Underwater

by Brooke Moss

  “Where are we going?” Evey brought up the rear.

  Hayden spun around on the heel of his dress shoe. “We’re going to catch her.”

  * * *

  We spotted Isolde—who’d discarded the T-shirt—in several spots between the school and Moon’s Bay. Whenever there was a break in the trees along the side of the road, there she was, her eyes wide as she stared at us from between the huckleberry bushes. Hayden pulled over twice, his tires spitting gravel as we slid to a stop on the shoulder of the road. The moment his car jerked to a halt, though, Isolde darted off into the brush again. Afterwards, we would peel back onto the winding road to follow her some more, Hayden cussing as the rear wheels caught and spun in the dirt at the sloped sides of the road.

  She was toying with us. Taunting us.

  “I’m gonna kill her myself.” Hayden steered the car as we careened down our driveway and slid to a stop just inches from the end of my wheelchair ramp. “She’s completely mental.”

  “You’re just catching on to this now?” I threw open the back door and tossed my chair onto the ground with a clatter.

  “I think we need to be smart about this.” Evey hopped out of the passenger’s side and immediately unfolded my chair. “I mean, she’s tried to drown Luna a few times now. What makes you think she won’t try to take you too, Hayden? I mean, if your brother is rejecting her, then what makes her think she won’t have better luck with you?”

  The chair snapped open with a decisive click, and I hoisted myself into the seat. “Thanks.” I pointed toward the trail. “That way! Go!”

  We ran. Well, they did. I rolled behind them, my arms aching as I rammed into the root with all of the leverage I could muster up.

  “Go, go!” I blinked back tears, ordering Evey and Hayden to chase the streak of green nakedness through the woods. Sometimes having the memory of being able to use my legs was worse than the injury itself.

  He’s going to be put to death, you know.

  I gasped so hard, I released my wheels and nearly swallowed my tongue.

  Evey and Hayden stopped in place as soon as they heard Isolde’s voice inside of their heads. My sister slapped her hands over her ears, and she squeezed her eyes shut behind her glasses. “Oh, no…” she whimpered. “I hate that.”

  Hayden spun in a circle, his fists clenched. “Where is she? Where are you?”

  “Guys, relax.” I turned right and left in my chair, straining my eyes to spot her through the trees. “She’ll come out, if…if we tick her off enough.”

  “So leaving my brother’s funeral wasn’t enough?” Hayden growled.

  Evey slowly dropped her hands. “Apparently not.”

  “That was pretty bold, showing up at Ian’s service like that.” I spoke loudly, knowing Isolde could hear me, even if I couldn’t see her. “It’s clear you’re not only a psychotic murderer, but a cocky one, as well. It’s no wonder Ian rejected you.”

  He hasn’t rejected me. There’s still time.

  Evey put her hands back over her ears, and Hayden shuddered.

  “That’s not what I hear.” I gripped the edge of my armrests with white knuckles. “Ian said he’d never take you as a mate. He said you make him sick, that you’re repugnant, and—”

  I should have killed him when I had the chance! She stepped forward out if the pine trees about halfway between where we stood and the water’s edge. Evey and Hayden’s eyes widened at the sight of Isolde in the daylight.

  Isolde was beautiful, there was no denying that. Wide eyes that toed the line between doe-like and freakish, lined with lashes that were impossibly long. Her hair was waist-length and wavy blonde, dreaded into thick ropes at the bottom. It was easy to forget she was naked, though I could practically feel how uncomfortable Evey was with her boyfriend staring down a chick with no clothes on.

  This was my first time being so close to Isolde outside of the water, and I could see that the skin on the sides of her thighs, hips, and upper arms were patterned with greenish yellow speckles. At first glance, they looked like freckles, but when she stepped closer to us, twigs and leaves crunching underneath her bare feet, they were identical to the colorful splotches dotting the backs of many of the trout breeds in Pend Oreille.

  Hayden was the first to move toward Isolde. “You’ve done enough. You need to stay away from me. Away from my family. Do you understand me?”

  “Be careful,” Evey whispered.

  Isolde pricked one side of her mouth upward. Yes. Be careful, little brother. You might be next.

  I rolled forward. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  Her focus turned to me. Wouldn’t I?

  I shook my head, feigning confidence. “If you did that, it would be murdering a second human, and we both know that’s not an option. That would be considered conspicuous, wouldn’t it?” I drew in a shuddering breath and glanced at Hayden. His anger was palpable. “The Mer won’t tolerate Isolde trying to take a second mate. They’ll destroy her before they do that.”

  Conspicuous is falling in love with a human and refusing to alter her. Conspicuous is then telling her idiotic friends about our existence and expecting them to keep it a secret. My kind will be hunted down, trapped, and murdered before we’d have time to flee. Or worse.

  “What could be worse than being murdered?” Evey’s voice cracked. I shot her a look. We didn’t need to have a heart to heart with Isolde.

  Isolde stepped close to my sister, and my heart lunged into my throat. A Mer’s existence contradicts everything humans believe in. If one were caught alive, that Mer would be researched for as long as it survived. Blood samples, tissue samples, test after test intended to torture that Mer until they understand every last detail about my kind and have enough knowledge to eliminate our clan as a whole. If it were you being researched, I would imagine you’d beg for death.

  Isolde reached for Evey’s face, but Ev took a stumbling step backward. Clenching my fists, I prepared to launch myself at her. If I could just get Isolde onto the ground, I would have the upper hand. It would feel so gratifying to ram my fist into her face a dozen and a half times. If she so much as touched my sister…

  “Back away from her.” Hayden insinuated himself between Evey and Isolde.

  Isolde’s focus shifted to him, and she fingered his lapel. I should have found you first.

  I heard Evey suck in a sharp breath when Isolde’s eyelids sank low on her eyes, her lips curved into a seductive curve. She leaned her chest into Hayden’s and he relaxed his fists, letting them fall open at his sides.

  All I was trying to do was fulfill my responsibility. You wouldn’t deny me, would you?

  I could only imagine how good it felt as the warmth spread throughout his body, from the ends of his toes to the top of his head. Isolde was beguiling Hayden. Using her seductive abilities to lure him in.

  “Hayden.” I kept my voice low. “Back away from her. She’s…she’s…”

  “Ticking me off.” Evey used her pitching arm to reach around Hayden and shove Isolde. “Back off!”

  Hayden shook his head and jerked away from Isolde’s touch. “Get away from me.”

  “You need to go now, Isolde.” I took hold of Evey’s arm and pulled her back. “You’re as unwanted here as you are in your clan.”

  The muscles in her face stiffened, and she clenched her jaw. You would understand being unwanted, wouldn’t you? Nobody on the surface wants a woman with a broken body. Isn’t that why Ian rejected you? Isn’t that why you were so miserable before Saxon came along?

  I ground my molars together. “You know nothing about me.”

  Oh, but I do. She shifted her body so that she was facing me head on. Saxon and I used to come to the surface in this bay all the time. I saw you. You would sit on the dock, all forlorn and lost. Crying because you were only half the girl you were before that chair and because nobody would love you like that. She gestured to my chair, to the wheels that served as my legs.

  I pointed toward the water with
a trembling hand. I could feel Evey and Hayden’s eyes on the side of my face. “Get out of here. Your words mean nothing to me. In case you forgot, Saxon loves me.”

  A muscle below her left eye twitched, so I knew I’d gotten to her.

  There was a pause. I wished Isolde wasn’t evil. I wished she was as kind and thoughtful and loving as Saxon was, so I could ask her whether or not he’d gone before the Council yet. But if I asked Isolde now and showed her anything beside the false confidence I was trying so hard to exude, she would take that weakness and use it against me. I prayed she couldn’t see through my façade.

  Yes, he does love you. But alas, he’ll be put to death tomorrow.

  “What?” Hayden and Ev both blurted at the same time.

  I gulped, the inside of my throat tasting like sand. “E-excuse me?”

  She had the upper hand again, and she knew it. She sauntered backwards toward the lake, the tall grass and fern swallowing her lower legs. You’re little forbidden love has damned Saxon to death. He went before the Council today, and they refused his offer. He’ll be sacrificed to the Mere Monstrom tomorrow night. I actually owe you both a debt of gratitude. Because of you, I’ll be allowed to live. Instead of eliminating me for the Ian debacle, they’re choosing to focus on Saxon’s mistake.

  The trees, the brush, the grass…all blurred into a mash of green and brown around me, and all I could focus on was Isolde’s mouth, peeled back into its smirk as she spoke. When I opened my mouth, my voice cracked. “But you murdered a human who refuses to make the connection with you. You’re a liability to the clan. Saxon can contribute! Why aren’t they putting you to death!?”

  Because Saxon broke our most absolute law. He made the connection with you, before drowning and altering you. Now humans know about Mer, and my clan is scared. There is talk of an uproar, of fleeing Pend Oreille. The Council doesn’t want to put two Mer to death and risk losing the clan’s trust now when they’re on the verge of rebellion. Saxon will be used as an example, used to appease the Mere Monstrom, and to teach my clan what can happen when we don’t fulfill our responsibilities.

  “I need to see him.” Surprising myself, I rolled forward and reached for Isolde’s hand. She withdrew into the trees even more. “Please. Please help him escape. Please, he’s your oldest friend.”

  How stupid do you think I am? She raised her eyebrows high on her forehead. If I help Saxon escape, they’ll put me to death.

  “Then let him escape long enough to come say goodbye!” I was screaming at her now. I leaned forward in my seat, both hands clawing the leather I was resting on. “Please. You can watch him the entire time so he can’t run! Just let me say goodbye to him. Please!”

  Keeling over, I wrapped my arms around myself and pressed my forehead against my knees. It felt as if I’d been punched repeatedly in the gut, and my insides were dislodged and dislocated. I was dying. I heard Evey say my name, her hands rubbing patterns up and down my back while I wept, but couldn’t make out the other words she was saying. None of it mattered.

  Isolde watched me cry for a few beats. It wasn’t until she spoke again that I looked up through my reddened eyes and saw her at the bottom of the hill, looking up at me with the clearest expression of sympathy I’d ever seen. It startled me, having not ever seen anything but anger and malice contorting her face. But now her eyes liquefied, and the corners of her mouth pulled downward into a perfect upside down U. When she spoke, her whisper filled my head and rang in my ears, even though it was the quietest sound I’d ever heard.

  I’ll see what I can do.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  My mother folded her arms across her chest and stared down at me. There was a line running from one end of her forehead to the other. “Luna, what is going on with you?”

  I looked back out over the lake. It was unusually calm and glass-like, and it made me wonder what horrific activity lurked under the surface of that crystalline water. “Nothing.”

  “You were up all night, and your face is splotchy.” She shuffled her feet on the wooden planks of the dock. “Your eyes are so swollen, they barely open.”

  “So?” I could feel the old, sullen Luna returning. Unfortunately, annoying my mom didn’t give me quite the satisfaction it had a few short months ago. I guess that was what growing up a bit and falling in love did to a person. Guilt pressed down on my brain, a headache flaring just behind my puffy eyes. I glanced up at my mom, but only for a second. “I’m fine, Mom. OK?”

  She set down her purse and shopping bags, then knelt down next to my chair. My mom put her hand out to cover mine, then drew it back and tucked it under her chin. “What happened? Did you and Saxon have a fight?”

  I bit the inside of my cheek and shook my head. After waiting for Saxon until four o’clock that morning, I’d cried myself to sleep, then spent the next few hours with grotesque nightmares. Both of my parents had asked me, repeatedly, to tell them why I was weepy and inconsolable, but I’d retreated back into my old patterns. I withdrew myself from my family, hiding in my bedroom where I sat parked in front of the window, watching the dock for some sign—any sign—that Saxon was alive.

  The gravity of what I’d done pressed down on me so hard, I could scarcely draw breath anymore. It took every ounce of effort just to keep my heart beating inside of my chest, and I honestly wasn’t sure if I could manage to do that for much longer. Because of our relationship, Saxon would be eaten by a sea monster in front of his entire clan. It wasn’t as if I could fall into my mother’s arms and cry to her about the injustice of it all. This wasn’t your typical teenage breakup. I hadn’t been dumped for the redheaded cheerleader this time.

  “We didn’t have a fight.” I tasted blood in my mouth and loosened my bite.

  My mom deepened her frown. “Then what’s wrong? Why are you so upset?”

  When I opened my mouth to respond, a choking sound escaped. My mom brought her fisted hand out from under her chin and covered mine. There was a familiarity in her touch that made my heart squeeze. I’d missed my mom’s affection. We’d both pulled away from each other so much since the accident that I’d almost forgotten how good it felt to be comforted by her.

  “Oh, honey, come here.” Sitting up on her knees, she wrapped me in her arms, and cradled the back of my head. “Did you break up?”

  I could smell my mother’s shampoo. She’d been using the same brand since I was in grade school, and now the aroma of oats and honey comforted me as my stomach clenched. “No…yes…I mean, I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?” She stroked my hair.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, a couple more tears were sent rolling down my cheeks into the fabric of her T-shirt. I couldn’t tell my mom Saxon was going to die, or already had, and that it was all my fault.

  For a few hours after our exchange with Isolde the afternoon before, I’d actually thought she would bring Saxon back to me. But once darkness settled over our corner of northern Idaho, Hayden was forced to leave our waterside vigil to return to his very angry parents. My parents turned off all of the lights and went to bed…it became clear that Isolde had opted out of her promise.

  “He’s just gone.” My words were garbled. “I…I don’t know where he is, but he’s not coming back.”

  “How do you know that?” My mom pet the back of my messy head of hair. “You’re supposed to go to the prom tonight. Why would he leave town on prom night?”

  I made a snorting sound. For the first time in my life, I understood why my parents were always telling me that my high school life would be but a small moment. They were so right, it made my stomach turn. There was so much more to life than proms and dresses and who asked whom. The world was so much bigger than Sandpoint, Idaho. It spread across millions upon millions of miles and included creatures and species that no scientist or scholar had ever seen. This realization made me feel very, very small. And even more insignificant.

  I pulled away from my mom’s shoulder. “I don’t think he cares about
the prom right now. I know I don’t.” Looking away from my mom’s worried face, I scanned the water of Moon’s Bay again. “I guess that probably makes you happy. You didn’t want me to go anyway.”

  My mom took her time drawing in a long breath, then released it slowly. “Your dad and I are protective of you.”

  “You don’t say.” I winced. Sometimes it was entirely too easy to keep my inner snotty teenager at bay.

  Her green eyes flashed. “We’re overprotective of you because we failed once and almost lost you.”

  I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to have this argument. Again. “Mom, I—”

  “If I’d stopped arguing with you for thirty seconds and reminded you to buckle your seatbelt, you probably wouldn’t be in that chair.” The sunlight caught on the tears in her eyes and I froze in place. My mom was always so tough. “If your dad hadn’t picked that fight with you at the truck stop about how short your cutoffs were, you probably wouldn’t have been so mad when you got into the car. You might have buckled up if you’d not been so ticked off when we pulled back onto the freeway.”

  “I already told you.” I pointed at my chest. “I didn’t buckle my seatbelt. I did this, not you.”

  She pressed her fingers to her lips. “I know you think I treat you like a baby, but I don’t mean to. I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you. I couldn’t live with myself if something awful happened. Again.”

  It was my turn to reach for her hand. “Nothing bad is going to happen to me. Especially now.”

  She leaned against my shoulder. “What does that mean?”

  I released her and smiled falsely. “Because I’m not going tonight. So all is well. I’ll be safe.”

  “Yes, you are.” She pressed her lips together and stood back up. “You’ve got to keep an eye on your sister. This is her first date.”

  “Wait.” I shook my head. “You said she was going to keep an eye on me.”

  My mom’s bony shoulders rose and fell. “I guess I’ve changed my mind.”