“Sort of,” I say. “Things with Speio have been shaky, ever since...you know.”
Jenna nods, agreeing. “So what happened?”
Grabbing some blusher off the dresser, I deliberate just how much to say and decide to tell her most of it. Chances are, in a few days, this will all be over...and I’d rather she knows than not know that Cano is a complete two-timing slime ball. Pulling her to sit beside to me on the bed, I take a deep breath.
“Remember that creature thing from the other night? Well, I traced it back to a house. Actually, I forced Speio to tell me, which is why we’re not talking. He pretty much hates me, but I can’t help that. Anyway, the house the trail went to was Cano’s.”
“Cano?” Jenna gasps in a hushed whisper. “As in Principal Cano?”
“One and the same.”
“You think he’s one of them?”
“No, but I think he’s working on some kind of genetic DNA thing. He has a giant lab in a facility under his house and a whole bunch of research on genetic mixing.”
Jenna’s eyes are the size of saucers. “You’re saying that he’s mixing our DNA and yours?”
“That’s what it looked like. Is that even possible?” I ask her.
“I’m not sure,” she says, “because we’re two different species with different DNA.” She stares at me so hard that I can see the wheels in her brain turning through her eyes. “Although...I’d have to see what your DNA looks like, but since you can take human form, I’d assume that there must be some similarity.”
“Like hybrids?” I ask softly.
Jenna is nodding thoughtfully. “Technically, a hybrid would already have combined DNA strands from both species, and he could be trying to introduce nonnative genotypes to increase genetic variability.”
“Speak English, Dr. Who,” I say, frowning as my mind tries unsuccessfully to keep up with the genius speed of hers.
“He’s introducing new alleles, or specific genes with specific DNA codings, so that he can cultivate or grow distinct traits, human or alien...like the best of both worlds.”
“Still Swahili.”
“Sorry, sounds like they are trying to make the hybrids better.” Jenna’s eyes narrow. “It’s like that one we saw, remember? It was nothing at all like you. It had bits of you but was bulky and beastly like a monster.” She grabs my hand and leans in, her voice low and urgent. “Wait, have you told Lo what you are?”
“No, of course not,” I say. “You’re the only one who knows. Well, besides the ones I never knew about, like Cano.”
Jenna leans back with a sigh on her pillows. “I wonder if that’s why...”
“That’s why what?”
“Leland told me Cano wanted me to keep an eye on you,” Jenna says. Her cheeks redden. “That’s why I had to go see her so often weeks ago, to report in that you were fine and not on the edge of some kind of inner teen collapse. I had no idea this was the real reason.”
“Did you tell them anything?” I ask, my own voice urgent.
“Of course not! I just told her what she wanted to hear, normal teen stuff,” Jenna says, shaking her head as if in complete disbelief. “Holy crap, I still can’t believe it. Freaking Cano, this whole time. That’s insane. You know he used to be some kind of famous biologist, right?”
I nod. “Tell me about it. We can’t trust anyone.
“Jenna,” I say quietly, pulling her arm so that she’s facing me on the bed. “Whatever happens, thank you for being my best friend, and for always looking out for me. And thanks for not freaking out when I told you my secret and for not calling the National Enquirer.” We both smile, but my voice chokes up. “I’m serious. You’re everything a girl could ask for in a best friend.” I pull her into a tight hug, saying my own silent goodbyes. “I love you loads.”
“Love you, too. Why are you being all weird like you’re never going to see me again?” she says, hugging me back and frowning. “You know I’ve got your back. Always. Everything okay?”
I paste a grin on my face and blink away the tears pooling in my eyes. “Yes, it’s fine, I promise. I just wanted you to know. Now let’s go downstairs and get our dates, and rescue your mom from their clutches.”
Jenna giggles. “More like rescue them from her. Sawyer’s used to my mother, but Lo may be ready to call 9-1-1.”
“I just need one minute, okay?”
“Sure,” she says with a long look at the door. “You really look great, Riss.”
“Thanks, so do you.”
I stare in the mirror after Jenna leaves, studying the girl standing there. She doesn’t even look like me. She looks like a pale imitation of the real Roman goddess of the ocean, with her vulnerable sad eyes, who knows that her time on Earth is at an end. A soft knock on the door has me spinning around.
“You look beautiful,” Lo breathes from behind me. I catch his appreciative eyes in the mirror and smile. It’s amazing how three words from that boy can make me forget that my bodice is too tight, or the skirt is too long and too flouncy, or that Salacia’s heart underneath this dress is breaking into tiny, unrecognizable pieces.
Instead, I feel like a girl...a girl going to a dance with the boy of her dreams.
“You look good, too,” I begin automatically. Turning around, I try not to choke on my own drool. “More than good,” I amend. Dressed as Neptune—my mythological counterpart—Lo is every inch the god of the sea. I try not to stare at his gold-dusted bare chest and instead focus on the huge golden trident in his hand. “Nice spear,” I murmur, breathless.
“Thanks.”
A twisted wreathlike crown is on his head, interspersed with bright fiery bits of coral, and a cream toga-style cloth is hung low on his hips, and thrown over one shoulder. The gold dust meanders down his long legs and I gulp past the sudden knot in my throat. His feet, as expected, are bare.
“Is that all you’re wearing?”
A wicked grin. “Well, Neptune was historically pictured as naked, so I can do that if you prefer.” I can’t even speak as a blistering flush makes its way through every bit of skin on my body at his teasing words.
I hide my body’s wild reaction with sarcasm. “You have nudity issues, you know that?”
“Don’t worry, I have shorts on.” They must be the tiniest shorts ever because I can see the bulging muscle of his upper thigh through a gap in his loincloth. A stifled giggle bursts out of my lips.
“Ready?” Lo asks me, sticking out his arm. I nod.
This is going to be an interesting night.
After posing for photos with Jenna’s mom and piling into my busted, rusted Jeep with the top down, we’re off. It’s only a ten-minute ride, but by the time we arrive the dance is already in full swing. The gym has been decorated with crepe streamers hanging from the ceiling in various shades of blue and green. Underwater scenes, painted by the art club, litter the walls of the gym. A bright, colored disco ball is hanging from the middle of the ceiling and bubble machines off to the side are blowing a constant stream of multicolored bubbles into the middle of the dance floor. A band at the far end completes the scene.
I have to admit that it looks magical and exactly what a high-school dance should look like. I grin at some of the costumes floating past us—various kinds of fish, shellfish and mer-creatures. I even spot a giant octopus at one point. Kids have gone all out, and for a minute, I thank Bertha under my breath because I was initially going to show up in jeans and a T-shirt. At least Lo and I look pretty original. But it’s Sawyer who steals the show in his bright yellow-and-blue homemade Flounder fish costume.
“How come you didn’t go as Prince Eric instead of Flounder?” I ask him.
Sawyer grins. “Jenna wanted me to, but I’m more of a guppy myself.”
“Well, you’re my guppy and that’s all that matters,” Jenna s
ays.
“Rissa! You look amazing!” the goalie—Sarah—from our hockey team screeches from across the dance floor. “Awesome costume, Sawyer, and I’m loving the mermaid thing on you, Jenna,” Sarah says, and then turns to go completely speechless at Lo. I bite back a smile. “Nice costume, Lo,” she eventually chokes out, obviously embarrassed, and we all burst out laughing.
“What? Roman gods didn’t wear clothes,” Lo says, puffing his chest out and making us all laugh even harder at his affected expression.
“I think he looks fabulous,” a familiar breathy voice behind us says. I don’t even want to turn around, but good breeding demands that I do. Cara is standing with Speio in tow and waves hello. Her arm is wrapped around his waist but he doesn’t even look in our direction. He’s dressed in as revealing a costume as hers. Maybe worse. I have to look away.
“Thanks, Cara, so do you. Nice costume,” Lo says.
Cara twirls, showing off her—surprise, surprise—very revealing outfit, if it can even be called that. She’s clothed in black-and-yellow spandex that is draped artfully across her chest, stomach and hips. She’s completely covered, but the outfit fits like a second skin and doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Her dark hair has been looped in shiny curls down one shoulder and intertwined with gold ribbon. I have to admit it’s a striking costume and, with her figure, she totally pulls it off. Not that I’d tell her that, of course.
“So what are you guys?” I ask. She answers my question but looks at Lo.
“Isn’t it obvious? We’re electric eels,” she says in a supercilious tone. She smiles and flutters her eyelashes at Lo. “Anyway, a little bird told me that the god of the ocean was here and I wanted to pay my respects. So here I am at his service.”
“That’s only a little creepy,” Jenna mutters, earning herself a death glare from Cara.
“Why, thank you,” Lo says in a fake gallant voice that makes me want to kick him right in the loincloth. I try not to let my irritation show. I don’t want anything, not even Cara, to ruin my one night of freedom...and quite possibly my last.
I glance at Speio, who’s smiling at something Sawyer’s saying. They’re in the middle of a heated discussion about board size to wave height, and while it would normally be a conversation that I’d toss my two cents into, something holds me back. A twinge of regret slides through me at how ruthlessly I’d manipulated him.
Jenna loudly announces that she’s going to get some punch, and Cara and I are left staring at each other in awkward silence. On her way to the drinks, Jenna turns around and jerks her head toward Cara, raising her eyebrows.
“It’s a great costume,” I say to Cara.
“What?”
“I said you look great.”
“Thanks,” she says with narrowed eyes.
I take a deep breath, feeling the weight of Jenna’s stare, and take the plunge. “Look, Cara, I’m sorry about freshman year. For my part in it, I mean. And I’m really happy for you and Speio. He’s a great guy. Just wanted to say that.”
“Glad you got that off your chest,” she says after a while, and turns away. She pauses and then looks back at me as if she has something more to say.
“What?” I ask.
“It’s too bad none of it was real. I only became friends with you because my uncle asked me to,” she says loudly. “Let’s just say you made that impossible, too.”
A tumult of emotions fills me at her revelation, even though it doesn’t surprise me that Cara would have been one of Cano’s unknowing spies. No wonder she always stayed close even after freshman year. It must have been hell for her with Cano on her case to get closer to me.
“Well, I’m sorry,” I say lamely.
“Whatever,” she says and walks away.
“Well, you can’t say I didn’t try,” I mutter, and join Jenna over at the punch table, leaving Lo, Sawyer and Speio to Cara’s mercy.
Jenna hugs me and hands me a glass of neon-colored punch. “I’m really proud of you.”
“Told you it wouldn’t work,” I say.
“It’s not for her,” Jenna says. “It’s for you.” I gulp down some of the punch she’s given me and nearly spit it all over her. “Spiked?” she asks.
“Way spiked. This could knock over a linebacker,” I say, putting the glass onto an empty table. Cara laughs loudly at something one of her friends says, and walks past us with Speio in tow. They both ignore us.
Jenna sighs loudly. “Just remember, you took the high road.”
“If you say so,” I say sourly. Speio’s silent treatment is grating but I refuse to let him get under my skin, and Cara...well, she’s just being Cara. Despite Jenna’s brave words to the contrary, I’d have no illusions about her. “Where’d Lo and Sawyer go?” I ask, peering past Jenna into the throng of gyrating bodies.
“They did not go dance without us!” Jenna says, snapping her fingers in a Z motion across her body. I snort out loud at her theatrics and drag her into the crowd. We find the boys in the middle of the dance floor showing off for a bunch of adoring girls.
“Hi, Neptune,” I say. “Nice moves.”
“Where have you guys been?” Sawyer says, doing some kind of weird Saturday Night Fever sashay that makes me bite my lip to stop from laughing. The kid cannot dance for the life of him.
“Drinks,” Jenna says, and claps her hands gleefully. “Oooh, what’s the band doing?”
The lighting in the gym twinkles and lowers as shades of green and blue spin in a slow circle. Lo walks me to the center of the dance floor and a space clears around us. The band singer looks directly at me and grins, then winks at Jenna, who is standing right beside me. She nods and I stare quizzically from her to him.
“From your friends here at Dover Prep, happy birthday to the one and only Salacia, Miss Nerissa Marin!” The singer leads off into the opening chords for “Happy Birthday to You,” and practically the entire gym—with the exception of Cara—sings along with him.
Thank you, I mouth to Jenna, and her smile is so bright, it makes me choke up.
The band fades into a cover of Plumb’s “Sink ’n’ Swim,” and Lo pulls me into his arms. The lyrics of the song are so poignant that I bend my head to hide the stabbing sadness that sweeps through me. My life is all about swimming or sinking. Lo’s fingers grab a gentle hold of my chin, turning my face up to his. His navy eyes are liquid, flickering with the glow of the spinning lights all around us.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I manage. “I’m just lucky to have such good friends, that’s all.”
“And me?”
I smile. “Especially you.”
“Have I told you how lovely you look tonight?” he murmurs into my hair. “Like my very own.”
“Your very own what?”
“Just mine,” he says.
“Oh.”
We twirl in silence, Lo’s hand around the curve of my waist and my hands wrapped around his shoulders. I can’t imagine having a more perfect moment than what I’m sharing with Lo right now. But it’s bittersweet because I know it will be one of the last moments I will have with him, or with Jenna.
It’s one of the last times I will be a human teenager, here on my seventeenth birthday. I was always meant to return. This isn’t my life—it’s a borrowed one.
But borrowed or not, it is mine with all my friends surrounding me with love and secret pieces of themselves. I belong here, too. Burying my face in Lo’s neck, I’ve never felt so torn. All I want to do is to stay in his embrace forever. I want to forget about Ehmora and everything else that will pull me away from this world.
I want to be like them.
But I can’t. Once tonight passes, everything will change forever. For now, for these brief precious seconds, I can enjoy the feel of a boy’s arms holding me tight...of sha
red secret glances with Jenna that only two best friends can share...of the magical feel of the music around me...of the beauty that is my life alone without the threat of it disappearing.
“What are you thinking about?” Lo asks. “You’re far away right now.”
“I’m here. Just thinking about life and getting older.”
“Jeez, Riss. You’re seventeen, not seventy-seven. You still have a long way to go before worrying about adult responsibilities. Take it from me.” He grins and pokes me in the side.
I roll my eyes at him, letting him chase my sadness away. “From you? As in the full-time slacker with the professional staff at his beck and call? Some of us aren’t so lucky.”
“Hey, I’ll have you know I take my slacking responsibilities very seriously.” He purses his lips and throws his hands onto his hips. “I am a god, after all.”
“A pretend god,” I remind him.
“But one nonetheless. Now, grovel before me, woman.”
In response I punch him in the arm and leave him stone cold in the middle of the dance floor. I’m still giggling by the time I reach the table with the drinks. One thing I can say for Lo is that he can always make me laugh even when I’m flailing in equal measures of joy and sadness. He always knows exactly the right thing to say.
“Having a nice time, Ms. Marin?” A slimy sensation crawls across the back of my neck and I shiver. The voice is the same as it always is, but now that I know what he is, there’s an oily undertone of slyness. Cano is dressed in a dark suit. I remind myself that he doesn’t know that I know who he really is, so I smile with my usual grace.
“Of course, sir.”
“How’s that project you’ve been working on? At the marine center?”
“Great, thank you.” Taking a sip of my water, I’m trying to figure out how to tactfully extract myself when Cano takes my elbow, making me cringe inwardly.
Waterfell Page 27
