“Please.”
“I’ll be there soon.” He hung up leaving me to grip the phone like it was a lifeline before I yanked off my stupid boot and stripped out of the soaked, stinky, filthy sweats. I’d lost the towel at some point, but my black underwear was intact. The bra straps were a little lower than my other ones so they were beneath my gills—a good thing when my gills were still healing. I grabbed the first aid kit beneath the sink, but I couldn’t quite reach where she’d stabbed me, literally, in the back.
My hands shook as I tried to think, to know who to call, what to do, but there was too much struggle just to breathe. Finally I forced myself to dial Junie’s number. I let it ring for hours, well, at least a dozen times before I hung up. I didn’t have a directory unless I climbed all the way up the stairs to my room. I put my head down on the table and tried to keep from sobbing. Now was not the time to lose it, with Sean about to come over.
I lifted my head as the someone politely knocked on the door, a decisive, knock that knew what it wanted, where it was going, and wouldn’t wait very long for an answer.
I dragged myself to my feet, stepping over the pile of ripped and muddy clothes as I went to the door.
I jerked it open, fast so I wouldn’t have to think about it.
Sean stood there in his shirt, the one the color of his eyes. It looked freshly ironed. His face had no expression at first, but the longer I stood there staring at him, the narrower his eyes got until he shook his head and stepped forward, forcing me backwards then closing the door behind him.
“Thanks for coming,” I said, leaning against the door and letting my hair fall across my face. “You came faster than I thought you would.”
“Did I?” He walked into the kitchen.
I dragged myself after him, noticing the backpack right before he unslung it onto the table.
“How are you doing?” His voice was empty of everything, not even ice coated his words as he opened the first aid kit and ran his hands over the contents, like they were familiar to him.
I opened my mouth then shut it, fighting back the tears that suddenly clogged my throat. He hadn’t hugged me. I bit my lip because it didn’t matter when Flop was in danger.
“Great other than killing Bernice and being responsible for Flop’s kidnapping.” I took a shaky breath while he frowned at the first aid kit.
“Are you bleeding?” When he turned around, scowling at me, I jerked back, pulling the hole in my back.
“I don’t know. Not much. It was a little knife, but I can’t quite reach…”
He grabbed me and a chair at the same time, pushing it against my knees so I collapsed on it, then proceeded to prod my back with his hands while I leaned on the table.
“It doesn’t matter, Sean,” I protested, trying to push against him, but he didn’t even notice. “We have to save Flop. She’s being tortured and…”
I stopped talking when I heard his voice. He wasn’t talking to me.
“Hey, Leslie. I’m looking to recruit Flop for next year. She might be with Fred, the loner. Do you think you could track her down for me? Thanks. You’re going to be an excellent captain next year.”
I heard his phone flip shut then gasped as he poured the nasty anti-bacterial into my new wound.
“Did you try calling Flop’s house?”
I blinked then shook my head. “She’s not there. Bernice kidnapped her.”
“Do you have proof? I have proof that you’re bleeding, bruised and near hysteria. So, I’ll take care of you before I run out into the street looking for Flop.” I whimpered as he irrigated my wound.
“Have you called anyone besides me? The police?” I shook my head no. “Junie?”
“She didn’t answer her phone,” I mumbled as I closed my eyes. I couldn’t stay there, with my head back on the table, feeling like my body was far away from me while the pain in my back went far away. I had to get up, had to do something. I had to save Flop. But I couldn’t move. The jogging home had been on pure adrenaline, now that I stopped moving, I couldn’t start again.
“You need stitches,” Sean said, pulling me up by my arms. I didn’t fight him, not when I could almost lean against him, smell his laundry detergent and the other non-human smell that I found so freakishly awesome. “Then you need a bath, a nice, calm bath to keep you from going into shock. Although it looks like we might be too late for that.”
“I can’t,” I said, sort of struggling, then giving up since fighting against Sean wasn’t possible for me at that point.
“Leslie will find either confirm or deny that Flop is missing. Until then, you’re coming with me,” he said as he kept me moving towards the front door.
I barely noticed when he wrapped a shirt around me, but then I realized that he didn’t have one on. It took me that long to blush about him seeing me in my underwear.
“So, what happened?”
I sighed and wished that for just five seconds I wouldn’t have to say anything while he held me. He didn’t give me a chance to stop as he kept urging me forward, through the front door, onto the porch, then crossing the yard to his car.
I started after he’d urged me into my seat, pulling the seatbelt over me carefully so I didn’t have to lean against the back with my knife wound.
“Bernice convinced me that I had to go and save you from my mother, you know, the monster in the lake. She’s my mother.” I stared at him while he stood there, watched him close my door and come around to the driver’s side.
“Where are we going again? I have to save Flop.”
He frowned at me. “I’m taking you to my house. Oliver is there. He’ll be able to sew you up. I could do it, but it would be good for him to see this.”
I blinked at him. “You want Oliver to see me in my underwear?”
A near smile touched his mouth for a moment before it disappeared and his eyes became cold again, cold and hard.
His phone rang and he flipped it open.
“Yes?” He said, then listened, nodding slowly.
I clenched my hands into fists while I waited.
“Don’t worry about it. We have all summer to change her mind. Good work Leslie.”
He flipped the phone closed then shifted gears, taking off so fast that the force pressed me against my seat. I yelped at the contact and he eased off the gas.
“What did she say?”
“Flop doesn’t want to be on the team next year, but she’s flattered that we thought of her,” he said drily. “Bernice played you.”
I waited for him to continue, to tell me what an idiot I was, but instead he put a hand on my bare knee and brushed his thumb across the skin, skin that was slick with mucous. Sexy. I collapsed against the seat, taking in deep gulps of air as I tried not to lose it, to cry, or something destructive to Sean’s eardrums.
“She’s okay.” I wrapped my arms around myself and realized how cold I felt.
“Yeah,” Sean said, his voice soft as he squeezed my knee before shifting his hand back to the steering wheel.
“Bernice wanted to use me as bait, to catch the… monster in the lake. Oh, and I sank your dad’s boat.”
He raised his eyebrows, flicking his gaze to me. “That was clever of you. Not everyone can sink one of those. Luckily for you, Oliver’s the one who borrowed it, and he’ll have no trouble repaying my father. Otherwise you’d be forced to iron my shirts for the rest of your life.”
“Right, Oliver’s a prince. I guess princes have money.” I shrugged. “I don’t know how to iron.”
He sighed. “Then I’ll have to iron your shirts for the rest of your life.” He shrugged his massive shoulders while his grip tightened on the wheel. “So, Bernice was using you as bait…”
“Anyway, she called someone who was torturing Flop, making her scream, only I guess it wasn’t Flop after all. She wanted me to sing to call my… the monster. Cole told her about it, about the way I sing to the lake. I kind of hate him for that.”
“He probably couldn�
��t help it. Bernice’s kind can get secrets out of almost anybody.”
“Not you. You’re immune.”
He shrugged. “You were singing to the lake?”
I shook my head. “I had this idea that if I got into the water, away from her, that I could control the waves, make them hurt her while I saved Flop. It wasn’t a very good plan.”
He sighed as he pulled into his driveway, waiting for the garage door to open before pulling inside. “The water tried to eat you again.”
I shuddered as I remembered the way it had come to life. “It’s really annoying the way that nothing seems to surprise you.”
“I’ve been doing research,” he said as he opened the door, coming around to my side. “The history of Sirens is very convoluted. No one thinks it would be possible for someone to sing water to life. I’ve seen it, though. It heard you through ice. That definitely surprised me. I’ll try to recreate that face for you if you’d like.” I glared at him as he pulled me out of the car, making me gasp from the stab wound. “No? Well, I offered. What annoys me is the way that you…” He frowned as he ran his hands over my hair, surprisingly gentle considering the frown on his face.
“What?” I asked, noticing that his bare chest was awfully close to mine, and nobody had thought to button up his shirt. Not that it was a big deal. Bra and underwear were practically the same as bikini.
“It took near death, murder and a kidnapping for you to call me,” he said in a quiet voice, gazing down at me with his blue eyes burning into me. “My number isn’t only for emergencies.”
I bit my lip as I swayed against him. “I’m sorry. My dad didn’t want… I thought you… No. I didn’t want to tell you that my mother’s the monster in the lake. I wanted to have it all together when I saw you again, you know, not secreting insane amounts of mucous, or accidentally making your ears bleed, that kind of thing. It didn’t help that I figured the only reason that you kissed me was to make me breathe underwater. I wanted you to like me irrationally, to want to kiss me just because. I want you to love me, but how could you when I’m…”
I swallowed hard as I looked down, avoiding his gaze. The silence in the garage grew heavier with every breath between us.
“I knew about your mother,” he said, breaking the silence.
I stopped breathing while I searched his face for signs of disgust and horror. I couldn’t see any emotion at all.
“When did you find out?”
“I told you, I researched Sirens. There’s a story about how one Siren went from woman to monster. It sounded too much like our creature in the lake to be a coincidence.”
I blinked at him. “When did you read that?”
He stared back at me. “After you made my ears bleed. That surprised me too, but I don’t think you liked that face very much. Your voice can be a weapon, but you can control it. You’re already learning to control it. You’re not a monster.” He smoothed my hair back, my filthy, muddy, monstrous hair.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
He shrugged and brushed his fingers against my cheek. “There wasn’t a lot of time. When I saw you at the lake I didn’t exactly have time to explain my research. After that, it was trying to get you to breathe before your gills became infected. You never called me, and your father changed your number. I couldn’t call you. Every time I stopped by, you dad told me that you didn’t want to see me, that it was my fault that you’d started the process, taking you into water so often that your other instincts would surface, that you’d be in danger. I thought that maybe he was right. I still think that maybe he was right. I’m the one who showed you my gills.”
“That’s true,” I said with a wry smile. “It was kind of a stupid thing to do.”
As I smiled up at him something changed, shifted, and the world was suddenly all right.
He raised an eyebrow. “So now I’m a stupid, egotistical jerk?”
I shook my head and reached up to brush my fingers across the softness of his mouth. “You wish. No, I think you’re stuck with wriggling puppy. I made a playlist.”
He smiled, leaning down, holding me carefully against him, his arms wrapped beneath the wound. “I missed you.”
My heart pounded as I leaned against his chest, wrapping my arms around his neck. “No one to destroy your perfectly nice shirts?”
I felt his breath against the top of my head. “If bleeding ears and ripped shirts are the price for kissing you, I’ll take it.”
I leaned back to ask him what he meant by that, but stopped as his mouth covered mine, soft, warm, careful as his lips explored mine until he pulled away.
He exhaled as he touched his forehead to mine. “I love you, Watergirl. I love every inch and part of you.”
I grabbed him, pulling him against me, drowning out the words that filled me with bright hope, euphoria that made my heart beat hard, but then I was gasping, unable to find enough oxygen.
Things got spotty, but I was there enough to realize that Sean had his arms around me as he carried me into the house.
He put me into a tub, a normal tub that regular non gill people would find comforting, except that it was see-through.
When Oliver came in carrying a big dark green bag, it was interesting to see the look on Sean’s face. He glared at Oliver while he held me closer to him, on his lap in the tub as the water filled over our legs.
“I smelled the blood,” Oliver said pleasantly as he opened the bag, rummaging around in the contents.
“Thanks,” I said, giving Sean a puzzled glance. “Sean brought me here so that you could give me stitches.” I leaned forward, pulling Sean’s shirt up so Oliver could see my back.
Sean held me against him, stroking my hair while Oliver brushed his fingers along my spine. The tingling that followed made me want to punch someone. Seriously, so awkward to want Oliver when I didn’t want him at all.
“You’re secreting mucous,” he said quietly.
“So are you,” I said, turning my head to glare at him. “I wouldn’t hold it against me.”
He raised his black eyebrows while he studied me. “Who did this to you?”
I took a deep breath. “Bernice. Since she couldn’t have Sean, she wanted the monster. She tried to use me to lure the monster. It didn’t work very well for anybody. I think she works for Sean’s mother, at least she wanted to.”
“Where is she now?”
I shook my head and looked down, resting my head against Sean’s shoulder. “I left her at the bottom of the lake. I…” I took a shaky breath. “I don’t think she made it.”
Oliver sighed and I felt a slight tug on my skin, but nothing very painful. “I’m sorry to hear that. She was a friend of yours.”
“And yours.”
“And mine,” Sean put in, holding my head against his shoulder possessively. “She was very good. I didn’t realize how close I let her come to me. She’s the one who told Gen to stop the fight.”
“And she’s the one who was always whispering to me about the way Gen was controlling you, manipulating you, changing you. She fed my jealousy.” Oliver sounded more thoughtful than angry about it, but Sean’s voice was hard.
“Without Bernice, you wouldn’t have kissed Gen.”
I winced as Oliver pulled stretched my skin.
“I don’t know. I might have done it anyway. The draw was always there, the same for me as it is for you. How could I help it when faced with a Siren?”
The bathroom was silent for a long time, only the rushing of water breaking up the sound of breathing.
“You know what I am?” I asked, feeling small.
“It took me a little bit longer than Sean, but I should have known the first time she commanded me to leave, and I had to do it. Nothing short of a Siren could have done that.”
Sean stared at Oliver, his gaze filled with so much ice that I shivered and he wasn’t staring at me.
“Do you consider a Siren eligible for the games?”
Oliver frowned thoug
htfully before he shook his head. “No. I don’t. And, I don’t consider the creature in the lake worth pursuing, either. Your secret is safe with me, although whatever Bernice knows…”
He shrugged and started putting away the rolls of gauze and packets of needles.
“You already stitched me up? I didn’t feel anything.”
“He’s good at what he does,” Sean said, pulling my borrowed shirt back down over me. “Thank you,” he said, stretching a hand out to Oliver who looked down at it before he took it slowly, the expression on his face not exactly pleasant, but not anything I could pin down.
“She’s my true love’s kiss,” he said quietly, squeezing Sean’s hand. “It pleases me to find that I’m obsessed with such a worthy object.”
“I’m not an object,” I said, but neither guy seemed to hear me. They still stared at each other, gripping hands.
“You take care of her,” Oliver finally said, staring directly at Sean.
Sean’s jaw tightened. “I’ll do that.”
Oliver flashed a smile then stood, dropping Sean’s hand.
“It seems like I’m in the way here. Watch your tub, it’s about to overflow,” he said, winking at me before he left the room, closing the door behind him.
“What was that?” I asked as Sean turned off the water then leaned against the side like he was tired.
“I wish I knew,” he said in a voice more uncertain than I’d ever heard him sound before.
“But, you love me?”
He looked at me, pushing my hair away from my face, fingers lingering on the skin of my cheek. “I like you wearing my shirt.”
“You said love.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded.
“Then that explains why you’ve been driving me crazy ever since that stupid baseball game.”
I blinked at him. “The baseball game?”
“Sixth grade. You took a ball to the eye instead of ducking.”
I frowned at him. I’d played baseball in sixth grade, and come to think of it, I’d gotten a beautiful black eye. “But I caught the ball. You saw that?”
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