Authors: Tracy Deebs
So what was it about her that set me off like that? I’d spent the last year working on gaining total control over my power. I didn’t know why my discipline had suddenly abandoned me, but I didn’t like it. At all. Any more than I liked her.
I tried to tell myself I was being stupid, that I was just jealous because she was obviously trying to usurp my relationship with Moku. Which, if I were honest, was more than enough to make me hate her. I adored Moku, would do anything for him, and the idea of some stranger waltzing in and messing with that made me furious.
But this was more than that, more than simple anger or distrust or dislike. When I looked at her, I felt uneasy. Defensive. Murderous. Only Tiamat herself brought emotions like those out in me. The fact that some redheaded bimbo was suddenly engendering such confusion and rage made me nervous. And suspicious.
Although I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do about my suspicions. I had no proof that anything was up, no evidence
that she was anything but the high-priced hairdresser she claimed to be. Yet every time I’d seen her, my reaction to her had been stronger, more violent. Surely that wasn’t a coincidence.
Since there was nothing I could do about it now—somehow I doubted my dad would take kindly to me electrocuting his girlfriend—I walked over to my closet and stared at the wardrobe that looked both familiar and yet completely alien as well. After wearing bikinis and sarongs for close to a year, it felt strange to be standing in front of row after row of jeans; thin, clingy sweaters; tank tops; and T-shirts. There was also a handful of dresses—each one of which I remembered picking out for a specific occasion—and yet it still felt like they belonged to someone else. To someone I used to be.
I reached out, stroked my hand over what had, at one time, been my favorite sundress. It was the same blue as my eyes, with little bow straps and a short, full skirt that I loved because it made me feel feminine and sexy, two things that had never really been my strong suit. I’d always been too busy keeping up with the guys—on my surfboard and off—to pay much attention to the whole girly-girl routine.
That was one thing that hadn’t changed since I’d become mermaid, but standing here in the middle of the room I’d taken such pains not to spend time in these last couple of days, it felt like it was the
only
thing that hadn’t.
Even after two and a half days on land, my clothes felt awkward on my body, chafing and itching and sagging in all the wrong places. My naturally curly blond hair was freaking out, like it had forgotten how to be dry after so many months underwater. Even my bed was all wrong—hard and lumpy and
uncomfortable compared to the mattress of encapsulated water I slept on deep in the Pacific.
I loved my family, loved Mark, but these days being here had become just as painful as
not
being here.
Letting go of the dress, I told myself to get on with it. To grab a pair of jeans and a sweater heavy enough to keep at bay the omnipresent chill I felt whenever I was on land. After all, Mark was waiting for me.
Mark, who had accepted the truth of my duality without so much as a minor freak-out.
Mark, who had nearly died at the hands of Tiamat because of me.
Mark, who—despite everything—still wanted me. Still loved me with the same desperate intensity that I loved him.
It should be more than enough. It
was
more than enough. Except when it wasn’t.
Frustrated with the confusion tumbling through me like pebbles caught at high tide, I walked to the plate-glass window that made up the western wall of my bedroom. Looked out at the dark blue waves lapping against the sand and wondered what the hell my problem was.
I had never been one of those girls who thought she deserved everything, who believed it was her right to have her cake and eat it too. And yet here I was, clinging to two lives that really couldn’t coexist, no matter how much I wanted them to. I was tied to one, desperate to hold on to the other, and in the end was doing justice to neither. The fact that Mark and my father and Moku and the merpeople of Coral Straits were too polite to tell me so didn’t mean that it wasn’t true. I hadn’t believed
Kona, hadn’t believed Hailana, when they’d told me I had to choose. I’d been so certain I could be both mermaid and human. So what if my mother hadn’t been able to make it work? That didn’t mean
I
couldn’t. I just had to work harder at it than she ever did.
Intellectually, I knew the smart thing—the reasonable thing—to do was to give up my humanity. To dive deep into the Pacific and never come back here again. After all, the human world didn’t need me; it would go on spinning quite nicely without me in it. The same couldn’t be said of the Pacific, which was poised on the brink of a deadly war. A war in which I was a key player.
But sometimes the smart thing wasn’t necessarily the right thing. I had tried going deep before, had tried leaving behind my family, Mark, my whole life. It hadn’t worked for me any more than ignoring my mermaid heritage had. Besides, I couldn’t leave my family at the mercy of that woman. Not when every warning signal I had stood at full alert whenever she was around.
I shifted a little so that I was resting, full body, against the cool glass of the window. As I did, the cheap throw rug beneath my feet crunched as I stepped on splatters of paint I had dropped there in what felt like a different life. Looking at the small purple and blue flakes had me longing for the feel of a paintbrush in my hand, something I hadn’t allowed myself to want in months, because it was impossible. Oil painting wasn’t exactly a doable hobby for a mermaid.
Before I could stop myself, I glanced at the easel set up a scant few inches from where I was standing. It was old and battered,
covered with paint and pastels, but it was sturdy. Reliable. And still bore the weight of the last painting I had created.
A self-portrait of sorts, it was started four months ago when I’d been looking for a way to process my last big battle with Tiamat and her minions, not to mention all of the fallout caused by it. Fallout that included dealing with new, dangerous powers and breaking up with Kona, the selkie prince whom I had loved but couldn’t stay with. Not when there was Mark. And not when I was so uncertain about who I was and who I wanted to be.
The portrait is a back shot, and in it I showcased my tattoos as well as the electricity I was even now still learning how to harness, though I’d lived with the power for months. I’m standing on my beach—the one right outside this house, where I so long ago learned to swim and surf and play. But that childhood innocence, that innocuousness, is long gone. In its place is the malevolent darkness of a storm closing in. There is violence in every cloud, betrayal in every reckless lash of the wind. My arms are raised and spread wide while lightning dances along my fingertips. My feet are planted firmly on the shifting sand, my toes digging into the damp shore in a desperate bid to hold on to what I know I should give up. My hair is flying in all directions, whipping against my face and back in a desperate reprimand. And my power, my terrible and magnificent power, bleeds into every inch of the painting even as a wave of epic heights threatens to crash down on me.
Looking at it now—even after all these months—hurt me. No wonder my father kept sending me searching looks, like he was trying to figure out who I was and what I was thinking. Though the painting was beautiful, it was much more a cry for
help, a desperate search for identity, than it was a viable piece of art. Just looking at it took me back to those tumultuous times, to the aftermath of a battle so devastating that it had destroyed nearly everything I believed in in one fell swoop.
Coral Straits, the mercity that was my mother’s homeland, the place I was poised to take control of in the not-so-distant future, had been decimated by Tiamat and her forces. The merQueen, Hailana, had been gravely injured—as well as exposed for the cold, heartless tyrant that she was. And Kona, poor Kona, had been forced to deal not just with the death of his beloved parents and siblings and his subsequent ascension to the selkie throne, but with what I knew he saw as my betrayal as well. With what, if I was completely honest, I too couldn’t help seeing as a betrayal.
Sighing, I barely resisted the urge to beat my head against the window. I was caught between a rock and a hard place, between the ocean and the shore, and I was finally smart enough to figure out that I was screwed no matter which direction I chose.
I wanted to cry, to scream, to beg the universe for answers. Instead I just stood there and watched the waves strike the shore, again and again and again, and wondered if all this was futile, if all this worrying would even amount to anything. In six months—hell, in three months—would I still be standing here contemplating my fate and where I belonged? Or would I end up like so many of the others who had given themselves to the Pacific? Who had thrown themselves into the fray?
I didn’t know how long I stood there contemplating my close-to-imminent death (Would it be quick like my mother’s? Long and lingering as these last months had been for Hailana? Would I have time to say good-bye, or would I just disappear from my family’s and Mark’s lives? Would they understand that I wasn’t like my mother, that I hadn’t left them voluntarily? Would it
hurt
?) as I looked out at the ocean that both soothed and terrified me. Long enough for the tide to roll in. Long enough for the sun to set. And more than long enough for Mark to grow concerned.
“You okay, Tempest?” His voice drifted up the stairs and through my open bedroom door. “It’s getting late.”
His words galvanized me to action. Shoving my worries and self-pity into the darkest corner of my mind, I finally did what I should have done all along: grabbed clothes from my closet and did the world’s fastest change into my favorite pair of ripped jeans and a red cashmere sweater. After slicking on gloss and doing a quick pass over my eyelashes with some mascara I
found at the bottom of my long-ignored makeup case, I gathered my obnoxious curls into a low ponytail, added the pair of flirty gold hoops Mark had given me for Christmas one year, slid my feet into a pair of low-heeled brown ankle boots, and was out the door.
I made my way downstairs to find Mark still on the couch where I’d left him, clutching an Xbox controller like it was the answer to all of life’s mysteries. He and Moku were racing to the finish line of some car game, and I paused behind them to watch.
“Look out, Moku!” Mark taunted as he whipped around a particularly dangerous curve. “You’re about to get smoked.”
“You wish.” Moku snorted, coming up behind him in the game and clipping Mark’s bumper with his own.
Smiling, because I never took for granted the fact that Mark loved my little brother as much as I did, I met my dad’s eyes above their heads. He was grinning too, Sabrina nowhere to be seen, and for the first time since I’d been home, I felt comfortable. Like I belonged. So much had changed since I’d been gone, but this scene, right here, was one I’d witnessed a million times. If it was the last time I’d ever see it, so be it. I didn’t want to know.
At the last minute, Mark swerved out from the bumper crush Moku had on him, leaving my little brother to crash and burn, hard. “Nooooooooo!” Moku cried in mock horror, falling to his knees in front of the television.
“Take that, sucka!” Mark crowed in triumph, even as he reached down to ruffle my brother’s hair. “You can’t mess with the best.”
Moku pretended to gag. “Yeah, right. That attempt was pathetic.”
“Got you, didn’t it?”
“Because you got lucky!”
Mark snorted. “Keep telling yourself that.”
Figuring I’d better break up the brag fest before they decided to settle it in the age-old manner—with another race—I wrapped my arms around Mark’s waist from behind and pressed soft kisses to the nape of his neck.
He turned immediately, winding an arm around my waist, and pulled me over the back of the couch and onto his lap. “Ready to go?” he murmured, his breath warm against my ear.
Shivers slowly worked their way through me, and I nodded. I was more than ready. Mark and I hadn’t been alone for more than a couple minutes since I’d been home.
I thrilled a little at the thought of climbing on the back of his bike, but when we got outside I realized Mark had run home while I’d been upstairs changing. His mother’s bright red Mercedes sports coupe sat in my driveway, and though I knew he’d brought it because he thought it would be more comfortable for me, I was a little disappointed that we weren’t taking his Ducati.
We hadn’t ridden it together in months, and I missed it, especially the way it felt to sit so close behind Mark, my arms wrapped around his waist, my body pressed to his as I counted his every heartbeat and exhalation.
Mark didn’t let me miss that closeness for long. As soon as we climbed into the car, he covered my hand with his,
intertwining our fingers even as the palm of his hand rested against the back of mine. As he made the turn onto Prospect, he brought both of our hands to rest on the hardness of his thigh, his callused thumb gently stroking over the side of my hand.
It had been years since Mark had first held my hand—sometime in seventh grade, I thought—but it felt the same tonight. Even with the confusion and fear rioting inside of me, I couldn’t help the reaction I had to his touch. Not the warmth that spread from my hand to the rest of my body, nor the sense of rightness that moved through me with every caress of his thumb over my skin.
My fingers tightened on his as it suddenly occurred to me just how soon I was going to have to let him go—and for how long. I’d made it home three times in the last four months, and I knew I couldn’t keep doing it, couldn’t keep running off to be with him. Not when things in Coral Straits were such a mess. And not when figuring out how to clean them up was mostly my responsibility.
I glanced down, realized I was squeezing his hand hard enough to hurt—already I could feel my fingers tingling from lack of circulation—but I couldn’t bring myself to relinquish my hold. We stopped at a red light, and a glance at Mark told me he was watching me, a little surprised, I thought, by the vehemence of my grip. But as I met his gaze, held it, his gorgeous brown eyes grew hot. And something more. Something dark and needy that echoed the emotions roiling around inside of me.