“Figured I could use my voice to make money somehow. You wouldn’t believe how much land stuff costs,” Sam replied. The mer clans knew that the Siren went ashore often, but they didn’t tell others that they lived on shore for years as teens. Many of the clans couldn’t pass as a regular human like the Siren, so Sam left those details out. It also kept the teens safe from being targeted.
Looking around, Leo was pretty sure they had no idea how much things cost since everything in the room seemed to be handmade from items found around the ocean. He was curious what the beds would look like, but he was going to find that out firsthand when they finally went off to sleep.
“We’d love to hear a song from you,” Chris said, and the people around him cheered. Chris leaned in closer and added, “I might have swiped your brother’s copy of your album and played it more than once around here.”
The people that had been standing around in other clusters talking at the same time now were getting the message from everyone else. An aisle opened up between the groups of people, and of course to the far side of the room, where Leo couldn’t see before, was a small raised stage.
Leo looked at Sam. He wasn’t against playing a concert. Normally they prepared for days, and Sam could always use a little Siren charm to make the audience love them. Leo had a good feeling Sam wouldn’t be able to do that without upsetting the Mavkas. Sam smiled back at him as he turned to Chris.
“Sounds like fun. Got a guitar for Leo?”
Leo rolled his eyes. Why did Sam have to rope him in, too?
Chris nodded, smiling as he led the way to the stage. Another mer was already there with a guitar in hand.
“Thanks,” Leo told the man before sitting on the edge of the three-foot-tall stage.
Sam sat down beside Leo.
“Really? Let’s perform?” Leo whispered to his friend.
“Spreading good will,” Sam replied with a smile.
Yes, that was Sam. He was never unconfident. Sam was one of those friends that you could easily be jealous of. He was the kind of person that could do everything perfect on the first try. Leo had never seen him once flustered. Heck, he hadn’t really seen him get excited either. Life was easy for Sam, and it didn’t help that he looked good doing everything. There was already a gaggle of girls hanging off to the side of the stage, watching his every move. If Sam noticed, it didn’t make him nervous at all.
Like any Siren, Leo loved music, but he didn’t love the spotlight. He had agreed to be in Sam’s band, but only if he could be off to the side and far enough back to not draw attention. As a solo guitar accompanying Sam, there was no way he was hidden. He could feel his palms start to sweat.
“Come on. It’s like a hundred people. Nothing like the Crystal Center. You did that one, and it was over six thousand people,” Sam commented.
Leo would have replied, but he could feel everyone watching them. Six thousand was actually easier because you couldn’t see the faces beyond the first few rows in the crowd. Leo could see every face now, and they were all staring at him.
“We’ll just do Sink or Swim, and that’s it. If they ask for more, I’ll tell them no,” Sam promised Leo, offering to do one of the easier songs on their last album.
It wasn’t like Leo could say no. He glanced down at the borrowed guitar in his hands. He didn’t have a choice. Leo nodded to Sam. Quickly, he picked over a scale to check the tone of the guitar. Everything seemed fine, and he was ready to get it over with.
Taking a deep breath, Leo tried to block out the staring people. The room was already quiet, but it was beyond nerve-racking now. He closed his eyes and felt the strings under his fingers. Sink or Swim was a song he had played hundreds of times. He didn’t have a reason to be anxious beyond the faces staring at him. With one more deep breath, Leo began to play the song. The song reverberated around the room, almost like it was amplified without using any sort of equipment. If he made a mistake, everyone would hear it well. Sam began to sing before Leo could worry more.
With Sam singing and drawing the attention from him, Leo was able to relax a bit, but not enough to look up. He really didn’t want to mess up in front of everyone. Sam finished the first verse and began the chorus. A second voice joined him.
Leo glanced up at the female who walked onto the stage and offered a hand to Sam to have him stand. Her face was blocked as she looked down, but the yellow-green hair seemed very similar to the same shy girl Leo had just met. She was now hidden from view by Sam’s body as she sang the next verse. Leo was tempted to look around Sam.
It wasn’t often Sam sung with anyone else. There were very few Siren who could sing like Sam and have the control to not affect the audience. Bringing a non-Siren into their world would be a disaster, so they never looked for anyone else. The girl singing was perfectly in tune, and Leo found himself wanting to stand and see who she was.
Sam moved slightly, and Leo got the view he wanted. While now wearing makeup and a much smaller skirt, he realized the singer was definitely Zia. She didn’t have the same glow as the Mavkas watching the song, but she had a different aura around her that he hadn’t seen before. Leo was entranced by Zia as she sang. She looked ecstatic. While she’d hid in the shadows before, she was confident on the stage, and Leo didn’t blame her. Her voice was perfect. She was perfect.
Leo finished up the song and couldn’t keep his eyes off her. It wasn’t until she was bowing and the guy who had given him the guitar was taking it back that Leo realized everything was over. The moment Zia walked out on the stage, all his anxiety at performing was gone. What in the world did that mean?
4
Sleeping in the Mavkas underground world was an experience Sam could do without. The sand-floor bed wasn’t comfortable, and being in rooms without doors was another weird experience. Sam didn’t feel safe, and neither did his friend. They took turns sleeping; luckily the Siren didn’t need as much sleep as most humans. When Sam woke and found his friend watching the ocean, he had the feeling Leo had as much fun in the weird Mavkas world as Sam had the hours before. They might be mer, but they weren’t used to life on the bottom of the ocean.
“So a witch makes this world for them but doesn’t happen to add anything like furniture to it?” Leo commented when Sam finally got up.
“Sleeping on sand isn’t your thing either?”
“Your dad is just pure evil,” Leo added. “Not only does he send us off on what will probably be my last week alive, but then he sends us to a place without any internet or cell phones, and no beds to sleep in. ‘Here you go, Leo. Your last week alive will be spent roughing it in a place where someone could kill you in your sleep since there are no doors’.”
Sam would have laughed if it wasn’t close to being true.
“I won’t let him kill you. It was my idea to leave before we turn eighteen.”
“And it was my suggestion to leave at all,” Leo replied a bit glumly.
Sam was certain his father didn’t know that. He had never mentioned a thing before to Sam, so Sam was going with he only caught a small glimpse of their plan. Sam had to believe that, otherwise the king wouldn’t have offered Leo a chance to redeem himself. Longray would have killed Leo outright if he knew the truth of how much they had already prepared.
“So what is the plan today, boss?” Leo asked.
Sam rolled his eyes at his friend, but didn’t answer. Putting his thumb in his mouth, Sam used his abnormally sharp night human teeth to break the surface of his skin. Leo understood and did the same before offering Sam his hand. As their thumbs touched, Sam made contact silently with his friend.
‘We only have a second before anyone passing will know what we’re up to. We can’t afford to be suspicious,’ Sam said as he remained seated on the ground. ‘Did you get find out anything yesterday?’
Sam hated people in his own mind, but this was the only way their conversation could be truly silent. It was one of the good benefits of being a night human. As long as fresh blood was conn
ecting them, night humans could talk to each other in their minds. It was especially helpful for times when you found yourself in a bubble at the bottom of the ocean, and the acoustics could broadcast your private conversation anywhere.
‘I don’t have a clue what’s going on here, but I spoke to that singer girl before she performed with you. She told me it was dangerous to be here and that this is only one of four places down here in the ocean.’
‘Okay, then we go for a swim.’
‘But she said not to just push through the magic barrier because there are strong currents around this place that will sweep you out to sea,’ Leo added as he gave a good yank and pulled Sam to his feet.
Someone was standing in the doorway to the room, watching them. Sam dropped his friend’s hand, and the connection was gone.
“I see you’ve both slept well,” Chris said as he stood there.
“It was an experience,” Sam replied, not agreeing or disagreeing. It was diplomatic to not tell him it was strange, but it was probable that he’d overheard the conversation between Sam and Leo already. Sam had felt someone near, and it was likely the Mavkas leader’s son was sent to keep tabs on them.
Chris led Sam and Leo back to the large, open room from the night before. There was food set up along the stage area, and it seemed like a buffet was going on. Not as many people as the night before were seated in the room, and a few people were going through the line to get food. Chris seemed to be tired from the night before and wasn’t in his usual talkative spirits. That worked for Sam, who was busy looking around. Leo hadn’t found out much, but it was more than Sam had.
They only had six more days to find out what their king was looking for, and he had no clue where to search. Everything about the Mavkas was odd, but it wasn’t odd in a suspicious way. They were just different. Their plant-based meals—Sam was ready to be back on land eating a greasy hamburger after only one day—didn’t mean they were plotting against the king, and neither did their communal living. They were different, but just that. Sam wasn’t sure what they were looking for, but he hoped that something would pop up soon, or that Leo would need to find a way to hide for the rest of his life. And that was a hard thing to do when the king could enter any Siren’s head to find you.
Leo sat and poked at his green slime for breakfast. He understood that living at the bottom of the sea did limit the cuisine options, but it was still gross. No one around him seemed to think otherwise as they had no problem shoveling their food in, but he had a feeling none of them had ever had a real breakfast of pancakes and syrup, either. His stomach clenched at the thought.
He tried his best to nonchalantly look around the room for Zia. Her pale green hair wasn’t there. Dark green, light green, lime green, blue green, all different shades, but no green that was almost blonde. Leo was beginning to see a pattern. It seemed like the groups who sat together had similar shades of green hair. To the far right was a group with almost blue-green hair. The shade only varied a little between the five people talking together. To the left was a group that had a more lime green color to the hair. It was strange because he had yet to see someone with the same yellow-green color as Zia.
“Are you guys up for a tour?” Chris asked.
“Of course,” Sam replied as he stood with Chris. “But first could you show us how to go back into the ocean? I need to check in with my father, and don’t want to be a bother every day to have you escort us around.”
“Yes. I’m sure your father keeps tabs on you as much as my father does.” Laughing, Chris patted Sam on the back like they were old friends.
Leo just shook his head as he followed behind the two of them. To any outsider, they would see Sam’s laid-back smile and attitude as friendly, but Leo knew better. Leo had known Sam his whole life. He understood the guy better than strangers. Sam trusted very few people, and he was never laid-back. If he did get one thing from his father, it was a great mind. The king was very seldom bested by anyone, and Sam was the same way.
Leading the way, Chris walked toward what appeared to be another wall. Leo followed directly in his footsteps because it was all still very confusing. Again, as Leo had noted the night before, it was impossible to see a hallway unless someone was in it. It was best to stick close to Chris for now. They were headed down a hall to wherever Chris was taking them. Leo was interested to see how the Mavkas could come and go safely.
“It will be good to take you guys up a little. Maybe it will give you a better idea of what each pod looks like. It’s confusing unless you grow up here, and I really don’t want either one of you accidentally being sucked away into the ocean if you walk into one of the walls thinking it was a hallway. That wouldn’t look good for us,” Chris explained. “I think we might get on your father’s bad side.” Chris was joking, and Sam laughed, but they all knew the Mavkas already were on King Longray’s bad side since he had sent Sam to investigate.
His words were kind, but not convincing to Leo. Chris had a friendly attitude and personality to match Sam’s, but Leo knew that anyone who was truly friends with Tim couldn’t be trusted. Leo had grown up on the Siren island with Sam and had seen firsthand what Tim was like to his younger brother. Everyone knew it was jealousy, but even so, Tim was as two-faced as you could get. If you counted him as a friend, you had to be either really dense or on the same wavelength as him. Leo had the distinct feeling that Chris wasn’t dense.
“So we come and go into each pod via the outside hallways,” Chris continued to talk.
There was something about five hallways, tons of rooms in each hallway, and something else. Leo hoped Sam was having a better time paying attention. Leo was a bit distracted as he peered into each room they passed. Every now and then he would see someone in a space that must be a room. But he wasn’t seeing the light-green-haired girl he was looking for.
Chris stopped at the end of a hallway, the familiar sea in front of them. Leo was getting better at seeing through the walls, but he was a bit concerned that it meant he could find himself walking right through one if he accidentally thought the wall was an open doorway.
“The space between our pod and the next one right at this hallway is calm. If you push forward and just transform, the magic will pull you out to the ocean,” Chris explained. “It works with the mer transformation. If you accidentally push into the wall and don’t transform, you can pull yourself back. Well, sometimes you can pull yourself back. But once you transform, these walls push you one way.”
It sounded easy enough, but Leo still worried. Zia made it sound dangerous to go through the walls. Was Chris telling the truth? It would be an easy way to get rid of Sam and Leo, letting them be thrown out to sea. But then again it was Sam he was with, and that gave Leo a lot more confidence. Sam wasn’t someone who’d get lost in the ocean.
“Once we get out, just swim up a few yards with me, and you’ll be able to see the whole place,” Chris explained, proud to show it off. Then he walked up to the wall and pushed an arm through. His whole body was pulled through also. It wasn’t as fast as Leo expected, but it also wasn’t like Chris had a chance to stop and come back.
Chris was now outside the space, or at least Leo thought he was. There in front of them in the sea was a green-haired, orange-finned mer. After waving for them to follow, he swam toward the surface of the ocean.
“Looks like fun,” Leo muttered sarcastically as Sam stepped forward.
“Meet you on the other side,” Sam replied with a wink before pushing his hand into the gel-like wall.
Sam was pulled through just as gracefully and was on the other side, his blue fin shimmering in the ocean water. Leo wasn’t excited to follow, but it wasn’t like he could say no. One of the main parts of being a Siren, or any mer for that matter, was that they needed the water. At least once a day, Leo had to be transformed in the water to rehydrate his fin. If he chickened out and stayed behind, he might lose his chance, and he had no idea how else he would get his much-needed rehydration time.
Chris waved his hands around, gesturing at the world below them. Maybe the water wasn’t too bad after all, as it kept their guide silent for more than ten seconds.
Leo glanced down. There were the four pods the merpeople with orange tails called home. Each pod had a large area, which was the meeting place that Leo had seen more than once now, with several hallways jetting off from it. Each hallway had bubble-like rooms. Actually, from their viewpoint, Leo had to imagine it was what an airport looked like from above. It wasn’t that Leo had ever flown—Siren, like all mer, weren’t keen on being trapped in a metal tube with limited water—but he had been to one to pick up people with their band.
Interestingly enough, there were mer outside in the ocean water swimming around, but they were all in one spot. Where the four pods exited created a small, square-shaped space between the buildings. That internal area was filled with swimming mer people, young and old. Leo turned around and still didn’t find the head of green hair he was looking for. The strange thing to see was that even though the pods were surrounded by water, no one was outside in that area. In fact, where Leo and Sam floated now was just above the exit. Leo looked toward the ocean, away from the Mavkas home area. A hand clamped down on his arm before he could move that direction.
Leo turned to find Chris holding onto him. He shook his head and pointed to go back down to the pod. Luckily, they were right above the one they had left, or Leo would have had no clue which one they came from. All four looked exactly the same.
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