Excerpt: Arcadia Divergent

His black jeans caked with the waves of the water. Devin Kinney was not in his element. The sand was crawling into the crevices between each toe, making their quiet homes in deafening silence, gluing him to his seat. Not that he would actually want to will his limbs to move.

Not since he caught sight of the horizon.

The sun glittered a deep ruby red, reflecting in his green eyes as his mind wandered. So many things packed his mind absolutely full that he was shocked brains weren’t squeezing out of his ears, but that was typical. He just took a small guess that his cranium was like elastic, able to catch everything flawlessly. As the sun hung low in the sky, drawing the warm day to its short end, the waters drew cold as the soggy sand released its hold on his toes, feeling the frigid wash of the waves over and over. Yet still he remained, sitting in the sand, waiting for a reason to get up.

The reason came to him, in a form of a woman walking mysteriously out of the water. It was almost as if the water itself walked on the beach, taking shape and form, an animagus warped to please human eyes. Fierce, fiery eyes that could be seen for miles scanned around before the form dove back into the water with utmost grace.

From then on, he held eyes for no one. His heart was filled with memories of whatever this creature was. For 4 years now, he had watched the same scene over and over in his brain, where this hybrid human would walk out of the water, down the beach, relishing in the late day’s sunshine, then dive back into the water, like the angel it was. It looked human, but there was no way anything that looked the way it did could truly be. Still, he could not help but stare, dream, and wonder what would happen.

Hours later, he awoke from a deep, painful slumber, the sand glued to his form, and what looked like a young girl staring at him from behind a rock.

The same girl…

It was clearly a girl now that he was watching closely, her cold gray eyes following every breath that made his lungs rise and fall. Amazingly, she crept closer and let a word fall out of her lips:

“Devin…”

Now he knew he must be dreaming. There was no way this creature could know his name, let alone be human, like he had always fantasized about it being. But here it was, living, breathing, speaking, right in front of him, in a very compromising position as his cousin Corey would have so blatantly pointed out to him, stretched out on all fours like a wild animal, staring him practically in the face.

“You know my name?” he asked, his voice small, afraid of what she might do to him. Somewhere inside, though, if he were to die by her hands, her teeth…he didn’t care.