That led them to stop at a gas station, where Daniel got an atlas and mapped out the route. Harper fumed quietly about the unnecessary detour for a few hours, while Alex sulked.
According to Daniel’s earlier calculations, they should’ve reached Myrtle Beach around midnight. Thanks to all the stops and starts, it was almost twelve and they were still over two hours away.
That was when the length of the trip started wearing on Harper. She would’ve thought that her excitement and nerves would’ve kept her awake, but she’d slept terribly the night before, and the whole situation simply exhausted her.
In the backseat, Alex snored fitfully. He’d nod off, but almost as soon as he did, he seemed to become aware of it and would wake himself up again.
“He should’ve gotten a Red Bull at the gas station,” Daniel said, referring to their pit stop about an hour before.
“What?” Harper blinked. She’d been spacing out and had barely heard him.
“Alex.” He gestured to the backseat, and Harper glanced behind her.
Alex’s chin had fallen to his chest, and he swayed slightly in motion with the car. He snorted loudly, but didn’t wake up this time.
“Yeah, I guess, he’s really out,” Harper said, stifling a yawn, and turned her attention back to the road.
“How are you holding up?” Daniel asked.
He sat next to her, appearing surprisingly chipper. The map was on his lap, folded in just the right way so their path was sitting faceup, and he had a can of Red Bull in his hand. So far on the trip, he had yet to yawn or sleep or even complain of being tired.
“Great,” Harper said, but that was at least partially a lie. She was fading, and the highway seemed to stretch on in an eternal blackness that made her eyelids heavy.
“You sure?” Daniel asked. “Because I can take the wheel. You’ve been driving this entire time, and it wouldn’t hurt to trade off.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine.”
There was no real reason not to let Daniel drive, except that it made her feel a bit more in control of the situation. She wasn’t, really. Gemma had run off and turned into a monster, and there was nothing Harper could do about it.
But she could drive the car. She could keep them moving in the direction of her sister, and that was the best she could do right now.
“Let me know if you do get too tired,” Daniel said. “I’ll be happy to take over.”
“I’m fine,” Harper repeated.
There were hardly any cars on the road. It was a completely open stretch of highway, devoid of streetlights or houses. The car window was down, and Harper could smell the nearby ocean.
The moonlight shone down on them, and the yellow lines in the middle of the road began to blur.
“Whoa!” Daniel said loudly. The car suddenly jerked to the side, and Harper’s eyes flew open. His hand was on the steering wheel, guiding it so they didn’t drive off the road.
“What’s going on?” Alex asked, sounding panicked in the backseat. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, Harper’s just pulling over now,” Daniel said, his hand still on the wheel.
“I’m fine,” Harper repeated, now wide awake after nearly crashing the car.
“Nope, you’re falling asleep at the wheel,” Daniel said. “Pull over.” He wasn’t demanding, exactly, but there was a forcefulness to his tone, and Harper was too tired to argue with him. Besides, he was right.
“Who will check the map?” Harper asked as she parked the car on the side of the road. “I don’t want to get lost again.”
“Alex can handle it,” Daniel said. “He’s had a nap, and I have an extra can of Red Bull he can drink.”
“What’s going on?” Alex asked, still groggy and confused.
Daniel had opened the passenger door to get out, but he turned back to Alex. “Hop out. You’re up. It’s your turn as navigator. Harper’s gonna sleep in the backseat for a while.”
Reluctantly, Harper got out of the driver’s seat, and before she slid in the back, she warned Alex that if he got them lost again, she would literally kill him. She sprawled out in the backseat, expecting sleep to come slowly, but she was out within minutes.
Up front, Daniel and Alex started talking, and Harper would drift in and out of sleep, catching bits of their conversation. Most of it was mundane, and there was a bit where Daniel was apparently attempting to explain some kind of sporting event to Alex, and then Harper was asleep again.
She woke up again, and would’ve fallen right back to sleep like she had before, but then she heard her name, and she opened her eyes.
“Harper’s just that way,” Alex was saying. “You can’t take it personally.”
“I’m not,” Daniel said, but he sounded a bit defensive. “Well. I don’t know. I try not to.”
“She’s just a control freak,” Alex said. “And I mean that in the nicest way possible.”
“Is she sleeping?” Daniel asked.
Alex turned to look in the backseat, and Harper closed her eyes quickly before he could see that she was awake. If they were talking about her, she wanted to hear what they had to say.
“Yeah, she’s out,” Alex said. “I kinda can’t believe she’s sleeping. The last week must’ve been really hard on her.”
“It definitely has,” Daniel agreed. “Every time I see her, she just seems so exhausted and sad.”
“Hopefully, when Gemma comes home she’ll feel better,” Alex said.
“Yeah, I hope so.”
The boys lapsed into a silence, and Harper decided to try to sleep again. If they weren’t saying anything interesting, it would be better for her to get some rest. She wanted to be wide awake when they found Gemma.
“How long have you known Harper?” Daniel asked, and the sound of her name perked her up again.
“Um, I don’t know exactly,” Alex answered. “I think, like, ten years or so. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Daniel replied quickly. “No reason. I was just curious.”
“Oh,” Alex said. “How long have you known her?”
“A few months,” Daniel said, then fell silent for a minute before asking, “So … you and Harper have been friends that whole time?”
“Pretty much,” Alex said. “We haven’t been talking as much since I started dating Gemma.”
“How come, do you think?” Daniel asked. “Is Harper sorta jealous?”
“Nah, I don’t think so,” Alex said. “Harper isn’t a very jealous person. I think she’s just kinda weirded out because Gemma’s her kid sister and me and Harper have been friends for so long.”
“But you guys were just friends, right?” Daniel asked. “I mean, it was never…” He trailed off.
“Are you asking me if Harper and I ever dated?” Alex asked.
“Yeah, I guess,” Daniel said, sounding uncomfortable. “Or, you know, if you ever hooked up or anything.”
“No, never,” Alex said.
“Why not?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t know.” Alex sighed. “We just didn’t. It never occurred to us. It’s like asking why you never hooked up with your sister or something.”
“I don’t have a sister.”
“You know what I mean,” Alex said.
“I do, but that’s so … strange,” Daniel said.
“Why is that so strange?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know. She’s a pretty girl, you’re a teenage boy. I guess I just don’t understand how you could just be friends for so long without anything happening.”
“Guys and girls can be friends. It happens. I mean, you and Harper are friends.” Then it finally seemed to dawn on Alex what they were talking about. “Oh. You and Harper aren’t just friends.”
“No, we are,” Daniel replied quickly. “I mean … we … I … It’s complicated.”
“How is it complicated?” Alex asked.
“Well, for starters … I think she hates me,” Daniel said.
“She does not hate you
,” Alex assured him.
“Yeah?” Daniel sounded hopeful. “How do you know?”
“You wouldn’t be in this car,” Alex said. “She wouldn’t even let you near her car if she hated you. And you’d know. Harper can be a bitch when she wants to.”
“So, then … what’s the deal?” Daniel asked.
“I have no clue,” Alex said. “I don’t know anything about your ‘complicated’ relationship. But Harper’s not that big into dating.”
Daniel sighed loudly at that. “Yeah, I got that from her.” He turned to Alex. “Was she burned by a past boyfriend or something?”
“No, I don’t think so. She just…” Alex paused, thinking. “You know how nuts she’s going over Gemma missing?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, she’d be like that if I went missing or Marcy or her dad,” Alex said. “Well, probably not quite as bad for me or Marcy, but she’d still do everything she could to find us. She feels like she needs to take care of everybody. And as much as she loves Gemma and her friends, I think she just looks at a boyfriend as another person she’d have to take care of, and she doesn’t feel like she has time for that.”
“But I don’t want her to take care of me,” Daniel said. “If anything, I want to take care of her.”
“That’s not how Harper works,” Alex said. “If she wasn’t worrying about everyone and trying to make sure everything was all right, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself.”
“So what you’re saying is that I can’t change her mind?” Daniel asked.
“It is incredibly difficult to change Harper’s mind,” Alex allowed. “But what I’m saying is that I’ve never dated her, and I have no idea how one would go about doing that.” He let out a deep breath. “Hell, I don’t even know how to date my own girlfriend.”
“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “I thought you were doing pretty good. Gemma seemed super into you. If she hadn’t gotten turned into some bizarre mythical creature, I’m sure the two of you would be doing just fine.”
“This is just how my life goes,” Alex said. “I have enough trouble dating girls, and now I have to figure out how to date a mermaid.”
“Sorry, man,” Daniel said, laughing a little. “But if anybody can handle it, I’m sure you can.”
“Thanks for the pep talk,” Alex said, laughing himself.
“Anytime,” Daniel said. “How far away are we anyway?”
“Um…” Alex rustled the map. “I think we’re almost to Myrtle Beach now, and then it’s roughly forty-five miles after that. So we’re getting close.”
Things were quiet after that, and Harper felt guilty about the way she treated Daniel. She didn’t want to stop hanging out with him, but she wondered if she was being fair to him.
Eventually she fell back to sleep while debating what she should do about Daniel. Alex woke her up when they finally reached the town. The sky was just beginning to lighten with very early morning sun, and Harper stretched in the backseat.
“Stay close to the beach,” she directed Daniel. She let him continue driving, preferring to look around and scope out the area. “They’re probably staying in a house by the ocean.”
“How will we know when we find it?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t know.” Harper shook her head. “We’ll have to keep a lookout for the girls themselves. We probably won’t be able to find their house, but we’ll be able to see them on the beach or in the water.”
“They have that song, too,” Alex pointed out. “We should listen for that.”
They drove around for a long time, with all three of them growing frustrated the longer the search went on. They ended up driving out of town, hugging the coast as the sun rose higher in the sky.
“Stop!” Harper shouted abruptly, and Daniel put on the brakes.
“Do you see them?” Alex asked, craning in his seat.
“No, but that’s the house,” Harper said, pointing to a massive white mansion. It was surrounded by huge rocks, so they couldn’t even see the ocean from the road. The house was set back at the end of a long driveway, partially hidden by trees that filled the yard.
“What house?” Daniel asked, confused.
“The house from my dream,” Harper said, and she didn’t even know how she knew it. In her dream, all she’d been able to see was the room where she and Daniel had been lying together. It didn’t make any sense, but somehow, deep inside, she knew it. “That’s the house that Gemma is in.”
TWENTY-ONE
New Hope
Gemma had probably woken up a thousand times that night. She tossed and turned horribly before finally giving up on sleep. It was still dark out, and based on the silence in the house, everybody else was still asleep.
It was a feeling inside her chest that she couldn’t shake. Like something was happening or something was coming. It reminded her of how she felt before going to bed on Christmas Eve, only mixed with nausea and a touch of dread.
To calm herself, she decided to go out for a swim. In reality, Gemma had been using night swims to self-medicate for years. It was the way she dealt with any kind of anxiety or unpleasant feelings. She’d tried to give it up when she became a siren, but that’d only made things worse.
Discarding her bikini bottoms on the shore, Gemma dove into the cold water, swimming out under the stars.
She tried to explain the feelings away. It was probably residual guilt from feeding the other day.
Thea had tried talking to her more about it, but there was no consolation for her. She knew what she’d done was wrong, and nothing anybody could say to her would change that.
But it was something she’d have to learn to live with. She couldn’t take it back, and whether she liked it or not, this was part of who she was now. It was part of how she stayed alive, and that was what she’d agreed to do to protect Alex and Harper.
All of the water in the ocean couldn’t wash the blood from her hands, but it did calm her slightly. She swam far away from shore, and then floated on her back, letting her tail flick through the water to steady her, and she stared up at the stars above her.
She tried to make out the constellations that Alex had shown her. The only ones she could really decipher were Orion and Cassiopeia. The sun was starting to rise, and soon the sky had gotten too light for her to see them anymore.
When the sky turned bright pink, Gemma decided to head back to shore. Sawyer seemed to get up rather early, and he might alert Penn if he noticed that Gemma was gone. She didn’t want to get in trouble with the sirens for swimming without telling Penn.
She swam back to shore languidly, relishing the water. As much as she hated everything else about being a siren, there was truly something magical and amazing about being able to swim like this.
Gemma had to remind herself to be grateful for it. She might have given up everything else, but she would always have the ocean.
She stayed close to the surface, bobbing up and down in the water like a dolphin. Once when she leapt out, she thought she heard someone call her name.
She stopped swimming and just treaded water, so her head and shoulders were above the waves. And then she saw him, a figure waving his arms on the beach and running out toward the ocean.
“Alex?” Gemma breathed.
Once she got over the shock of it, she dove in the water, swimming as quickly as she could. She needed to reach him before he yelled again or he might wake the sirens, if he hadn’t already. She didn’t understand how he’d gotten here or what he was doing, but she didn’t care. All she could think about was how much she missed him, and how she couldn’t wait to be in his arms again.
Alex had run out into the water, and he’d gone out deep enough for it to crash over his waist when Gemma finally reached him.
They didn’t even speak when she got to him. She pushed herself out of the water and threw her arms around him. She was cold from the water, and when his arms wrapped around her back, they felt hot against her skin.
&n
bsp; He held her tight to him and kissed her more fiercely than he’d ever kissed her before. There was this panicked insistence to it, like he couldn’t kiss her deeply enough, and Gemma loved it. She put her hands on his neck, pulling him closer to her.
He was lifting her out of the water as they kissed, and her tail pressed against his legs and stomach. Gemma clung to him desperately, and she never wanted to let him go.
Eventually they had to stop so they could breathe, but Alex still held her close to him. He rested his forehead against hers, his eyes closed as he breathed her in.
“I missed you,” he murmured, and kissed her on the mouth again, more gently this time.
“I missed you, too,” she said, wanting to sob. She’d been so certain she’d never see him again, and now she was afraid that she’d never be able to let him go.
At that thought, she returned to kissing him frantically. In the back of her mind, she knew the sirens were nearby in the house, and Alex would have to leave very soon if she wanted him to live. So if she only had a few moments with him, she had to make them count.
His hand moved down, pressing against the smooth scales of her tail, which rose up to the small of her back. Nobody had ever touched her tail before, and the warm touch of his skin sent pleasurable shivers down to her fin.
“Wow.” Alex stopped kissing her so he could look down at the iridescent scales, which shimmered in the early morning light. “So … you really are a mermaid now?”
“Yeah.” Gemma laughed and looked him in the eyes. “I kinda am.”
“So you two are done making out now?” Harper asked, and Gemma looked over Alex’s shoulder to see Harper standing behind him. She’d been so excited about Alex that she hadn’t even noticed her sister there.
Harper had gone out far enough so the water was just lapping against her feet, and Daniel was standing a bit farther back on the shore, looking uncertainly from Gemma to the stark white house on the beach behind them.
“You have to go,” Gemma said. Seeing Harper and Daniel’s unease had snapped her out of her romantic notions, and she realized how dangerous this could get.
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