Authors: Tracy Deebs
Zarek must have realized that I was drifting in and out, because he was suddenly snapping his fingers in front of my face. “I promise, Tempest, you can sleep soon. But right now I need you to concentrate. I have to ask you some questions and you have to answer them.”
It was through sheer strength of will that I managed to do what he asked. He started with my head, poking and prodding and asking about pain, dizziness, blurred vision. His mouth grew grimmer with every question I answered in the affirmative, as did Kona’s, though I tried my best not to look over at him.
Zarek moved on to my neck, then my torso, stomach, and ribs. He pressed low on my pelvis, asked if anything hurt. It did a little, but the last thing I wanted was for him to get personal, to ask if Sabyn had hurt me any way but physically. He hadn’t, but that didn’t mean I relished answering the question in front of Kona and Mahina.
Zarek didn’t get the hint though, or if he did he didn’t care, because he asked me anyway. I’m not sure who looked more horrified, my ex-boyfriend or my best friend, but I quickly answered in the negative. Zarek nodded, but I wasn’t sure if he believed me. The temperature in the subbloon plummeted, and I knew Kona too was struggling with whether or not to accept my answer.
After he’d checked out all my organs and critical areas, he moved on to my ankle—which felt much better after he rested his hands on it and sent heat pulsing into it—and my hand, which started to throb the second he touched it.
Zarek winced in sympathy. “It’s started to heal this way,” he told me. “I’m going to have to rebreak the bones to set them properly.”
I nodded. I’d expected as much.
“Don’t worry, though. I’ll put you out for it and you won’t feel—”
“No!” The word burst from me.
Zarek looked at me in confusion and disbelief. “You want to be awake when I rebreak and set your hand? Are you crazy? Or just a glutton for punishment?”
I shook my head, tried to explain without actually saying it aloud. All those days and hours I’d missed after being drugged
or beaten into unconsciousness at Sabyn’s hands, they felt like a violation of the worst order. The idea of voluntarily submitting for more of the same—even if it was medically advisable—turned my stomach. I didn’t want my consciousness, my ability to sleep or wake up, to be under anyone else’s control ever again.
But to admit that was to admit just how badly Sabyn had damaged my psyche, and that I wouldn’t do. Kona was strong. Mahina was strong. I would be strong too. My clan deserved it and so did my friends. So did I.
Zarek must have realized that I meant business, though, because he didn’t push the issue. He just left it alone as he went about trying to heal everything else that was wrong with me. Which, when Kona asked for a rundown, I found out was extensive.
“She’s got a pretty severe concussion, especially if the symptoms are lingering on this long. I’m going to put that down to lack of medical attention and hope that I can take care of it. Then we’ve got what I believe is a hairline fracture in her jaw, three broken ribs, four broken fingers, a sprained ankle, a bruised pelvis, internal damage to her kidneys—which I fixed as soon as I found it—and more bumps and bruises than I can shake a stick at. Not to mention the fact that she’s severely dehydrated and has lost fifteen pounds she absolutely could not afford to lose.
“It’s a good thing I’m coming with you guys. It’ll take me three or four sessions to get all this stuff at least on the mend.” I knew what he meant—he couldn’t heal me completely because I wasn’t selkie. The best he could do was give me medical
attention and then help the healing process along. Which was fine with me. After all, it was better than what I’d been getting in that dungeon, but it was obvious that Zarek wasn’t happy he couldn’t completely fix me. Then again, he was a healer. It was in his nature to want to heal.
“Well, let’s get started,” I said brightly, hoping to both lighten the mood and move things along. The looks I got from the other three people in the subbloon told me that I had obviously put a little too much perkiness into my voice. Mahina in particular looked like she thought I had crossed the line into deranged. But at least it got Zarek moving.
As Mahina piloted the subbloon and Kona alternated between navigating and cursing Zarek, the selkie healer spent the next several hours doing his best by me. I could feel the aches and pains lessening, and for the first time since Sabyn had nearly killed me, I could hold my head up without feeling like it was going to blast apart. Even my ankle felt better, like it would support my weight if I took it slow, and as he healed my ribs, my breathing finally got easier.
When all that was left was my hand, Zarek looked at me uneasily. “I kind of thought you’d be out already. We did a lot of healing today.”
“It’s fine,” I told him with a wave of my good hand. “Just get it done already.”
“It’s not fine!” Kona fumed from his spot next to me. “You’re being insane.”
“Maybe. But it’s my decision,” I told him with a shrug.
“Not when it makes everyone on the damn boat uncomfortable as hell, it isn’t,” he told me. “Now put your big-girl panties on and deal with it.”
I was outraged. I thought I’d dealt with everything pretty damn well and for him to basically sit there and call me a baby made me furious. I opened my mouth to let him have it when Mahina of all people rushed to his rescue.
“You know he’s right, Tempest. I get that bad shit happened to you in that dungeon, and any other time I would say that you were well within your right to take as much time as you needed to deal with it. But this isn’t any other time. This is now and we need you healthy like yesterday. So just let Zarek do what he needs to do and get over it already.”
The shock of her betrayal burned in my throat. The rational part of me was willing to admit she might be right, but that wasn’t the part of me in control at that point. It was easy to say I needed to get over it, but they hadn’t been there. They hadn’t been helpless while Sabyn had done whatever he’d wanted to my unconscious body. And phobias weren’t rational—that was pretty much the definition of a phobia. Yelling at me about it wasn’t going to change the way I felt.
I guess Zarek saw it in my eyes, because he reached for my hand. My index finger. I took a deep breath, braced myself for the pain. But before Zarek could do anything, I heard Kona mutter, “Screw this.” At the same moment he slammed a heavily muscled arm across my chest, Mahina reached across Zarek and picked up the syringe the healer had prepared just in case I changed my mind. She handed it to Kona and he jammed it into my thigh without a second’s hesitation.
“You bastard!” I gasped, staring at him with what I knew were wide, wild eyes.
His face was next to mine, his eyes boring fiercely into my own. “Yell at me all you want when you wake up, but I’ll
be damned if I sit here and watch you torture yourself for no reason.”
“There was a reason,” I told him. But I could tell he didn’t understand me, that the words had come out garbled as the drug began to take effect. The last thing I saw before I went under was his face, dark, resolute, remorseless.
I woke up with a splint on my hand, a desert in my mouth, and a full mariachi band stomping their clogs into my brain stem. Damn Kona and his brand of tough love. I was going to kick his ass for this.
But when I finally managed to pry my eyes open, I realized that I was alone with Mahina on the subbloon. She was in the pilot’s chair, the craft on autopilot while she kicked back and ate a granola bar with what looked like cranberries and chocolate chips in it. For a second my mouth watered and then the inevitable nausea hit. I scrambled for the miniscule bathroom at the back of the subbloon, where I spent long minutes emptying my nonexistent stomach contents.
When I finally made it back to the front, Mahina had taken us off autopilot and was giving the task of steering the subbloon way more attention than it currently deserved. Which was fine with me. I didn’t have a whole lot to say to her or anyone else right now. I was afraid if I opened my mouth I’d start screaming and never stop, which was definitely not the trait of a good merQueen.
Although, if I was being honest, after everything I’d gone through in the last few weeks, part of me wanted to say to hell with the whole merQueen thing. The whole mer
maid
thing. I’d given up everything for my mother’s clan, for my clan, and they’d repaid me by not just choosing Sabyn over me but by delivering me straight into his evil, oily clutches. I knew it wasn’t everybody, but there had been enough people who’d had the chance to warn me that it sure felt like it was everybody. And maybe it was childish to hold their fear or whatever it was against them, but I couldn’t help it. I’d given up everything for them. My life, my family, my love, only to be sold out in the harshest of ways.
And after what Kona and Mahina had just pulled—whether they’d had my best interest at heart or not—I was just about ready to swim away. I could call my dad from Australia, ask him to send my passport and some money. Hell, I could ask him to come get me and he’d be on the next plane. Within a couple of days, all this could just be a hideously awful nightmare.
“Tempest,” Mahina began softly. “I—”
I slammed a hand up to ward her off. “I don’t want to talk right now.”
“I know. But—”
“I mean it, Mahina. I don’t want to say something I can’t take back.”
“We needed to do it. You were just torturing yourself. I’m sorry but I couldn’t stand to—What are you doing?”
I’d bolted from my chair and started unlocking the hatch at the bottom of the subbloon. She leaped up, but before she could
do more than reach for me, I’d opened the thing. Ocean water rushed in and I slipped out. Started to swim.
It was a stupid move. I knew it even when I did it—I wasn’t close to being ready to keep up with the others. But if I’d had to sit in that tiny little craft with her one second longer, I would go insane. My anger was that powerful, that overwhelming. I could feel myself choking on it.
Of course, even out here, behind the selkies, I wasn’t alone. I’d barely swum a few hundred yards before Kona dropped back to swim next to me.
Tempest, baby, I’m—
I slammed a door shut in my mind, cutting off the personal path of communication we’d been using for a year.
He reared back, his swimming faltering as he realized what I’d done. He grabbed my arm, tried to talk to me on the common path, but I wasn’t listening to him there either. I jerked away, put on a burst of speed. It cost me, but I didn’t care. It was worth it to get away from Kona’s look of hurt incredulity. Like
he
had anything to be hurt about.
For the next couple of hours, everyone steered clear of me. I was aware of Kona behind me, tracking my every move and making sure that I didn’t fall too far behind the pack, but he didn’t approach me again and I was glad. Like with Mahina, I knew if I spoke to him when I was this angry I would say something that would ruin our friendship forever. If it wasn’t already ruined.
We swam through the night with me stubbornly refusing to get back on board the subbloon no matter how much I was hurting. Eventually, though, Zarek dropped back to talk to me, and I could tell from the look in his eyes that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Which was fine with me, actually. I wasn’t angry at him. Zarek had been willing to honor my wishes. He hadn’t liked it, but he had sensed how important it was for me to be in control of my faculties for the first time in three weeks. It was Mahina and Kona who hadn’t given a damn about what I wanted, who had taken things into their own hands.
You keep this up, kid, you’re going to end up undoing all my hard work
.
I know
.
But you’re going to do it anyway? That’s what I call stubborn
.
I can’t go back in there with her. I just can’t
.
You know they were just looking out for you … in their own way
.
I know
.
Zarek looked away, his jaw working. I knew I was putting him in a tough spot; I was his patient, but Kona was his king. No loyalty he had to me could trump that relationship and I didn’t expect it to. Down here, I was getting pretty damn used to old alliances trumping new ones.
Can I at least offer you a ride?
he asked after a few minutes.
I thought of Mahina, of the seahorse ride she’d given me all through the castle and to her house. Tears burned the backs of my eyes, but once again I refused to let them fall.
I’m fine
, I told him.
No, you’re not. And besides, you’re slowing us down, which is dangerous out here. We need to get to safety as soon as possible
.
I wanted to scream. I knew he was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear. Every time I turned around, someone else was taking away my right to choose. Still, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if anyone got hurt because of decisions I had
made. Kona’s people didn’t deserve to suffer because I couldn’t get my crap together.
I’ll go back in the subbloon
, I told Zarek, ignoring the protest in my ribs and head and hand as I swam faster, trying to catch up with Mahina.
You don’t have to do that
, Zarek told me.
I’m more than happy to give you a lift
.
I glanced over at the healer, wondered what his game was. He was usually so standoffish that it was a surprise to see him being this sweet and helpful. Unless—
Did Kona put you up to this?
Actually, Kona’s probably pissed I’m over here. He’s been waiting for you to tire out and call uncle so he can swoop in and save you
.
I closed my eyes. We’d been together almost a year and he still didn’t know me. Right now, I would rather drown than ask for his help.
I said as much to Zarek, who didn’t seem surprised at all. He just smiled and said,
Why do you think I’m here?