Oh, the one I had banged my head into before.

I dipped back under the water, sharply aware of Nathaniel's hand on my lower back. He pushed me under the rock face, and another set of hands pulled me to the surface. Sadie stood knee-deep in a small pool. She hauled me onto a cold cave floor. Nathaniel splashed up seconds later. He swiped a damp curl from Sadie's face.

"Are you okay?" Sadie nodded, eyes half closed. She must've been as tired as I was sick. Nathaniel turned to me. "You?"

I tried forming words but all that came out was "Muh..."

Yes, I told him through shoak.

He nodded, slicked a hand through his hair and turned to Sadie again. "Do you mind staying with her for the night? I'll come back and help move her, but it's late. Carrie and Ed are going to kill me for missing dinner."

"Yeah, yeah, dump the sick Newling on me. I can see right through you. Go on," she joked. Nathaniel leaned down and pecked her on the lips. But Sadie grabbed his soaked shirt and held him there. They drew away. INathaniel's brow darkened but it vanished so I thought I imagined it. "Uh, good night," he muttered eyes sliding to me under their lids. He jumped into the pool and was gone.

Everything felt delayed. The sound of the rapids roaring over us, the freezing water trickling down my chest, the stillness in my chest when I could no longer feel Nathaniel's shara. It was like everything was encased in syrrup except I couldn't see or feel it. His words just reached my ears. " 'Carrie and Ed'?"

To me, calling my parents by their first names seemed weird. I only knew one kid at school who did that. He was teased for it. It was something we both had in common.

"Yeah," Sadie sighed snapping me from my thoughts. Her thick eyelashes fluttered-whether from exhaustion or exasperation, I didn't know. The rushing of the river droned overhead, so I could barely hear Sadie when she muttered, "Nathaniel's parents went with the Old Ways."

"The old ways?"

Sadie rolled her shoulder like the mention of it made her uncomfortable. "Yeah. Hey, I'm glad you're adjusting so well, but like I said even Chai have limits. I've gotta get some sleep, okay?"

I got the distinct impression she was avoiding the topic, but I decided not to press. My vision was darkening anyway, might as well go to sleep. "Okay, goodnight."

As I closed my eyes, I saw a blush of relief wash over her sharp cheekbones before she closed her eyes. I drifted off into a dreamless sleep.