Soul of the Sea

by Jasmine Denton

  “Go!” Brad shouted from next to her. “We’ll be fine!”

  Dylan tried to get down the hill again, but Jared yanked him in the other direction, swinging punches at the mob with one arm.

  She was glad that they were out of sight by the time the sea of hands grabbed onto her. They pulled her and Brad apart, forced them both onto the ground. Someone held her arms behind her back and slapped handcuffs on her, and she imagined they did the same to Brad, although she couldn’t see anything beyond the dirt and her mass of frizzy hair.

  Someone yanked her to her feet and marched her back to town. Her ankle throbbed with pain that shot up her leg every time she was took a step. She tried to tell them, but they didn’t listen, or didn’t care.

  ***

  Mike threw Mykaela into the storage closet of the all-purpose store. She landed on her stomach, and her face smacked against the concrete floor. They tossed Brad in next, and he landed on her wounded foot.

  She screamed in pain, and struggled to sit up. The door closed, leaving them with only the light from the flickering fluorescent above. When she heard the door lock, she cried. The tears flowed, one after the other, like rain dripping down a window.

  “Stop crying,” Brad snapped. “It’s not going to help anything.”

  His attitude only made her choke on a sob. “I can’t believe Dylan left me alone with you!”

  “Would you rather he stopped and got caught, too?” Brad pushed himself to his feet, stumbling a little. He righted himself, and then walked around, looking on the shelves. “Would you rather me not stop and let you get trapped in here by yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You always were an ungrateful brat.” He spotted something on the shelf, turned around and grabbed it with his cuffed hands. “You fail to realize that I can actually get us out of this.”

  She was tired of fighting him, so she leaned back against the door and tried not to pull at the handcuffs. They were digging into her skin and making her itch.

  He grunted a little, moving his shoulder as he did something behind his back. He let out a small, triumphant sigh of relief and brought his arms around front. She stared at him as he moved toward her, stuffing the cuffs in his pocket He knelt next to her, and she scooted around so he could pick the lock on her handcuffs.

  Her hands swung free. Rubbing her wrists, she glanced up at him. “How did you do that?”

  He held up a paper clip and grinned. He slid her cuffsand the paperclip into his pocket. “We have to get out of here.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet.

  She bit her lip to keep from shrieking at the pain.

  “What is it?”

  “My ankle,” she whimpered. “I think it’s broken.”

  He sighed and looked around again. “Okay, sit over here.” He guided her to a small step stool. Trying to keep the weight off her left ankle, she hopped over to it and lowered herself to sit on the stool.

  He knelt in front of her and pulled her foot up onto his bent knee. She winced at the roughness of the gesture, and he eased up. He slipped her sneaker off, then her sock. As his fingers probed around the base of her ankle and her heel, she flinched at the pain.

  “Tell me where it hurts.” He moved his fingers to her heel and she cringed. He frowned. “What about here?” He poked the inside of her ankle, right below the bone.

  “Ow!” Her hand flew to cover mouth. She hoped she didn’t say that as loud it sounded.

  “It’s not broken,” he said. “But you’ve got a really bad sprain.” He looked around the room, softly massaging the swollen area with his fingertips. She wasn’t even sure he realized he was doing it, but it helped alleviate the pain.

  “Just go without me,” she said. “I’m only going to slow you down.”

  “I’m not leaving you here.” He set her foot back down and got up. Rifling through the boxes, he returned with an ace bandage and a bottle of generic pain reliever. “Take three or four,” he said.

  It took her awhile to dry-swallow four of the pills, but she did. She slid the bottle into her pocket, ignoring the way it jabbed into her hipbone.

  He wrapped the bandage around her ankle, each movement swift, yet careful. He watched her while he did it, waiting for a reaction, some sign of pain.

  She wondered why she never noticed the tumultuous grey of his eyes before, how the color rolled like clouds in a thunderstorm. She shivered at the way they seemed to pierce right through her. She realized he’d always been that way, able to see when she was lying and when she was afraid. He'd never had a problem calling her on it, either.

  “You were right, you know,” she found herself saying. “I was there the night Charity died. I almost drowned with her.”

  “Why didn’t you come forward?” He paused, as if wondering how to fasten the makeshift brace. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the paper clip. It took a second, but he managed to poke a hole through the thick wad of fabric. He twisted it around like a bread-tie and helped her work her sock over it.

  “The water jumped up and grabbed us, shaped like a pair of hands. Everybody would have thought I was crazy.”

  He slid her shoe back on her foot and even tied it for her. “Thanks for telling me the truth.”

  She nodded, not quite sure what to say.

  “Try not to put much weight on it.” He knelt next to her and lifted her arm, then slung it around his neck. He counted to three, then hoisted her to her feet.

  Together, they hobbled over to the window.

  “It’s going to hurt.” He pushed the window open and looked out to make sure the coast was clear. “I have to be on this side to lift you up. You’ll probably hit the ground pretty hard.”

  She panicked, but she wouldn’t let it show. Not in front of someone as brave as he was. “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  “Okay.” He bent to his knees, laced his fingers together and used his joined hands as a platform to lift her onto the windowsill.

  Wiggling her legs through first, from a sitting position, she jumped.

  She landed with her hands flat against the gravel and her nose inches from the ground. The force of the fall irritated her ankle, but the bandage added extra cushioning. She crawled out of the way so he could jump down and was on her feet by the time he landed on the pavement with both feet planted and his knees bent.

  He pointed to a car and they ran for it. Well, he ran, holding her hand, while she limped behind him.

  She breathed a sigh of relief when she found the car unlocked and they both slid in and locked all of the doors. “Tell me you have a key.” Mykaela took a frantic look behind her at the store.

  “Don’t need one,” he said. “Just keep watch.”

  While she watched the store for any sign of an angry towns-member, he hotwired the car, and then they took off.

  They took the back road, so they wouldn’t drive by the front window of the store and be seen. Once they were hidden between rows of trees, Brad leaned back against the seat and relaxed a little.

  “We’re going to be at your house soon,” he said after awhile. “So, I’m going to say this now.”

  She turned to face him.

  “I was out of line, with how I treated you before.” He ran his hand over the grooves in the steering wheel. “That day in the woods, and when Susan was murdered, and all the other times.” He scratched his head, his cheeks flushing. “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me.”

  For a second, she thought she might be hallucinating. Then she realized he really was apologizing. “It’s ancient history,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I miss her so much.” He choked on the word miss. “I can’t stand it. We were together for three years. We would have been together forever.”

  Mykaela nodded in sympathy and tried to think of something about Charity she could use to distract him from the pain. The pain she knew all too well.

  “Do you remember prom last year? Charity insist
ed on having a dress with a long train.” She giggled to herself. “And when we were coming down the stairs at the Inn, she stepped on it and just slid all the way down the steps. She grabbed my leg on the way down, and pulled me with her.”

  “And you guys stayed on the lobby floor, laughing.” Although his voice was light, Brad’s eyes glazed over. “She could always laugh at herself. No matter how silly she looked.”

  “She’d always say, ‘live in the moment…‘”

  “’…and never let an opportunity to laugh pass you by.’” Brad looked down at the wheel. He swallowed hard, his fingers shaking. “I’m dying to get my hands on Morrigan.”

  She glanced over at him. “You could, you know. Die fighting her.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Is your life really that bad without her?”

  He lifted his gaze, shooting her a look of pure evil.

  “Sorry. Stupid question.” She shrank back against the door. “It’s just…when it’s over, she’ll still be gone.”

  “And so will her killer.” He hit the gas pedal, and the station wagon zoomed on. “That’s enough for me.”

  ***

  Dylan and Jared were both pacing back and forth on the porch when Mykaela and Brad pulled up. Her mother’s head was buried in Bobby’s shoulder.

  Dylan was at the door in an instant. He yanked it open and scooped her into his arms, burrowing his face in her hair. “I was so scared,” he said, his voice trembling. “I don’t know what I’d do if…if…”

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  Blanche ran to her and pulled her into a hug. “You’re hurt,” she said, when Mykaela limped toward the house. “What happened? Let me get that fixed for you. Do you want some tea?”

  In the kitchen, Blanche forced Mykaela down into a chair and then sent Bobby to look for an ice pack.

  “How bad is the pain?” Blanche asked as she pulled off Mykaela’s shoe. “Are you hurt anywhere else? How’d it happen?”

  “Mom, calm down.” Mykaela squirmed in her chair. “It doesn’t even hurt anymore. Look, the swelling’s already gone.”

  “It can’t be gone,” Brad said, leaning over to look at her foot. “It was puffed up like a balloon when I wrapped it.”

  Mykaela watched Dylan’s gaze travel from Brad to Mykaela and then her ankle. Shaking his head, he crossed his arms. “Did anybody see which way Morrigan went?”

  “No.” Jared studied the floorboards. “She just disappeared.”

  “We’ll find her,” Brad said. He plopped down in a chair and tapped his thick fingers against the table’s surface.

  “How?” Mykaela asked. “She’s so strong. We’ll never beat her.”

  “We have to,” he replied. “There’s no other option.”

  “It’s not about strength; we have to be smarter than her.” Dylan paced a quick line back and forth in front of the microwave.

  Jared rubbed his hands across his face. “I’m such an idiot. I should have seen this coming.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Mykaela said. “She held you under a spell.”

  “And I was too stupid to realize it.”

  “That’s part of the spell.” Dylan stopped and turned to Jared. “We can still fix this, but we have to be careful. By now, she knows we’re working together. She’ll be ready for an attack.”

  “What if we don’t attack,” Brad said, his eyes brightening. “We give her what she wants.”

  “What?” Mykaela asked.

  Dylan smiled. “I think it could work.”

  “Think what could work?” Mykaela felt like a little kid again, back when her parents spelled everything out so she wouldn’t know what they were saying.

  As they told her their plan, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She’d never heard of something so ridiculous, with so many things that could go wrong, in her life. What was worse, everybody refused to let her go along.

  She whined and begged, but Blanche told her to go to bed, and Dylan swore he’d be okay. Brad said she’d only slow them down, and Jared said she was asking for trouble.

  They decided to leave first thing in the morning. Because it was easiest, Blanche gave Brad a key to one of the empty guestrooms and then made everybody go to bed.

  ***

  Blanche insisted Mykaela lie down and prop her foot on a pillow. She brought her chamomile tea and told her not to worry.

  How was that even possible? How did her mother expect her to rest with such a dramatic showdown about to take place? With her brother’s and her boyfriend’s lives at stake?

  She tried to sleep, but she lay in her dark room for over an hour, just trying to quiet her mind. Just as she finally drifted off, her window burst open and a howling wind sliced through the silence. A shadowy figure rushed toward her.

  Chapter Twenty

  Revelation

  Mykaela woke with a throbbing in her head, a hazy feeling worse than any hangover. At first, she thought it was all a nightmare. She was in her bed, safe, with her family and Dylan scattered around the house. Then bits and pieces came back to her and jolted her awake.

  She tried to bring her hand up to ease her aching head, but her arms wouldn’t move. Startled, she pulled against the ropes that bound her wrists behind her back.

  Scanning her surroundings, Mykaela realized she was in the cave, the one that Dylan took her to.

  “It’s about time you woke up. I was starting to think I’d hit you too hard and given you brain damage or something.” Morrigan walked into the cave from the opening that led to the sea. She looked down at Mykaela and planted her hands on her hips. “You can’t break those knots, just so you know.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “You stole Dylan from me.” She spoke in a calm tone that carved through the air between them. “Tried to, anyway.”

  Until now, she hadn’t had a chance to wonder how Morrigan and Dylan knew each other, but now jealousy and curiosity ate away at her. “What are you talking about?”

  She chuckled. “Do you even know anything about him? I bet you don’t. I bet you don’t know why he ran away, or how he was turned into a Son of the Sea in the first place.” Morrigan knelt down in front of Mykaela. “All right then, here’s all the juicy back-story I can see you’re dying to know.

  “I checked into that shabby hotel your family’s always run, and he was in love with me the second he saw me. Who can blame him? When I learned of his past—how hard he struggled to make a better life for himself—I knew I needed to recruit him. He was far too magnificent to let him rot and die with a human life, so, I enchanted him. I drained his soul. Do you know how I do that to the men? Did he tell you? I bet he didn’t.”

  Mykaela bit her bottom lip, hard, trying to stop herself from panting with anger.

  “Sex.” Morrigan said, eyes bulging with false shock. “It takes a lot of it, too. And let me tell you, that boy can go all night—“

  Even though her legs were tied at the ankles, Mykaela used them to kick Morrigan off her feet.

  Morrigan only laughed as she climbed to her feet, unaffected.

  “But, you don’t know anything about sex, do you Mykaela?” Morrigan knelt in front of Mykaela and grinned menacingly. “No, I can smell the purity on you. It’s disgusting. It’s too bad you’ll never get a chance to have him.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” Mykaela screamed. “Do you hear me? I’m going to rip your heart out!”

  Morrigan faked a gasp. “Such violence. I’m surprised at you.” She stood up, laughing, and walked around the ledge. “So, after I convinced Dylan to take his own life, I left him. I didn’t do it out of cruelty, as he thought. I did it to toughen him up, and boy, did it work. By the time I found him again, he was one very successful, very sadistic killer.” A fire sparked in Morrigan’s eyes, and she danced her tongue across her lips.

  “Shut up,” Mykaela said, her voice quivering. The last thing she wanted was to hear was how great a killer Dylan was.

&nb
sp; Morrigan snickered. “We made quite the pair, going from shore to shore, maiming humans and stealing souls. That’s how we keep our power, you know.” Walking the perimeter of the cave, she grazed her fingertips along the stone wall.

  “Quite the warrior he was. So fearless, he was next in line for the throne. Then Dylan changed his mind. He left, and he’s been running ever since. Now our king is dead and we have no leader. Dylan would have come back.” She turned, shooting Mykaela a glare. “If he hadn’t met you.”

  She wouldn’t let Morrigan’s words bother her. She wouldn’t show weakness, not in front of somebody dangerous enough to spot it. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “You should be.” Morrigan walked on. “But, don’t worry, honey. I won’t hurt you. Not yet. You’re only bait for now.”

  ***

  Dylan was sure something would go wrong. Brad’s plan wasn’t exactly foolproof. There were gaps, room for mistakes, and Mykaela’s life hung in the balance. If he lost, Morrigan would hunt her down. She’d kill her, drain her soul for power.

  He rubbed a hand across his face and propped his elbows on the kitchen table.

  Blanche was cooking, as she always did when she was nervous or worried. Brad sat across from him, sharpening his blade.

  “Jared, go wake your sister.” Blanche turned from the stove, spatula in hand. “The poor girl’s exhausted, but I know she’ll want to see you guys before you leave.”

  He stood up from the table and jogged up the stairs. Blanche sat down in his place and looked from Dylan to Brad.

  “You know that this is a crazy idea, right?” She held Dylan’s gaze. “Using yourself as bait to lure Morrigan. And then expecting to be able to conquer her with just the three of you and a little knife.”