Tempest Revealed (15 page)

I started to shake. Not because of the leaving thing, necessarily, but because this was it. I’d wanted to put it off a little longer, to lay the groundwork, but fate decided to take the choice out of my hands. Big surprise. It had been doing that very same thing for a year now.

It was time for me to say good-bye. For good this time.

Mark walked me back to my house while Kona and his guards waited in the water for me to return. Kona stopped just short of telling me to hurry, but I knew if I took too long he’d be knocking down my door.

We stopped on my front porch, Mark waiting patiently while I fumbled my key out of the small beaded clutch I’d been using as a purse all night. He had to know what it meant that Kona was here, but he hadn’t said a word on the walk from the beach. And neither had I. I didn’t have a clue where to start.

But the decision of how to tell him was taken out of my hands soon enough. I was shaking so hard as I tried to put the key in the lock that I dropped it. Then, when I bent to retrieve
it, I ended up dropping the contents of my purse onto the porch as well.

“Whoa, Tempe,” Mark said as he crouched to help. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” I picked up my dad’s phone—he insisted I take it whenever I was going to be out late—and my favorite lipstick, then froze when I realized what Mark was holding.

“Tempest?” he asked, more puzzled than angry as he handed me the chain. “What’s this doing in here?”

I stared at the belly chain and nearly started bawling. I’d stuck it in my purse because I’d planned to give it back to him after breaking up with him tonight. But this wasn’t how I’d wanted to do it, how I’d wanted to tell him that we were over. Then again, nothing else about this visit had gone according to plan. What was one more thing?

I took a deep breath, straightened back up to a standing position. My skin felt like it was on fire, but that didn’t matter now. Nothing did but getting this over with. I’d broken up with two guys in my life—Mark and Kona—and neither time had felt anything like this. The times Mark and I had broken up in the past, it had always been a mutual thing—usually with the understanding that it wouldn’t be forever.

But this time, it was different. This time Mark wasn’t going to make it easy. It wasn’t going to
be
easy. I loved him and I didn’t want to break up any more than I wanted to leave. But what I wanted and what was best for him and the rest of my family were two totally different things. If I was going to get through this, I just had to remember that.

I had to remember him tied up, under the surface and running out of oxygen.

Had to remember Moku lying in that hospital bed so close to death.

Had to remember just this morning when that creature had nearly killed my father to get to me.

If I remembered all of that, I’d be able to get through this no matter how hard it was. Enough people had been hurt or died because of me. I couldn’t stand by and let that happen to one more person. Not now. Not ever again.

“Tempest?” Mark prompted.

I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed for the right words. But in the end, all I could say was, “I’m leaving, Mark.”

“I already figured that out. But when will I see you again?”

“You won’t. I’m leaving for good.”

He stared at me blankly. “I don’t understand.” The look of incomprehension grew worse, not better. Mark was one of the smartest guys I knew, so the fact that he couldn’t grasp my words meant he was all in. He hadn’t even considered that one day we weren’t going to be together anymore.

It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, standing there watching as it finally dawned on him what I was saying. He glanced down at the chain in my hand and then back up at me, his eyes wide and disbelieving and more scared than I had ever seen them.

“No, Tempest! Fuck, no!” He grabbed me then, his hands desperate but still careful as he held my arms right above the elbows. “I won’t let you do this.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“I can. I will. This is wrong; you know this is wrong.” His eyes were wild now, pleading, and it hurt to look at him. Then again, at the moment it hurt just to breathe.

I looked down at the chain clenched in my hands, the gift I’d been carrying with me all night for just this moment. I pulled away, then extended my fist. “Here. I can’t take this. Not now.”

He physically recoiled. And that’s when I saw it happen: the light went out of his eyes and he started to believe—really believe—that we were over.

“Why are you doing this?” he whispered. “You love me. I know you love me.”

“I—” My voice broke, so I swallowed. It was like trying to force razor blades down my throat.

“Tempest, please.” He pulled me into his arms, kissed my cheeks, my forehead, my mouth. As his lips moved against mine, it took every ounce of strength I had not to kiss him back. I didn’t, though, and it took only a minute before he pulled away. “You promised you wouldn’t do this.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? You’re ripping out my heart and that’s all you can say? That you’re sorry?”

“I have to go, Mark.” The tears were there, burning right below the surface. I bit my lip in an effort to force them back, then shifted my gaze so I was looking past him, not at him.

He followed my stare. “Oh, right. We wouldn’t want to keep Kona waiting, would we?”

His sarcasm was a punch to the gut. I sucked my breath in but didn’t defend myself. Of course it looked like that to him, and there was nothing I could say to change it—nothing I
would
say, anyway. Maybe if he thought I was leaving him for Kona he’d be angry instead of devastated.

“What is it with that guy, anyway? He snaps his fingers and you just forget everything you promised, everything you said you wanted, because he comes calling?” Mark shook his head. “That’s bullshit, Tempest, and you know it.”

“I’m not leaving for him. I’m leaving for
me
. I can’t be here anymore. I can’t do this—”

“Can’t do what? Can’t give him up? Can’t keep your promises? Can’t take care of your family? What exactly is it that you can’t do?”

I stepped back, fumbled for the door handle. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“No! Please! Wait.” He reached for me again, grabbed my free hand. “You need a break. Fine, I get that. These last few days have been intense. But at least tell me where you’re going; I’ll meet you there during Christmas vacation like we planned. We’ll talk about this then. Maybe you’ll have changed your mind—”

“I’m not going to change my mind, Mark.”

He fell to his knees next to me, pressed his face against the back of my hands. That’s when I realized he was shaking as badly as I was. That he was crying the tears I wouldn’t let myself shed. “How do you know that? You don’t know that.”

It hurt. I couldn’t believe how much it hurt. Like I had severed a limb or like someone had ripped out my heart. “I do know. We’re done.”

It nearly killed me, but I pulled my hand away.

Opened the door.

Stepped over the threshold.

Mark stood up again. “Tempest.”

One more time, I extended the belly chain to him. “Take it.”

He put his hands up, started backing away. “That’s yours. It was a gift.”

“I don’t—I don’t want it.” Even as I said the words, my fingers tightened on the chain. I wanted it, wanted him, so badly I could taste it.

He didn’t answer me, just walked backward down the steps, his eyes never leaving mine. He stopped when he got to the sidewalk and just stared at me through eyes gone dark with pain. He was wrecked, absolutely wrecked, and as he stood there, a thousand different images flashed through my head of the boy I’d known since childhood.

In first grade when his parents had sent the nanny to Parents’ Day.

On his ninth birthday when his parents hadn’t bothered to come home from work to celebrate with him.

When he was eleven and they hadn’t shown at the bus stop to pick him up from summer camp.

His freshman year, when he’d made the varsity basketball team and had led LJHS to the state championships and they hadn’t bothered to show up. Not to one game.

By then he’d stopped showing what it did to him when they showered him with things instead of time, but I’d known. I’d sat in the stands with my own father and seen the lost little boy he’d worked so hard to hide. I’d hated his parents that night, and a hundred nights since. But nothing they’d done, nothing they’d failed to do, had ever made him look as miserable as he did right now. I was trying to save him, and all I’d done was rip him to pieces.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated.

“Don’t say that to me.”

“I am, though. I’m so—”

“Don’t! Damn it, Tempest! Just don’t!”

I nodded. I couldn’t say any more even if I wanted to. I was too busy choking on my own tears.
Good-bye, Mark
. I mouthed the words and then slowly closed the door.

I heard him bound up the steps, slap his palms against the outside of the door. I pressed my back against it, absorbing the blows as I sank to the floor. I sat there for long minutes, tears pouring down my face as he knocked and knocked. Finally, the knocking stopped. I stood up, peered out the peephole, and watched as, head down and fists clenched, Mark slowly walked away.

I took a deep breath, wiped my face. Then went to tell my father the same news.

Chapter 13

The trip back to Coral Straits was the most miserable, uncomfortable one of my life. Every mile farther I swam from California was another crack in my heart, until I felt like Humpty Dumpty, never to be put back together again.

I tried not to cry. Sometimes I succeeded and sometimes I didn’t, but in the end it didn’t really matter. After all, I was immersed in a giant ocean of salt water—it wasn’t like my tears were exactly visible. Provided I didn’t sob or project my thoughts clearly enough to attract the attention of Kona or his guards, no one would have a clue that tears poured down my face for hours at a time.

It worked for the most part. Of course, that could be because Kona went out of his way to pay absolutely no attention to me at all. His guards alternated between ignoring me and shooting me venomous glares. I was clearly extremely unpopular with the selkie crowd these days, especially Kona’s clan. Not that I blamed them. I might have rescued the crown prince/new king from Tiamat’s clutches, but it wasn’t enough to negate the harsh
feelings that came when I broke up with him days after almost his entire family was murdered by the sea witch I had been charged with stopping. Add in the Mark thing—even if they didn’t see us kissing, I’m sure they saw us walking back to the house—and it was no surprise they were less than impressed with me. Most days I was less than impressed with myself.

I could still picture Mark’s expression when I closed the door in his face. I’d never seen a more devastated person. Not even Kona had looked like that in the midst of his kingdom’s ruins.

My heart wasn’t the only one I’d broken that night.

We’d been swimming for nearly two days now, and if my sense of location was actually working, then we were about two hours away from Coral Straits. The tears were still there, in triplicate, but they’d been joined by a swarm of butterflies. What was I supposed to do when I got to the mercity? What was I supposed to say? Should I head straight to Hailana’s underwater residence or go to the merCouncil’s chambers? Should I try to prepare a speech for the citizens of Coral Straits or just wing it, speaking from my heart?

The problem was, I didn’t know how to do that. Not about Hailana and not about being merQueen. It would be hard enough to do at any time, but to try and do it now, when I was nervous, stressed out, and heartbroken, seemed an impossible task.

Still, I had a lot of impossible tasks in front of me. Better to just put my head down and get this done so that I could move on to the next one. Whatever that might be.

It was ridiculous, really, how little I knew about being merQueen. Oh, I’d spent the last year trying to learn, and I definitely knew more now than I did when I left home on my
seventeenth birthday. But it wasn’t enough. Not even close. Kona had had centuries to prepare for his role as selkie king—twelve months wasn’t exactly in the same class. I needed advice, and fast.

With my desperation outweighing my sense of shame, I broke formation for the first time since the trip began. From the time we’d left San Diego, we’d been swimming with guards in the front, followed by Kona, then more guards, followed by me, then—you guessed it—more guards. Putting on a burst of speed, I passed the center guards, all of whom reached for their weapons like they were actually afraid I was going to attack their king. I rolled my eyes at them, then—under their watchful gazes—tapped Kona on the shoulder.

He turned to me with a frown.
What do you want?
he projected along the private channel he used to communicate with me underwater.

To talk. We haven’t exchanged twenty words since we left San Diego
.

I didn’t think there was anything left to say
.

I gritted my teeth against the annoyance that took root inside of me. I’d spent the last four months being the willing object of his wrath—after all, I deserved it—but enough was enough. Seriously. We had a sea witch to defeat, two kingdoms to rebuild, and a lot of people depending on us. I understood that he was well within his rights to be angry with me, but if we had any hope of keeping our people safe, we had to work together.