by Skye Malone
And she had vivid bruises on her arms.
I stared, the rest of the room forgotten. Her palms were bandaged, while purplish-blue marks ringed her forearms, each bruise several inches across.
My heart started to pound. Noah wouldn’t have hurt her. I’d gambled on that. Bet that he’d never touch his stepsister, even when he’d been such a monster to me.
And yet…
“What happened to your arms?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. Swiftly, she scanned the neighborhood again and then shut the door.
And locked it.
“Baylie?” I pressed.
She turned away from the door, crossed the three steps between us, and threw her arms around me.
“Oh God, I’m so glad you’re okay,” she breathed as she squeezed me. “When did you get here?”
I hugged her back, giving Zeke an incredulous look while I did. “Last night. Baylie, what’s going on?”
She exhaled, hanging onto me a moment longer, and then she let go. In the den, the back door slid shut. Baylie cast a quick glance toward the sound. “It’s a long story.” She tugged at one of her bandages. “We, um–”
Footsteps interrupted her. His attention on the phone in his hand, Noah strode into the room from the hall. “Baylie, that was Maddox. He can’t get here till Thursday, so I’m going to head back–”
He glanced up. His feet came to a stop.
“Chloe,” he said.
I felt paralyzed. I stared at him, my mind trying to catch up with the reality of him standing there in the archway to the hall, his green eyes shocked and the phone in his hand forgotten, when all I could see was his face, cracked with light and furious as he hurled insults and threatened to kill me if I didn’t leave the beach.
Air forced its way into my lungs. I retreated a step to Zeke’s side, barely keeping spikes from coming out on my arms. “Noah. W-what are you…”
He seemed to have trouble breathing too. Blinking, he tugged his gaze from me. “I, um–”
His attention caught on Zeke and he cut off, his brow furrowing in sudden confusion.
“I invited Noah to come back with me,” Baylie supplied warily, watching us all.
Zeke put a hand to my back. “Let’s go,” he said darkly.
Noah tensed, his gaze flicking toward where Zeke touched me and then returning to my face.
“Wait, why?” Baylie asked. She looked between us. “Chloe, you can’t. There’s–”
“It wasn’t what you thought,” Noah interjected, watching me.
My brow twitched down.
“I had to do that,” he continued. “I… my cousins were at the house. They’re like me, except… except they want to hurt you. I had to get you out of there. Make sure you didn’t come back so you’d be safe from them.”
He paused. “I’m sorry. Everything I said… I swear I didn’t mean any of it.”
I stared at him. I couldn’t find words. They just weren’t there. And I didn’t know what they’d be anyway.
He’d been horrible. Terrifying. I’d never seen…
Noah took a step toward me. “Chloe, I–”
Moving fast, Zeke pushed me behind him, never taking his eyes from Noah.
Noah stopped, his focus snapping from me to Zeke. Baylie stared at us, obviously baffled.
“Wait,” I managed. I put my hand to Zeke’s arm. His head turned toward me, though he didn’t look away from Noah. “What… what happened?”
“How is he here?” Noah asked instead.
I struggled to come up with a response when all I wanted was for him to explain again. His cousins. He had cousins?
“Chloe?” Noah pressed.
“She doesn’t owe you any–” Zeke started.
“Me.” My voice was tight. “I, um…”
I couldn’t finish. Noah’s brow furrowed.
“Guys?” Baylie tried with a nervous glance to the front of the house. “You think we could move away from the windows?”
More confusion rose in me, but Noah’s face just tightened.
“Yeah,” he said. Still watching me and Zeke, he nodded toward the hall and then headed that way.
Zeke glanced to me.
I hesitated and then followed Noah to the den. Two steps led us down to the familiar, cream-carpeted space where Baylie and I had spent countless evenings watching movies, talking about school, and generally avoiding my parents. A fireplace filled the leftmost wall, while a large television occupied another corner and an aging couch that I knew for a fact was the most comfortable thing on the planet sat below the back window. The room was long, taking up as it did the entire rear side of the house, and two more steps led up to a glass door that opened out onto the fenced backyard.
Noah stopped in the middle of the room and waited till Baylie had pulled the accordion door to the hallway closed before speaking.
“So you…” He grimaced. “You’re here. Are you okay?” he asked me. “It doesn’t hurt?”
I shook my head.
He nodded as though reassured, but his expression was still tight when he glanced to Zeke.
“You think someone could tell me what’s going on?” Baylie asked into the silence. “Finally?”
I hesitated. I didn’t know what to say.
“Or perhaps why we’re afraid of windows?” Zeke added darkly, watching Noah and the views of the backyard equally.
Noah paused. “My cousins are in town. They tracked you here.”
A breath left me. “The ones who want to hurt me?”
“So you say,” Zeke added.
I could see the rage in Noah’s eyes.
“Hey!” Baylie snapped, coming to Noah’s side and glaring at Zeke. “Who do you think you are, huh? Chloe, who is this guy?”
I didn’t answer her. “You never mentioned cousins.”
“I don’t like to advertise,” Noah retorted. “But yeah. Them. And my uncle. They came by yesterday and seemed to believe you’d be able to make it back here.”
Suspicion stole over me. “What were they driving?”
His eyes narrowed. “Red SUV.”
I swallowed. Zeke looked like he was barely restraining a curse.
“And I suppose you’re related to Earl too?” Zeke demanded.
“Earl?” Noah repeated, confused.
“Big guy,” Zeke supplied. “Lives in the forest with his knives and a serious dead-daughter obsession.”
Noah shook his head warily.
I hesitated. He didn’t appear to be lying.
And I wished I could trust that. But he’d also attacked Zeke that day on the beach, and threatened to kill me as well. I couldn’t shake the memory of the disgust in his eyes, no matter how much he claimed not to have meant it.
Carefully, I lifted a hand to my neck and pulled down the edge of the scarf.
He froze.
“We’ve run into…” I gave a tense glance to Baylie, “into a guy who wanted us dead before.”
Noah stared at the bruises. He looked sick. Genuine, honest-to-God sick.
“Chloe…” Baylie breathed. “What the…”
“I-I don’t know him,” Noah managed. “I swear. The others… I don’t have any connection to them.”
I studied his face, seeing only nausea and concern, both of which were growing stronger by the second. Nothing remained of that hideous revulsion for me he’d shown on the beach. Nothing to say he was anything other than appalled at what Earl had done.
Trying to keep my hand from trembling, I tugged the scarf back into place. “Why couldn’t you just tell me?” I asked Noah, old hurt rising up inside. “On the beach, you could have–”
“I didn’t have time. They… we can feel each other’s presence. Know where others like us are, even if we can’t see each other. And they were coming right behind me. As it was… Chloe, if you’d been a second slower in leaving…”
He exhaled, seeming to str
uggle for words. “They’ve spent their whole lives hoping to find someone like you. Just waiting for the chance to kill a… a person like you. I couldn’t let them do that.”
I shivered, remembering Earl’s words about his daughter keeping his spirits up about finally finding us someday.
“Earl said something like that too,” I allowed.
Noah managed a nod.
I glanced to Zeke.
“Why do they want to kill us?” he asked.
Noah hesitated, seeming like he’d rather not answer the question.
“Noah?” I pressed.
He exhaled. “We…” His jaw worked for a moment and his deep green gaze twitched to me. “We were created to kill you.”
My brow drew down. “Created to…?”
“Long time ago. Old war. Bunch of…” Noah’s gaze flicked to Baylie this time. He looked like the words were being dragged from him. “Bunch of old wizards. Dead island. Dead civilization. Story is, they were being overrun and,” he paused, “and they wanted a defense.”
I stared at him. He’d told me greliaran meant ‘protector’ that day he’d driven me to the ocean after the Sylphaen had injected me.
He’d just never said protector against whom.
“Overrun?” I repeated.
He nodded.
I looked to Zeke. His brow shrugged slightly and he appeared as mystified as me.
“Overrun by what?” Baylie asked, her voice small.
I blinked. So tense I could see her shaking, she watched us with fear in her eyes.
Like we might be monsters. Like we might grow three heads or turn into snake-beasts or something.
I felt sick.
“So you… you’re not actually…” she started, her face making clear what she was struggling to say. Not like her.
Not human.
“No,” I answered softly.
Her brow furrowed.
“Chloe’s not like me, though,” Noah cut in. “What I told you was the truth. And she wasn’t trying to keep anything a secret either. It just happened that way. She only found out about this after she got to Santa Lucina.”
I hesitated, unprepared for his help.
Or for how much I appreciated it.
“But what…” Baylie tried.
“Dehaian,” I said. “That’s, um…”
“Like mermaids,” Noah finished.
Baylie seemed to choke. “You’re…?”
“Yeah,” I said.
She gave a soft gasp. Running a hand through her blonde hair, she retreated from us. She scanned the floor as if searching for answers there, and then she looked back up, finding Noah.
For a moment she studied her stepbrother.
She exhaled. Her gaze went back to me.
“You’re a mermaid,” she stated.
I managed a shrug.
Another breath left her.
And degenerated into a chuckle at the end.
“You’re a…” She gave another gasping chuckle. “And he’s not human either, is he?”
She twitched her chin toward Zeke.
I shook my head cautiously, uncertain what to make of her reaction.
“He’s like you?”
I nodded.
She echoed the motion, her gaze dropping back to the floor. “Wow.”
I glanced to Noah. He was watching Baylie.
“So that’s where you were,” Baylie continued. “When you were gone this whole time. You were… I mean…”
I nodded again.
“Wow.”
She paced away, running her fingers through her hair once more.
“How many others are there?” she asked, looking back at us. “I mean you’re,” she gestured to Noah, “what you are. Chloe and this guy are like mermaids… merpeople… what’d you call it again?”
“Dehaian,” Zeke said.
Baylie eyed him distrustfully, but she jerked her head in cautious acknowledgement. “Dehaian. So who else? Who else isn’t human around here?”
I hesitated, uncertain if we should go into this.
“Chloe?” she demanded.
“Um… Mom and Dad are landwalkers,” I risked saying.
“And what the hell is that?”
“Like former dehaians. But they can’t go near the water anymore.”
Baylie nodded. “Great. Okay.”
“You alright?” Noah asked.
She turned to him, incredulity in her blue eyes.
“Sorry,” he amended.
She let out a breath. Blinking a few times, she shook her head and then looked at me again. “We need to talk.”
I hesitated.
“But not now,” she continued, coming back toward me. “Now…” She glanced to Noah. “Now there are five guys we’ve really got to get out of town.”
He nodded.
“If they’ve been searching for dehaians their whole lives,” I said, distantly feeling relief at being able to use the word with Baylie even in the midst of everything. “They’re not going to leave easy.”
“What if we–”
Zeke cut off as someone knocked on the front door.
“You expecting anyone?” he asked.
Baylie shook her head. She looked to Noah. “Is it them?”
He regarded the accordion door to the hall as though he could see through it to the outside. “Not unless they’re hiding.”
My brow started to draw down, and then I remembered what he’d said about knowing where others like him were.
The distant sound of the television cut off. Footsteps thudded on the stairs from the second floor, and then I heard the door open. Muffled voices followed, one of which sounded like Baylie’s stepmom, Sandra.
“Just some guy,” Noah supplied quietly, his eyes on the accordion door. “Says he’s moving to the area with his daughter. He’s asking about schools, neighbors.”
He caught sight of me watching him, and a touch of embarrassment crossed his face. “We–”
“Have good hearing. Yeah, we know that part.”
Noah hesitated and then gave a small nod, still seeming uncomfortable.
I pulled my gaze back to the others. “We could try to make those guys think we’ve left. That maybe we were here, but now–”
A cry from the front of the house brought me up short. Footsteps pounded on the floor of the hallway.
Noah raced for the accordion door.
It ripped open before he got there.
Earl stopped, one massive hand holding chunks of the brown wood and the other gripping the doorframe. Breathing hard, he stood for a moment, his giant form filling the doorway and his eyes sweeping the room wildly.
His gaze landed on me. A wretched grin spasmed across his lip.
“Found you,” he growled.
He charged at me, taking the two stairs to the den floor in a single step and throwing the remnants of the door to the ground as he came.
“Run!” Noah yelled at us, moving to block his path.
Earl barely paused. Fissures sped through his skin like an earthquake on overdrive, and in a heartbeat, fire lit his eyes. He swung an arm, batting Noah aside.
Zeke lunged at him, spikes on his arms.
With a snarl, Earl grabbed for him and Zeke ducked fast. His spikes slashed at the man’s side, tearing through his flannel shirt, but the blades deflected uselessly from Earl’s skin. Zeke spun, his arm arcing up, his spikes aimed at the man’s face, but Earl twisted and snagged the blow in midair. With an angry shout, he hurled Zeke away as well.
Earl didn’t stop.
I backpedaled, spikes rushing out of my forearms.
“You thought my friends wouldn’t tell me where to look for you?” He scoffed. “You thought after what you did to me, I wouldn’t hunt you down, you little scale-skinned bitch?”
The steps to the patio door bumped against my heels, and frantically, I fumbled behind me for the handle, my
eyes locked on Earl.
Noah plowed into him. The television shattered as they crashed through it.
“Run, dammit!” Noah shouted, his greliaran form making the words a snarl.
Zeke rolled up from the ground and rushed at me. Grabbing my arm with one hand and yanking the door open with the other, he didn’t spare Earl or Noah a glance.
“Baylie!” I yelled, stumbling after Zeke as he pulled me from the house.
A crash came from the den. White-faced, Baylie raced outside.
“Go!” she cried. “He’s getting up!”
We ran for the back gate.
Glass shattered behind us. I couldn’t tell what was happening in there. The gate latch broke at Zeke’s tug at the flimsy padlock, and then we were out in the service way between the yards, barreling toward the street with Baylie fighting to keep up behind us.
I tried to slow. I’d forgotten how fast we were. Or, given what Zeke had just done, how strong.
“We need to get out of sight,” Zeke called as we bolted across the road.
I glanced to Baylie.
“Jefferson,” she suggested breathlessly.
I nodded. Without another word, we both turned, running for the gap between two yards that we knew led to our school. Casting a look over his shoulder for Earl, Zeke followed.
The grassy expanse of the football practice field waited on the other side of the houses, with the block of bricks that was Thomas Jefferson High School beyond it. Football players getting in an early workout looked up and stared at us in confusion when we sped by.
“Where’s the fire?” one yelled.
I ignored him and Baylie did too as we raced for the building’s side. Left unlocked for the summer school students, the metal door surrendered to my yank on the handle and then clanged loudly when it slammed back against the brick wall. Our footsteps echoed as we ran through the hallways.
“Here,” Baylie called.
We ducked into one of the empty classrooms. Tugging the door closed behind us, Zeke glanced around quickly and then strode past the desks to the strip of narrow windows along the opposite wall.
“Are you okay?” I asked him, casting a quick look to the hallway through the tiny square of glass in the door.
“Yeah,” he replied as he yanked the vinyl curtains down.
