Dangerous Depths (The Sea Monster Memoirs) (4 page)

The long swim hadn’t calmed me down at all. Treygan caught up to me and stayed by my side the whole way. He only attempted to stop me once.

I scrambled up the ladder to the pier. Yara was already standing there, waiting with clothes for us. I pushed past her.

“At least put some shorts on,” she yelled, trying to keep up with me. “It’s tourist season!”

I turned around, snatched a pair of shorts from her, pulled them on, and stormed off. Yara and Treygan followed close behind.

I stomped up the porch steps of Lloyd’s house and kicked the door open. He was sitting in his recliner with a drink in his hand, like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“I couldn’t pass through the gate! Do you want to know why?” I leaned down, bracing my arms on either side of his chair. I was so close to his face I could smell the orange juice he was drinking. “Because I’m part human. Because you tainted me with your human blood, and now I can’t save Vienna!”

Yara and Treygan stayed on the other side of the room.

“Did you know about this?” I asked through clenched teeth.

My meddling father said nothing. Just downed his juice and rattled the ice cubes around his empty glass. His silence said it all.

I grabbed a vase and smashed it on the tile floor. It didn’t put a dent in my anger. I grabbed the side table by Lloyd’s chair.

“Rownan!” Yara yelled, but I didn’t stop.

I lifted the table over my head and threw it at the floor-to-ceiling aquarium. The glass cracked, but didn’t break. My chest heaved up and down. My eyes met Treygan’s.

“Feel better?” he asked.

I shook my head.

He bent down, knocked books off the coffee table, and picked it up. He handed me the table, and I hurled it at the aquarium. The glass shattered. Water and fish poured out onto the floor.

“Rownan, stop!” Yara sprang forward, but Treygan stopped her.

“Let him be,” Lloyd said. “At least that’s a mess we can clean up.”

“How could you do this to me?” I yelled at Lloyd. “Why did you allow me to have hope? Haven’t I suffered enough already?”

Lloyd shifted in his seat, his joints cracking and popping. “I suspected you might not be able to pass through the gate, but I wasn’t certain.”

“You should have told me!”

Yara and Treygan were working together to clean up the aquarium mess, but Yara stepped away to shout in my face. “He can’t meddle, Rownan. At all.”

“He meddles to protect you and Treygan,” I snarled.

Yara opened her mouth to argue, but my worthless father cut her off.

“I should have told you,” he said. “I’m very sorry. There are many things I should have done differently.”

“You’ve got that right.”

“Ease up,” Yara snapped at me. “He’s in no condition to be yelled at. He feels bad enough as it is, and you’re making things worse.”

“Worse? How can things be worse? Vienna is trapped in hell, and I can’t even attempt to save her! I’m never going to see her again.”

Yara’s eyes lowered and she sat on the arm of Lloyd’s chair.

I glanced at Treygan, but he was busy ushering waves of water and fish into a new stone tank he had just created.

My knees grew weaker as the truth of my words settled deeper into my soul. I was never going to see Vienna again. She was alone, trapped in the damned realm for eternity.

I shook my head hard. “No. I refuse to let her be trapped in there.” I started pacing. “I couldn’t pass through the gate because I have human blood, but a pure mer or selkie could get through. I’ll ask the selkies. Someone will do it.” Even as I spoke the words I knew I was lying to myself. I had asked for volunteers when I first found out where Vienna had gone. No one would go with me, not even her own brother. “Or maybe Delmar or Pango. They’re brave and strong.”

Treygan and Yara shot each other skeptical glances.

“What should I do?” I asked desperately.

No one said anything. The room became hotter. I couldn’t stand around doing nothing, losing more hope with every second. “Please, someone come up with an idea to save the day, because I’m going out of my mind!”

More deafening silence. Treygan leaned against the wall and stared at the floor. Yara stared at the new stone fish tank.

Lloyd cleared his throat then reached up and held Yara’s hand. “How’s Koraline doing?”

My jaw went slack. Then I punched a wall. My fist went through the plaster. “Koraline? I’m standing here begging for help at the most desperate and agonizing point in my entire life, and you’re changing the subject?” I punched three more holes in the wall.

“Rownan, stop!” Yara stood, but my selfish father kept a grip on her hand so she couldn’t leave his side.

“I need a drink. Or twenty.” I stomped out the front door, and then slammed it behind me as hard as I could.

Jack Frost’s was the nearest place with vodka. As much as I didn’t want to see Jack again, I needed a serious fix. Not that any amount of drinking would ever fix my obliterated heart.

~

Physically, I swam alone to the Keys, but memories of Vienna and images of where she was and what might happen to her suffocated me every second. I was almost to the pier near Jack Frost’s when I spotted a blur of green and yellow swimming in my direction.

I tried to dart away before they saw me, but Pango called out to me.

Fancy meeting you here
, Pango said as we reached each other.

Merrick’s eyes narrowed.
Aren’t you supposed to be in Harte?

We couldn’t pass through the gate because of our human blood.

Pango’s eyes widened.
Oh, goodness, that throws a wrench in things, doesn’t it?

To say the least. I need to find someone of pure sea monster blood who is brave enough to go in and find her.

Merrick’s brow lifted.

Pango pursed his lips.
Hmm, yes, splendid plan
. He tilted his head side to side.
Impossible, but splendid nonetheless. Who are you thinking of asking?

I looked pointedly at him.
You were the first one that came to mind.

His eyes widened.
Me? Whaaaat?
he shrieked.
Dear, sweet seal boy, did someone club you over the head? I have a life here, and family, and Merrick. I’m not giving all that up for an eternal romp in hell.

Merrick shook his head.
Agreed. Sorry, Rownan, but absolutely not.

I grasped Pango’s
huge shoulders.
Please help me. I’ll do anything.

Pango laid his hands over mine.
Rownan, I can’t imagine how difficult this is. I can honestly say I don’t think you’ll ever get over it, but you have to accept it. Vienna entered Harte sixteen years ago. She’s gone. Even if a superhero of the sea could find her, she wouldn’t be the Vienna you knew and loved.

I pushed him away.
That’s not true. She’s strong enough to remain herself. She’d never stop looking for me. I know that with everything inside me. She knows I’ll find her.

Merrick swam closer.
But you can’t. You can’t go to Harte, and I’m sorry, but no one is going to go for you.

I shook my head, not wanting to accept what they were saying.
Delmar. He might go.

Merrick’s shaking head mirrored mine, but for the opposite reason.

Pango touched my cheek.
It’s over, Rownan. I’m deeply sorry to say it, but it’s time to let go and start the grieving process.

I turned away and swam as hard and fast as I could. I prayed Jack’s bar had a bottle of vodka deeper than the ocean, because I planned on drowning myself in it.

Echo Bayou was peaceful and quiet.

The water was so still it acted as a mirror, reflecting a blur of red as I flew above it. I dipped beneath the canopy of weeping willows, gliding above the river to my old village.

I landed on a tree branch and gazed longingly at all the floating water lilies below. I missed my water lily. I missed my brothers and sisters. Many times I wished I had never accepted the promotion to a siren.

When Cleo died, my siren sisters panicked. Otabia and Mariza needed a replacement for Cleo or they wouldn’t be as powerful. They came to my village and tempted us with stories of the amazing and adventurous life one of us would be gifted with. The chosen one would control weather, fly faster and farther than any sprite had ever dreamed, and be directly connected to the spirit of our almighty Medusa.

I yearned to be bigger, faster, more powerful—
special.
I trained and competed like my life depended on it. I wanted that sacred spot as a siren so badly. Years later, after seducing countless men and stealing even more memories, after being bossed around by Otabia and Mariza and never once feeling a true connection to Medusa, I realized the grass wasn’t greener on the other side. If I could go back and do it all over, I would choose to remain a sprite. Homesickness is a wretched disease, and I would never be cured of it.

Reminiscing about the merrier days of my life, I started humming an old sprite hymn. The water lilies lit up one by one as my family stirred awake. Keeley was the first to poke her tiny head out from the petals of her electric blue flower.

“Nixie!” Her high-pitched voice buzzed through the air, followed by the happy cries of dozens more water sprites. Their voices sounded like pennies dropping into a copper wishing well.

Keeley zoomed at my head then stopped short and stood on the tip of my nose. “We’ve missed you so!” She threw her arms open and hugged the bridge of my nose, then flitted around kissing my eyelids and forehead.

“I’ve missed you too.” I sighed. “More than you can imagine.”

More of my brothers and sisters swarmed me, landing on my shoulders, arms, legs, and anywhere else they could find room. My skin was speckled with all the colors of the rainbow as they tickled me with kisses and loving pinches.

“Tell us news!” Jenna circled my head. Her radiant grin was almost as bright as her sunflower-colored skin. “What great adventures will you be having with Yara?”

“No adventures,” I confessed. “Not even any work to be done.”

Echoes of “what” and “why” and “what do you mean” reverberated off me and the trees. I wanted to tell them everything, how Yara had chosen Rownan over me and everyone else in Rathe, how Yara spent most of her time with Treygan, and how she had bonded more with Sage than with me. Now that I thought about it, I had felt a stronger connection to Yara before she was transformed. She was so powerful now that she didn’t need me. I hated being the orphaned siren who would never live up to the reputation of her sisters.

My lips parted as I started to explain, but then, there beneath the weeping willows, with dozens of sprites watching me, a tear rolled down my cheek. It was unexpected, and something I could never let happen in front of Otabia or Mariza.

“Why so sad?” Keeley asked as she pushed away my tear. “That’s not a happy tear, and sad tears shouldn’t fall from such a pretty face. If I could, I’d weave a spell to make you our size again so I could give you a big hug, but as it is I can only hug one of your fingers at a time and somehow I think that wouldn’t be enough unless maybe we all hugged you at the same time and—”

“Keeley, shush.” Jenna said. “Sometimes I don’t understand how your mouth can keep up with your mind. Let Nixie tell us what’s upsetting her.”

They all looked at me, wide-eyed and full of concern. My huge family of tiny, beautiful souls surrounded me and supported me, even though I deserted them to become a siren. I couldn’t tell them that I had made a horrible mistake. I couldn’t admit the tear I shed was due to my own sadness. A siren would never behave that way.

“It’s just Yara’s emotions,” I lied. “Our bond is so strong that I feel her sadness as if it’s my own.”

“Ooooh,” Jenna cooed. “It must be amazing to feel so connected to Rathe’s new ruler.”

All the sprites sparkled and fluttered, intrigued and excited by my lie.

I nodded. “Words can’t express how I feel.”