Burned: Black Cipher Files #3 (Black Cipher Files series) Read Free

night air.
    I waited for him to get up.
    I would watch, make sure he was safe, and then I would flee.
    The tide pulled him back out into the scruff of broken shells and kelp.
    And he didn’t move.
    The tide rolled back in, sweeping the body closer into shore.
    And he didn’t move.
    “Get up, get up.” The thunderous beat of my heart echoed in my ears, thump-thump thump-thump . I couldn’t move, couldn’t hear anything else but my own terror as I waited.
    The gulls swooped closer to him.
    I imagined they were squawking to each other but nothing penetrated the terrified, panicked rush of my blood.
    Completely still, he lay in the shallow bit of water, on his back thankfully, so he wasn’t drowning as I watched.
    Not again .
    I couldn’t watch someone die again.
    Not this day for Goddess’s sake. The universe couldn’t be that cruel, could it?
    The tide pulled his body out toward the waves. Water shush-shushed softly as it lapped at the shoreline and then rode back out to sea.
    And still he didn’t move.
    “Are you okay?” I shouted, hoping the noise would bring him to consciousness. Hoping he would pop up from his prone position and laugh crazily as I’d seen surfers do, and say something nuts like, “man what a rush,” and then go back out again.
    But nothing.
    I could see his chest rise and fall slowly, so he was breathing. But his body would shimmy on the inhale as if the cold was already seeping into his bones and muscles.
    “Hey dude!” I tried again.
    Just in case he was lying there catching his breath after that magnificent wipeout.
    But he didn’t give any sign of consciousness.
    A particularly strong wave rushed in, turned his body sideways, and pushed him further up on shore. As the next swell crested I knew that if he didn’t get up soon he would end up swept out to sea.
    I was going to have to go get him.
    Longingly, I looked back toward the parking lot.
    The empty parking lot. There wasn’t time to go get help.
    My cell was in my pocket and I pulled it out but I only had five percent of my battery left and no service. Half the time the stupid thing didn’t work out here. I was the only rescue in town. Goddess help him.
    I edged closer to the shoreline and his body.
    The moonlight rippled on the water making the ocean appear as if the giant black hole would swallow me up. My breath seized in my chest.
    I tried to breathe in, but only tiny sips of air made it past my constricted lungs.
    “Huh, huh, huh,” my breath wheezed. No, no, no. The chant pounded in my head, as my breath grew shorter and shorter, my vision went whiter and whiter.
    At this rate, I would pass out and he would die. I could not let that happen.
    I stopped. Shut my eyes. Put my hands together in prayer position, mouth closed, I breathed in slowly through my nose, imagining myself on a magnificent, spiritual mountaintop and ignoring the susurrous of the water against the sand.
    Slowly, slowly I let the breath out, chanting softly, “You can do this, you can do this.”
    I took one step for every word, controlling my breath, reassured by the fact that I had a paper bag tucked in my skirt pocket if I began to truly hyperventilate.
    He lay maybe ten feet away.
    A smaller wave rolled in, coming perilously close to my toes. I danced backward, even as my feet sunk further into the saturated sand.
    “Wake up,” I yelled.
    I concentrated on him instead of the steadily encroaching water. I had to get to him now before another large swell dragged him back out to sea.
    He didn’t seem to be regaining consciousness.
    I glanced up, supplicant to the moon, my namesake, the one I hadn’t been able to acknowledge in thirteen long years.
    And I begged.
    “Please let me do this. Please.”
    With a deep breath, I watched and waited until the water was as far away as possible and then I ran, pleading the entire way. “Please, please.”
    I squatted down and hooked my hands under his armpits, scooping until his shoulders were in the crook