We helped Mom down a steep path to the beach, where a small group was gathered. They’d set up two speakers, and music began to play.
“Hot damn,” Zeke said, and he gave a wolf whistle that made me smile despite the surreal nature of the moment.
Peyton grabbed my hand and gave me a huge grin, not seeming to notice the hum of energy that coursed through our connected hands. She looked absolutely stunning in her wrap dress, and I remembered her comment from the night we met, when she said we could be real sisters. We were almost the exact same size, but I had to envy the way the satin hugged her slightly curvier frame.
She started forward, and my legs began to move without instruction from my brain. The sand felt as if it were rolling under my feet like waves. A seagull swooped overhead, white against the charcoal grey sky. A buzzing filled my brain, and the rush and roar of the waves seemed to fade into the distance. An irresistible pull dragged me forward. Together, Peyton and I floated toward the guys while a photographer snapped pictures of us. I found my eyes moving across the men in the group ahead. My family.
Zeke was grinning like it was the happiest day of his life. Next to him, Xander stood motionless, his face so incredibly blank he could have been a marble statue. Beside him, Eliot was watching us with a closed-lip smile, a dimple sinking into his cheek. And then there was Finn, his eyes dreamy and unfocused as he watched our approach. Last, Neil waited for my mother, his eyes on us, his face a mix of emotions I couldn’t read.
When we were a few yards away, Peyton dropped my hand and ran forward to throw her arms around him. “I’m so happy for us, Daddy,” she said as he lifted her feet off the ground for a second.
He set her down, and she stepped to his other side, motioning for me to join her.
My mother’s walk was quick and sure. Before I could quell the anxiety churning in my stomach, she was standing with Neil. A minister of some sort started talking.
This was it. She was really going through with it.
This was our last chance to run, to go back on the road. Our last moment to reclaim our old life, to dash up the dunes and back to the parking lot, hop into the car and burn rubber on our way out. Stop at the first house with a shady car in the yard with the words “for sale” scrawled across the windshield. Disappear into the anonymity of the road, of mid-America, and cash-for-hire jobs.
Two words broke through my thoughts.
“I do,” Neil said.
“I do,” Mom said.
A sucking sound drew our attention, and we turned to see a wall of water barreling down on us.
Chapter Fifteen
Peyton
I’d lived in Cape Cod all my life, and I’d seen some monster waves, but this was like a freaking tsunami.
“Get down,” I yelled, grabbing Gwen.
I don’t know why I yelled that. It was instinct. I know, I know, when there’s a tsunami, you should probably get up, not down. But I didn’t have much time to think about that as the monsterest wave of all time came rushing toward us.
The photographer, who was near the dune, took a picture of it and then turned tail and ran. I don’t know what anyone else did, because just then the wave crashed over us. I lost my footing and was tumbled head over heels.
Icy salt water churned around us, rushing into my nose and mouth and ears. My dress tangled around my legs, and I couldn’t tell which way was up or down. Instinct took over, and I paddled madly for a few seconds before I felt myself being pulled out with the water. Seconds later, my head surfaced. I looked around, bewildered, my brain registering the freezing water around me.
A regular-sized wave came barreling toward me. I ducked under and let it carry me toward shore. Staggering to my feet, I dragged myself from the water, my dress clinging to my legs. Around me, my brothers were stumbling out of the water, too. Eliot’s glasses were gone, and he was coughing up water. Xander and Zeke were cursing up a storm. Along with the minister, Finn had been dumped farther up the beach toward the dunes instead of being dragged back by the wave. Only Rosa, who had been watching from the dune and was not part of the wedding party, had been spared.
Dad was looking around frantically. “Where’s Gwen?” he asked.
Olivia, who was crumpled in a heap on the sand, suddenly shot up like she’d been electrocuted. Her bedraggled hair stuck to her face, her makeup streaked down her skin, and her beautiful dress was a ruined mess.
“Gwen,” she shrieked, charging back into the water as fast as her waterlogged dress would allow.
I scanned the water, catching a glimpse of something bobbing out in the waves. “There,” I yelled, pointing.
“She can’t swim,” Olivia screamed.
Xander and Zeke both dove back into the frigid water, disappearing under an incoming wave.
Dad ran out and grabbed Olivia around the middle, lifting her up and turning back to the shore. “You’ll drown yourself,” he barked when she flailed and kicked to get to her daughter.
Tears stung my eyes and choked my throat, and I clung to Eliot, shaking uncontrollably. I tried to imagine how I’d feel if I had only one person in the world, and she was being sucked out to sea in hypothermic temperatures. I had all the love in the world compared to Olivia. Compared to Gwen. I had all these protective, loving brothers and an amazing Dad. They only had each other.
“Let’s get up to the limo,” Finn said. “We’ll all die if we stay out here much longer.”
As if confirming his fears, an icy blast of wind raked across my skin, and Eliot hugged me tighter. “He’s right,” he said, not moving toward the parking lot. “We can’t do anything more than they can.”
The thought of leaving them all out there and hoping for the best was unbearable. I knew Finn was right, but I couldn’t tear my feet from the ground. Finn came to stand beside us, sheltering me from the wind with his body. We were all shaking so hard it felt like the earth was quaking under us.
Dad fell when a wave hit his back, but he staggered to his feet, dragging Olivia with him. Behind them, I saw three heads bobbing in a wave. It began to gather, cresting with all three of them on it. A second later it crashed with a deafening roar, and they disappeared under the water. When their heads came up, they were nearly on shore.
A sob of relief escaped my throat.
Xander stood, dragging Gwen’s limp body in his arms. He charged up through the last of the water and laid her on the sand. One of the straps on her dress was broken, and her tiny boob was exposed. Somehow, it made her look more fragile and lost. Xander peeled back the wet hair matted to her face to find her mouth. Her lips were blue, her skin the white of a dead fish’s belly. I squeezed my eyes closed, letting frantic, muddled prayers race through my head. Pleading she’d be okay, that she was alive, thanking the lord that my two oldest brothers had spent summers lifeguarding, and hoping it was enough.
Xander’s hands crushed down on Gwen’s skinny chest, then his mouth descended on hers. Again and again.
I heard a horrible choking sob coming from my throat, but I couldn’t stop it. It couldn’t be over just like that. It couldn’t. I’d had a sister for exactly one second, and she was being ripped away. It wasn’t fair.
“Let me take over,” Zeke said, grabbing Xander’s shoulder.
Xander shoved him back viciously, pumping Gwen’s chest with renewed vigor.
“Dude, you’re going to hurt her,” Zeke said. “And you’ll wear yourself out. Let me take a shift. Now.”
His voice was commanding, and after a few seconds, Xander’s shoulders slumped and he fell back in the sand, allowing Zeke to take his place.
Olivia screamed, fighting Dad, who was trying to reason with her, though she was obviously unreachable.
“Let’s get the limo ready to take her to the hospital when she wakes up,” Eliot said as Zeke continued working on Gwen. But as we all rushed up the slope, I couldn’t help but think it had been too long. We could save ourselves, but we couldn’t save Gwen.
Chapter Sixtee
n
Gwen
I didn’t know where I was, if I was dead or alive. But my consciousness was there, and something was tugging at it. Calling it back. Telling me to come home.
“It’s not time,” a voice whispered into the nothingness I’d become. “Go back.”
I didn’t know who’d spoken. Someone trying to revive me or something inside me. As if watching from above, I could see a wet, bedraggled group huddling on the beach together. There was a body, her face obscured by someone trying to resuscitate her. Someone had been hurt or drowned in the wave. Anguish pierced me, a stark panic that it was my mother.
But no, the body on the beach had lilywhite skin and a crumpled dusty rose dress clinging to her in a sodden mess. Horror flooded through me.
Peyton.
As I searched the group to see if everyone else was safe, I saw her pink hair pressed against Finn’s chest. Eliot huddled with them. Xander stood alone, watching Zeke bent over the body. Neil held Mom, whose beautiful wedding dress was ruined. And she was freaking out. I had to go back, to get her, to help her.
That’s when I realized it was me down there on the beach. Zeke was trying to save me. I had to get back, but I didn’t know how.
Help me.
I sent the plea out into the void, not expecting a response, but not knowing what else to do. Suddenly, a glowing light filled my vision, and I looked up from the beach below. Above, as blindingly bright as the sun, was a figure of some sort, as if the sun had morphed into a vaguely humanoid shape.
“You are bound together now, as one unit,” a ghostly voice said. It was at once silent and deafening, overpowering and insubstantial. “When you become one, I become complete.”
As the voice spoke into me, I thought I’d burst with the force of it. It was overpowering, a force as great as the sea.
“What are you?” I managed.
“You are a part of me now. The time is drawing near.”
“I don’t want to die,” I screamed with every fiber of my soul, or whatever I was now. Panic like I’d never known gripped me, and I strained to find some way back to my life. If this thing was here to take me away, I wanted no part of it.
“You must go back now,” the being said. “Put my pieces together, and I will speak to you again.”
“I promise,” I said with all the force I could manage.
“You must leave Midgard soon. You have a long journey ahead.”
Before I could answer, a ton of ice thudded into me. Crushing pain shot through my limbs, and panic seared into my burning chest. I fought madly to get away, but my body only twitched, my eyelids fluttering open.
It was enough. Zeke rolled me over, and water poured from my mouth. Gurgling and gagging, I emptied my stomach and lungs.
Before I’d even finished, Zeke spoke. “I’m going to carry you up.”
I didn’t fight as he lifted me and tossed me over his shoulder, my head hanging down behind him. My body was simultaneously aching with cold and heat. My chest, lungs, throat, and stomach were on fire. Gasping for breath, I spit water and bile all the way up the dune.
When we reached the parking lot, Finn jumped out of the limo and opened the doors for us. Zeke slid in with me, and Peyton grabbed my coat out of the pile on the seat and wrapped it around me. Mom leapt onto to me, sobbing as she clutched me against her.
Violent shivers wracked my body, and I was only vaguely aware of everyone else’s apparent nakedness under their jackets as they huddled together for warmth. The limo must have been warm, but I didn’t feel it. I noticed Neil watching us intently, his brow furrowed with concern.
“Don’t go to sleep,” Eliot warned when I closed my eyes.
As the limo sped out of the parking lot, Peyton and Mom pulled off my dress, dropping it to the floor with a pile of wet clothes. I held the jacket tight around myself, determined not to let them see more than they already had. It could have been a lot worse than one boob.
My head was spinning, and I seemed to lose some time. The next thing I knew, we were pulling up to a clinic, and a couple nurses were covering us with blankets, lifting me into a wheelchair, and wheeling me inside.
For a while, I couldn’t focus. Time seemed to stop and start. There wasn’t a hospital in Wellfleet, just a clinic, but they treated the others for mild hypothermia. They’d gone up to the limo to take off their wet clothes before me and Zeke. We were held a couple hours longer, the clinic keeping us under warming blankets and asking us questions about what had happened and other random things that didn’t make sense to me.
When I could finally answer all their questions, and they were satisfied that we were out of danger, they let us go home. By then it was evening. When we got home, the house was oddly quiet, as if it were waiting.
There was no wedding reception, no party. Finn was at some kind of church function, and Xander had apparently taken his motorcycle and left without telling anyone. The rest of us ate clam chowder in a state of sober silence, each lost in our own thoughts. I kept picturing that angel thing I’d seen, turning over what she had said. Or he? I wasn’t sure angels had a gender. I’d seen some crazy things in my life, but angels were not among them.
Had I been dead? Did the words mean anything?
“You looking forwards to your first day of school?” Neil asked, breaking the silence at last.
I nearly choked on a piece of potato. “Tomorrow?”
“They want you to get caught up as quickly as possible,” Neil said.
“You’ve only missed the last ten or so grades,” Peyton said.
“I can’t believe you’ve never been to school,” Zeke said. “It’s awesome, Gwen. You’re going to love it.”
“I don’t have a birth certificate,” I blurted out. I didn’t mention that Mom had burned that, along with all our other documents, in an elaborate ceremony in the desert when I was six.
“You don’t need one to start,” Neil said. “And we’ll work on getting a copy from the state.”
“The state?” I asked, my eyes darting between him and Mom. “They have a copy?”
“You can always request a copy,” Neil said with a reassuring smile.
“From here?” I asked, turning to gape at Mom. “I was born here?”
“At Mass General, in Boston,” Mom said.
I felt like I’d been blindsided. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You never asked.” She smiled and tried to pat my hand, but I drew away.
I ate the rest of my chowder in silence, not sure why I felt so betrayed. Mom was right. I could have asked her any time, and she would have told me. It wasn’t like she’d lied. Yet the anger I’d felt earlier began to creep back. It was just that I’d always been so busy worrying about her, I’d never thought to ask the most basic things. Instead of being a normal kid who knew things like where I came from, I was her caretaker. She took care of me, too, but wasn’t that her job? It wasn’t a kid’s job to make sure her mother didn’t get arrested.
I should have been going to school and making friends so it didn’t feel so strange when people were nice to me. Relating to guys so that I didn’t go into this insane, gluttonous mode where I couldn’t get enough of every single guy I came in contact with. Making casual contact with people so that I didn’t feel like I was going to explode when someone touched me. I should have been learning how to relate to sane people, and how to be a sane person myself.
Instead, I knew how to read maps.
Of course I knew more than that. I knew my birthday, and if I asked about Dad, she did her best to satisfy my curiosity. When I was younger, we’d played a car game called “Did We Live Here?” Any time we entered a new state, I’d ask if we’d been there before. It was hard for me to remember places well. Everything blurred together, since we never stayed in any one place long enough for it to make an impact on our lives. Sure, certain places had more character than others—New Orleans, San Francisco, and yes, Boston. I just hadn’t imagined that’s where I came from. That
I came from any one place and not just the broad stroke of the country’s middle.
I lay in bed for a long time that night, trying to sleep. Nerves fluttered around my stomach. My first day of school was the next day, and I hadn’t even prepared. I wasn’t ready, but Neil said the sooner I got started, the sooner I’d catch up. After the day I’d had, Mom offered to let me stay home, but I was tired of hanging out with my mother. Not only was I getting more irritated with her the more we settled in, but I didn’t want to watch everyone else go off to school while I sat at home. It would just highlight once again how different I was. I wanted to be like everyone else for once in my life.
No one at Wellfleet High would know me, so they wouldn’t know that I wasn’t a typical teenager like them. I’d read so many books about high school, seen it on TVs in laundromats and diners and break rooms. At last, I was going to walk the halls of a real school, just like every other fifteen-year-old in the country.
I was also going to be a hollow-eyed zombie if I didn’t get at least a few hours of sleep. Try as I might, I couldn’t shut off my mind, though. Finally, too frustrated to try any longer, I slipped from my bed and tiptoed down the hall, hoping I wouldn’t have the bad luck to run into Xander again. He hadn’t come home yet, so maybe he was staying the night with his girlfriend or in jail.
In the kitchen I made tea, but no sooner had I sat down, I heard footsteps on the stairs. A moment later, Eliot stepped into the kitchen. He was wearing what I called old-man pajamas, the kind with a button-up shirt and matching pants. His were light blue with thin vertical stripes of white and tan.
I was relieved it wasn’t Xander, but I barely knew Eliot. In the few days I’d been there, he’d seen me in my underwear once, and my boob once, but otherwise, we’d barely interacted. He’d holed up in his room most of the time, appearing at family meals but otherwise remaining on the sidelines during all the activity. I’d been so busy that it had been easy to overlook him. I had a feeling he might get that a lot, especially with the brothers he had.
Emerge: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance Page 10