by Amy McNulty
I trusted this faery as far as I could throw him—and as far as I knew, being a mermaid didn’t grant me any super strength.
Poor oblivious Paisley had no fear, though. She bolted out of the car—grabbing hold of Bay’s forearm as he slammed the car door shut behind him—and dragged him up to the bookstore entrance.
“There’s a kitty here,” she gushed. Her eyes were practically watering in anticipation of the toll the cat would take on her allergies. But she didn’t mind.
I expected her to find the door closed, though—Orin had no love for work, he’d made that plenty clear—but she strolled right in, setting off the bell above the door.
Joy.
Lyric was texting as she strode past us, a frown on her lips the only thing making her not resemble a no-nonsense fashionista or businesswoman. “I’ll be in in a minute,” she said. “Bae is freaking out about me ‘going home sick.’ Don’t know whether to tell her the truth and get yelled at or continue to put up with her mollycoddling.”
“Relationships built on lies drop like flies,” I said, feeling sagely as I passed her and stepped up to the porch.
Calder rapidly blinked as he ascended the step beside me and I froze. “In… general,” I added. True, my friendships weren’t exactly going to last by my own judgement, but I hadn’t expected Calder to care about that. He was the one who wanted me to stop seeing them on a daily basis.
All to avoid Ember and the hallways full of vampires.
“Ha ha,” said Lyric dryly and Laguna quietly pushed between Calder and me to enter the store, the welcoming bell ringing out even as the door shut behind her.
“So you have permission to enter now?” I asked, remembering all those days he’d parked himself down the road at the diner waiting for me to get off-shift in hopes I’d talk to him.
“Guess so,” he said, holding the door out for me. The bell took on an ominous tone it’d never had for me before, and I cautiously stepped inside.
A sneeze was the first thing to catch my attention, and I practically jumped out of my skin, my right hand going cold at my side as I awaited the attack. Duh. Paisley. Allergies. I needed to stop being so jumpy.
The door shut behind me as Calder entered and the bell rang out once more.
“She’s purring,” said Paisley across the quiet stillness of the room, then she sneezed again.
“Skiving off school, are we?”
This time, I really did jump out of my skin. Well, not really, but it felt that way. My hand went up on instinct, glowing blue, the frosty condensation steaming in the air.
“Bit knackered still, I see,” said Orin, grinning as he didn’t so much as flinch. “Bags under the eyes and all that. So full of the collywobbles you’re about to harm the observer?”
Calder’s hand rested atop my wrist, bringing warmth to my appendage. I let the ice flow out of me as I dropped my inbuilt weapon.
“You just wait,” I said, my voice carefully controlled. “Wait until this is all over.”
Orin whistled, one hand in his pocket, the other carrying a worn book as he brushed past us and made his way toward the cashier’s counter.
“What are you even doing open this time of day?” I asked, struggling to focus on anything other than wringing his neck for spurring this whole thing on like he had. And then hypnotizing my mom into liking him.
“Just wagging off. Might have had a feeling someone was going to be here, all right?” He put his book down—opened—on the counter and plopped his elbows on either side of it, using his fists to support his cheeks as he stared down. I didn’t even want to look at that smug, glib face.
“Easy,” said Calder quietly. Had my irritation been that obvious?
I opened my mouth to speak, then bit my tongue. When I heard Paisley sneeze again, I remembered my excuse for coming here. “I want my paycheck.”
Orin snorted and pulled one fist away from his face—first to flip the page and then to punch a few buttons on the register without even looking at it. He pulled out three hundred-dollar bills and held them out, never once looking up from his book.
If he thought that was going to deter me from taking them—more than I was owed at that—he had another think coming. “I quit,” I said, snatching the bills from his outstretched hand and stuffing them in my jeans pocket.
“Figured,” he said, that quasi-cockney lilt injecting as much nonchalance as possible into that word. His fist rested against his cheek again.
Ugh.
“We also came to ask for your assistance,” said Calder.
“I’m listening,” said Orin, not at all appearing to be.
The clomp of feet pounding drew my attention as Paisley and Bay headed upstairs, Bay shaking his head as he looked our way, but a grin stretching across his handsome features all the same. Uh-oh. Paisley and Grey were hitting that seven-month itch…
A thundering clomp of books flooding onto the ground sounded from nearer the register, over at the window, and we all turned—even Orin—to see Laguna flushing red and scrambling to stack a pile of used paperbacks into her arms.
“Oy, Ariel, be careful with the merchandise, yeah?” Orin’s brow crunched.
“Her name’s Laguna,” I said.
“He knows,” added Calder. “He just likes teasing people.”
Orin’s voice grew louder, his gaze probing mine directly. “I do, don’t I?”
Calder was undeterred. “Would you help convince Ivy’s parents to let her transfer to Central High with me?”
Orin leaned back, his arms crossed over his chest, his book finally fully forgotten. “Help ‘convince,’ you say? Like dialing up my ol’ pal Morning Glory and telling her I have just the idea for her daughter’s academic growth and development?”
“You can command people, can’t you?” I asked, my nails digging into my palms. “Don’t deny it.”
“Wasn’t going to,” said Orin, and with a little flourish of his hand, a tiny gust of wind turned the page in his open book, his gaze shifted slightly downward to read it.
I slammed his book shut and kept my hand atop it. “Do you want this war over with quickly or not?”
Orin simply scratched his chin. “Don’t know. Been thinkin’ about it and maybe I’d miss my books and the idiot box too much.”
My voice took on an edge. “Would have been nice of you to have this attitude a couple of weeks ago when you decided to mess with us by knocking out the town’s power.” That had actually been just over a week ago. Dang, time was flowing fast.
“My mobile was charged,” he said, pulling out his phone from his pocket and shaking it in the air. “And I can read by firelight in my cozy cottage while blood and water go at it.”
“Don’t give me that,” I snapped. “You were probably observing the chaos you wrought and were disappointed to find it petered out into nothing that night.”
He shrugged, sliding the device back into his pocket. “You could say it laid the foundation for what was to come, yeah? Girls bonding with their princes—”
“I’ll bond you,” I said, fully aware that made no sense at all.
“All right, all right,” said Calder, putting a hand on my shoulder. He didn’t seem irritated by Orin at all, a fact that made my blood boil for some reason.
A brief sense of quietness fell over the store, broken only by the muffled sounds of footsteps on the loft above us and the quiet sliding of one book after another onto the shelf Laguna must have knocked them off of. Really, she ought to have sued him for shoddy stocking. The books could have fallen on her or tripped her. Then she could take his rich butt for all it was worth, shut this place down. I pinched my lips together to suppress a smile as I tossed my head back and glared at Orin.
He chuckled as if he had any idea what I was thinking.
“You know Union High is vampire territory,” said Calder.
“And whose fault is that?” Orin scratched his cheek again.
“Mom doesn’t like to directly involve innocents l
ike that,” said Calder. “She wouldn’t have lured a principal, nurse, and janitor away and turned them into bloodbags to take their places.”
Orin snorted. “Don’t forget a few members of the school board, too.” How many people did the vampires keep on hand to feed from? “You know, as the impartial observer,” Orin continued, “I have to say it’s almost bent as a nine-bob note for you to imply the merfolk are nothing but corkers. Who says you’re so high and mighty?”
Calder slammed a palm against the cashier’s counter and Laguna dropped a few more books to the ground in response.
Orin turned to face her. “Oy, love, just leave them—”
“We’re giving them Union High without a fight. All we ask is that you let us have the champion of water at our school. All the merteens go there already. You know I only applied to go to Union because there was a chance Ember might get a sister—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said. “You should have gone to Central High? But you live near my dad’s new place. Union territory.”
“The districting lines are very weird,” said Calder, glancing over his shoulder at me. “They zigzag all over that neighborhood. Demographics.”
Sure. Merfolk on this side, vampires on another.
“But your mom’s place is firmly in Central’s district,” added Calder, and I wanted to ask how he knew that. I hadn’t invited him over there.
“Google,” said Orin, answering my unasked question. “And paranormal boyfriend stalking.”
I pinched my lips together. Now wasn’t the time to lay into Calder, not when it would send a satisfied grin to Orin’s self-assured face. Calder flushed as he realized his mistake. Clearing his throat, he said, “In any case…”
“Sure, I’ll give ol’ Morning Glory a call,” he said, and I had to look away, watching as Laguna finished arranging the books in her hand and took a step toward the nearby window, slowly stroking Feilia, who was seated atop the back of the cushioned chair in a sunbeam. “But I haven’t, er, properly introduced myself to Mr. Sass yet, yeah?”
That drew me back to the moment. “Watch it.”
Calder chewed on his lip but said nothing.
“I’ll ‘convince’ Morning Glory,” Orin said, undeterred. “Then you let me in to convince dear ol’ dad, all right?”
“Stay away from them after that,” I said quietly, staring at the worn paperback he’d been working on. Sense and Sensibility. Maybe it was a lesson in empathy for that traitor.
“Hmm?” asked Orin, but he’d known what I’d said.
The bell over the door chimed and Lyric strode in, her scowl sending such negative vibes into the place that Feilia jumped up and scampered away into the backroom, scurrying over Laguna’s feet in her attempt to escape.
“You get what you came for?” asked Lyric, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She didn’t even spare a smile for Orin, who should have definitely fallen into her guidelines for “window shopping.”
“Yes,” I muttered, glaring at Orin for good measure. He winked and I scoffed, turning on my heel. “What’s up?” I asked Lyric, ready to wallow in normal teen problems for a change.
“Rae figured out I was lying about being sick,” she muttered.
“How?”
“I don’t know. I don’t exactly lie well under pressure, okay?” She flicked some of her hair over her shoulder. “And I got sick of her worrying about me.”
“Better to have her angry at you,” I said, nodding. That was Lyric anyway. She didn’t like being taken care of. That was why she and Rae usually made such a great match. Rae was only too happy to lean more on Lyric than Lyric did on her—though Lyric got sick of that, too. High school relationships seemed like such a pain.
Reminding myself I was in one now—in a bizarre, twisted way—I reached out and gave Lyric a side hug. “Let’s do something you want to do for the rest of the day,” I said.
She glanced over her shoulder. Calder shuffled his feet behind us and Orin wriggled his fingers in a cheery wave. Ugh. “What about your secret boyfriend?” Lyric asked.
“I’ll see you later,” I said loudly to Calder this time. Merfolk business could wait. We just had to collect Paisley and blow this joint, wasting the rest of the day away until we had to own up to ditching class.
No sense in losing out on all the fun we could have until then.
Chapter Four
When Lyric offered to let me stay at her place—even if just for a few hours, if I didn’t want to spend the night—I was tempted. But we’d gotten all the fun we were going to have today out, just messing around at the mall, at Paisley’s before her parents got home, then seeing a movie. Though Paisley had been texting her boyfriend up a storm—the only time I’d seen her stop that for more than a waking moment was when she’d been hanging out with Bay—Lyric and I were pointedly ignoring our phones. Every few buzzes, we’d check and frown—Lyric likely receiving messages from Raelynn, me, from my parents. I just wanted to make sure none were from Calder, none were about this ridiculous paranormal business.
Parents could wait.
Until they couldn’t.
And then I’d realized with a start that I’d never asked Lyric to get Autumn home, leaving her to Ember’s mercy. I’d texted my sister right away then and had felt my stomach muscles relax when she’d texted me back that she was at Dad’s. Dad had gotten off work early to pick her up. He’d tried picking me up, too.
Thus all the frantic messages while I’d been at the movies.
“You sure you want to do this?” asked Lyric, pulling up in front of my dad’s house. Since school was out now, Paisley had gone off to attach herself at the hip to Grey, her flirtation with Bay seemingly forgotten. I looked down the street to where I knew Calder’s merfolk mansion must have been, somewhere a ways down the road and walled off by trees.
“Yeah,” I said. “I can handle this. Can’t ignore it forever.”
“Okay,” said Lyric. She put the car in park and leaned over to kiss my cheek. “It was nice knowing you.”
“Ha ha.” Easy for her to say. She’d gone the route of calling her mom and faking illness so she could get an excused absence called in. Her mom wasn’t typically home until late, so she wouldn’t even notice.
Shutting the car door behind me, I steeled myself and clutched the handles of my tote bag harder. Just as I took a step forward, the garage door opened and I jumped back, fist at the side and at the ready.
Ember surely wouldn’t attack in front of our parents, would she? Unless she’d convinced them to go on a date night or something.
“Finally.” It was a much deeper voice than I’d expected, extremely familiar and not carrying any of that old-school movie accent. “Where have you been, young lady?”
I wasn’t a ‘young lady’ unless I was in trouble. Not that I’d been such a bad kid until lately.
Dad was wiping his hands with a greasy faded red rag, a speck of grime no doubt from his never-ending motorcycle tune-up project across his cheek as well. So glad to see you were so worried about me.
He tossed the rag on a box marked “Goodwin Suppliers,” reminding me as to the nature of Ember’s mom’s business—something like supplying all the restaurants and offices in towns with napkins and staplers and all that.
“Your mom said she called in sick for you.”
I blinked. She did? Did I owe that to Orin as well?
Dad continued. “But I got a call from the dean this morning that you didn’t show up for class.”
“Right,” I said, sliding the straps of my tote bag up my arm. “Sick.”
“She said she forgot to call it in until the morning was almost over.” He emitted a little hmm noise from deep in his throat. “You could have answered my calls and told me that, then.”
“Sorry,” I said, scraping the driveway concrete with my toe. “Sick.” As if speaking more than one word at a time would make me less of a liar.
“You’re feeling better?” he asked.
I nodded.
He stared over my shoulder at the road behind us, but there was nothing there for him to use to discern where I’d been. “Who brought you here?”
It might have been a test. Mom was still on shift, no doubt. It wasn’t her day to have us.
“Lyric,” I said, glad to be telling the truth for once. “She came to check on me after school.” Right back to the lies.
Letting out a deep breath, Dad gestured with his grimy hands for me to follow him into the garage. I flinched at the touch of his hand on my shoulder, wondering if I now had a stain I’d never be able to get out. Dad didn’t seem to notice. “What’s this your mom tells me about you wanting to transfer to Central?” He hit the garage door button as we passed it, and a sense of dread washed over me, like he was trapping us in the perfect little confined space for bloodsuckers to go to work on our carotid arteries.
I shrugged. Orin had done his job, I supposed. I didn’t know what was in it for him, unless he really thought this would bring the end of the battle about much more quickly.
“It’s your last year of school,” Dad continued as we lingered in the doorway leading back into the house. My ears strained for signs of other life inside the house, but all I could make out were the voices from one of the Cartoon Network cartoons Autumn devoured.
“Your friends are all at Union,” Dad added. That was a gut punch. But it wasn’t like I had much of a choice. I’d tried today, but I couldn’t really focus on just being a normal high schooler anymore. Not really.
I wasn’t going back to carefree days goofing off with my friends. So being at the same school wasn’t as important anymore.
“Are you being bullied?” Dad asked.
“No,” I snapped, taking a step inside.
“Now hold on a minute, young lady,” he boomed. “We’re not done talking here. Not by a long shot.”
Autumn’s head twisted to watch us as we made our way out the foyer to the kitchen and the living room. She was surrounded by brightly-colored ponies and a couple of Transformers. No one else was in there with her.
