Watergirl

by Juliann Whicker

  My whole body woke up having him so close. My fingers tingled, my heart pounded, but none of it was real.

  “Hey Oliver.”

  “Genevieve.” He smiled at everyone else at the table too.

  Sitting beside him was torture, particularly when I saw no point in holding back, not when I should be with someone else so that I didn’t hurt Sean again, puncture his ears or whatever. I leaned against him and put my head on his shoulder. He stiffened up. He hadn’t expected it. I didn’t feel any better, not like with Sean. The only thing that happened was my heart pounded harder and my whole body started burning like I’d been in poison ivy. Awesome. I pulled away and stared at my lunch. Finally I got up, Oliver standing with me.

  “So,” I said as he walked beside me out of the cafeteria. “What do you want?”

  He smiled sweetly, his emerald eyes twinkling. He really was gorgeous. “Besides you? I wanted to ask you to come to the lake with me.”

  I froze. “The lake? My lake? Why? It’s dangerous. I’ve been using all of my willpower to stay away. Why would you want to go there?”

  His gaze intensified and he stopped smiling. “I want to know what the creature is. I have this curiosity. I haven’t even actually seen it, but I feel it there. It comes out for you.”

  “Yes, well, that’s the reason I’ve been staying away. Not that it didn’t save my life last time, but seriously, smart people stay away from monsters.”

  “It saved your life?” He looked so excited about that. “I wonder how much latent intelligence it possesses.”

  I shook my head and crossed my arms over my chest. “No. Every time I go to the lake, I almost die. It’s stupid. I’m not going back just so that you can satisfy your twisted curiosity.”

  He stepped a little bit closer to me and traced my forearm with his finger. “You wouldn’t like to spend some time alone with me?”

  That made me laugh. “Oh, right. Because I’m obsessed that means that I have less self-control than you, right? You’re obsessed too. That makes us even, or it would if you weren’t the one who kissed me in the first place. What is it? The kiss of madness, or whatever you called it? How long will it last? Does it have anything to do with the thing in the lake?”

  He frowned as he looked around the empty hall. “We could talk on the way.”

  I shook my head. “Not a chance. You’re obsessed with the monster, fine. I’m obsessed with the lake. If you keep going you’re going to get killed as much as I am.”

  He cocked his head, green gaze calculating. “I collect monsters. Where I’m from, there are games, one monster against another. It’s a very important part of my culture. This thing, this creature is something I’ve never seen before. I have to have it. The danger is part of the fun.” His smile was creepy, a little bit insane, but more genuine than most things I’d seen on his face.

  “What kind of a person collects monsters?”

  He smiled, leaning towards me to brush my face with the backs of his fingers. “The same kind of person whose kiss shouldn’t affect anyone human. So, what kind of person are you that monsters save you?”

  I shook my head, fighting off the tingling from the contact. “I don’t know. For most of my life I haven’t even been able to swim. Now…” I trailed off, refusing to talk about gills since I’d promised Sean. Sean. I felt a stab in my chest that made me grab Oliver’s arm, gripping him tight. “Fine. I’ll go with you to the lake, but you have to promise not to hurt the thing. It saved me.”

  He raised his eyebrows while he studied me then nodded slowly. “It’s probably nothing I haven’t seen before, but different from living in freshwater. All I need is a closer look, to make sure.”

  I wasn’t sure he was trying to fool but I nodded anyway.

  His car wasn’t the same. It was shinier than Sean’s, paler, but as luxurious in its way.

  “Where do you keep your monsters?” I asked as I settled into the cushy seat.

  “Back home. There’s an entire world you don’t seem to know very much about, in spite of the kiss that shouldn’t have affected you.”

  I swallowed. “Yeah. So, why did you kiss me? If you didn’t mean to cause the obsession, why do it?”

  He shrugged. “I took you for something you’re not, something that would enjoy destroying my world and Sean’s.”

  “I met his mother.”

  He turned his head quickly, fixing me with a frown before he turned his attention back to the road.

  “So you think that I’d be something like her?” I’d said it without actually saying it.

  He nodded. “What did you think of her?”

  “If I were anything like her, I don’t think that you’d want to kiss me, making you obsessed with me. That’s just crazy.” I shivered.

  “But the kiss of madness is only supposed to go one way,” he said quietly. “If it worked at all, the only one who was obsessed should have been you.”

  I blinked at him. “How is that fair?”

  He shrugged. “Not fair. It’s in the blood. My genetics are closer to pure… We won’t talk about my genetics. Simply put, not a lot of people can hold power over me.”

  “But I did. Wow.” I grinned at him. “That must have really messed you up, with your whole, ‘I’m going to manipulate everybody to get what I want’ thing. Whatever I am, you didn’t see me coming.”

  He answered my smile with one of his own, apparently not resenting it, at least not much. “No, I didn’t. So, what about you and Sean?”

  I blinked, feeling the smile shrivel up and die. “I don’t know. When I’m with him everything seems okay somehow. He makes all the crazy stuff go away. Maybe that’s denial, and a bad thing, but I can’t help needing it. Two obsessions in one life is more than anyone should have to deal with.”

  “Sean’s immune.”

  I stared at him. “That’s what he said when I got angry for him giving me CPR.”

  He frowned. “When did he give you CPR? After you fell into the pool?”

  I shook my head. “Sometimes I can’t get enough oxygen and I pass out. Usually when I’m singing, but sometimes, especially lately, just because.”

  He pulled over at the edge of the grass then turned to frown at me. “After you’ve been spending so much time in water. You didn’t before, did you? You stayed out of water. What about baths? Do you have a bath tub at your house?”

  It was kind of a personal question, but I shrugged. There was a huge tub in the bathroom upstairs that no one used. There were no windows and my dad said that if we used it without a fan too much mold would grow. Whatever. “Yeah, there’s a tub, but I don’t use it.”

  “Do you have any scars that are so old, you’ve forgotten how you got them?”

  I blinked at him. This was not what we were talking about. “Sean already checked me. He was very thorough,” I said, glaring at him. I barely kept from saying the word ‘gills’.

  He shrugged. “I’m just trying to understand you. I bet he enjoyed that.” His smile turned sour.

  “Oliver, you sound jealous.”

  He nodded. “I am. I tried to have a relationship with both of you, but you’re right. I was trying to control everything, which didn’t work out very well. I wanted Sean’s trust, your love, instead I have a monster, well, I have a dream of a monster. Shall we get on with it?”

  I blinked, trying to decide if Oliver was being sincere or still trying to manipulate me. I really had no idea.

  When I got out of the car, I could see my willow tree in the distance covered in green fuzz. The mud was barely covered by brush and weeds that were beginning to turn green but not growing much yet.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked, shoving my hands in my pockets.

  “Do whatever you like. I’ll stay back so it can’t see me. All right?”

  It wasn’t much of a plan, but whatever. I breathed deeply, loving the stench of decay and new growth as I walked towards the water. It was fine. I’d been to Lake Stinky with Oliver tons of ti
mes before when he’d taught me to swim. There was nothing to worry about. Water didn’t want to drown you.

  I stood in the grass a few feet from the water, staring at the surface where it rippled gently in the wind, smelling less vile than it would later in the summer, or maybe I’d just missed it.

  “What are you doing?” Sean’s voice was so loud that it was like it wasn’t even inside my head. “Gen, get away from the water!”

  It was so real that I turned my head then felt myself lose my balance, falling back, towards the lake where it was almost like the water came up to swallow me. Sean was there, angry, coming towards me at a run that showed how beautiful he was in motion. Then he was gone, as he and the rest of the world were swallowed by blue and green.

  I couldn’t find my feet, couldn’t stand, couldn’t swim, couldn’t tell which direction was up as I was pulled down by a current that I couldn’t see. There wasn’t as much panic as before, not when it wasn’t cold. I held onto my breath, but it wasn’t easy and it felt sort of pointless. The water wouldn’t let me go, and I didn’t really want it to, except then the pressure around me built and the water spun me about more and more until I was dizzy, lost, confused, with nothing left inside my lungs to hold onto.

  I kicked hard, struggling against the current that spun me. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to let the water decide my fate. The pressure built in my chest, pressure that I knew was something more, not a scream, but something. The sound emerged from my throat, sound that cut through water as easily as air, that made my ears shrink and for a moment split the water around me, an explosion of sound that cratered outward.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have any oxygen left after that. I was lost to darkness until I felt claws sink into my flesh, ripping through my skin beneath my armpits. I opened my eyes, not sure if I was alive or dead, and saw the monster up close, eyes huge and glistening as it gazed at me. I opened my mouth to say something then closed it as water came in.

  Darkness blocked out everything after that, at least until I found myself on the shore, on the hard ground with my shoulder on a rock while a very wet Sean pounded on my chest.

  Water burned as it came from my nose and mouth as I gagged until coughing I rolled over, sinking into the mud as my body ejected the water. The pain in my lungs as I struggled to breathe competed with the growing awareness of the ache in my sides.

  “Sean,” I whispered, as he bent over me then my words were gone as his arms wrapped around me, dragging me to his chest where he held me next to his beating heart. I could have happily died there, but too soon he had me up as he stood, carrying me over the low brush to his car. He didn’t put me down in the seat beside me, instead his arms tightened around me, making my chest and injuries ache as he drove one handed. It didn’t matter when I could be safe for the first time in what felt like years. Funny how feeling safe had so little to do with actually being safe.

  Chapter 35

  The music in his car wrapped around my mind the same way he did, music that had been playing the first time I’d ridden in the car, sounds of violence and a struggle against forces, but now it wasn’t two opposing forces, but creature against water, pounding waves that would rip you apart like it had a will of its own.

  By the time we got to my house, I felt disoriented, like it was someone else’s house, someone else’s world, so far away from the struggle with the water, the constant struggle inside me to stay away from the waves and that world that threatened to drag me under.

  Sean carried me inside, through the living room, up the stairs, and then fumbled a bit until he found the bathroom with its enormous tub that neither my father nor I used. I hated brown, so why was our whole house brown? Brown like the mud in the lake, brown like the monster’s eyes when they weren’t black holes that wanted to swallow you.

  He set me down on the toilet, reluctantly letting go of me as he turned the water on in the tub then jerked on the laces of my wet, muddy boots. I saw blood staining his arms and shirt and felt frozen, unable to move or breathe.

  “Gen?” he grabbed my shoulders and squeezed. “Breathe. Just breathe. Okay? I’m trying to get you out of your muddy stuff. You’re bleeding. You’re bleeding a lot.” His hands were shaking as he struggled with the wet laces. Finally they pulled free and he took my feet out of them then the wet socks that stuck to the skin with blood stained edges.

  When he moved on to my wet, muddy jeans I tried to stop him, but every time I moved my arms, it felt like I was ripping my chest open. It hurt so badly that I couldn’t breathe, but I had to breathe. Sean told me to.

  “Put your arms up,” he said and I obeyed, unable to think past the red blurring around the edges of my vision. When he pulled up my shirt, where it was stuck to my sides with mud and blood, I screamed and pulled my knees up, wrapping my arms around my body. I inhaled, stuffing the sound back into my throat, staring at Sean, waiting for blood to trickle out of his ears, but he only frowned at me while he smoothed his hands over my shoulders and down my arms.

  “Are you okay?” I whispered, my voice raspy and rough.

  Sean grabbed my shoulders and shook his head glaring at me. “I should take you to a hospital. You’re still bleeding. Not as much, but…” He took a shaky breath. “I’m afraid your beautiful neon underwear has had it.”

  I didn’t care that I was wearing nothing but shredded underwear. “But your ears,” I said reaching up, wincing as the movement triggered the agony in my chest, continuing anyway until I could touch his face. “Didn’t I make them bleed before?”

  He caught my hand in his, kissed it then shook his head. “That was nothing. Where do you keep your first aid kit?”

  I told him and he left to go get it beneath the sink in the kitchen, coming back with the old box with a purple fish painted on top. He wasn’t gone long, but my heart jumped when I saw him, like I could breathe a little bit better with him in the same room.

  At least I breathed before he pulled out the bottle of rubbing alcohol. He took a deep breath through his nostrils and I knew something was about to hurt.

  I gritted my teeth to keep from screaming as he cleaned the gashes, like he was handling my inner organs or something, pulling them like taffy. I bit back the scream until he moved to the other side, his teeth clenched while I whimpered. Fun for everybody.

  I wanted to throw up but somehow I breathed through it, even though breathing was difficult. It hurt so badly I didn’t think I could stay conscious then the pain spread deeper through my chest, like the rubbing alcohol really was soaking into my inner organs.

  He picked me up, wrapping his arms around my body before he perched on the edge of the ceramic monster with its clawed feet. He shifted me closer against him as the water swirled from the tap into the tub. He had his hand in my hair, pressing my head against his throat where I could feel every swallow.

  “You went to the lake with Oliver.”

  I closed my eyes tightly. “Oliver collects monsters, and… it didn’t seem to matter anymore.” My voice sounded terrible. I supposed that’s what happened after you drowned.

  “I’m sorry, did I interrupt a suicide mission?”

  His grip tightened and I cried out then bit my bottom lip, determined to keep my voice inside of me where it belonged.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered against my hair. “I shouldn’t have left you alone after you fainted. I could tell that you were in shock, maybe not as much as I was… I should have made sure that you were all right.”

  I laughed, well, it would have been a laugh if it hadn’t been such a gurgle. “You’re right. How could you leave me alone when your ears were bleeding?”

  “I had to find out what I could,” he explained, like I was seriously questioning his rationale. “I was at home triggering alarms I didn’t know about, looking for answers.”

  I stared at the water, rising in the tub. The thing was so huge, it rose slowly. “What alarms?” It hurt to breathe. It hurt so much, I didn’t care about alarms or th
e tub, or anything except that Sean still had his arms around me.

  “I was looking up Sirens.”

  “That’s ironic.”

  “Hmm?” he asked, still gripping me so tight.

  I shifted against him, trying to loosen his grip beneath my arms without actually having him loosen his grip beneath my arms. He was probably trying to keep me from bleeding to death. He was thoughtful like that.

  “You were looking up sirens and triggered an alarm. Was it a siren?”

  He groaned. “You’re being funny? You nearly died. Do you realize that you nearly died? Of course you do. You still can barely breathe. This tub has to be the slowest… I’m going to kill Oliver.”

  “What happened to him? He sort of disappeared after I got in the water. Is he okay?”

  Sean snorted. “He’s great, sitting at the lake checking the movement of the water for subtle disturbances that would be created by the creature, except that the creature itself hasn’t shown itself to him. He’s much better than he will be.”

  “Sean,” I said, pulling back a little bit so I could look at him, but all I got was a low angle of his chiseled jaw before he tucked me back against him. “Are you going to fight Oliver for me?”

  “No. I’m going to kill him. And it will be for me.”

  I frowned as I tried to gauge whether or not he was serious, but then I started coughing and didn’t stop for a long time.

  “Finally,” Sean muttered then lowered me into the tub, so deep that water was all around me. I really felt mostly naked for the first time as I looked down and saw so much skin, so little neon, my bra straps holding on by a thread as wisps of red clouded around my body.

  “Can I kiss you?” he asked, staring at me with his eyes while his thumb lightly traced over my cheek.