The Equinox

by K. K. Allen

  “Do you know them?” I ask him.

  He shakes his head and waves back. “Nope. They’re just being friendly. Probably trying to break us up before we get out of hand. Come on.”

  With a quick hop onto his feet, Johnny helps me up. “Let’s ride around for a bit. I know the perfect spot we can snorkel.”

  For some reason Johnny and the word snorkel just sounds funny and I let out a little giggle. He rolls his eyes at me but keeps moving toward the bow of the boat where he retrieves his anchors effortlessly.

  We cruise north up the Gulf for a while before Johnny pulls over about 200 feet from land. He digs in a box down at the front of the boat where he finds flippers for each of us and a breathing mask.

  I frown at him. “Whose snorkel am I putting my mouth on anyway?”

  He smirks. “Yours. No one has used that before.”

  “You just happened to have this laying around.” I raise my eyebrows at him, making him laugh.

  “I bought those for you.”

  I point at the flippers that fit my feet perfectly. “How did you know what size flipper I wore?”

  He shrugs. “I pay attention.”

  Yes he does. I pull the mask around my head and waddle my way to the back of the boat and jump almost immediately. I pop up out of the water and Johnny smiles. “Follow me.” And just like that he dives back down into the water just enough so his breathing tube is raised above the water.

  We swim in closer to the shore. The Gulf floor beneath us becomes more shallow and the life below is much easier to see. A stingray passes me and I move to avoid it. I don’t know what would happen if it touched me but I don’t want to find out. Johnny laughs at me from underwater and I shake my head at him, grinning.

  He reaches for my hand and I take it. He points at a few sea turtles swimming together and I’m reminded of when I had my mermaid tail on with Arabella. What would she think of me now? She practically drooled when she laid eyes on Johnny for the first time. I giggle internally. Wait until she finds out who I’ve been holding hands with all day.

  Just then a large round mammal floats toward us, in no hurry at all. His body is gray in color but he’s got green spots all over him—algae. A manatee, I recognize excitedly. Johnny reaches a hand out and rubs the back of the creature as he passes and I do the same. Then another comes by us and soon we’re surrounded by manatees of all shapes and sizes.

  Johnny raises his head up and I follow so we’re now above water. “Manatees love this sanctuary because the water is always around seventy-two degrees.” He looks around and my eyes follow. There are manatees all around us. Most of them have their backs close to the surface and are just floating there, resting.

  We swim for quite some time, zigzagging around the manatee formations for a while before Johnny finally points out that the sky is dimming in color. I frown. No. This day has gone way too fast. I’m not ready for it to end.

  He smirks at me, obviously catching my expression and tugs at my hand. “Let’s get back on the boat. We’ll head back in close to town and I’ll make us dinner before we go home.”

  Dinner. All of this swimming and kissing has me completely famished.

  We ride back into town and a permanent smile is glued to my face. Happy doesn’t even begin to describe the way I feel at this moment. I hold onto Johnny’s waist as we cruise through the water at high speeds. The sky has dimmed considerably and I glance at the time. Seven o’clock. Surely, Rose and Charlotte won’t miss me for dinner.

  I insist on helping Johnny in the kitchen, but I’ve never cooked a thing in my life. He hands me a wad of lettuce, a bag of tomatoes, and some other ingredients and tells me to make a salad. Now this I can do.

  I start chopping and slicing and dicing until a gorgeously colorful bowl of salad awaits our hungry bellies.

  Johnny has got a pot of boiling water on the stove and a bag of fresh pasta by the side of the stove. I watch him as he carefully places the noodles into the slightly oiled and salted water, meanwhile stirring the red tomato sauce mixture.

  “Where did you learn to cook?” Everything about him amazes me.

  He shrugs. “My mom. My father insisted I help her. So I did. It’s just spaghetti.” He grins. “Some of my best memories are in our yacht kitchen. I guess that’s why I mainly cook everything I eat. I rarely go out. I like knowing what’s in my food.”

  “What happened to your parents? I hope it’s okay that I ask…” I sigh, praying that I haven’t completely offended him. “It’s just that we keep talking about them…”

  He turns to me from his counter and shrugs. “I’ve never talked about it before.”

  The look on his face tortures me. I want to wrap my arms around him, to comfort him, and to tell him everything will be okay, but he doesn’t need that from me. Johnny is strong and he’s dealt with his pain—I think.

  “It was a week before my sixteenth birthday and we were playing this ridiculous game on the back of the boat—a game we always played in the dark where we hide and then scare the person that got near us first. I think we would get delirious being on the boat for extended periods of time and had completely lost it at that point.” Johnny smiles as he says this. “But that night—I don’t know where they came from—but there was this fishing boat that was suddenly next to us. So close to us that I didn’t see them until our boats collided into each other. Everything happened so fast. I’ll spare you the details, but my parents were stabbed and died that night. The men didn’t come after me but I tried to fight them anyway. I wanted to kill them, but once my parents were dead it seemed like they got what they wanted and took off, but not before they did this—”

  Johnny reaches for his shirt and I already know what he’s going to show me. I’m frozen with shock and horror at the story that’s unfolding. I can’t imagine my mother’s death happening in front of my very eyes.

  I step toward him to look at what he’s allowing me to look at for the first time. His scar, a permanent reminder of what he’s been through—of what he witnessed. The scar has a pinkish-white tone and sinks just below the rest of his skin. Tears well up in the back of my eyes but I fight them as hard as I can. This wasn’t my fight—but I want to kill whoever did this too.

  “Hey,” he says gently. “Don’t worry about me, but now you know—so let’s try to get back to where we were shall we?”

  I don’t know how he’s smiling after that story but I suppose he’s already been dealing with it for two years.

  He stands over me and places a hand on my shoulders and leads me backwards. His body is positioned so close to me that I have to press my back against the counter for support. With a swipe of his hands, my hair falls behind my shoulders and his hands gently massage my neck. I close my eyes, enjoying the feel of his strong hands on my bare skin.

  “Alec is a moron.” Johnny snorts. It’s the first time he’s acted his age since I’ve met him. It makes me smile.

  “Maybe you’re the moron for liking me.” I can’t believe the words escaped my mouth but I can’t take them back.

  Johnny smirks. “Who says I like you?”

  I look up at him with my own smirk on my face. “You’re giving me a shoulder rub, while you make me dinner on your yacht, and you bought me snorkel gear. Oh—and you can’t seem to keep your hands off me.”

  He laughs and pulls his hands away quickly. “Fine. Hands off for the rest of the night.”

  I moan through my own laughter. “No, come back!”

  “No way.” He chuckles and ducks out of my hand’s reach.

  “Fine,” I throw up my hands. “I’m going to the bathroom anyway.”

  Johnny points down the stairs and I flip on the light switch as I walk down. I haven’t been given a tour but that’s probably a good thing. I assume Johnny’s bedroom is straight down the hall and I don’t want him getting any ideas.

  The bathroom is to my right so I duck into the tiny space. Before washing my hands I look for the soap, but it’s nowhere
I can see, so I pull open the glass cabinet and smile. There it is. I pull it down and when I do a plastic container falls out with it with a thwack. I pick it up, an odd feeling striking my chest. A buzzing starts in my head and I know it’s my senses on high alert—but why?

  I open the plastic box and my world goes dark for a second. I fall back into the wall with a loud thud and sink to the floor.

  “Kat,” Johnny calls from a distance but I can tell he’s heading my way.

  Blood pulses through me at a frantic tempo as I look feverishly around for an escape. I quickly lock the bathroom door and sink back down into the corner. A tear falls down my left cheek as I clutch my mom’s gold heart pendant to my chest.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Bang. Bang. Bang. The door rattles with each pound. Johnny is worried—angry—I really can’t tell. I can barely make sense of my own thoughts, but I need to think, quick.

  Why does Johnny have my heart pendant? And it suddenly makes sense. All of it. Johnny hated me from the moment he laid eyes on me. He’s always hated me—until recently. And someone rescued me that night of the Fourth of July party—someone with a boat. Whoever it was stole my mom’s pendant from me. The feel of the chain being ripped from my neck, right before I passed out is so vivid I can almost feel the sensation of it now.

  It was Johnny. This whole time. It was Johnny who took away my only protection from the Equinox. It was him that could have killed me that night when my energy was drained to the point of near-death.

  Tears flood my eyes as I search for a way out, but there is none. Even with my magic, I wouldn’t know how to get out of here.

  “Kat, are you okay? I heard a noise.”

  “I’m fine,” I call back but my voice is barely calm.

  I hear silence—it’s loud. There’s a shuffling of feet by the door.

  “Kat, please open the door. I’m worried.”

  Are those words real? Has he been playing me all along? Every kiss—touch—every word of it. Has it all been a ploy to steal my energy and kill me? If so, then why didn’t he kill me that night?

  “I’m just—suddenly not feeling well.”

  Again, silence. “Kat,” his voice is a forced calm. “Just come out here and we can talk about it.”

  He knows I found it. I stand up quickly and wipe my tears.

  “Please come out, or I’ll force my way in.” His tone is heating up with emotion. My senses respond with a surge of power. It starts in my stomach, then leads into my chest until energy radiates from every inch of me.

  The door shakes before it’s thrown open so hard it surprises Johnny and even me. He’s pinned in the hallway behind the open door now. I make my escape, running for the stairs as fast as I can.

  It’s not long before I can hear Johnny’s footsteps behind me. He screams for me to stop and for a moment I want to listen to him, but I can’t risk it. He’s the Equinox. He’s got to be. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. Has this been his plan all along? To get me alone in his boat, make me fall for him, and then—

  I reach the living room and spin around throwing my arms out in front of me, and Johnny is doing the same. My eyes grow wide in surprise as our powers meet in a collision of sparks. I throw my face to the side to avoid the harsh glare of light that’s created from our combined energy. I’m suspended in place—so is he—our powers are our only connection.

  My heart pounds erratically in my chest. If I had thrown my power on a Normal they wouldn’t be standing still. Johnny is obviously more powerful than a human. Why couldn’t I see it before?

  I let out a silent cry, saddened by Johnny’s deception.

  A green glow catches my eye and I look down to see my amethyst stone radiating its own energy. I grab it, holding it tightly to my chest and close my eyes. I say a silent message. My power responds with a deafening crack as lightning strikes just outside of the boat. It’s enough of a distraction to pull Johnny’s eyes away from mine and lose his focus.

  With a swift jerk of my hand I bring a large pan from the kitchen to whack Johnny on his head, bringing him to his knees.

  I throw up my shield of power once more to block Johnny from attacking, and I know I’ve got him. He’s defenseless in this moment. I can kill him. I can stop him from hurting anyone else.

  His eyes are wide—scared—impressed? I can’t tell through my fuzzy vision.

  “Kat, stop—I’m not going to hurt you—”

  His lack of surprise tells me that he’s known what I am all along.

  I shake my head and hold out the gold pendant. “You stole this from me, Johnny, and you never told me about it. You have no business holding onto this unless you’re…” Tears flood my eyes once more distracting me.

  “Unless I’m what?”

  Johnny is a good actor. His confusion would convince most people, but not me. It might be painful to admit the truth, but I know that Johnny is dangerous. There were warning flags from the very beginning but I chose to ignore them the moment he was nice to me.

  I keep my strength up to hold him back but I can feel myself faltering. “I’m supposed to kill you.” My voice shakes and I want to kick myself.

  Johnny’s eyes flutter wildly and he shakes his head. “What?” His shriek is more like a growl.

  I hold out the pendant so the Equinox’s engraving faces him. “This is the symbol of the Equinox. I know what you are, and I know why you stole this from me.”

  He is still trying to claw his way forward but my power is too strong for him to penetrate. At least I can be confident that I’m stronger than him.

  “I didn’t steal that pendant to hurt you! I took it because I thought you were the Equinox.”

  I can’t risk believing him for a second. “Please don’t follow me, Johnny. Leave this place. Go far away, and don’t come back. Or I will kill you.” I say this with as much control as I can muster but even as the words come out I want to cry.

  I turn away and run as fast as my energy will take me—so that I’m flying through the night. As soon as I reach the end of the boat I take a long jump into the water and swim down deep until I reach the bottom of the bay. Arabella told me once that sea sprinkle isn’t obvious to the human eye, but I should be able to find some.

  It glows a brilliant white color between the sand and I quickly take a pinch and put it to my mouth before my air runs out.

  Once I can breathe I stay close to the bottom of the bay and move toward the shore of Island Estates.

  I don’t look back until I’m at the shore and when I do, Johnny’s yacht is gone.

  * * *

  Rose, Charlotte, and Arabella walk in through the front door a few hours later. It’s well past midnight but I haven’t attempted to sleep. I’m too wound up from the events, and part of me fears that Johnny—the Equinox—will come for me when I sleep. What a horrible death that would be.

  I’m curled up on the couch in the great room, wool blanket wrapped tightly around me. My hair has dried but I can still smell the salt water. The same numbness that consumed me after my mother’s death has returned. My thoughts run rampant through my brain—so rapidly that I can’t process them.

  Charlotte and Arabella move to either side of me. Rose stands in front of me—a worried look on her face, showing her age. I know they’re talking to me but I’m too deep in my own thoughts to climb my way out and listen.

  Someone shakes me. I hear Arabella scream, “Kat!”

  The high pitch that only mermaids can make wakes me from my darkness. I look at her panicked expression. I feel a prick behind my eyes and I’m not sure I can stop the tears this time. I open my fist without saying anything and a gasp escapes all three women.

  Arabella snatches the pendant from me and examines it. “Where did you find this? Were you attacked?”

  I shake my head. “No, I ran, then I swam.”

  “That would explain your stringy hair. Who did you run from?” Rose is demanding which is irritating in this moment.

 
“From Johnny?” Charlotte asks in a gentle tone, though there’s a layer of guilt I detect, probably from allowing me to go out with him on his boat.

  “Did you transform?” Arabella asks.

  I meet her eyes and nod. “I had to get away. I found some sea sprinkle at the bottom of the bay and didn’t look back.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.” Rose stomps her foot and I look up at her.

  “Johnny had it.” I stare down at the pendant that Arabella holds now. “He’s the one who ripped it from my neck on the Fourth of July.”

  Arabella hands the pendant back to me. “Where is Johnny now?” Her expression is panicked.

  I shrug. “I told him to leave and never come back—or I’d kill him.”

  “No,” Arabella moans and shakes her head. “Kat, I know we all assumed that the person who took your pendant was the Equinox, but Johnny’s not one of them.”

  I look up at her, my mouth agape. How does she know what Johnny is or isn’t? “What are you talking about?” Although I’m shocked, the relief is overwhelming. I’m finally able to feel a release of my emotions, but it’s all at once, and suddenly I’m sobbing into my own bucket of tears. I’m still confused; why would Johnny steal my pendant?

  “Do you know where he is, or where he could have gone?” Arabella asks, ignoring my questions. She’s on her feet and ready to head for the door.

  I shake my head. “He lives at the marina, but he could be anywhere by now. He mentioned that he used to live up north along the Gulf.”

  Arabella takes off, shouting behind her. “I’ll be back.” She’s out the door before I can get another word out of her. So I turn to Charlotte and Rose.

  “What is going on? How do you know about Johnny?”

  “First, I want to know why you went on a boat with him. You told me you had plans today but you never mentioned a boat.” Rose asks me, eyes narrowed.

  I sigh. “Does it matter? We had plans to go on his boat.” I lower my eyes. “And then I found my pendant.”

  Rose uncharacteristically plops down on her chair. She can really be dramatic when she wants to be. “When are you going to learn to not get so wrapped up in boys? You’re only sixteen.”