by Dee J. Stone
He eyes us as he sits down. “Yeah. I carried him to your house earlier this summer.” He holds out his hand to me.
“Thanks for your help, by the way.” I shake his hand. “I’ve wanted to meet you for so long. I’ve just been really busy with…um, stuff.”
He waves his hand. “No worries.” He faces Damarian and holds out his hand.
With a wide smile, Damarian shakes it a bit too vigorously. “Hello. I very much appreciate you transporting me to Cassie’s house. Thank you.”
Jace’s eyebrows lift a little at Damarian’s speech, but he smiles again. “No problem. Glad you’re okay, man.”
Damarian shakes his head. “Forgive me. I intended to say…thank you so much for carrying me to Cassie’s house.” He beams.
Leah and I hold back from giggling.
Jace’s smile widens, though there’s no mistaking his confused eyes. He says again, “No problem.” He looks at Leah. “Are we going?”
“You don’t mind us coming along?” I ask. “Damian’s never bowled—I mean, Damian hasn’t bowled in a really long time.”
“Sure. I’m looking forward to getting to know you guys. Leah can’t stop talking about you.”
Damarian tugs harshly on my arm. His face looks a bit peachy and sweat breaks out on his forehead. He scratches his neck. “Cassie, I feel ill,” he whispers.
My eyes fly to my watch. It’s past three PM. Oh no. I shoot to my feet and pull Leah to the side. “Damarian needs salt water!” I whisper frantically.
She stares at me like I told her I want to run around the beach naked. Then understanding enters her eyes. “W-what? N-now? What do we do?”
“We need to get him to the beach right now.”
“I have my car,” Leah says, snapping out of her nervous state. “Let’s go!” She’s about to bolt out the door, but then she remembers Jace. He has the most baffled expression on his face. “Jace,” she says. “Um…”
“Damian’s not feeling very well,” I say.
“Yeah, I’m just going to give them a lift.”
I reach for Damarian’s hand.
“I’ll come with you,” Jace offers.
“No!” Leah and I nearly shout.
He blinks at us like we slapped him.
“Um, I don’t want anyone to catch it,” I say, sounding completely lame.
“I’ll drop them off and come right back, okay?” Leah presses her lips to Jace’s.
“Sure…” he says, his eyebrows wrinkled.
The three of us rush to the exit of the shop. Leah’s car is parked on the other side of the lot. Grabbing hold of Damarian’s hand, I realize it’s a bit warmer than usual. His skin is even peachier. “Try to hold on as much as you can,” I tell him.
He nods, putting on a brave face, but it’s obvious he’s in a lot of pain.
He and I leap into the backseat of the car, and Leah starts the engine.
“The beach is too crowded,” I say, smacking my forehead. “We can’t go there.” I rub my eyes. “Where else can we go?” My voice is beyond frantic. It’s in full-blown panic mode.
Leah looks just as worried as me. Then her eyes light up. “My cousin’s beach house! I’m housesitting for her while she’s on vacation. She has a pool.”
“Can Damarian swim there twice a day?”
“She told me I’m welcome to use the pool.”
It feels like an invasion of privacy, and maybe like I’m stealing, but I don’t see any other option. Damarian needs salt water right now or else he’ll die. It’s a matter of life and death.
“Let’s go!” I tell her.
She steps on the gas and we speed away.
“Salt water,” I say. “Damn, we need synthetic sea salt.”
“Shit,” Leah mutters. “Okay, I know a pet store a few blocks away.” She looks at Damarian through the rear-view mirror. He’s half-lying on the seat, his eyes barely open as dreadful sounds leave his mouth. Like a whale crying out in pain. Her face blanches. “He doesn’t look so good, Cass.”
I use the inside of my wrist to wipe away the sweat on his forehead. “Hang in there, Damarian,” I say as gently as possible.
His eyes open a bit, and I understand the meaning in them. He’ll fight. He won’t give up that easily.
“Your lives seem to be on the line too many times,” Leah mutters, clutching the steering wheel tightly.
No kidding.
“Okay, here’s the store.” Leah stops the car and turns around. “What do we do?”
“The bucket’s too heavy to carry alone,” I tell her. “We’ll both need to go.” I stroke the side of Damarian’s face. “We’ll be back in a sec, okay?”
His head barely lifts in a nod.
I press my lips to his forehead before dashing out of the car after Leah. When I enter the shop, she’s yelling, “I need synthetic sea salt! It’s an emergency! Can someone help me and give me some damn sea salt?!”
A man who looks to be in his mid-twenties hurries over. “What can I do for you?”
“Synthetic sea salt,” I say. “We need it as fast as possible.”
“My fish are dying!” Leah cries.
“Yes. Okay.” The guy says, completely flustered. “Right away.” He disappears to the back of the store.
“Come.” I take hold of Leah’s arm and tug her after him, to where he’s checking out the buckets of sea salt. “Here.” I dump money in his hand and motion for Leah to help me lift one of them. “We’ll get it.”
“Are you sure you don’t need help?” he asks, staring at us like we’re from Crazy City.
“We’re good.” I groan as I lift the bucket. These things are really heavy. Huffing and puffing, we heave the bucket all the way to the car and put it in the backseat. Leah and I get in and she steps on the gas.
I bring my hand to Damarian’s face. It’s drenched in sweat. He looks much worse than before. “Damarian,” I say softly.
He moans.
“We’re almost there,” I tell him.
Leah stops the car and scrambles out, yanking the back door open. “How do we carry the bucket and Damarian?”
“Cassie,” Damarian breathes.
“We’re at the house. Do you think you can walk inside?”
His hand searches for mine and slides in. There’s a burning sensation when our skin touches, and then it feels like someone is sucking my life out of me. I gasp and sputter as the burning intensifies. Damarian’s face slowly regains some of its natural color.
“D…Damarian,” I mumble, my body growing weaker.
Our hands break apart and we fly to opposite sides of the car. My head knocks into the window. Rubbing it, I sit up and gape at Damarian. He looks a little better, but still weak. Did he…borrow some of my life force? Leah looks just as stunned as me.
I shake my head. I can’t think about this now. I throw Damarian’s arm over my shoulder and help him out of the car. Leah and I grip the bucket handle and drag it into the house, with Damarian leaning on me. He has a bit of strength, but he still needs me for support. My body isn’t strong enough, not after he took some of my energy.
Sweaty and our limbs barely holding up, we make it to the door of the pool room. I turn the knob, only to find it locked. “Shit!”
Damarian starts wheezing. Leah grabs the knob and twists it like her life depends on it. “What do we do?”
My heart is beating so erratically I can hardly think straight. No pool means no salt water for Damarian, which means death to the merman.
I need to do something.
An idea pops into my head. “The bathtub.”
“The what?” Leah asks.
“It’s small, but it’s better than nothing. Let’s go!”
We don’t have a lot of strength left, and Damarian is so weak he’s putting all his weight on me. But I’m not giving up. Leah and I lower the bucket to the floor, and she helps me bring Damarian to the closest bathroom. I lay him in the tub and turn on the water. Then we retrieve the bucket of
sea salt. As soon as the tub is filled, we pour some in.
A few seconds later, Damarian starts thrashing around and splashing water all over the bathroom and us. His sapphire tail shoots out of the tub, so long the fin almost touches the ceiling. Leah gasps and stumbles back. She’s seen me change into a mermaid, but she’s never seen Damarian. His tail drops down, displacing half the water in the tub. The room is flooded.
Leah wipes her face with her arm. “Holy crap.”
Pain overtakes me. I fall back on the floor as every part of my body is engulfed in flames. A few seconds later, my own sapphire tail shoots up in the air.
“Holy crap times two.” Leah’s eyes bug out of their sockets.
I rub my throbbing side. “You okay, Leah?”
She clutches her chest, a big swallow making its way down her throat. “Yeah. Totally normal to have two mermaids sitting in my bathroom. Well, not that it’s my bathroom, but holy hell.”
I grasp the side of the tub to help myself to a sitting position. Damarian’s back is resting against the tub, his eyes in slits, his chest rising and falling rapidly before falling into a steady rhythm. I rub his arm. “You okay, Damarian?”
His eyes flutter until they’re fully open. “Yes, I am all right. Thank you.” His expression changes. “You have shifted?”
“Yeah. Some of the salt water hit me.”
“Forgive me. I do not wish to be a burden.” His eyes move to Leah. “To either of you.”
“You’re not,” I assure him.
Although Leah looks like she’s about to faint, she waves her hand. “Not at all.”
I scoot closer to the tub and stretch my arms over it to envelop Damarian in a hug. “I’m glad you’re okay. I was so scared.” I mentally kick myself for not paying attention to how long Damarian was out of water. The only excuse I can give myself is that I was so used to being with him in the ocean without having to worry about making sure he has his daily swims.
“Please do not fret,” Damarian says, his hand making circles on my back.
After giving him a kiss, I pull back and study the tub. Damarian’s tail hangs over the edge. His upper body is in the water, though there’s not a lot left. “I don’t know if this tub is enough,” I say. “If it’ll sustain you until tonight.”
“I’ll call my cousin and ask her if there’s a spare key to the pool room,” Leah says.
I nod. “Can you please get us some towels to dry off?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks.”
Damarian hooks an arm around my waist and hauls me into the tub with him. He kisses my temple. “Thank you, my love. If not for you, I would perish. You and Leah.”
I squeeze him in my arms, so grateful he’s alive and well. I haven’t been this scared since I saw him captured in the deep sea, under an electrified net, his life seeping out of him by the minute. Situations like this will probably arise during our life, and we’ll figure it out. As long as we have each other and our friends for support. And hopefully my family as well, once everything calms down and I feel comfortable enough to tell my parents.
Leah returns with the towels. She holds out a key. “Got it and I unlocked the door to the pool room.”
“Thanks.”
Her phone chimes.
“Jace?” I ask, handing Damarian a towel.
She nods. “He’s been texting me nonstop, asking if everything’s okay.”
“You should go to him. He’s been waiting all this time.”
Her eyes move over me and Damarian. “I can’t leave you.”
“We’ll be okay. Go have fun with your man.”
“Are you sure?”
Her phone chimes again.
“One hundred percent sure,” I say.
“Okay, thanks.”
She doesn’t go until Damarian and I are back in our human forms, and I convince her that we’re okay. She hands me two keys, one to the house and one to the pool room, before leaving. Damarian and I head to the pool for a proper swim.
Chapter Five
After Damarian and I swim in Leah’s cousin’s pool, we head back home. It’s nearly ten PM. We were finally able to have our privacy to swim as long as we wanted, total freedom. Unlike at the beach, where we always have a time limit.
As soon as I stick the key into the lock, the door flies open and Mom stands there, hands on her hips. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you for hours.”
I slide my hand into my pocket for my phone, but it’s not there. “Oh, I totally forgot about it.” Living in the ocean for the past two weeks was like being in another world. Actually, I was in another world, where technology doesn’t exist. I don’t even remember where I left my phone.
Mom raises her eyebrow. “You forgot your phone? Since when does a teenager forget the most precious thing in her life?” Although her face is washed with concern, her tone is light and teasing.
“I wish you’d stop referring to me as a teenager,” I mutter.
“You’re eighteen, Cass. Yes, you’ve been living alone these past few months and pretty much take care of yourself, but you’re still a teenager. A teenager who should at least be responsible enough to call her mother when she’s running late.” She glances at her watch, her eyebrows creased.
There’s so much I want to say, tell her that I’m an adult and don’t need to check with her every second, or that she’s being way too overprotective, much more than when I was a kid and really needed her. But I clamp my mouth shut. She’s right—I am young. I don’t feel that way, though. Maybe it’s because of everything that’s happened to me. Shifting into a mermaid, entering the ocean to save Damarian. Rescuing him from the rebels.
“I apologize,” Damarian says. “In the future, we will call you with Cassie’s cell phone.”
“Yeah, wherever it is,” I mumble.
Mom keeps her eyes on me for a few seconds before letting out a sigh and slipping it out of her back pocket.
I laugh sheepishly. “You found it.”
“Under the couch.” She twists it around, examining it. “This is the phone that cost me a fortune.”
What should I tell her? That the reason it was under the couch was because the last time I used it—when she called me—I got a “feeling” that Damarian was hurt, and I dropped everything and raced to the ocean to save him?
Mom shakes her head, her face laced with disappointment. “I expect better from you. You need to be more responsible.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head again. “Sorry doesn’t cut it. I didn’t only come home to visit because I missed you. There’s another reason.”
I look at her, my heart rate starting to pick up.
“Come, let’s sit in the living room.”
Damarian and I settle on the couch while Mom takes the recliner. She’s wearing a serious expression on her face. Damarian slides his hand into mine, which eases me a bit.
“You’re an adult now, Cassie,” she starts. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more present in your life growing up. I wish I had done things a little differently, but I can’t change the past. We need to move on.”
“Mom, don’t worry about any of that. I’m fine.”
She nods, swallowing hard. “The thing is…I can’t afford the house anymore.”
It feels like every single organ in my body plummets to the ground. “What?”
She nods again, her eyes growing sad and regretful. “Your dad helped over the years and a large chunk of Grandpa’s inheritance money went toward the house. But with Sheila losing her job and Grandpa’s money using up—”
“Wait. Sheila lost her job?”
“—it’s hard. And you know apartments aren’t cheap in New York. I spoke to my accountant and he informed me that our expenses are just too high.”
I sit there, completely dumbfounded. A million thoughts race through my head. We can’t lose the house. I grew up here and love it. This is my home, the one I’ve created with Damarian. Who desperately needs
my pool filled with salt water. And so do I.
I rub my temples as a headache starts to form.
“I shall do whatever it takes to help out with the expenses,” Damarian says. “I will acquire work.”
I look at my merman. With the worry of the rebels back home in the ocean, I can’t put this burden on his shoulders. I know he’s part of my world now, but his responsibility is to his family right now. “Dam—”
“I wish to speak with Cassie’s father,” Damarian says. “I shall seek work immediately.”
“But Dami—”
He presses his forehead to mine. “It is all right, my love. I wish to provide for you.”
But I don’t want him to provide for me. I want to provide for him. “I’ll get a job and help out with the expenses,” I say.
“We don’t need to make any decisions now,” Mom says. “It’s not like we’ll lose the house tomorrow. We have a good few months until things get tight. But I just wanted to tell you so you’re aware.”
I nod absentmindedly, my head whirling. How will Damarian and I travel between land and sea when we’re needed on land? Knowing how loyal Damarian is and how much he loves me, he’d choose to stay with me instead of going home. But I can’t let him do that.
“Damian,” I start, but he puts his finger on my lips.
“You have heard difficult news. Perhaps it would be wise to eat and rest.”
Mom rubs my knee. “Damian is right. Give yourself some time for the news to sink in. I’m sorry, sweetie.”
“It’s okay. I’ll help out as much as I can.” Mom’s been generous letting Damarian and me live here without having to pay rent, but it’s time we pull our weight. I just don’t know how we can juggle everything.
Mom stands up. “I’m going to bed. There are some leftovers in the fridge.”
“Thanks.” I stand to hug her, inhaling her perfume that has always comforted me in the past.
“We’ll be okay.” She kisses my cheek before leaving.
Damarian puts his arm over my shoulder and tugs me to his chest, his lips touching the side of my face. “All will be well, my love.” His warm breath tickles my cheek.
