by Brooke Moss
A line appeared between his eyebrows. “Hooky?”
“I’m skipping school.”
Saxon fidgeted in place for a moment, and his mouth opened and closed a time or two. “I was desperate to see you, but wanted to respect your wishes.”
I chewed my lip. “I guess I needed some time to process things.”
“There was a lot to process.” He scuffed a boot across the dirt. “Are you OK?”
“I am.” I looked out toward the water, seeing its waves sparkle through the trees. “But I woke up this morning feeling sort of…off.”
His head snapped in my direction. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“You’re under my skin.” I tugged at a string hanging from a tear in my jeans.
He was quiet for a beat. “I don’t know what that means.”
Snorting, I covered my face with my hands and rubbed my eyes. It was so easy to forget that I was talking to a guy who considered English a second language. Or, who considered speaking a second language. “Sorry.” I laughed. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You’re on my mind, and I wanted to see you. That’s why I came looking for you.”
“You came looking for me?” His voice rose, and I knew without looking he was smiling.
“Is there an echo out here?” Biting my lip, and feeling uncharacteristically shy, I grinned down at the tear in my jeans. “Yeah, I did. Why did you think I was at the gate of your fake house?”
“I hoped I’d see you today. I didn’t know if I would. But I hoped.”
At last, I looked up at him. Spots were on his shirt where lake water had soaked through the thin cotton. “I guess staying away from you is proving to be harder than I thought.” I jerked my head in the direction of my house. “Listen, I think we need to get you some dry clothes. Come on.”
He walked beside me as I rolled back to my driveway. “Are you taking me to your house?”
Nodding, I grunted as I pushed myself through a dip in the worn road. “Uh-huh.”
He used his fingers to comb his wet hair. “Is your family home?”
“Relax.” I turned down my driveway and rolled toward the back porch. “I’m home alone.”
He halted at the end of the ramp. “Are you comfortable with this?”
I gripped my wheels, stopping my descent, and looked over my shoulder. His crystal clear eyes were filled to the brim with concern.
“You won’t hurt me.” I believed that.
Relief rolled over his face with another burst of wind, and I looked up at the sky. Gray clouds began to block the sun’s rays, so I gave my chair another push. “Come on. Let’s get inside before the weather turns on us again.”
He ducked his head and followed me through the door. Once we were inside, he looked around and swung the door shut. He widened his eyes to the size of quarters. “I’ve always wanted to know what the inside of a home looked like.”
“You’ve never been inside a house?” I looked around and tried to see it with the same level of wonder he saw it. Declan’s art projects fluttered on the fridge door in the breeze from the door, used cereal bowls filled the sink, and the lingering aroma of my Dad’s hazelnut coffee hung in the air.
Nope. Still didn’t render any wonder in me.
He walked up to the island and placed his palms down on the countertop. I cringed when I heard the soft crunch of toast crumbs underneath his skin. “I’ve been inside stores and businesses, but never a house. It’s nice here.”
I rolled into the living room. “That is so weird. Follow me.”
“Where are we going?”
“We aren’t going anywhere. You are.” I pointed up the stairs. “The first door on the left is my parents’ bedroom. Right next to the doorway there will be a basket filled with folded laundry. On the top there is an old sweatshirt, a couple of T-shirts, some old boxer shorts, and some jeans. Grab them, and bring them back downstairs.”
He arched one of his dark eyebrows. “You want me to go into your parents’ bedroom?”
“Don’t worry.” I reached out to pat his hand and felt my fingertips spark when we made contact. “I would do it myself, but, well, obviously the elevator is broken right now.”
The truth was that the room where my parents slept was my old room. But after coming home from the hospital with a wheelchair, my parents had switched things around, and I’d been relocated to the bedroom with the green carpeting and old-fashioned floral wallpaper. For the past two Christmases my list had included a redecorating budget, but so far…no go.
He tugged one side of his grin upward. “Ha, ha, ha. I just feel weird going into your parents’ room without their permission.”
“Listen, you’re only stepping right inside the door and grabbing a few things off of the top of the pile.” I nodded at him encouragingly. “I folded them myself. Once you get the clothes, come back down.”
He went up the creaky stairs, and I listened as he opened my parents’ door, shuffled around for a beat, and then shut the door again. When he reemerged, he glanced over his shoulders. “Is anyone else here?”
Giggling, I took the clothes from Saxon’s arms and looked at them. “Nope. It’s still just you and me.” I refolded the clothes carefully, then rested them on my lap. Rolling back to the kitchen, I opened the cabinet below the sink, and plucked out a thick black garbage bag. “Here you go. They’ll fit you. My dad is thicker than you are around the shoulders, but I think the jeans will be long enough.”
He looked down at the bag. “I—”
“Take the bag down to the old boathouse by our dock. There’s a space between the rafters where you can stick this, and my parents will never find it.” I glanced out the kitchen window at the leaning boathouse roof. “They never go down there. My mom’s been nagging Dad to fix that thing up for years. He never does. I don’t imagine this will be the lucky year.”
He shook his head and handed me the bag. “Your dad is going to notice these clothes are gone.”
I pushed the bag back. “No, he won’t. My mom cleaned out the attic the other day and found these in a box. They’re from his college days. He doesn’t even realize we washed them. To be honest, my dad isn’t the most engaged member of my family.”
“Who is?” He asked, furrowing his brow.
I pretended to think, but not for long. “Me. Always me.”
His features softened, the smile lines on either side of his mouth relaxing. Setting the bag down on the kitchen table, he knelt down in front of me and took my hands in his. “Thank you.”
The heat in my belly churned, and I swallowed. Hard. “It’s really no problem. I just wanted to give you something else to wear once in a while. I just wanted to…I don’t know, do something nice for you. Or, whatever.”
He used my hands to pull my chair as close as it could get. “You did something nice for me by speaking to me again.”
The air between us became thick and unbearably hot. I was thankful for my tank top. “You have incredibly low standards.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“You insult yourself all the time.” He slid his hands up my forearms to my elbows and positioned himself on his knees before me. “Don’t you understand how extraordinary you are?”
“You’re the one who can turn into a fish.” My voice was scratchy, and I could hardly hear it over the sound of my own heartbeat. “That’s pretty extraordinary, if you ask me.”
“Only half fish,” he corrected me with a smirk. “But look at you. On top of being one of the most uniquely beautiful humans I’ve ever laid eyes on, you’re smart. And ingenious. And considerate.” I tried to look away. The moment was getting a little too intense for me. But he followed me, moving his face so I was forced to hold his eye contact. “You survived an accident that crushed part of your spine. And now you push yourself around despite the fact that part of your body no longer works. You’re amazing.”
He closed his mouth, but his voice sounded i
nside of my mind.
It was the strangest of feelings, having his words reverberate inside my skull as though we stood inside of a deep cave. It reminded me of when my family went to ride bikes on the Hiawatha Trail in Montana the summer before my accident. We’d ridden through a pitch-black tunnel two miles long. The only way of knowing where my parents were was by the way their voice echoed behind me. That’s what his telepathy sounded like.
We don’t survive accidents like yours. We can recover rapidly from injuries if we’re under the water, but if we’re immobile on land, we start to shift and eventually die.
I shook my head. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
We take on human form, but if we can’t get to the water fast enough, we suffocate. That’s why you’re so incredible. You were irrevocably injured, and yet you still get up every day, move around, and attend school. It’s inspiring.
“Why did you come to the surface?” I held my breath as I felt him tracing lines up and down the outsides of my upper arm with his thumbs. “Why did you come to my school that day?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped. There are certain expectations I am required to meet.
I frowned at him. “What sort of expectations?”
He dropped his hands. My people used to be able to mate with anyone two hundred years ago. If we fell for a human or a Mer, it didn’t matter. Love was love. But then things changed.
“How? How did they change?”
About a hundred sixty five years ago, give or take, the water started to become dirty and toxic. There are volcanoes all over the northwest, and with volcanoes come things like acid rain. Add another hundred years, and we’ve got pollution from boats and garbage in the lake. We were poisoned and became unable procreate, going through a very dark time where our entire existence nearly came to an end. Once our numbers got down into the teens, the Council passed a law.
He dragged a hand across his head, setting his hair on edge. I reached for his face, lifting his chin. It was my turn to force him to look at me. “What is it? Who is the Council? You can tell me. I won’t tell a soul.”
His eyes liquefied. I don’t ever want to make you afraid to be around me again. I would rather die than frighten you.
“I’m not afraid anymore.” I dropped my hand to his neck and tangled my fingers in the brown waves at his nape. “Tell me.”
He pursed his lips. We are not allowed to tell humans about the existence of Mer, and we are not to stay in human form for any longer than one passing of the sun. Above all else, once we have come of age, we are expected to keep our kind alive. Beguile a human into the water and then alter him or her into a Mer.”
My hand froze. “Beguile a human?”
He offered a defeated shrug.
We found that while we could no longer procreate with other Mer, we were still able to mate with humans. Humans, as a whole, are an incredibly fertile society. So the Council decreed that when a Mer reaches eighteen years, he or she is expected to find a human and…procreate.”
I stared at him. I could barely keep my room clean, and he was being forced to find someone to make little half-human-half-fish babies with. “So…you don’t mean right now, do you?”
He laughed. In due time. Most Mer couples will make their life commitment to each other and then have a family after a few years. The idea is to grow into maturity with your mate. That’s why we alter humans when we are still young.”
It suddenly felt frigidly cold inside my house as I pictured Isolde’s face under the water. “Which is why you drown people.”
He nodded, looking down at the floor. If we don’t, we are exiled. Cast out. And we don’t live long out of our element. So most Mer have just come to accept this as what we must do. We hunt for a human that fits our criteria, beguile that human into the water, and then…
I wrapped my arms around myself. I didn’t have to hear the rest.
“I’m sorry.” I pressed my hand to my mouth, and tears filled my eyes. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you were being forced to do this. I treated you so badly yesterday, I…”
What else was there to say? I’m sorry I behaved like a bitch, even though you’ll essentially die if you don’t murder a human—and you’ve chosen me. They didn’t make greeting cards for this crap.
He brushed his hands up my arms and cupped my elbows again. When he spoke, his deep voice filled the room. “You mean to tell me I just admitted that we murder people, and you’re the one who’s sorry?”
“You’re not proud of it.” I fisted the front of his T-shirt and willed my tears to remain unspilled. “You don’t want to do this. I can tell. I can see it in your eyes.”
He shook his head, making his hair flop onto his forehead. “No. I don’t. This isn’t the kind of being I want to be. For months, I’ve been sneaking away and going into towns along the shore. I snuck into movies and went to galleries. I walked into classrooms in the college and at different high schools and listened to what they were teaching. Humans are amazing. Their source of knowledge is limitless and ever changing, and I can’t get enough.
“My time posing as a human started out as a search for my mate, but became something more. My time walking among you humans was addictive. You don’t deserve to be murdered at random. You shouldn’t be used as tools. I still wonder how long it will be before I’m caught, especially now that Isolde knows I’ve been shifting. But I can’t stop. Not now.”
I squeezed the thin cotton and drew a breath. “Why?”
He tilted his head. “Because of you. The moment I met you, it was like a key in a lock. This is the connection that Mer don’t often find until after they’ve altered their human. I never expected to experience what I…”
He stopped and just stared at me, his eyes infiltrating my mind like a flashlight in the dark. The warm fuzzy feeling returned. My head swam, and I grabbed the handles of my chair to steady myself. “Don’t do that,” I whispered. “Don’t use mind control on me. You promised—”
“I’m not.” He leaned closer to me and used both of his hands to brush my hair back from my face. “Whatever you’re feeling, I’m not doing it. In fact, I’m wondering if you are doing something to me.”
My eyelids drifted shut when Saxon’s fingers brushed along my jaw. “What do you feel?”
“Dizzy.” He laughed. I could feel his warm breath on my mouth.
“You inspire me, too, you know?” His lower lip was so full and soft, I lifted a hand and touched it. I could have sworn I felt him tremble underneath my fingers. “You’re risking your life every day to learn and grow. You value human life more than most humans do.” I stopped speaking, and the silence hung between us, filled to the top with the urge we both obviously felt.
I moved first, bringing my mouth to Saxon’s with more fervency than I’d planned. Our lips molded together like clay, mine starting where his began, and vice versa, and it sent a thrilling shiver sashaying up and down my spine. When I tilted my head to the side, deepening the kiss, he slid his arms underneath me and picked me up off of my chair. I heard it roll back a few inches and bonk into the table, but ignored it and tightened my arms around his neck, digging my fingers into his messy hair.
He stood up, cradling me against his chest as he stalked into the living room and sat down in the overstuffed easy chair where Declan liked to sit while he played Wii every afternoon. When Saxon settled me across his lap, our faces parted, and we gazed at each other breathlessly. I could feel my heart pressing against the inside of my tank top and was pretty sure his was pounding in time with mine.
He brought up one of his hands to cup my cheek, and I covered it with my own. “That was some kiss.”
He nodded, just once. “It was.”
I didn’t want the moment to be over. I wasn’t done kissing him and was pretty sure I never would be. “Do it again.”
I slid my eyes shut, and explosions of bright colors went off behind my lids as his lips brushed against mine a second time. I didn
’t want to be anywhere else, with anybody else, and couldn’t possibly concentrate on anything else.
Which is why I didn’t hear a key turning in the lock on the kitchen door.
Chapter Eight
“Holy crap!” My sister’s voice was so shrill some of my mother’s china might have cracked inside the cabinet.
Saxon immediately slid out from underneath me, dropping me onto the cushion with a bounce. He stood up and raked a hand through his hair just as Evey and Hayden came walking into the living room. My heart clunked in my chest, and I made a mental note to thank God later for not having my mother bust us.
“Um…how are you feeling?” Evey asked, her eyes rolling from me to Saxon. It was clear that his presence in our living room had surprised her, because pink splotches stained her cheeks.
Wiping my hand across my swollen lips, I looked up at my sister sheepishly. “I’m feeling much better, thanks. Why are you here?” I glanced over my shoulder at Hayden, who was tucked behind the doorjamb. “And…why is Hayden with you?”
Evey cleared her throat and began fiddling with her ponytail. I bit back a smile. I could tell when my kid sister was nervous. That girl liked that boy. I’d stake my left wheel on it.
“Um, I skipped Home Ec. Hayden offered to drive me here.”
My jaw dropped. “You skipped a class? You’ve got to be kidding me. All these years later, and my rebellious nature has finally rubbed off on you.”
She bit her lip. “Yeah. I’m a regular juvenile delinquent.” She glanced at Saxon. “Actually, I wanted to check on you. You woke up about a dozen times last night.”
You wanted to check on me and spend time alone with your crush. I kept that last bit to myself. “Oh, you noticed?”
She pointed up to the cracked ceiling. “Paper thin walls, remember?”
I gestured to Saxon. “So look who came by to say hello.”
“Hi, Evey. It’s good to see you again.” He smiled down at her.
She glanced at him and shuffled in her spot. “Um, hi.”