Underwater

by Brooke Moss

  “Actually, I really, truly do know that he would never put me in danger. This is a fact, Mom.”

  “Fine.” My mom pinched up her face. “You can go until midnight. But I’m taking you there and picking you up.”

  “Mom. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m not. Does he own a car?” When I shook my head, she looked satisfied with her correctness. “Well, we both know you can’t drive, so—”

  “Only because you won’t let me,” I snapped, glaring at the trees that whizzed past my window in a green blur. “You know I would love to be able to cart myself around instead of relying on you and Dad to take me everywhere like some sort of junior higher.”

  She sighed, letting it evolve into a growl. “You’re living in our home. You have to follow our rules.”

  “I’m eighteen years old. Do you understand that I can legally come and go as I please?”

  She shot me a look. The official warning look that meant shut up or duck. “Yes, but you live in our house, and you have—”

  “Special needs, right?” I scoffed, my blood sizzling. “I get it. You’re crippled daughter needs to have a special set of rules because not only was my spine injured in that accident, but my brain too. Apparently, I can’t make a good judgment call to save my life, so I need my parents to treat me like I’m perpetually twelve. That way they can make all my decisions for me.”

  “I’m just trying to protect you!” She tapped the steering wheel with one finger. I was testing my mother’s patience, and I knew it. I couldn’t help myself though. I’d been saying these things for two years. It was time for her to listen.

  “You’re smothering me!” I thundered, drowning out the hum of our tires on the road. Anger pressed against me from the inside, stretching my skin to capacity and threatening to slit me open. If that happened, my resentment would pour down onto the floor mats and make a freaking mess. I didn’t need this now. Not when every ounce of my energy was devoted to worrying about Saxon and the Council. “Mom, I swear, every time you speak to me, it feels like there are hands gripping my throat and squeezing! I can’t stand it! I can’t even breathe when I’m with you!”

  My mom grit her teeth. “Don’t be theatrical—”

  Shifting my upper body so I faced her fully, I felt the sting of tears assaulting my eyes. “As soon as I graduate, I’m leaving. I’m getting as far away from you and Dad and all of your guilt. And I’m never coming back, do you understand me?”

  * * *

  I could hear the sound of my parents arguing clear down the hill, and my cheeks stung from the breeze off the lake hitting my tear-streaked cheeks. The sound of my mother swearing at my father echoed between the thick trees surrounding our farmhouse. I cringed inwardly at the thought of what the Rogersons had to be thinking as they ate dinner out on their deck to the soundtrack of my parents’ marital strife.

  Though admitting it made me sick to my stomach, I felt guilty for what I’d said to my mom. Yes, I’d been planning my escape from my parents for quite some time now, but did I plan to rub my mom’s face in it? And did I plan never to come back? No and no.

  Well, so long as I was still human when I left…

  I heard a door slam inside of the house and wiped my cheeks. I was sitting on the end of the dock with a metal fire poker from the set my father kept by the hearth in our living room. It wasn’t hard to sneak out the house with it. My parents had been too wrapped up in their most recent argument—titled Luna Wants To Go To The Prom, Whose Fault Is It?—to notice me rolling through the kitchen door with a wrought-iron rod on my lap.

  I needed some time to think, and I wasn’t about to do it unprotected. I might have gimpy legs, but my arms worked just fine, and my swing was stronger than ever. Add a sharp metal poker to the mix, and Isolde would be begging for mercy. Besides, I wanted to be close to the water so Saxon could find me easily when he was able to sneak away from the clan.

  If he was able to sneak away. The last few days dragged by, and I’d barely managed to get through my last few finals in school without losing my cool. Every thought I had was preoccupied with whether or not I would ever see Saxon again, and every morning I woke up desperate for a sign that he’d survived another night.

  He was being watched closely. The Council put the clan on high alert, insisting they all avoid interaction with him because he’d “gone mad.” He said there were whispers he’d turned his back on his own kind, and many of the Mer were already pushing for the Council to eliminate him without hearing him plead his case.

  Some mornings the only sign he was still alive was a note scribbled on a scavenged scrap of paper from the recycle bin, and other mornings I would catch a glimpse of him from the neck up, hundreds of yards out from shore as I was leaving for school. According the notes, the Council was trying to force him to change his mind by limiting his food and breaks to go to the surface. Saxon said it was grueling to contain the shift from happening all day. That his fin ached to shift into legs, and his gills threatened to seal up spontaneously. He was allowed one break per day while being sequestered, and those breaks happened at random, which was why we’d not been together in days. The Council was waiting. Waiting for evidence that Saxon changed his mind. Waiting for him to admit defeat and to arrive at the bottom of the Pend Oreille with a body.

  My body.

  “Sax, where are you?” I murmured, looking out over the choppy water. The wind was picking up, and the sky was gray and tumultuous. It was going to rain soon, which meant I had to hoist my butt back into my chair and push myself back up the hill before the clouds split open.

  There was a dull ache behind my ribs, and I rubbed at it absently. There was nothing I wanted more than to pull Saxon close, tangle my fingers in his messy hair, and let him cradle me against his body. If I closed my eyes, I could almost smell him on the air. That smell of grass that twisted my insides into ribbon candy and made my head go light.

  Heaving a sigh, I began scooting back to my chair. Maybe I could sneak back into the house without being noticed. The chances were slim. The white farmhouse was eerily quiet now, which meant the argument was over, and now my mother was likely cooking dinner in the kitchen with a casserole-size chip on her shoulder.

  Luna?

  For the briefest of moments, I thought it was Saxon, and my heart coughed and sputtered to life. But there was a rough edge to the voice. This voice sounded like…

  “Ian?” I gasped, turning back around and scanning the shoreline.

  Down here.

  Looking below the edge of the dock, I saw the familiar head of white-blond hair just below the surface. Ian’s skin was pale and slightly bluish; his brow was pulled low over his circled eyes. The gills on either side of his neck were surrounded by dark red scratches, as if he’d been clawing at them for days on end; there were patches of his skin on his shoulders and arms where the scales appeared to be bubbling up and peeling. He looked physically and emotionally spent, and it turned my stomach to see him look so haggard.

  I put out my hands when his head started to crest the water. “Ian, no! You have to stay in the water!”

  He sank back down and glowered. You know what she did to me.

  Nodding, a lump of sadness grew inside of my throat. Ian McClendon was always so proud, so cocky as he strutted down the hallway under the hormonal gaze of every girl in school. The look in his eyes was so unhappy, my heart ached for his sake.

  “Yes.” I tried to swallow my emotion down. “I…I’m sorry this happened to you.”

  They tie me up, and they watch me all the time. They won’t let me go home.

  “If you try to go home, you’ll die.” I hunched over the side of the dock. “They’re trying to help you.”

  Help me? They did this to me!

  “I know. But…Ian, they don’t mean us harm.” His face started to contort. “I mean, they do, but it’s because they have no choice. Their species is dying, and they can’t—”

  Do I
look like I care? Ian’s voice was so loud inside of my head, a pain shot straight to my eardrums.

  “OK, listen.” I took a deep breath to calm my hyperactive nerves and threw a glance over my shoulder. “Have you seen Saxon? Is he with you?”

  I looked up at the empty driveway. Where were Hayden and Evey? They were due home from softball practice any time. Hayden would be crushed if he missed his brother.

  When I dragged my eyes back to Ian, his head was above the water. His mouth opened, gagging and choking on the air like it was tar. His eyes instantly reddened and watered, and his gills opened and closed furiously, trying desperately to find water again.

  “Get back under!” I yelped, pushing his head downward. “Ian, you’re choking! Go under the surface!”

  With a splash, he went back down, and the muscles in his jaw and neck relaxed. I watched as his gills went back to opening and closing slowly, and I released my own breath of relief.

  “You’re going to die—again—if you don’t stay in the water.” I explained as gently as I could. “With time you’ll be able to shift and come to the surface again. But it’s going to take time. Do you understand?”

  Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid. I want to shift now. If your precious boyfriend can do it, why the hell can’t I?

  “It took Saxon years to learn how to control his shifts. In the beginning he nearly suffocated too. It takes practice, and—”

  Ian popped his hand out of the water with a noisy splash. He clamped it onto my wrist with a grip so tight, I swear my wrist was going to snap. My mouth opened to scream, but no sound came out as pain groaned underneath my skin.

  Do you really think I care about suffocating? I’ve already died once, remember? He narrowed his brown eyes. I want to go home. I want to see my parents…my brother.

  My voice trembled when I spoke. “And you’re going to break my arm to do it?”

  Ian loosened his grip and pulled his arm back below the surface. The corners of his mouth pulled downward, and the circles around his eyes seemed to increase in color.

  I won’t tell anyone where I came from. I won’t tell anyone about the Mer. I just want to go home for a few minutes.

  I shook my head. “It’s not possible. They want to kill Saxon for having told me. Their rules are ironclad.”

  I swore I wouldn’t tell! What more do they want from me?

  “They want you to be one of them.” Swallowing, I glanced down at my wrist, it was already turning purple where Ian grabbed me. “They’re dying. They can only live if they alter humans to eventually mate with. It’s the only way they won’t die off themselves.”

  I’m not an animal. I can’t be caged up to breed with someone like a horse, for Pete’s sake.

  “Saxon says it’s not like that. Once you’ve made the connection with Isolde, you’ll learn to shift safely, and when that happens, you’ll be able to have a life with her. And eventually, you’ll have children together, and—”

  I’ll never like that bitch. I’ll never let her get close enough to touch me. And if she does, I’ll kill her myself.

  The air escaped my lungs. “If you refuse to mate with her, you’re as good as dead. You have to contribute if you want to live with the Mer.”

  I don’t want to live with them. I don’t want to have anything to do with them. Ian looked very young, like a lost boy. I miss my parents. They need to know that I’m OK. That’s all I’ll do. Then I’ll come back to the Pend Oreille.

  “How did you get away today?”

  He flicked a glance over his own shoulder. Same as every other time. If I scream that I can’t breathe, they think I’m shifting, so they untie me to go to the surface. But I’m fast, and I escape.

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up. If Ian escaped, then there were Mer out looking for him. It was only a matter of time before they found him in Moon’s Bay. “They already think you’re dead. The funeral is the day after tomorrow. They’re letting us get out of school early for it.”

  He widened his eyes. My funeral? What will they put in the coffin?

  I almost laughed at the absurdity of our conversation. “I really don’t know. Maybe they won’t have one. They’re going to have the choir from the Lutheran church sing, though. And Coach Timmons is speaking.”

  Ian’s hallowed face perked up. The last time I saw him, he yelled at me for pushing a freshman into the recycle bins outside the gym.

  That sounded more like the Ian I remembered. I smiled down at him. “I think you’re off the hook now.”

  He looked up at the sky, a muscle in his jaw twitching. My poor mom…do you know how she’s taking things? Is she OK?

  “I don’t know. I think…she’s gonna be OK.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his mom and dad were a total mess right now. So much so that Hayden was at our house most afternoons and had even started eating dinner with us.

  How about my dad? And my brother? Have you seen Hayden lately?

  I nodded, praying that Evey and Hayden would pull into the driveway soon. “Yeah…he and my sister hang out a lot lately.”

  One corner of Ian’s mouth ticked upward. I knew he liked her. I asked and asked, but he wouldn’t admit it.

  “You didn’t ask.” I folded my arms across my chest. “You demanded to know in between punches.”

  I know. The hint of a smile he wore faded away. I wish I hadn’t been such a jerk to him. I spent all of my time picking on Hayden, and now I’d give anything to just talk to him.

  Scanning the water for a sign of any other Mer, I dropped my voice low. “He knows.”

  He pinched his brows together. Knows what?

  I heard my parents’ argument fire back up inside of the house and rolled my eyes. At least I didn’t have to worry about my mother seeing me talk to the lake now. “We told Hayden. Saxon and I. We had to.”

  Now Hayden’s in danger. You don’t understand what—

  “Believe me, I understand what kind of danger we’re all in.” Once again, I scanned the water behind Ian. There was no one to be seen. “Especially Saxon. But they needed to know what we were up against. Hayden saw you in the lake and went charging after you.”

  If they find out Hayden knows, there’s no telling what they’ll do.

  I threw up my hands. “Then why do you keep trying to climb out of the water? Do you not think your family will notice when you turn into a fish and choke to death on the living room floor?”

  Ian swallowed. Fine. I get the point. Just tell Hayden to stay away from the water.

  “Then you need to stay away from the surface. He’s scouring the waterline looking for you—to tell you to stay where you are so he doesn’t have to lose you again.”

  Ian just stared at me. There was a long pause filled with about a million things I’m sure we both wanted to say. I broke the silence first. “I’m sorry this happened to you. I really am. But if you look at it a different way, you might see it as a positive.”

  He looked away. Sorry if I don’t see it that way.

  “You have a second chance at life. Instead of dying, you’re experiencing a world people think only exists in movies with singing crabs.” I looked down at my skinny lower legs and felt a twinge in my heart. “You get to move and swim freely, and in time you’ll be able to walk and run again too. You’re going to have the best of both worlds eventually. Instead of spending all of your time angry and trying to escape, why don’t you find a way to coexist with the Mer. Maybe give Isolde a chance?” I suppressed a shudder.

  Ian pressed his lips together. So much had changed between us since the last time we were on the dock together. We’d been making out that time, flushed and breathless. Life was really freaking weird sometimes.

  Listen…Luna…I’m sorry for how things went down. I—

  I put up a hand. What point did it prove to hold a grudge against him? He’d already been put through more than any other high school jerk ever had been. “Stop. It’s OK. I get it. And…you’re forgiven. Just do y
our brother a favor and stay down there and be safe.”

  I will…for now.

  “Can’t you give Isolde a chance? I mean, I know she’s a bit…you know, evil, and all, but she’s sort of hot. And I know how you feel about girls who…” My voice trailed off, and I gestured at my chest with cupped hands.

  I don’t care what she looks like. I don’t care what she says or does or what is supposed to happen when we look at each other. I know it’s supposed to be magic, like we’re going to connect on some sort of higher level the moment we lock eyes, but I’m telling you…there’s nothing there.

  He swam as close to the surface as he could without breaking it. The tip of his nose grazed the place where air met water, creating a series of rings that spread out from his face. There will never be any sort of connection with her. I know what a connection feels like, and I don’t feel it for her. I’ll gladly die rather than be with her.

  My breath halted. “You don’t understand what you’re saying. Please try.”

  I do understand what I’m saying. Don’t insult me. Ian’s voice growled in my head. If she can’t make the connection with me, then she doesn’t deserve to live. She shouldn’t have drowned me for sport. At least your boyfriend had more sense than that, even if it’s going to kill him.

  My stomach hardened into stone. Not because he was talking about Isolde dying, but because I still didn’t know where Saxon was or how he was doing. The sound of voices rang in the distance, and when I looked around for the source, there was nobody there. It was in my head.

  I have to go. He glanced downward. They’re coming. Can you hear them?

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I focused on the voices. They were male, calling out orders to one another, and some were filled with rage as they yelled Ian’s name over and over. But not one of them had the deep, silky quality of Saxon’s voice.

  “Wait…” Hunching forward, I reached into the water. When Ian noticed me, he reached up and wrapped his hand around mine. It was cold and slightly slippery with scales, but underneath the webbing, it felt like the same hand that’d held mine a few years ago. My heart thudded inside of my chest. “Please. Where is Saxon? Is he…is he alive?”