by Chanel Harry
He cut through the woods as he headed to the lake. He was hoping that he could clear his thoughts and maybe see Mia there. The lake was the last place he should go to gather his mind, but he thought that it could bring him peace being in the spot where his mother last was.
When he made it to the still lake, he saw a figure standing on the dock. As he got closer, the silhouette looked to be that of a girl’s.
“Mia?” He said aloud. She turned around and smiled.
“I’d knew you come.” She said. Tareeq hugged her tightly, trying not to sob.
“Today’s been really messed up.” He whispered.
“How?”
“Mia, would you ever lie to me?” He asked her. She gave him a look of concern.
“No.”
“Good because I can’t take anymore lies.” He said. “King told me everything about you. Is it true that you’re…you’re a…”
“Mermaid?” She whispered looking down at her feet. Tareeq nodded his head.
“It’s true.” She confessed. “I told you that this town was weird. I guess I’m a part of that equation.”
“H-How did you become a mermaid?”
“It’s a long story so I’ll get straight to the point.” She said sitting down on the docks edge. She let her snow boots she wore touch the water. Tareeq sat beside her and waited.
“My mom adopted me when I was five years old back in two-thousand and five; it wasn’t a normal adoption though. I was left here at the lake by my real parents one night. They couldn’t take care of me anymore after Black Hallow became deserted from a huge murder scandal. Black Hallow is where I am from, which is the town over. Nonetheless, they left me here one night; left me here crying and hungry. Mom heard me all the way from beneath the lake.” She pointed downwards.
“What the?”
“Yes, she came up to the surface to see who was crying. When she saw me sitting in the sand over there, she sang to me the sweetest song to calm me. Once I stopped crying, she asked me where my parents were. I told her that they left me. That’s when she came out of the water and her pretty tail turned into legs. She took my hand and brought me to a house that we live in now. That’s where she taught me her magic and soon, I became what she is, her daughter.”
“That’s a sad story.” Tareeq said.
“Not really. Mom and Dad took care of me. When I was lonely, she made my friends into mermaids as well. It’s like a sisterhood, you see.”
“I see. My father told me a secret today. He said that my mother was killed by a jealous mermaid.”
Mia’s eyes grew dark as she looked at Tareeq.
“That couldn’t have been us.” She lied. “I-I would’ve known already.”
“I didn’t say it was.” He replied.
Mia took his face and kissed his lips. When she did, Tareeq could feel his head become light.
“Say you love me.” Mia chanted.
“I-I love you.” Tareeq repeated.
“Do you want to be with me?” She chanted again.
“Yes, I don’t care about anything but you.” He said. Mia grinned darkly. Tareeq just stared ahead with his eyes fixed on the lake. It was as if he were in a dark box inside his mind and couldn’t control what he said or felt. Seeing this Mia laughed sinisterly. With a wave of her hand, Tareeq snapped out of his trance.
“Tareeq?” She asked, putting her head on his shoulder.
“Yeah?”
“I think, I think I love you.”
Tareeq was taken aback by her confession. In his heart, he could feel the feelings mounting for her. He had never been in love before, but he knew what he felt for Mia was in fact love.
“I think I love you, too.” He admitted. Mia giggled and kissed his cheek. For the rest of the hour they were outside, they talked about their future plans to attend the same college together. Even them possibly spending the rest of their lives together. All of what Mia revealed to him was forgotten about in that moment in time. All that mattered to Tareeq was Mia and for Mia all that mattered was her objective.
Chapter 20.
“This is Michael George with the eight o’clock news in the morning. We have breaking news. Two local teens, Jamir Robinson and Gary Benton the third are missing from their homes in Springbrook. The two teens were reported missing by their parents early this morning. This makes the sixth disappearance this year. We’ll have more information as this story develops. Anne.”
King sat in his bed watching the news biting his left hand fingernails and squeezing the amulet in his right hand. He was terrified beyond belief from what the news just reported. He had been up late at night for the past couple of days, searching on how to kill a supernatural creature. King had a deep rooted feeling that he was going to be the next person to disappear.
“Dammit, Gary and Jamir. “ He mumbled to himself. “Why’d you have to go and get involved with those girls?” He took his remote and turned off his television. He pulled the covers to his head and stared at the glowing amulet around his neck that his grandmother gave him.
“I got to stop them before they kill every person in town.” He pulled back the blanket and got out of bed. He grabbed his backpack with some things in it, got dressed, and headed out to school without showering or eating. None of that mattered to him; he was only concerned with stopping the Blue Crew.
“Hey Jean, what you got for me?” Elise asked as she walked into the forensics lab.
“Something washed up onto the lake’s shore early this morning, detective. Take a look.” Jean replied. She pulled back a white sheet exposing a wet, human skull.
“Woah!” Elise gasped. “This changes everything.”
“Oh yeah!” Jean agreed. “After some extensive testing on this skull, I was able to identify time of death.”
“Give it to me straight, Jean.”
“Time of death was eight at night. As you can see in this groove here, the head was cracked against something hard, but luck was on my side. Although the head is almost clean of flesh, I was able to get a sample of tiny flesh DNA along with some hair DNA.”
“And?”
“Sad to say, but it matches Josh Hamlin’s.”
Elise sighed to herself and furrowed her brow.
“This sucks, but when we brought up his car from the lake, I knew we were going to come up with a body.”
“This is the line of work that we’re in.” Jean sighed.
“Is it a homicide?”
“So far, yes.” Jean said. “What troubled me the most was that his skull is devoid of skin in such a short time? Almost like it was eaten off.”
“Damn.”
“Have you interrogated the Macon girl yet?”
“No, her parents are fighting us on it. They used their Miranda rights and Brittany didn’t say a word. Her parents told the department that they are filing a lawsuit against us as well.”
“Thanks, Jean. This has given us some more solid evidence against her though. I think we have a shot!”
“I think so, too.”
“See you later. I got some reports to do on this case.”
“Take care, E.”
Elise walked out of the lab. In her short time on the force, seeing the rotting skull of Josh was too much for her to bare. She couldn’t fathom that teens were murdering each other. However, from what she gathered during this case, she knew that she wasn’t dealing with regular teens.
“I gotta get them somehow.” Elise mumbled. Walking back to her office, she thought about Derek and Tareeq; especially Tareeq. She thought about the other two boys that were so close to Tareeq going missing as well.
Gary and Jamir’s parents told her that both of them were going on dates with two of the girls that Mia hung out with.
Sitting at her desk, Elise sent Derek a text message, hoping to stop his own son from meeting the same fate as his friends.
Tareeq was late for school. He scrambled around his room looking for his math homework, not realizing that he didn’t fini
sh it. Giving up, he put on his jacket and backpack and walked down the steps.
His father was standing at the door as if he were waiting for him to come down. Tareeq had been trying to avoid Derek since he told him what really happened to his mother. However, he couldn’t avoid his own father forever, no matter how bad he felt.
Derek smiled at Tareeq and he smiled back. Tareeq couldn’t stay mad at his only parent for long. With the silence between them still intact, Tareeq eyed his father.
“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for lashing out the way I did, pops.” He mustered looking his father in the eye. Derek’s eyes started to tear as he hugged his son.
“I should be apologizing to you. After all I’ve done to this family.” He sobbed. Tareeq could feel himself sobbing too. He loved his father and had the utmost respect for him. He couldn’t comprehend not speaking to his father.
“Its okay, Dad. I know you loved Mom.” Tareeq said.
“I did…still do…”
“Alright, pops.” Tareeq laughed through his tears. “I got to get to school.”
“Can I drive you?”
“Yeah, I’m late.”
“Alright.”
They left the house together; both of them feeling happy that their bond was stronger than anything in the world. As Derek drove his son to school that day, he forgot his phone on the coffee table in the living room. The phone vibrated, notifying him of Elise’s frantic texts.
Chapter 21.
Tareeq sat in his English class trying not to fall asleep on the lecture that his teacher was giving on Edgar Allen Poe. He had stayed up all night last night and didn’t realize that he was tired until now.
He felt a paper hit him in the head and that’s when he woke up. He looked around the classroom to see that King was trying to get his attention. King pointed to the paper that was crumbled up on the floor. Tareeq rolled his eyes, but picked up the paper any way. Un-raveling it, the note said: Stay away from Mia!
“Mr. Cooper! Am I boring you?” Mrs. Kensington snapped as she watched the whole note transaction.
“No, ma’am.” Tareeq replied. He quickly put the note into his notebook.
After class was over, Tareeq headed out of the door to his next class. However, King still followed him.
“Sorry that I got you in trouble, but I just need you to stay far away from Mia.”
“Can you stop?”
“Just please listen to me!”
“You’re acting crazy, King!”
“So, I guess you didn’t hear that Gary and Jamir are missing did you?!”
`Tareeq stopped in his tracks feeling his heart beating a mile a minute. The news definitely struck him like a lightning bolt.
“W-What do you mean?”
“It’s all over the news!”
“It can’t be; we were all just together…”
“The Blue Crew has something to do with it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I have a feeling that they did. But while you stand here and believe what those girls tell you, I’m going to stop them before I’m next!”
King walked away in a fury leaving Tareeq in shock at the terrible news.
Derek turned off his car and got out. He walked into the house, praying that he didn’t lose his phone. When he dropped Tareeq off at school, he remembered that he was missing his cell phone.
He retraced his steps back to the living room where he last had it. Glancing at the coffee table, he saw his cell phone sitting there, lighting up with missed calls, and text notifications. As he scrolled through his missed call log, he saw that Howie called him five times and left him a text message. He decided that he would read the text messages instead of calling Howie back. One of them said that there was a couple of casting calls that Derek needed to attend for the movie. With a happy heart, he sent a text message back to Howie explaining that he had left his phone home.
Derek noticed that there was a missed call from Elise as well as a missed text message from her. He opened the text message:
Elise: Derek, please call me when you get a chance. I have some explosive news in regards to the disappearances and Mia Wayne.
Derek phoned Elise immediately, curious as to what she had to tell him. Elise answered on the second ring.
“Hello?” She answered.
“Hi Elise, its Derek.”
“So glad that you called. Do you have time to talk?”
“Yes, I do. What’s up? I got your text.
“I got some new leads in regards to the Hamlin case as well as some bad news.”
“Give me the bad news.”
“Okay. Don’t tell your son just yet until he watches it on the news. Josh Hamlin is dead.”
“Are you serious? How?”
“We had found a skull washed up on the lake’s shore, brought it in for testing, and found out that its Josh’s.”
“That poor kid.”
“Tell me about it, but that’s not all. Two more boys went missing last night. They ran in the same circle with Josh and your son.”
“Wait. Jamir and Gary are missing?”
“Yep! Since this is very close to home, I am afraid that whomever has killed Josh, is responsible for Jamir and Gary going missing.”
“Jesus, Elise! Don’t tell me this.”
“I have to because Tareeq could be next or Kyle. After staying up all night, I came up with a theory.”
“Tell me.”
“All of these boys are friends and they have one thing in common. Almost each one of them dated or is dating the girls that Mia is affiliated with. When I talked to Gary and Jamir’s parents, all four of them told me that their sons were going to meet one of the girls. They never came back from their ‘meetings’ with these girls.”
“Tareeq is dating Mia.”
“Yes, and King has some involvement with Tammy Hart. I couldn’t get to interrogate Brittany Macon though because she just won’t talk.”
“Elise, I believe you.”
“You do?”
“Um…” Derek wiped the sweat from his brow. “Mia’s mother…she ahhh…”
“Wanda Wayne? What’d she do?”
“She…killed my wife last year…” Derek replied.
Chapter 22.
Tareeq looked at his cell phone reading the sweet text messages that he and Mia were exchanging during classes. To him, Mia couldn’t do anything wrong in his eyes; no matter what King said to him. He was in love:
M: What are you doing later on tonight?
T: Hopefully seeing this girl I’m really feeling.
M: THAT GIRL BETTER BE ME! ☹
T: Duh, bae. I wanna see you tonight.
M: That’s more like it. Lol. Meet me at the lake tonight at 8.
T: Our spot? Okay, anything for you, bae <3
M: See you then, baby.
Tareeq smiled as he listened to the rest of the lecture in History.
After classes were over and school was let out, Tareeq made a break for it towards home. His father’s car wasn’t in the driveway, which made him excited. Tareeq took out his homework and started to work on it to pass the time until he was to meet Mia.
Once that was finished, he ate a sandwich while watching his favorite reality shows. He looked at his phone; it was only seven-fifty in the evening. His phone beeped and he scrambled to see who it was that texted him. His heart sank when it was King. He still read it:
K: Come outside.
T: Alright, but I got things to do later.
K: Just come outside.
Tareeq got up from the couch and went to the front door. He opened to see that King was standing there with his backpack still on and panting.
“What’s up, bro? Are you okay?” Tareeq asked, ushering him into the house.
“No, not for us at least.” King said.
“What are you talking about?” Tareeq asked.
“You mentioned that you’re going somewhere tonight.”
“Yeah, I was
just about to leave to meet my girl.”
King’s eyes widened when he heard this.
“You can’t!”
“Come on, don’t try and stop me tonight.”
“I have to!” King started to search his friend’s neck. “Are you wearing the amulet I gave you?”
“No, it’s upstairs in my room.”
“You got to put it on! It will ward off the evil that is coming your way.”
Tareeq started to get frustrated with his friend and wished that he would leave so that he could meet Mia. That’s when he came up with an idea.
“Tell you what, why don’t you come with me so I could prove to you that Mia isn’t out to get me, deal?”
King hesitated a bit but then remembered what was in his backpack. He carefully nodded his head. Tareeq grabbed his coat from the coat rack, along with the house keys and headed out the door with King in tow.
“You sure that you want to do this?” King asked.
“King, just be quiet. You’re already acting erratic.” Tareeq said. “I’ll reassure you that nothing is up with Mia.”
King paused for a second as he thought about what he was going to say next.
“I don’t think that you wholeheartedly believe that Mia is this delicate flower that you can save. She told you about herself; I know she did.”
Tareeq didn’t say anything, he just kept on walking ahead of his friend, trying to drown out King’s words.
“When Tammy showed herself to me, I was so afraid; afraid for myself and you guys. How could you love someone not of this world, bro? I know I can’t.”
“There she is. You wait here and just watch, okay? Mia won’t hurt me; we love each other.” Tareeq said to him.
“This isn’t love. This is her playing with her food.” King mumbled. He waited behind a large spruce tree and watched as Tareeq approached Mia.