born with salt on my skin
“I swear, I blame it on the Outlanders,” I say a bit too quickly, not catchin’ myself until a moment or two after. The wince is real. “Sorry. If it ‘elps, I don’t think’a you as an Outlander,” shrugging, tryin’ to play it off. “Yer, like, Jack’s crew.” An’ more’in some, I might add - but don’t. “Speakin’ of, how was the haul?” I pause at an intersection an’ head to a wall to read the figures, takin’ a right turn, where the tunnel narrows, pushin’ us closer together. Half my mind is on what Jack had said he might bring me, an’ the other half is… on shirtless Saiden. Gods, my fingers seem to itch, an’ I pause at his next question. “When Apopo blew, a lava monster took up in hear. You can still see some’a the scorch marks.” Pointin’ at the wall, I head to one side, runnin’ my fingers against the cool surface an the only signs that remain’a the lava monster.
“It was like an octopus, if you can believe it.”
and the sea in my blood
RAZA
