Authors: Anna Banks
She scowls and slams her pencil down on the counter. “I despise doing homework on Saturdays,” she says. “This is all your fault. You need to stop skipping school. Then I wouldn’t
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feel obligated to be productive while you’re doing your catch- up 0—
work.” She snatches his pencil from his hand and launches it
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across the kitchen, narrowly missing Rachel by the fridge.
Rachel shoots them a quizzical look but keeps cleaning.
Galen grins. “We could just chill if you want.” Emma raises a brow at Rachel. Rachel shrugs her innocence. “Nuh- uh. Don’t look at me. I didn’t teach him that.”
“Picked it up all on my own,” he says, retrieving his pencil from the fl oor.
“Figures,” Emma sneers.
“Aww, don’t hate on me, boo.”
“Okay, I’m drawing the line at ‘boo.’ And don’t call me
‘shorty’ either,” Emma says.
He laughs. “That was next.”
“No doubt. So, did anyone explain how you chill?” Galen shrugs. “As far as I can tell, chillin’ is the equivalent of being in a coma, only awake.”
“That’s about right.”
“Yeah. Doesn’t sound that appealing. Are all humans lazy?”
“Don’t push it, Highness.” But she’s smirking.
“If I’m Highness, then you’re boo. Period.” Emma growls, but it doesn’t sound as fi erce as she intends.
In fact, it’s adorable. “Jeez! I won’t call you Majesty either. And you will. Not. Ever. Call me Boo again.”
His grin feels like it reaches all the way to his ears as he nods. “Did . . . did I just win an argument?” She roll her eyes. “Don’t be stupid. We tied.” He laughs. “If you say I won, I’ll let you open your present.” She glances at the gift bag and bites her lips— also adorable.
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She looks back at him. “Maybe I don’t care about the present.”
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“Oh, you defi nitely care,” he says, confi dent.
“No, I defi nitely do NOT,” she says, crossing her arms.
He runs a hand through his hair. If she makes it any more diffi
cult, he’ll have to tell her where they’re going. He gives his best nonchalant shrug. “That changes everything. I just fi gured since you like history . . . Anyway, just forget it. I won’t bother you about it anymore.” He stands and walks over to the bag, fi ngering the polka- dot tissue paper Rachel engorged it with.
“Even if I say you win, it’s still a lie, you know.” Emma huff s.
Galen won’t take the bait. Not today. “Fine. It’s a lie. I just want to hear you say it.”
With an expression mixing surprise and suspicion in equal parts, she says it. And it sounds so sweet coming from those lips.
“You won.”
As he walks the bag over to her, he feels giddy, like he were the one getting a gift. In a way, he is. When he passed the wreck on his way back from the Cave of Memories, he knew he had to take her there. “Here. Go change. You don’t need the mask and fl ippers, but I want you to wear the suit. It’s designed to retain your body heat. It can keep a human alive in freezing temperatures for a few hours, so you should be nice and cozy in it.” She peers into the bag. “A diving suit? Why would I need this?”
He rolls his eyes. “Go change.”
When she emerges from the bathroom, he almost falls off the bar stool. The suit hugs every curve of her body. The only thing
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he doesn’t like is the way she’s scowling. “I look like a seal in 0—
this thing,” she says, pointing to the hoodie.
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He grins. “Keep it on. If you’re warm enough when we get there, you can take it off , I promise.”
She gives an impatient nod. “This better be good.” To preserve her air, they stay surfaced. Occasionally, he dives to check their location. This last time, he grins. “We’re here.” She smiles. “Finally. For a while I thought we might be going to Eu rope.”
“Before we go down, are you okay? Cold?”
She shakes her head. “Not at all. Actually, I’m kind of hot.
This thing really works.”
“Good. Deep breath, okay? Dr. Milligan told me to pull you down slowly to make sure your body can handle it. If you feel tightness in your chest or anything uncomfortable, you need to tell me right away. We’re going deeper than ten Empire State Buildings.”
She nods, eyes wide. Her cheeks fl ush with either excitement or the heat she complained about. He smiles as his arms encircle her waist. As they descend, she talks to the curious fi sh fl itting about. But the further they go, the fewer and fewer fi sh there are until Galen would be surprised to see any that didn’t glow.
“How did you meet Dr. Milligan, anyway?” she says, almost as an afterthought.
“I saved his life. Well, we saved each other’s lives.” She rests her head against his chin. “Says the guy who hates humans.”
“I don’t hate humans.” At least, not anymore.
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After a few minutes, she wiggles in his arms. “Well?” she says.
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He turns her around to face him. “Well what?”
“Are you going to tell me how you saved Dr. Milligan’s life?”
“You really are the most curious person I know. It worries me.”
“It should.”
He chuckles. When she arches a stubborn brow, he sighs.
“Toraf, Rayna, and I were playing around some reefs off the coast of the Bridge Land— er, Mexico, is what you call it. We were about ten years old, I think. Anyway, Dr. Milligan was snorkeling with two of his friends on the other side of it. We were careful to stay away from them, but Dr. Milligan had strayed from the rest of the party. I found him on our side, lying on the bottom and clutching his leg; he had a cramp. I could tell he was about to pass out. I pulled him to the surface. His friends saw us and pulled him into the boat. They saw my fi n; I wasn’t very good at changing into human form yet. Or Blending. They tried to pull me into the boat.”
Emma gasps. Galen gives her a crooked smile. “This won’t give you nightmares, will it? You know how it ends. The good guys get away.”
She pinches him. “Get on with the story.”
“Dr. Milligan put the boat in gear, full- speed. They lost their balance and dropped me. The end.”
“Nooooo. Not the end. How did you fi nd each other again?
That was before you met Rachel, right?”
He nods. “I didn’t see him again for another year. I kept
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going back to the reef, because I thought he might, too. And one 0—
day, he did.”
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“What about his friends? Did they ever try to fi nd you again?”
Galen laughs. “They still do. And they’re not his friends anymore.”
“Aren’t you worried they told someone about you?” He shrugs. “No one believes them. Dr. Milligan denied the whole thing to the human authorities. It’s his word against theirs.”
“Hmmm,” she says, thoughtful.
They spend the next few minutes in silence. Just when he thinks he can’t take it anymore, she talks again.
“I’m defi nitely not hot anymore,” Emma says. Galen stops.
“No,” she says quickly. “It feels good. Keep going.” She would tell him anything at this point to see the surprise. And he would give her the benefi t of the doubt. The truth is, he’s excited this moment is here.
When they get close, he faces her to him again. “Close your eyes. I want this to be a real surprise.”
She laughs. “You think I even know where we are? We could be in the North Pole for all I know. I don’t have a sense of direction on land, Galen.”
“Well, just the same, close your eyes.”
When she complies, he picks up speed, skirting them along the ocean fl oor until he sees it looming ahead of them. He turns her around. “Open your eyes, Emma,” he whispers.
He knows the exact moment she opens them. She gasps.
He knew she would recognize it. “The Titanic, ” she breathes.
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“Ohmysweetgoodness.”
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He swims them to the hull. She reaches out to brush her fi ngers along the rail made so famous in movies. “Careful of the rust,” he warns.
“It looks so lonely. Just like in the pictures.” He heaves them over the rail and supports her body weight so she can touch her feet on the deck. The stirred- up muck fl oats around them like an apparition. Emma laughs. “Wouldn’t it be funny to leave fresh footprints here? I bet they’d come up with all sorts of ghost stories. It would make headlines.”
“It would only increase the traffi
c down here. They’re already
selling trips to the Titanic to tourists who can aff ord it.” She giggles.
“What?” he says, smiling.
“There’s this big glass jug in the back of my closet. Last year when we studied this in school, I started throwing all my change in it to save up for one of those tours.”
He chuckles and lifts her from the deck to move forward.
“What will you spend it on now?”
“Probably some of that chocolate Rachel keeps around the house. I hope I have enough.”
Everywhere she wants to go, he takes her. To the port- side deck, to the anchor, to the giant propeller. He pushes them inside and shows her the offi
cer’s quarters, dilapidated halls, frames
of windows with no glass. “We can go deeper in if your eyes are adjusting.”
She nods. “It’s like looking at things in the moonlight on a
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clear night. I can see almost everything if I really focus.” 0—
“Good.” He reaches a hole in the hall fl oor and points into
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the darkness. “No human has been down there since the ship sank. You up for it?”
He can see the hesitation in her eyes. “What?” he asks.
“You feel bad? Are you low on air? Is the pressure too much?” He clutches her tight, ready to spring up if she answers yes to any of it. Instead, she shakes her head and bites her lip.
“No, it’s not that,” she says, her voice cracking.
He stops. “Triton’s trident, Emma, what is it? Are . . . are you crying?”
“I can’t help it. Do you realize what this is? It’s a steel coffi n for over fi fteen hundred people. Mothers drowned with their children here. People who once walked down these halls got trapped underneath them. They ate off the dishes broken everywhere. Someone actually wore that boot we passed. Crew members kissed their families for the last time the day this ship left port. When we studied it in school, it made me sad for all these people. But it never felt as real as this. This is heartbreaking.” He brushes her cheek with the back of his hand, imagining the tear that would be there if they weren’t twelve miles deep. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. I’m sorry.” She grabs his hand but doesn’t move it away from her. “Are you kidding? This is the best surprise you could have planned.
I can’t think of anything else that could top this. Seriously.”
“Do you want to keep going then? Or have you seen enough?”
“No, I want to keep going. I just felt I should acknowledge what happened here all those years ago. To be a respectful visi-
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tor, not just a mindless tourist.”
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He nods. “We’ll explore a few more minutes below, then I need to take you up. We need to surface slowly, so your lungs can adjust if they need to. But I promise, I’ll bring you back if you want.”
She laughs. “Sorry, but I think this is my new favorite hang-out. We might as well pack a lunch next time.” Together, they swim deeper.
A warm glow from inside her house illuminates the doorstep.
He shuts off the engine, fi ghting off the urge to back them out of the driveway and go somewhere, anywhere else. As long as they go together.