His eyes were so dark. “Come on, Jenny. Let’s get you in bed. I have work to do.”
“Don’t patronize me,” she whispered.
Les gave her a bitter smile and slammed open her cabin door—so hard she flinched. “No kicking. No biting. Promise that, and I’ll even let you use the toilet.”
Jenny pushed herself off the wall, using all her strength to walk in a straight line. She stopped in front of Les and forced her own smile. “I’d rather piss my pants than promise that.”
Les said nothing. He grabbed the front of her shorts and yanked her close. His fingers slid against her lower stomach. Jenny’s smile froze—and his dimmed. He undid the button and slid the fly halfway down. Slow. Deliberate. Never blinked, not once. Neither did Jenny.
“There,” Les whispered, some terrible emotion sweeping through his gaze. “You should be able to manage now, even with your hands tied.”
Jenny didn’t dare speak. Les shoved her into the cabin, and she fell hard across the bed. He slammed the door shut. None of them had ever had any use for locks, and doors on the yacht opened outward into the hall. She heard him shove a board beneath the knob—no doubt bracing it against the opposing wall.
Jenny listened to him walk away. Tried to sit up, but her head swam. All she could do was lie on the bed, hands tied behind her back. Every time she shifted, even a little, she felt the rub of that unzipped fly on her stomach; and the memory of Les’s fingers on her skin made her eyes fill with tears. Jenny buried her face in the pillow, but it was too difficult to breathe. The cabin air was hot—or maybe that was her.
Fever, she thought dimly, as the base of her skull ached. I’m burning up.
She managed to roll off the bed and stumbled to the bathroom. Everything that could be a weapon had been taken away, but there was ibuprofen in the top drawer. Fumbling behind her back, she managed to pop three pills from the bottle to the counter; then turned, bending to lick them up. She swallowed the medicine dry, gagging when the pills got lodged in her throat. But they finally went down.
Jenny looked at herself in the mirror. Flushed face, bloodshot eyes. Mouth sagging on one side, as though misery was etching new lines in her face. White hairs would probably be next. After that, the grave.
“Not yet,” she whispered, staring into her haunted eyes. “Not like this.”
Jenny managed to use the toilet—awkwardly—and tottered back to bed. Her desk looked so empty: computer gone, along with the satellite phone and wireless uplink. No way to contact anyone.
Les has been planning this a long time.
Practically had gone through a checklist. Jenny just didn’t get it. Memories filled her; laughter and music, and dancing; and all those days and months living together on this ship, traveling the world and hunting for the unknown. What had she missed? Where were the signs? She couldn’t think of even one.
Jenny lay down, shifting restlessly. Her wrists and shoulders hurt. Still hard to breathe. But finally she managed to sleep. And dream.
It was such a relief to be back on the beach, to find his body, pressed warm against hers; and hear his voice, insistent and calm. All of him, so real. She had never seen his face, but he had been younger, once upon a time. Younger, smaller, like her. As Jenny had grown, so had he. Her imaginary friend.
Her boy from the beach.
The house was there, too, but that was nothing she wanted to dwell on. Those dreams—those special dreams that had disappeared from her life for a full eight years—had always been a place of peace.
As well as heartache for something she could never have.
But this time the dream ended early—that warm hand slipping through hers—and Jenny found herself drifting in another place that felt just as real, but full of contorted shadows that rippled in her vision. Like water. Deep water, lost to light.
She was not alone. No sign of life, but she felt something huge in the darkness, surrounding her in a coil of heat. She was afraid to breathe, or speak, and the longer she remained still, and silent, the more terrified she felt. Her heart thudded in her chest, and she suffered an echo of her pulse in the back of her head, as though a tiny heart beat there, too.
Wake, whispered a melodic voice. Open your eyes.
They’re open, Jenny tried to answer, but water rushed into her mouth with crushing force, ramming down her throat. She thrashed wildly, her foot kicking something hard—and in front of her, large as a mountain, something moved. A strange rise and fall of golden light, cut with a slit.
An eye.
Jenny woke, gasping. Drenched in sweat, confused, head pounding. Took her a long time to remember where she was. It was dark, and the cabin walls and ceiling kept merging with deeper shadows that moved in her vision. A golden eye hovered on the edges, but every time she looked, it slipped away. She could feel it, though: massive, and wild, and pitiless.
It was hard to move, so Jenny didn’t. Everything was tender, even her throat. Looked like night outside the porthole. Or early morning, according to the clock on the desk. Around 4:00 A.M. She had slept a long time.
Jenny dozed a little more, and the next time she was fully conscious, the sun had risen, and it was well into morning. She felt better. Less achy. Footsteps sounded outside in the hall and she slowly, carefully, sat up. Her shorts had slid halfway down her hips in the night, but she managed to tug them up before her door opened. Les entered, carrying a tall glass of ice tea and a muffin. Shadows clung to his face, and his cheeks seemed more hollow. No sleep, maybe. Guilty conscience, she hoped.
“Oh, look,” Jenny said. “You’ve come to kill me with kindness.”
Les arched his brow and took a very deliberate bite out of the muffin. “Sorry,” he said, mouth full. “This is my breakfast.”
Jenny shook her head. “Your pettiness used to be endearing.”
“It still could be.” Les held out the ice tea. “Drink.”
She didn’t feel like arguing. Her throat was too dry. He pressed the glass to her lips, tilting slowly, and she drank and drank, spilling some down the sides of her mouth, until there was nothing left.
“You look less . . . feverish.” Les brushed his fingers against her brow, and Jenny flinched away from him.
“Don’t touch me,” she said. “Really, just don’t.”
His gaze darkened. “I should have been honest with you from the beginning. About . . . everything.”
“Everything.” Jenny pushed past him, heading for the door. “In this case, I really can’t imagine how honesty would have solved anything. What . . . you would have told me how you were going to hijack the ship, murder Maurice, and keep me tied up? Don’t think so. At least now I know who you really are.”
Les grabbed her arm. “You have no idea who I am. If you did . . .”
Jenny straightened, staring dead in his eyes. “So tell me. Make me understand.”
For a moment she thought he would try, but uncertainty burned in his gaze, and he let go. “Later, maybe. I’ll need to . . . show you.”
No time like the present, she almost said, but kept her mouth shut. Not entirely certain she was ready for the truth that he seemed so afraid of telling her.
He shuffled her to the galley. Fed her oatmeal. And then took her up on deck where the sun was warm and deliciously bright after a night of hard dreams.
“My wrists are raw,” she said to Les. “Will you untie me?”
“Not a chance.” He disappeared inside the main cabin, closing and locking the door behind him. Five minutes later he came out with a first-aid kit, a soda with a straw, and a bottle of whiskey.
“This is going to be a long morning,” she muttered, looking at the alcohol. Les’s haggard expression softened, but only as long as it took for him to take a long swallow directly from the bottle. The whiskey seemed to go straight to his eyes, turning the
m a hard golden brown.
“Wrists,” he commanded, and Jenny obeyed, turning to face the bow. As he rubbed antibiotic gel into the raw welts, she noticed a tarp-covered lump on the deck. It was about the same size as a body.
“Les,” she said slowly. “What’s that?”
His fingers stilled, and then kept rubbing. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
She pulled away, glaring. “If that’s a dead person, I sure as hell am going to worry.”
“It’s not . . . not a person.” Les gave the tarp a haunted look, rubbing his hands together. “Not like that.”
Not like that. Jenny ran from him, ignoring his shout. Before he could stop her she kicked aside the tarp.
A dolphin lay underneath. Dead at least several hours, given the dried look of its skin. Its eyes were rimmed with milky clouds, and its mouth gaped open. A jagged hole had ripped open its side. Spear-gun wound, maybe.
“You’re psycho,” Jenny said, as Les drew near. “What? This dolphin look at you wrong?”
“Yes, actually,” he replied tersely, and yanked her from the dead animal. “Leave it alone.”
Jenny gritted her teeth and slammed into Les. He staggered back, and she kicked out his knee, sending him down hard. But when she tried to smash her heel into his face, he caught her ankle, twisting. Jenny crashed into the deck, but rocked sideways, fighting for some kind of momentum that would let her stand. Les got to her before she could. He grabbed her hair, placed his knee between her shoulders, and yanked her head so far back she thought her neck would break.
“Make no mistake,” Les said raggedly, “about how much I care about you. Because I do care, Jenny. But you seem to be under the false impression that you have power here. And you don’t. You really, really, don’t. So it seems to me that I’m going to have to prove that to you. Because if you keep interfering with my work, I’ll take permanent measures to get you out of the way. And I don’t want to do that.”
“You talk too much,” Jenny whispered. “Asshole.”
His mouth twisted, and so did the anger in his eyes. She wished she had kept her mouth shut—but it was too late. He dragged her to the side of the boat, and hauled her up into his arms.
“No,” she gasped. “Les.”
“You’re good at holding your breath,” he replied coldly. “Don’t worry. I’ll come get you before you drown.”
He dumped her overboard. Jenny didn’t have time to take a deep breath, and she hit the water with jarring force, which expelled additional air from her nostrils. She sank like a stone, and kicked with all her strength to reach the surface. She managed to, just for a moment, and swallowed air. Glimpsed Les standing on the boat, watching. And then she sank, again.
I had a bad dream. You, drowning. Maurice’s voice echoed through her head. Jenny kicked hard, straining to break free of the ocean, but the surface remained tantalizingly out of reach. It shouldn’t have. She was a strong swimmer. But the fever had taken more out of her than she realized. She was weak.
The more you fight, the harder it’ll be to hold your breath.
But if she stopped kicking and sank, Les might never find her. If he even meant to. Screwed, either way. So screwed.
Jenny kept kicking, but not as hard. Just enough to keep her from descending too far into the deep. Her lungs burned. Stars danced on the edge of her vision. She wasn’t going to last four minutes. Maybe not even two.
Warmth spread against the base of her skull. With it, a throbbing pulse, a little heartbeat, slow and steady. Jenny closed her eyes, focusing on the sensation, on staying calm.
But it was too little, too late. All her thrashing, every kick, ate up the oxygen in her blood—and her lungs screamed and screamed, those stars fighting behind her closed eyelids—and no one came, no hands grabbed her arms, no magic from the deep to save her.
Jenny opened her mouth, and water rushed in—a terrible crushing force, just like in her dream. She had always imagined that drowning would be a painless way to die, but it wasn’t. Terror made her eyes bulge, and she writhed uselessly, screaming in her mind.
Until, suddenly, heat exploded against her skull. A violent rush of fire. And all that water in her lungs suddenly didn’t hurt quite as badly.
It took her a moment to understand. Even when she realized what was happening, her mind still couldn’t comprehend it.
She could breathe. Not well, or easily, but even as the water choked, her lungs filled with air—a strange, heavy air that felt wrong and tasted bad.
But it was air. Jenny was so shocked she stopped kicking.
You’re dying, and this is a delusion, she told herself, sinking fast. But she clenched her hands together and dragged in another terrible breath—and still lived.
It didn’t last. Each breath became more difficult and crushing than the last, and panic again supplanted wonder. Jenny’s lungs burned like hell.
The parasite shifted against her skull. Some instinct made Jenny open her eyes. She was surprised at how sharp her vision was in the darkness, each particle that drifted past her face distinct and bright, as though lit from within—like stars. Below, far below, something moved toward her. It was impossibly large and fast, a silver streak.
Dolphin, she thought weakly, wondering if this would become a fairy tale. Girl rescued by dolphin, carried to the surface, drawn far and away from the evil that had tossed her in to drown.
But the creature drew close, and it was no dolphin.
It was a man.
Jenny forgot she was dying. Everything faded, her life shrinking to nothing but a flash of strong white arms, silver drifting hair, and a face that was high-cheeked, masculine, and edged with faint white scars. She glimpsed a set mouth, and pale blue eyes staring hard into her own. Nothing comforting about that gaze—just that it was frighteningly intense. Fear thrilled through her, and awe.
You know those eyes, she told herself, even though it was impossible. She was dying. This was a delusion. No one was there.
But that same no one placed his hands on her arms and gathered her close against a hard warm body, and those same hands touched her face, and those imaginary eyes gave her a look of such ferocious wonder that her heart ached with a different kind of dying, and if this was death and insanity, then she welcomed it. Jenny was ready.
He pulled her toward the surface, fast as a bullet. She looked down and saw a long silver tail propelling him, and then their heads broke free of the ocean. She tried to breathe and vomited water. Coughs wracked her, so violent she half expected to taste blood in her mouth. But those arms never let go, and held her close, strong fingers smoothing back her hair. She tried looking into the merman’s face, but he was too close. All she caught were glimpses: puzzle pieces, riddles.
Jenny heard a shout. She twisted, and found the boat some distance away. Les stood at the rail, staring. The merman holding her stiffened, and when she pulled back far enough to see his face, all she saw were his eyes, staring back at Les.
Staring as though he knew him.
Les dove into the water. The merman muttered, “Shit.”
Jenny blinked. “What?”
He never answered. Just spun her around, fumbling for the restraints holding her wrists. It was a plastic cord, the kind that needed a knife to cut. He made a low frustrated sound.
“Kick,” he ordered hoarsely. “Try to stay afl—”
He was slammed away from her, caught in a torrent of foam and thrashing limbs. Jenny kicked hard, gasping for air—staring as Les reared briefly out of the water. Time slowed down as he threw back his head, silver water flying from his hair, waves crashing against his chest and shoulders as his arms moved steadily through the water. He stared at the merman without fear. Just grim, unhappy acceptance.
The merman’s expression was far more terrifying. Calculating, thoughtful, fill
ed with a fury that hit Jenny as primal and cold. His skin was white as marble, as new snow in sunlight, glimmering with water and salt crystals. Long hair clung to his hard muscles. Scars crisscrossed his arms and upper shoulders.
Memories slammed. The beach. That boy.
Jenny sank below the surface, lungs full of air. Eyes open, staring. She saw two bodies twisting through the water, and expected to witness one human confronting a merman—bizarre, insane, as that might be.
But what she saw was even stranger.
Both men had tails.
Chapter Six
There was a homeless shelter in New York City that played old movies in the evenings—classics, some of the guys had told Perrin, though he had little use for such definitions, or for film. Westerns, however, were occasionally enjoyable; if nothing else but for their historical value, which he knew was minimal at best. It awed him, however, that humans could live and thrive in deserts. Fascinated him to see what deserts looked like, even on grainy film: golden rock and sand, and sharp-needled plants; and skies that never ended.
Gunfights also intrigued Perrin. Standoffs between men who refused to relent, who knew they were going to die but continued on, carried by nothing but conviction. Everywhere, he saw this, and not only in film. Humans valued the individual moral fingerprint—as long as it was just and good.
As did he. Much to his misfortune.
Wyatt Earp. Magnificent Seven. Pale Rider. Movie titles rolled through Perrin’s head like some secret chant, which he hated. He wanted quiet inside his mind, a place to think, but the sun was high, spreading a glitter of light against the waves, and if this had been the desert with a gun strapped to his side, he would have felt more at home than he did now.
He had expected many things, in coming to the woman’s aid.
But not this. Not . . . him.
“A’lesander,” he said, more calmly than he felt—trying to keep his eyes open against the glitter of sunlight on the water—bright, too bright. “Thought you were dead.”
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