Oscar. Davey. The drugs .
Oh, fuck, the drugs.
Even then, with that creature behind us, I felt the pull. The stomach-churning, cataclysmic realisation that I was going to have to explain to Davey - and to Oscar - that I'd lost twenty grands worth of gear. My pace slowed, almost like it had back in the alley and I'd been stuck fast in the moving, shifting tide of air, only this time I was the one forcing the world into slow motion.
The man tugged on my hand, glancing towards me with irritation.
'Come on,' he urged.
'Wait... my bag.' It was pathetic. Reckless. I knew it was even as the words left my mouth. Back there, thundering down the alley behind us was something terrible, something that clearly wanted to hurt me and yet I was still thinking about the bloody bag. About Davey banging Star. Seeing Oscar's hand on my thigh.
'I have it,' the man replied. 'Now just keep fucking running.'
He did have it. I saw it then, the black designer holdall slung over his other shoulder. I hadn't seen him pick it up. I just remembered him grabbing my hand and pulling me away.
Saving me.
I gripped his hand tighter and ran, feeling strangely elated as we broke free from the alley and hit the main road.
Weaving in and out of pedestrians, I could see them all, the way they stared as we ran, hammering the pavement, me in my barely-there dress and with nothing on my feet. The streets were alive. Music pumped from shop doorways. People laden with shopping from the January sales milled here and there, cramming what little space there was on the busy street with bag upon bag of bargain-price loot. Everything was loud and crazy and my head whirled as we jostled amongst them, desperately trying to cut a path through the crowds of people.
The man tugged me towards the road and I stared wild-eyed, my heart in my mouth as he pulled me into the oncoming traffic, narrowly dodging cars as we streamed across the road. Horns blasted loudly, brakes screeched, but still he didn't stop.
Reaching the other side, he tore down a side street, never slowing for one second and my feet were burning now, every pounding step like torture. The effects of the coke I'd shoved up my nose before I'd entered the club had worn off ages ago and reality, or whatever the fuck this was, was coming right at me hard and fast and so unrelenting that I was struggling to breathe.
'Please,' I gasped. 'Please, I can't, I need to stop.' I pulled on his arm and slowed, the stitch in my side spiking pain up my body and making me double over.
He yanked on my wrist hard and I yelped. 'We can't stop now,' he said. 'We have to keep going.'
I stared wildly around. 'We're practically on the main road, there's a shit load of witnesses, what can he possibly do?'
Grabbing a handful of my jacket, he pulled me roughly towards him. 'You think you're safe, huh? You think all these people are going to help you?'
He was so close I could feel the warmth of his breath on my skin, could see the tiny scar on his nose and the anger and frustration boiling under a sea of blue in his eyes.
'Being in a crowd big enough to fill Wembley Stadium wouldn't help you now, trust me.'
'Trust you?' I said. 'I don't bloody know you!'
He cocked his head to the side, one brow arched. 'You want to take your chances on your own? Because I can do that. I can leave you here.'
My ears popped, a thunderclap of sound that sent me plunging underwater and I swayed slightly, feeling disoriented and dizzy.
At the end of the side street, the other man stood in the middle of the black storm, with people passing him by like he wasn't there, like they couldn't see what I could see. How could they not see him? Why were they not fleeing?
'What the Hell...' I whispered, terrified.
'Now will you start bloody running?' the man said.
He didn't need to ask me again.
We took off again, cutting down another road, with the panic binding me tighter and tighter the further we went. The fear was ballooning inside my chest with every second of the chase, threatening to burst through my rib cage and tearing every single breath to shreds. Just when I was starting to believe the nightmare would never end, we turned a corner and I suddenly realised exactly where we were.
Addi's car sat at the end of the road, still waiting in the exact same spot that I'd left him.
Letting go of my hand, the man flung the bag into my arms. 'Go now,' he ordered. 'Don't stop for anyone, no matter what, okay?'
'W-what?' I stuttered, as he turned back in the direction we had come. 'You're leaving me? What about that thing?' My voice sounded more screechy than I'd intended and he winced, his face rippling with irritation and his fists clenched as he looked back at me.
'Why don't you just let me worry about that, yeah? Now get in the fucking car and just go, will you?'
There was so much rage there then, so much furious heat, that I recoiled instantly, stumbling backwards, still clutching the bag to my chest. For a moment, I had visions of him raising his arm, of forcing the air at me, like he had done to the other guy in the alley, because the anger I saw in him now was exactly like what I had seen in him then. I could even feel it, rolling off him in torrents and suddenly, my mysterious hero became something darker, threatening.
Clear crystal clarity hit me hard.
'I remember you,' I said, stunned. 'From New Year's Eve...'
It was him. The one who'd watched me as I'd fallen. The one whose face I'd seen as I'd slipped into the darkness.
'Do you have a bloody death wish or something?' he snapped.
He stepped forward, a tight coil of fury, and the air around him blurred, seeming to fold in on itself and without another word, I turned and fled, only looking back when I finally reached the car.
He'd gone.
Addi, who must have seen me running towards the car in the mirror, was already getting out, his 9mm Baikal pistol grasped in his hand, held tight against his thigh.
'Case, what the fuck?' he said, but I motioned quickly for him to get back in the car.
'Get in,' I gasped. 'Get in and bloody drive, Ads.' Grabbing the handle of the car door, I threw myself into the passenger seat, shoving the bag into the footwell and desperately pulling on the seat belt.
Addi was already in the driver's seat, hitting the ignition and slamming his foot down onto the accelerator and the car screeched away from the kerb in a furious spin of tyres and smoke.
'What the fuck is going on?' He glanced down at my feet. 'And where are your shoes? Case, what the Hell happened back there?'
'I have no fucking idea, Ads,' I whispered, my hands trembling. 'I really have no idea at all.
I grabbed the pistol resting between his thighs and gripped it tightly in my lap, glancing back through the rear window and checking the side mirror as London sped by in a furious, kaleidoscopic whirl.
Same streets. Same people. Same city life. Everything was just the same as it had always been.
And yet everything had changed.
I leaned in close and inhaled.
Deep. Hard. Again.
Closing my eyes, I tilted my head back, my hands braced against the wall on either side of the mirror.
Breathe, Casey, breathe.
And I did, inhaling and exhaling slowly, knowing that it would take a while to hit, but feeling calmer already, the trembling in my limbs finally easing up, even if the pain hadn't yet.
Bloody footprints caked the floor, a macabre map of my movements that trailed all the way from the front door, up the stairs and into the bathroom where I now stood.
It had been inevitable I suppose that my first point of call as soon as I had arrived home was to head straight to the bathroom and cut some lines on the flat-top of the basin unit, using Davey's razor blade to slice up three perfect little rows. I'd probably lost a few layers of skin on my feet and was bleeding all over the tiles, but what did a bit of blood matter when I needed to get high?
And I needed it so fucking much. I opened my eyes and remembered watching my hand disappear into the void, felt the air sucking voraciously on my flesh and immediately leant down and inhaled the last one. One more for luck. One more to forget.
How much would I need to forget everything?
Brushing away the last powdery specks from my nose, I hobbled over to the shower, reaching in and turning the dial until a wispy cloud of steam rose from the water hitting the tiled floor of the cubicle. Unzipping the dress, I threw it into the corner of the room, feeling the weighty shame once again when I remembered Oscar's hand on my thigh and hating myself for wearing it, hating Davey for making me. With the hand-towel, I rubbed half-heartedly at the stains on the bathroom floor, doing little but smearing them in a wide bloodied arc and in the end, I just lay the towel out to cover the blood while I showered.
I stepped into the warmth of the stream, letting the flow hit me on the back of the neck, watching numbly as the smoky tendrils of blood and dirt snaked out from under my feet, making swirling patterns in the water as it drifted closer and closer to the plughole. I might as well have been standing on hot coals, but I bore the pain, relishing the sting and just praying, hoping, that the coke would kick in quick and make everything okay again.
Because everything would be okay. It would.
I'd read once, having had a leaflet shoved into my hand during a visit to my doctor's surgery accompanied by the usual look of weary disgust and despair, that long-term abuse had numerous side-effects. Read it, Miss Brogan the doctor had said, it might just save your life .
Yawn. Whatever.
But I had read it, skulking just inside the park entrance and probably looking like one of the junkies that queued up outside the drop-in centre in town. I'd love to have said it had been a riveting read, but there was nothing in the two-page glossy pamphlet that inspired me.
Paranoia.
Anxiety attacks.
And the plot twist? Full-blown psychosis.
The individual can lose touch with reality and experience visual and auditory hallucinations.
I'd thrown the leaflet in the nearest rubbish bin that day, but I never threw away the words, despite how much I tried to convince myself it was meaningless twaddle for do-gooders and losers. I was glad I hadn't now, I was glad that somewhere inside, I'd stored it all up, because there had to be a reason for what had happened. I needed a reason, because without one, what the fuck was I meant to do? How was I meant to process it?
No. It was a hallucination. Just my mind's way of saying, you want an escape, Casey? I'll give you an escape that will blow everything else out of the bloody water. And it had. In fact, it had blown me so far off course from reality, that I was no longer sure how to find my way back from it.
But of course, that didn't explain away my mysterious hero. He hadn't been a hallucination. Couldn't have been. I could still remember the heat of his hand in mine, the fury in his eyes. Had I hallucinated how he could manipulate the air too, just as I'd hallucinated the creature?
It terrified me to think about it, because either way it meant everything was truly fucked up.
Davey hadn't been in when Addi and I had got home, but I heard him thundering up the stairs now, calling my name as I stepped gingerly out of the shower, and I knew Addi must have phoned him. I wrapped a towel around myself and winced as he hammered on the bathroom door.
'Case? Babe? Open the door, yeah?'
My hand hesitated over the lock before opening it. It had barely clicked when he was already pushing his way through the door and I had to step back, in fear he'd step on my already-tortured feet.
'Case?' He grasped my shoulders, but his gaze swept over the bathroom, eyes-widening when he saw the bloody stains on the tiles, the remnants of my last hit, the razor blade.
'I'm sorry,' I mumbled. 'I'll clean it all up.'
'Never mind that now,' he said, pulling me against him.
I hated it sometimes when he did that, because no matter what was going on, no matter how I was feeling or how pissed off I was at him, the crook of his neck always felt like a safe-zone. If I stayed there, with my face pressed against his skin, everything would be okay. I inhaled instinctively, breathing in his scent, feeling the heat of his embrace mingling with the heat of the coke as it started to embrace my veins.
'Addi said someone was chasing you, was it someone we know? Did you recognise his face?'
I stiffened.
That face.
Goose bumps rose on my skin, prickling down my back.
'No,' I said, taking a deep breath. 'I've never seen him before.'
'You're sure? I mean, you're sure you haven't seen him hanging around, at one of the club nights, maybe?'
I frowned against his throat. 'What? No, course not. Why? Do you know who it might have been?'
This could be good. If Davey was worried about someone hanging around, everything would become real. A real person distorted by my hallucinating, coke-fucked mind and not some air-shifting ghoul with the power to pull me into an invisible void.
'No one in particular,' he replied, kissing the top of my head as he wrapped his arms tighter around me, which was a good job considering the much-needed buzz was about to deflate as quickly as a week-old party balloon. 'But I've spoken to Oscar, told him to check his CCTV out back of the club and see if he can recognise the bastard.'
'O-Oscar?' I managed to stutter. 'You told Oscar?''Of course I did, babe. If someone's after the gear, he needs to know about it, eh?'Right. Of course. The drugs. Twenty grand in pills and thrills. Never mind the fact that someone had chased me through the streets and tried to kill me. Never mind the fact that my feet were screaming and there was blood all over the place. The drugs were what really mattered. They always mattered and I knew that more than anyone.'Great. Okay.' I sniffed, pulling out of his bear-hug and sidling past him out of the bathroom.In the bedroom, I threw off the towel and grabbed a longline t-shirt off the bed, slipping it on over my head. My hair was still wet from the shower and I used the same towel to dry the ends off, trying not to think about my stash of pills in the drawer of the dresser.The coke wasn't going to be enough. Not this time. I could feel it, even as it sent little sparks of heat firing up my veins. A shor
The sunlight reflected off towers of glass and steel, the dazzling shards of light making me blink in the afternoon glare. It was a rare mild day in January, one of those beautiful ones where the skies were a clear blue over London and the sun held the worst of the winter chill at bay.I raised my hand to shield my eyes as I looked up at the great sparkling monolith where Claire worked, wondering, as I always did whenever I came here, what it must look like inside. I'd always imagined some high-tech state-of-the-art office, regurgitated from a high-budget sci-fi film, where the receptionist was a robot, coffee was beamed directly into your coffee cup and everything had a white, clinical feel like a laboratory.But I'd never been inside Claire's office. She'd never invited me, always choosing to meet outside in one of the trendy coffee shops or snooty wine bars she liked so much. I had a feeling she thought that my presence would taint her perfect workspace, that if I so much a
It was hot on the Tube. Stifling. Suffocating.I grasped onto the support rail, my sticky hands preventing me from getting a firm grip as the carriage rocked back and forth through the tunnel. Removing one hand, I wiped my palm down my thigh, before gripping the pole again and doing the same with the other one, not that it seemed to make much difference. A body brushed against mine from behind and I tried to shift into what little gap there was to avoid contact, but it was futile. Passengers were packed into the carriage, bodies crammed so tightly together that personal space would have been nothing short of a miracle.My t-shirt was sticking to my back and I wished there was enough room to take off my jacket, but I had no chance unless a few people decided to get off at the next station. Inhaling deeply, I leant my forehead against the rail and clung to it the best I could, closing my eyes for a few seconds. The heat was starting to make me feel a little dizzy and nause
'You are aware your sister's episode was most likely due to substance abuse?'There was a brief silence, punctuated by the steady beeping from close by. It was the beeping sound that I'd heard first, the insistent noise reaching out to me in the darkness and I'd followed the beeps up to the surface, like I was following a trail of breadcrumbs out of the deepest part of the forest.I knew what it was. I'd heard it before, after I'd OD'd the first time and Addi had panicked and brought me to the hospital. He'd taken me to A&E and left. Davey's orders . I'd woken up surrounded by strange faces with cold, unsympathetic eyes and that irritating beeping sound which haunted my sleep for days afterwards.'Yes. She's on a drug counselling program, she's dealing with it. At least trying to anyway. This is just a blip.'Not Claire. Not my sister. A man's voice.A man's voice that I recognised.I froze just under the surface, scared to open my eyes.'Well, Mr.
When you've lived with liars all your life, it's easy to become something of an expert.Whether they look you dead in the eye or try to avoid your gaze, whether they stay completely still or shift around as if bugs are crawling under their skin, whether their voice hitches up an octave or stays exactly the same. I knew liars. I'd seen liars bare-face fake it to authorities to cover up their dirty crimes. I'd had liars tell me they loved me, while opening the door to monsters. I'd had monsters tell me everything would be okay, as they pushed my face into the pillow.And I stared at a liar every day in the mirror.So yeah, I definitely knew liars, alright.In fact, they only person in my life who never lied, was Davey. He was everything Claire said about him, and more, but the one thing he wasn't, was a liar. Davey told it to you straight. Davey was upfront about everything. If you pissed him off, he'd make sure you knew about it. If he wanted to shag someone else, he was
'But you'd have heard about it,' Ethan said. 'That kind of news gets around. Kids freaking out. Ending up in hospital like you did today. The police would already be investigating and what do you think they'd find out if they did? That the people experiencing drug-related episodes all went to one of your boyfriend's club nights. The boyfriend who happens to be closely associated with local gangster and poster-boy of the old school network, Oscar Turnbull. Trust me, if this was down to Oscar and his drugs, your boyfriend would have had his balls ripped off by now and shoved so far up his arse that no surgeon in the land would be able to extract them. And you?'He smiled and I froze.'All the thigh-skimming dresses in the world wouldn't help you, Casey. You'd find yourself in a filthy, back street club in Kiev within days, drugged up to your eyeballs, wearing nothing but your knickers and turning tricks just to stay alive.'Suddenly, I realised just how stupid I'd been. Ho
There was a guy we once knew on the scene, appropriately named Dan-E by the crew for his notorious pill-popping habit. Life and soul. Proper party animal. Put any kind of drug in front of him and he'd sniff it, swallow it, smoke it, whatever. I'd never seen anyone consume so much in my life and not drop down dead, and that's coming from someone who never refused much herself either, but Dan-E was a different league of user and I'd always known it for what it was. Even without the rumours, I could always see it.When people looked at Dan-E, he smiled - the biggest, broadest I'm-alright-Jack kinda smile you'd ever seen – but whenever people looked away, it was there, hiding behind the smile. A pressure that threatened to crush him. Like someone was pressing down a heavy weight on top of his shoulders.Like ghosts were clinging to his back .I saw it in him, because I saw it in me every day. Felt it. Felt them . Like we were part of some secret bloody club or s
Three grams of Charlie in a small plastic bag. Two pills, one blue, one white. Two blotters of acid, one with a strawberry picture, the other with a heart.I sat on the side of the bed, fist pressed against my lips, one foot constantly tapping a jive against the floor. Reaching out, I straightened up the line of drugs on the bedside table, spacing them out, then went back along and did it again. I stood up abruptly, began to walk away and stopped.Three grams. Two pills. Two tabs.Turning around, I stared at the line-up and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Taking a step closer, I hesitated, clutching at my hair. With a whimper, I opened the drawer, quickly swiping the cocktail into it and shut it firmly, stepping back to watch the small table lamp wobble on top of the unit, the light juddering on the walls.I walked away. Stopped. Glanced back. Closed my eyes.Screams filled my ears, like the shrieks of a thousand birds, wings furiously beating at the air.
'You sure you want to do this, Case?'Addi's brow was a mess of worry lines as he looked at me, his gaze flitting down to where my hand rested on my distended stomach. I'd been rubbing it without even realising it. Rubbing it because I could feel Lily moving around inside. Rubbing it because it calmed me. Addi knew that and I knew what he was thinking now. He thought I didn't want to do this. He thought I'd changed my mind.I looked into his eyes and smiled.'Yes, Addison. Perfectly bloody sure, thank you.'I chewed on my lower lip as I studied his face, suddenly uncertain whether he was trying to dissuade me because he didn't want to be a part of this. I couldn't blame him. He might have enjoyed being a gangster once, but things had stepped up a level since his days of dealing drugs on Davey's patch.'You know, if you don't want to be here, Ads, no one's going to stop you from leaving, or think any less of you for not sticking around.''Speak for yours
'No,' I gasped. 'No.'Ethan glanced towards Blake, lowering his voice. 'Please, Casey, please listen to me. I have to finish this now. Angels? Demons? It makes no difference. They are one and the same. Look at them. Both want to control this world, but it doesn't belong to them. The First might have been the first Angel, but the First was not the first being to walk this earth. Humans were here long before we arrived. The First Angel knew this and knew we didn't deserve to claim it. That's why the Seraphim killed her.'My mouth fell open. ' Her? ''The First was female, Casey, or at least as close to it as it was possible to get.'I rocked back on my heels, feeling overwhelmed by his words, overwhelmed by the pain in my broken arm, but mostly overwhelmed by what I knew he intended to do.'There must be another way,' I said. 'There has to be. You can persuade them, Ethan, if anyone can change things, you can.''This is the only way things can change. Usu
'Are you fucking insane? ' Ethan shot back, his voice echoing out. 'Think about what you're saying, Azazel! Think about the pain they inflicted on us all over the centuries!''They inflicted it on us, Helel, while you sat quaking in whatever dimension you created for yourself. Don't talk to me of the pain of the Shedim when you turned your back on your kind a long time ago. Lucifer poisoned you, Helel. He poisoned your mind to the truth and infected you with his lies.'Turning his face up to the skies, where the Seraphim and Council waited, Blake called up to them.'Blessed Seraphim!' Blake pleaded with them, gesturing to me. 'Rightful descendants of the Throne, this is proof of my devotion, proof of my commitment to you! I will give you the witch. Do with her what you will, but I beg you to grant the Shedim a pardon. We denounce Lucifer. We denounce the ways of the First to Fall. We will no longer defy your rule. Please, I beg of you, redeem us our powers and let us
The ground exploded near my feet, sending plumes of white dust billowing up into my face and I stumbled, alarmed as a fissure appeared in the dry, white earth, wide enough to swallow my feet.'Casey, watch out,' Ethan shouted, grabbing me around the waist and pulling me away, just in time.A tall, lithe Dominion, no doubt the one to fire the explosive shot that had made the ground open up, came hurtling through the melee, its moves surprisingly graceful, its hair flying around its shoulders like a cascade of silver silk. With a cry that contorted its beautiful face into something quite repulsive, it released a hail of hard, focused bolts of energy that came at us with such speed that I felt the first ones rip through the air by my face as I pulled out of their way, the fierce velocity burning at my skin. I heard Ethan cry out and judder against me, and I knew he'd not been so lucky. He'd been hit, not badly, but a small trickle of blood was snaking from his temple where th
'Ethan,' I whispered urgently. 'I can't do what you asked. I don't know how.'He pulled me close again, smiling as he trailed the backs of his fingers of his now-blackened hand down my cheek. 'Just let go, Casey. Trust your instincts. Trust yourself. You can do this.'I swallowed my fear and nodded, still unsure that I could do what he wanted, still sure that his faith in me was misguided.'Oscar, look after Addi.' Ethan gestured to Addi, who was standing behind us all, still staring wide-eyed up at the Archangels as if hypnotised. I couldn't blame him. Even with their terrifying wings of fire, they were still dazzling to the eye. They were rising up into the air now, retreating towards their forces, the screech of the Cherubim heralding their return.Oscar's nose wrinkled as if he didn't much like his appointed role as Addi's guardian. 'And what exactly are you going to do?' he said to Ethan.'I'm going to do just what I promised.' Ethan turned back, direct
Oscar chuckled. 'Careful, Uriel,' he said. 'Endorian magic has a habit of burning a bit. Hate for you to hurt those pretty hands of yours.'Uriel, who was clutching his hand to his chest, sneered at Oscar, his angered gaze sweeping over him with repulsion. He inhaled deeply and grimaced.'Berith, it appears no amount of time can lessen the stench of your betrayal. So many years in exile and your mutinous intent remains sadly as strong as ever. We believed you had left Lucifer's failed teachings behind you and learned your place. It seems we were mistaken.'Oscar sniffed dismissively. 'The Council have been mistaken about many things, Uriel. Time could never diminish the power of Lucifer's teachings, and time was all I ever needed to make you believe the lie. I've got to say, you boys have disappointed me, you really have. You're such experts at smothering the truth, I thought you'd have realised centuries ago that I hadn't abandoned your brother.'Uriel hissed ag
Snowflakes tickled my nose and I reached up with my free hand to wipe them away. My other one was gripping Mr. Tumnus' hand tightly.Behind me, the door to the wardrobe was open, the thick wall of fur coats being the only barrier between this world and my own. I knew if I wanted to, I could push my way through them and feel their warmth engulf me. I could go back and yet somehow, I knew that nothing would feel as warm as Tumnus' hand did around my own.'You could go now, daughter of Eve,' he said, softly. 'You should go now, before they get here.'I looked up at him, smiling at the snowflakes that were melting in his hair and settling on his woolly red scarf. The snow was falling heavier now, the wind catching it and making it look like a flock of tiny white birds, spinning and diving in the air. Tumnus blinked as a flake settled on his eyelashes. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but he must have thought better of it in the end, because he swallowed it down
'Casey, girl, don't you do this!'We glanced at the one called Berith, irritated at his intrusion, but he didn't matter anymore. None of them mattered now.Reaching out with the water, we pulled Helel to his feet, tugging him towards us. We caressed him with the water, ignored his revulsion as we let it run over his earthly form, shuddered as we felt his divine power – so much power like this world had never seen! The mighty Helel! Oh, Morning Star! Oh, Bringer of Dawn! We would have him now, claim him for ourselves, control the one that would be the First!We forced the water into him, just as we had done before, craving the touch of his power again, craving all that he was and all that he would be. He shuddered, fought against us, but we were the Naiad, we were with the water and with Endor, and we would prevail.We brushed aside his petty memories and all those pointless emotions that had enslaved him for so long and poured everything into him, all our p
'You are sure?' Blake said.The sound of his voice popped in my ears, like a bubble of pressure bursting, pain stabbing in my eardrums and down into my throat.My throat .Something was in my throat.I gagged and coughed up water. I watched, dazed, my eyes barely half-open as it trickled away of its own accord, sliding over the monochrome tiles until it reached an ever-shifting stream of water that I could see stretching round behind Ethan.My cheek was damp, pressed against the floor and a lock of wet hair hung over my eyes. A tiny drop of water slid down the lock and grew fat, hanging there, before finally dropping to the floor and that tiny droplet moved of its own volition and joined the moving stream, like an ant, seeking the protection of its colony.My clothes felt heavy and stuck to my skin. I shivered and tried to focus. Ethan was positioned just as I'd remembered, before the water had come, only now his bound hands were in his lap again and hi