Soul of the Sea

by Jasmine Denton

  After Brad ran Mykaela away from the beach, he and Jared set out on their hunting trip. The trip was more of a training exercise, but he wasn’t sure it would do much good either way. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to three days in the deepest part of the woods, being handcuffed and tied up in all possible variations just to make sure he could escape. He wasn’t looking forward to the underwater exercises, either.

  That’s if, of course, he could tear his gaze away from the dancing, dark haired beauty who swayed by the fire in front of him.

  He wanted to join her, to do a lot more than dance, but he figured he’d already blown his chance, so resigned himself to watching her.

  Her hips swung from side to side in beat with the hand drums. She clasped her hands above her head and spun in an edgy pirouette when the drums gave way to an electric guitar solo. Sashaying toward him, her eyes narrowed on him as if he was the only one in her sight. Her lips curved in a smile as she grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him to his feet. His back straightened in surprise, but he quickly dropped his hands to her hips in fear she would take it as a rejection.

  He was in a trance as she rubbed against him, teasing and taunting until he thought he would die.

  Only when he woke the next morning—alone in a hotel room he didn’t recognize—did he realize that he’d never even gotten her name.

  ***

  Mykaela was sitting on the cushioned seat of the bay window in her bedroom, gazing out at the ocean, when she heard a knock on her door.

  She answered it, surprised to see Dylan standing outside. “Hi,” she said. She could have stared at him forever, losing herself in his eyes. Then she realized she must look like an idiot, so she stepped aside. “Come in.”

  Smiling at her, with that unbelievable kindness that always made his features soften, Dylan carried a shoebox and an oversized bag into her room and set it at his feet. “I brought you a gift.”

  “A present?” she asked. She was thrilled and curious and—like always—dying to kiss him. “It’s not my birthday.”

  “It’s a thank you.” He scratched his head. “For saving my life.”

  “I was just returning the favor.” She laughed, but inside she was touched.

  “Yeah, but who knows what could have happened if you didn’t come along?”

  She grinned at him. “Something tells me you would have been just fine. But, I’m not above accepting gifts.”

  His lips slid into a satisfied smile as he held the shoebox out and pulled the top off. Inside, a tiny, white kitten peeked out at her.

  She gasped and the furry animal hunched back against the side of the box. “Oh! You got me a kitten?” Thrilled, she reached out and picked it up, cradling it against her chest.

  “You said you always wanted one.”

  “For years. She’s so adorable.” She brushed her cheek against the kitten’s soft fur and heard her purr. “Is it a girl?”

  “Yeah.” He lifted the gift bag and set it on her bed. “There should be everything you need in there. A cat box, some litter and food. Oh, and…” He dipped a hand into the bag and pulled out a pink collar with silver studs.

  She couldn’t help but notice how close he was as he fastened the collar around the animal’s neck. “This is so sweet. I can’t believe you remembered.”

  “I remember a lot of things.”

  She gazed up at him, her eyes stinging. “Thank you.”

  He smiled back at her. “You’re welcome.” Clearing his throat, he stepped back and broke the spell he’d cast over her. He reached out, petting the kitten between the ears. “I checked with your mom first—she thought it was a great idea. Mentioned something about you being lonely.”

  The word had a bite to it. She’d always thought of loneliness as weakness, that a person should be content with his or her own company, but she’d been feeling a little isolated. “I wonder what I should name her.” She held the kitten up and peered into its striking yellow eyes. “What’s your name, li’l one?”

  “Maybe you can get some hints from her personality.”

  “Let’s see if you’re playful,” Mykaela said to the baby cat as she set it down on the floor. Eyes wide, hair standing on end, she darted under the bed.

  Mykaela broke out in a laugh. “Maybe I should name her Scared-y.” She knelt down beside her bed and pushed up the blanket, glancing at Dylan. “Scared-y the cat. Get it?”

  He laughed. “Cute.”

  “Yeah. I couldn’t brand her that way, though.” She looked underneath the bed and found the kitten huddled against the farthest wall by her headboard. “Here kitty, kitty, kitty.”

  She flicked her tail once.

  “Come on,” Mykaela said, feeling a little disappointed. “I won’t hurt you.”

  She hissed.

  “Mind if I give it a try?” Dylan asked.

  “Be my guest.” She scooted over to make room for him, and he lay flat on his stomach with his head just under the bed. She was glad it was clean, unlike when she was a child and everything she owned wound up under there somehow or another.

  Dylan licked his lips and let out a slow whistle, two short beats and one long one. She could swear she’d heard the tune before, but couldn’t place it. The cat’s ears perked at the noise. She put one paw in front of the other, then hesitated.

  Dylan whistled again, the same as before.

  This time, the kitten scurried to his chest. Wrapping his arms around it, he slid out from under the bed.

  Mykaela sat back, impressed. “Wow. How did you do that?”

  “Just a little trick I picked up.” He brought the kitten to his face and peered into its eyes. “This is your new home. The girl is Mykaela.” He turned the cat to face her. “She’s going to take good care of you. You don’t have to be afraid.”

  “That’s right,” Mykaela said to the kitten. She stretched her hand out cautiously. The kitten sniffed her fingers and then licked them. Mykaela giggled as the sandpaper tongue scraped across her skin. “She’s so cute.” She looked at Dylan, noticing how his eyes sparkled as he held the kitten. “You’re good with animals.”

  He patted the kitten’s head one more time before handing her over to Mykaela. “They’re good with me.”

  ***

  The morning fog hung in the air, morphing the headstones of the cemetery into bizarre and frightening shadows. Tall, wrought-iron gates framed the entrance to the graveyard and opened to a narrow, paved pathway that twisted around graves.

  Mykaela moved down the path, trying to slow her pounding heart. She’d always hated cemeteries, but then, who didn’t hate them?

  A branch cracked somewhere to her left and she whirled around; searching for the source of the noise, but all she could see was the silvery mist.

  She found Charity’s grave, and her stomach churned at the sight of the fresh mound of dirt and temporary marker with her date of birth and death. Keeping her eyes off the grave, Mykaela sat on the grass, twisting and pulling pieces of it up by the roots.

  She sat there for a moment, unsure of what to say. “Everything has been so crazy lately.” Her voice scratched through her throat like little razorblades. “I mean, I was rescued by some knight in shining armor, then I found him wounded on the beach. Now, he’s staying with us, working for us, and Brad hates my guts even more than usual, because he’s the only one who can see through my lies. Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing him? He’s an ass but I can tell he misses you. He looks like he’s in so much pain that all he can do is rage, like some hurricane.” She dropped her chin to her knees. “Dylan’s just the opposite. He’s the one who saved me,” she added. “I like him. A lot. I know what you’re thinking. Me, liking a guy? It was everything you could do to convince me to find a date for prom. This is different, though. He is different. Almost…unearthly.” Still unable to look at the grave, Mykaela toyed with the beaded bracelet around her wrist. “Dylan has these eyes that I swear look just like the ocean, and a really sexy Irish accent. He�
��s sweet, too. He bought me this cute little white kitten. She slept on my pillow last night. Sweet, sexy, foreign—so what’s the problem? I keep asking myself that.”

  She finally looked up, seeing the mound of dirt and the metal marker, and tears burned her eyes. Her throat tried to close up on her, and she waited a minute before she trusted herself to speak without crying. “I think, the biggest problem…is that he didn’t save you, too.”

  She covered her face with her hands, swallowing hard to try to steady her emotions. “None of this seems real, Charity. You’re gone, and it’s not fair. Is it horrible to hope that something good can come of this? That maybe this was the only way Dylan and I could meet? Not that the exchange is worth it, not by a long shot,” she added quickly. “I know how horrible that sounds. I just…I want so badly to believe that this all happened for a reason. That there’s some logic behind it, somewhere. That it’s more than just an accident, with no reason or plan or purpose. I couldn’t handle that.”

  Suddenly, she remembered that lifeless stare frozen on Charity’s face when they were in the water, and she couldn’t contain her tears. They flowed, loud, rocking sobs as she realized Charity would never listen to her secrets again.

  This would be the time when Charity would pull Mykaela into a hug and chime in with one of her favorite clichés, like ”everything happens for a reason” or ”God works in mysterious ways.” There was nothing, only the howl of the wind in the empty cemetery.

  Chapter Six

  Renegade

  One morning, about two weeks after Candy’s body was found, Mykaela was helping her mother set the table in the guest dining room, when her mother stopped setting silverware on the table to move over near the big front window

  “That’s funny,” Blanche said, examining the leaves of a potted fern. “No matter what I do, these plants just keep dying.”

  “Have you tried taking them to the doctor?”

  “Very funny.” She turned and plucked a list from the bulletin board. “Weather channel says there’s a storm coming. Do you think you could pick up some supplies down at the store? We need more milk, some flashlight batteries. What else do we need?”

  “Laundry soap. Eggs. A few pounds of bacon.”

  “Okay. Here, take my car.” She handed over the keys and then the money.

  Stuffing the cash in her pocket, Mykaela scurried out the kitchen door. Being around her mother was awkward these days. She was always wondering if Blanche could tell she was keeping something from her, and it was hard to focus on anything but that.

  Heading to the store, she passed another section of the beach and noticed a swarm of squad cars. Their lights swirled blue and red against the yellow tape which roped off an area of the beach. Police officers walked to and fro, keeping the onlookers at bay while their colleagues processed the crime scene.

  A chill crawled down her spine. She pulled her car over across the street from the crime scene, in front of Mike’s store and watched paramedics load a covered body into an ambulance. Sheriff Baxter sat on a bench, his face buried in his hands. With Brad next to him, the two men hunched together.

  Brad looked up and spotted her, then jumped up from the bench and barreled in her direction. She knew she should run, duck into the store or maybe just get back in the car, but for some reason, she stood right where she was, without moving an inch, staring him down while he crossed the street. Seizing her arm, he pulled her into the alley beside the building.

  “What the hell is going on around here?”

  She tried to tug her arm out of his grip. “I don’t know.”

  “You were supposed to meet Charity the day she was killed.” He squeezed his hand tighter to keep her in place. His eyes narrowed, as if she was a target at the shooting range. “You were there with her—I know you were.”

  “No—”

  “You got away. You know what we’re up against.”

  “I wasn’t there.” She backed away from him, from the craze in his eyes. “Brad, you’ve known me your whole life. Do you really think I wouldn’t help if I could?”

  “You can, and you won’t!” He grabbed her arm and slammed her against the brick wall behind her. “Why my sister, huh? First my girlfriend, then my sister. Why?”

  Susan? Susan was dead? She should have seen it coming, but the pain blindsided her. Brad shook her hard and zapped her out of the shock.

  “I wasn’t there—”

  “Don’t lie!” He slammed his fist into the wall next to her. “You saw something that night—you must have.”

  “You’re scaring me. Just calm down, okay?”

  “My sister is dead.” He pronounced each word with a harsh, hissing sound, jerking her arms. “I don’t give a damn if you’re scared!”

  Mykaela hadn’t heard anybody approach, but suddenly Dylan yanked Brad off her and slammed him against the brick wall. He pressed his elbow against Brad’s throat and pinned his wrist above his head.

  Dylan’s face crinkled in furious lines around his eyes and mouth as he glared at Brad. “Don’t you know how to treat a lady?”

  Brad breathed heavily, watching Dylan.

  “Mykaela,” Dylan said, without taking his eyes off Brad. “Would you wait for me in your car, please?”

  He didn’t have to ask twice. She took off at a run, and she didn’t stop until she was around the corner. Then she leaned against the building and tried to calm her breathing.

  She was shaking from the crazy look in Brad’s eyes, but instead of going straight to the car, she sidled into the store and picked up what her mother needed.

  When she left the store, she saw Dylan leaning against her car, hands stuffed in the pockets of his leather jacket. “Hey,” he said, opening the driver’s door for her. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay now, thanks.” She slid into the seat and waited while he got in the passenger side. Starting the engine, she took a deep breath as she drove down the road.

  They sat in silence and then she explained. “Brad thinks I know who’s doing this.”

  “You don’t, though,” he said. “Do you?”

  Keeping her back straight, she stared over the hood at the yellow lines blurring by. “You are the only one who knows I was there the night she died.”

  “I know.” He glanced at her. “Why haven’t you told anyone?”

  She laughed bitterly and wiped away a tear. “If I tell them…what I saw…what really happened—” She shook her head. “They’d lock me up in some kind of a psych ward.” She thought back to that morning, to what she’d seen. “Maybe that’s where I belong.”

  “Why do you say that? What happened?”

  She looked over, trying to decide if she could trust him. Seeing his eyes watch her with genuine concern, she turned back to the road as she explained. “We were at the bluff, Little Rock. It was late and we were screwing around with a Ouija board of hers. We were both kind of spooked, but then I heard singing—this high-pitched, haunting tune. At first, I thought it was in my head, but it kept getting closer and closer, and Charity said she didn’t hear anything. I didn’t know how it was possible that she couldn’t —it was so beautiful, but so scary at the same time. It was real.”

  She tapped her fingernails against the steering wheel and inhaled a shaky breath. “Charity wanted to leave, but I just had to find out who was singing. We looked around the woods, but we didn’t find anything. Then we walked over to the edge of the bluff and looked down. And…” She choked on the words as they stuck in her throat like a mass of peanut butter.

  “It was the water. It jumped up and grabbed us. Grabbed us with hands.” Hearing how crazy she sounded, she wanted to cover her face. “I mean, the water was shaped like a pair of hands. That cliff is over a hundred feet high. There aren’t waves that tall this close to shore. If it’d been a normal wave, why was it that shape? And why are more girls dying?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s impossible, right? What I saw?”

&nb
sp; “Don’t worry.” He reached out and placed his hand gently on her back. “This is all going to stop soon.”

  She wanted to go find a secret cave and just curl up and hide.

  ***

  Back at the Inn, Dylan helped her carry the bags of provisions into the kitchen. Jared stood at the counter, talking on the phone.

  Mykaela focused on putting the groceries away as Jared turned from the counter, hanging up the phone.

  “That was Brad,” he said. “His sister was…”

  She glanced at Dylan. “I heard.”

  Jared sighed, grabbing his keys off the rack. “Now, I have to go over there and make sure he doesn’t drink himself to death.”

  “Don’t do me any favors,” she mumbled.

  Jared turned at the doorway, and she expected an outburst or some condescending words, but the glare he shot her was so much worse.

  Once they were alone, Dylan turned to her. “He doesn’t know the whole story, does he? He doesn’t know how Brad’s been treating you.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “It is, Mykaela.” He peered down into her eyes. “There’s absolutely no excuse for being violent toward a woman. I don’t care what he’s been through or how many people he’s lost. There’s a line that you just don’t cross.” He turned away and piled food into a cabinet. “And if your brother saw what I saw, he’d be going over there for a whole different reason.”

  “Look,” she said softly, turning to him. “I’m okay. I just don’t want to make a big fuss about it, that’s all.”

  “He’s harassing you, Mykaela, for no good reason other than a circumstantial hunch that has nothing to do with you.” He shut the last cabinet and rested his hands on the counter. “I know this isn’t the first time. I saw what happened in the woods.”