“Riss, in human form?” he whispers. “We don’t even know if that’s safe. Why would you do something like that?”
“I couldn’t let you suffer any more because of me. Did it help?”
Speio stares at me with an undecipherable expression on his face. Then he smiles a small but sad smile, and leans forward to pull me into a hug. “Yes. It did, you crazy fool.”
When he releases me, I slump back against the tree and slide to sit on the grass with my eyes closed, drained from the effort of what I’ve done. I open my eyes and look up and across the quad, my gaze of its own volition crashing into a dark navy one. Lo is studying me intently, his gaze not wavering when I meet it. Frowning, I feel the urge to spin around, because it’s as if he’s looking through me to something over my shoulder. But I know there’s nothing there but a tree.
“What’s wrong?” Speio says, noticing my frown and moving to squat beside me. He follows my gaze and turns back to me. I blink, and Lo is bending to listen to Cara as if he never looked over here in the first place. “Oh, I get it.”
“No, it’s nothing. It’s complicated.” I sigh, breathing heavily, my vision starting to spin. “Wow, Sanctum really packs a punch. I feel like I just swam a thousand miles in ten minutes.” Speio’s face tightens and I reassure him hastily. “Don’t worry. I’m fine, just tired. I’m just glad it worked.”
Speio stares at me for a second but doesn’t push the point. “Well, in other news that may help certain things be less complicated, Echlios seems to think Lo is harmless, so you can do the girlie thing if you like. Lo checked out.” Speio is actually embarrassed, but I’m too tied up in knots at the sound of Lo’s name and too drained to tease him about it. By the “girlie thing” he means that I can consort with Lo or any other approved boy, should I so choose. “Just be careful. They can fall hard for us,” Speio warns, and pauses as if he wants to say something more, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.
“What?” I ask.
“And you should know that Sanctum can work on them, too. They’re very susceptible to us and to our emotions, so be careful.”
At Speio’s words, I feel a slow flush invade my body at the thought of meshing any part of myself, human or otherwise, with Lo. “It’s okay, you don’t have to worry. I don’t think he and I are going to be friends, anyway,” I say, suddenly breathless.
“Why? I thought you were head over heels for him?” Speio says with a surprised look. “Wasn’t he the one you were getting all wired about when we were talking about bonding?”
I’m mortified that I’d been so transparent to Speio. “No, he wasn’t.”
“Riss,” he says gently. “I felt it in the water that day, remember? You don’t have to hide your feelings from me. It’s okay.”
I sigh, my voice a whisper. “It doesn’t matter, that’s all done now.”
“Well, maybe it’s for the best,” Speio says, watching me carefully. “He doesn’t seem like your type, anyway. Way too arrogant.”
I’d thought the same thing, too, but ever since voicing it to Lo that day on the boat, I’m not sure that arrogant is the right word to describe him. He’s plenty confident, which makes him nothing like most boys his age, but he’s more self-assured than anything.
“I don’t have a type,” I tell Speio. “And he’s not arrogant. I think it’s a front to cover something else.” Like the loss of his family or having to move to another state. Self-disgust pours through me at how I’d treated him, even knowing the details of his private life. “And what do you know about types, anyway?”
“I know that someone like that isn’t the right guy for you,” Speio answers honestly. “Even if he got cleared by Echlios. There’s something strange about him, and maybe the arrogance is a part of that. He’s too...quiet.”
Quiet? That’s a new one. I wouldn’t exactly peg Lo as quiet, but I can see where Speio is coming from. Lo is very still. He studies people from the sidelines. He rarely rushes anywhere and even his speech is perfectly modulated. Like he’s in stealth mode all the time. Oddly enough, I enjoy that about him. The stillness. It makes me think of calm water with not a single ripple on its surface, deep and full and infinite.
“I don’t trust him,” Speio is saying.
I stifle a grin, glancing at the group of them hooting loudly over something Lo had said. His own laugh is distinctive, pulling at parts of me I don’t recognize. I shiver a little.
“Speio, you don’t trust anyone,” I say with a wry look.
“And for good reason.”
“Like I said, you have nothing to worry about,” I say, forcing a smile. “I’ll see you at home for dinner, okay? You know how Soren wants us all to be at the table on time. Last time, you got grounded for being late.” Speio and I exchange an amused look. Soren’s notorious for her human rules—like sitting down to dinner like a normal human family and talking about our days, or doing human household chores like laundry or dishwasher duty, my nemesis. “I need to swing by the marine center first to change a shift.”
“You sure you’re okay to get home?” he asks. I nod, and he rumples my hair before standing and stretching. He stares at me with an awkward expression and shoves his hands in his pockets. I wait silently, knowing that he has something else to say. “Riss? Thanks for what you did. I know it took a lot out of you, but it means more than you know that you would do that for me.”
I smile, a real one this time. “Don’t waste it. Go on a date or something.”
Speio snorts, grinning, and walks away. I watch his tall, lanky form disappear around the corner to the parking lot, his white-blond hair blowing into his face. For a second, I wonder why I can’t be interested in Speio. He’s not a bad person, and I know he cares about me even if it isn’t that way, as he so succinctly put it. It would make everything so much easier—for him and for me, especially when Dvija happens, which for me will be a hundred times worse than Speio’s. And if worse comes to worst, he said I could command him. I blanch at the thought. I could never compel someone to love me, no matter how desperate I get.
Most of the students have left, including Cara and Lo, and as much as I want to sit there for the next hour, I need to get myself somewhere safe. I need to get home or to the ocean...whichever comes first. Standing on shaky knees, I grasp the rough bark of the maple tree for support as hot white dots fill my vision. The earth beneath my feet is tilting as if I’m standing on a surfboard, and I’m desperately trying to keep my balance. Taking a deep breath, I focus on my Jeep and getting to it.
But I’ve barely taken ten steps before the ground starts to feel as if it has the consistency of a fat marshmallow. I grab the side of a nearby lamppost for support as my knees buckle underneath me. I should have gone home with Speio, but it’s too late now. There’s no way that I can drive myself, so I dig into my pocket for my cell phone to call Echlios, but my fingers are oily with sweat, slippery and unreliable. The phone slides from my fingers.
Darkness hovers at the edges of my vision as I sink to the lawn, trying to find my fallen phone. The white dots take over, and suddenly, I can’t even breathe. Not caring who’s watching I splay my palms over the lush green grass and start to suck the moisture out of it into my body until nothing but brownish-yellow patches remain beneath my hands. It’s still not enough.
The skies are clear with not a rain cloud in sight. Commanding clouds would take too much energy. Water must call to water, and I barely have enough to keep my body from failing completely. I glance at my fingers through blurred vision.
Sanctum in human form had drained me more than weeks without the ocean would have. The skin of my hands and forearms is already flaking and taking on an odd gray-green color, with tendrils of black curling upward through it like poison. For a second, I wonder what I’ll look like if I die. Would my human skin slough off completely? Would I shrivel to nothing? Would my rem
ains be sent to a lab for dissection and study? Would I endanger those I love and leave behind?
That’s the thought that forces me into sluggish action.
Desperately, I reach for the phone lying on its face at my side but I can’t even see to dial the number. The greenish pallor of my arms is spreading, the black lines spiraling upward. I need more water. But making one last effort to take from the life around me is futile—even the air is as dry as bone. My fingers curl into stone claws and I close my eyes, struggling to swallow my congealing saliva.
This is it, I think. My last stupid decision will have cost me my life.
“Riss? NERISSA!” The voice sounds like it’s coming from everywhere at once. It’s loud, stabbing into my head like needles. “Oh, my God, what happened?”
Through the slits of my eyes, all I can see is a dark shadow blocking the fading light from the skies. The voice is an echo of an echo. My brain won’t even process the identity of its owner. An arm slides under my head and the voice speaks into a phone. All I can hear are the words emergency and school parking lot.
Slow-motion panic. No, no ambulance, no hospitals, I want to say but my mouth refuses to cooperate. I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to be locked up under a microscope, either. What kind of life would that be? I crack open my mouth and pain rockets through me. Warm salty brine trickles into my mouth. I’ve ripped the skin off my lips.
“Try not to move. It’s okay,” the voice says, pressing something cool against my burning mouth. Warm fingers wind into the crooked numbness of mine. “Everything’s going to be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
It’s the last thing I hear before I give in to the darkness.
8
NO MORE SECRETS
My head feels groggy. My lips are dry and crusted with salt, but I can move my tongue and I can swallow, albeit painfully. Drawing my lower lip between my teeth, I wince at the sting and the sour salty remnants of dried blood.
I’m alive. Somehow.
I’m in my own room, a warm rush of air flowing in through the open French doors. Bright bits of colored sea glass spatter the ceiling, making me blink against the orange sun reflecting through them like jewels. I look outside. The sun is just setting over the tops of the palm trees and I can see the pool gleaming golden just beyond the steps of the patio. I want nothing more than to hurl myself into its comforting arms, but as I heft myself to my elbow, I realize that there’s someone else lying next to me in the bed, covered head to toe beneath the sheet.
A warm rush invades my body. I know it isn’t Speio, because if he had been the one to rescue me last night, I would have sensed him instantly. No, my savior had been someone human, but someone who’d thought to bring me straight to Echlios and not to a hospital. My belly plummets immediately.
Please don’t be him, my inner voice is screaming.
I tug on the edge of the sheet, my stomach clenched in a grapefruit-size knot, and I’m wishing with everything inside of me that it’s not who I think it is. I’d take anyone—even Cara—over Lo seeing me in the feeble state I was in.
And so obviously not who I’m pretending to be.
My skin would have been spongy and wrinkled, the consistency of a dehydrated jellyfish. And I don’t even want to think about what my eyes would have been like uncovered, with their startling, scary irises. At that stage of dehydration, I wouldn’t have been able to control the protective camouflage over them, the one that mimics the appearance of human eyes. It would have been a dead giveaway that I’m not anything remotely human.
The sheet slips back in response to my gentle tug and I’m holding my breath. But it’s not sandy hair that greets me, it’s a tangle of glossy auburn. Jenna. I exhale with a curious mixture of relief and disappointment, which bothers me because I don’t know what I would have done if it had been Lo in my bed. But my bittersweet relief is short-lived as reality hits me.
Jenna...
She is a gazillion times worse than Lo. I don’t even know how I would begin to confess the truth about myself or that I’d lied to her for so many years. Most humans don’t take well to deceit, I learned early on, especially those of the best-friend variety. I wonder how much Echlios has told her. He must have said enough for her to allow her to stay with us. But then again, Jenna isn’t exactly clueless—she is at the top of our class with an above average IQ. It’s one of the reasons I gravitated to her once I got over myself sophomore year. She isn’t vapid like most of the girls in our class who have money and good breeding in spades but not brains.
Which means I can’t fake my way out of this one.
Sighing, I shimmy my body with tiny movements to the edge of the bed. With some luck, I can avoid any discussion until I’ve had the chance to think things over, or at least to talk to Echlios. I’m just swinging my legs over the side when I feel the mattress dip behind me.
“Hey,” Jenna says sleepily. “You’re awake.”
“Yes.” I don’t want to face her but I do. I’m not sure what I was expecting but her face is the same as it has ever been...like an open book, no judgment, just compassion. “So you found me yesterday?”
Jenna throws me a groggy, confused look. “Yesterday?”
“At school?”
“Riss, that was last week.” Her voice is quiet but her eyes become more alert as she sits up and props herself up on two pillows, watching me intently. “How much do you remember?”
I shake my head, frowning. “Not much. Voices. Yours, I guess, until just now when I woke up. Exactly how long was I out?”
“Five days. It’s Wednesday.”
“And you’ve been here this whole time?” I ask, frowning.
She nods and yawns. “Sort of. I stayed the first night, and I came back this afternoon after school. It was pouring rain and Soren didn’t think I should drive home, so she called my mom and I guess I fell asleep. Don’t worry, everyone thinks you’re sick, and I’ve been helping out.”
“And Echlios and Soren are okay with that?” I ask.
Jenna’s face twists into an all-too-familiar stubborn expression and I have to force myself not to grin in automatic response. “They had to be,” she says. “I wouldn’t take no for an answer. Speio tried to remove me bodily and I was forced to retaliate. With my hockey stick.” She grins at my gasp. “Let’s just say that we’re barely on speaking terms but he backed off.”
“You hit Speio?”
“Well, I didn’t actually connect, but he got the message,” she says. “He’s got pretty fast reflexes, that kid. Kind of like you.” Her voice trails off, this time her eyes dropping to the bed as if she suddenly can’t look at me.
“Like me?” My words are barely whispers in the sudden sticky silence.
“Yes.” I remain silent, unsure of what to say...of what she wants me to say, so I wait instead. Jenna raises her eyes to mine, the words flowing out of her like hot unwanted lava. “I’m glad you’re okay. Echlios said you were going to be, but when I asked him what happened, he said that you had to tell me. That he didn’t have permission to reveal anything on your behalf,” she says with a lingering look at my face and arms, which makes me desperate to cover myself under the sheet once more. “So you want to tell me what kind of secret rock royalty you are? The love child of Steven Tyler and Lady Gaga, mayhap?” she asks.
Laughter bubbles out of me at her wry expression and I fling myself back across the bed into her arms. “Have I told you just how awesome you are?”
“Yeah,” Jenna says, hugging me back tightly. “Which is why you’re going to tell me everything. Starting right now.”
Sitting back on my haunches, I make a sad face. “How about some food first at least? Nearly dead girl is starving.”
“Okay, fine. But no more delays,” Jenna says. “And we should probably tell the others that you’r
e awake.”
“They already know.”
“What? But—”
I smile. “They would have known the minute I regained consciousness. Soren’s already got something to eat for us outside. Come on. I’ll tell you everything you need to know. Or at least put your wildest imaginings to rest.”
“They’re pretty wild,” she warns me. “I mean, your eyes a week ago were like something out of The Exorcist.” Jenna makes a face at my snort. “Seriously, I almost took you to a priest instead of to Echlios.”
My reunion with Echlios, Soren and Speio is quiet but I can see the relief in their expressions, especially Speio’s. I’m not sure he would have told them about Sanctum, which was risky on my part, but Echlios is far from foolish. It would surprise me if he hadn’t already guessed. I’m sure I’ll get the lecture later but at least he won’t say anything while Jenna is there.
I make a sound that is like a high-pitched pulse followed by a low chirp and some clicks. Echlios returns a similar sequence and Jenna stares at us with wide eyes. I smile reassuringly in her direction and usher her out to the patio table.
“What was that?”
“A kind of language,” I say, sipping on a glass of water and chewing on a piece of yellowtail sashimi. “Want some?”
“Oh.” Jenna takes some of the sushi and stares at me uneasily.
We eat in silence until the sun has completely disappeared and the twilight sky is flickering with starry dots. I’m a little blown away by Jenna’s reserve. If the situation were reversed, I’d be jumping down her throat and demanding that she confess everything to me at once. A small part of me recognizes that, despite her bravado, Jenna may be terrified.
I push my plate away and slide my chair back. In seconds, a silent Soren is there to clear away the remaining food and our utensils. Jenna’s eyes flicker again with an undecipherable expression, moving from Soren to me, and then back again.
“What’s with them?” she asks.
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