Bluedawn (A Watermagic Novel, #2) (16 page)

“Very good.” The woman pursed her lips
together. “I can ring up those clothes for you too if you like.”
She was referring to the armful of designer outfits Gia had picked
out for me.

“And don’t forget the Mac lipsticks and eye
shadows we chose,” Wren added.

“Right—got that.” The lady laughed. Once she
had everything in boxes and bags, she rang up the items. “That’s
nine thousand, four hundred, ninety two and seventy four
cents.”

Wren started singing lightly. I shook my head
as Lyra and Gia joined in. The song was so mysterious. It felt like
wind rushing through your hair. A part of me yearned to join in. My
throat itched. But I refrained.

The lady laughed nervously. Her droopy eyes
were glazed. “Oh, let me take care of this for you.” She pulled her
purse out from a cubby hole and took out her wallet. “I’ll have to
use a few credit cards to stay in my limits.” Her giggle sounded
almost like she was about to cry. She swiped all the cards and
handed the bags to the sirens.

“Thank you so much,” Lyra smiled kindly at
the woman.

“Give me that.” Gia grabbed the bag with the
scarf and the earrings. We walked out of the store as the girls
continued to sing faintly. Blake and Travis were picking out the
coins in the water fountain when we approached them just outside of
the department store.

“Where is all the stuff you were supposed to
be holding?” Wren asked the boys in an irritated voice.

“Oops,” Blake said as he jogged over to the
benches over on the other side of the fountain. He hurried back
with a stack of boxes and several bags in his hands. “Here they
are,” he said in a pleasing tone.

By now Wren and Gia were ignoring him trying
to decide what to do next. Finally, they decided on hiking the
mountains to the springs where we could take hot mud baths. “After,
we’ll go for a night dip in the ocean,” Lyra said as she braided
her long black hair over her shoulder.

“And then…” Gia added, “…we can get spa
treatments and makeovers at the hotel in prep for our night on the
town.”

Wren looked down at her watch. “There’s no
time for all that.”

“Oh, you’re right. We must have shopped the
day away. The sun is falling in the sky.” Lyra sounded
disappointed. “I so need to get out and stretch my muscles.”

They just stood there in the promenade for a
while just staring off in different directions like birds on a
telephone wire. I thought it was weird. It seemed like they were
each in their own private worlds. I could only wonder what they
were thinking. And then I found myself staring off too, looking
this way and that.

I started to drift in thought. My mind began
to clear. I lost track of where I was. I yearned to be in nature. I
felt cooped up here with people shopping around me. There was too
much stimulation. I had been trying to control myself all day from
attacking the numerous humans in my presence. I needed to get away.
Now, I knew what the others must be feeling too.

“Let’s go back to the hotel,” Wren finally
said.

We were quiet as we walked back. Nobody
talked at all. Instinctually we just followed Wren. When she moved
to the right, so did we without thought. When she moved to the
left, it was the same. Her arm would rise, so would ours. It was
like we were on autopilot working as one mind. Our instincts were
taking over. It actually felt great to surrender like that.

When we got back to our suite, we walked into
the living room to see Dylan, three teenage guys, and three teenage
girls playing strip poker and drinking shots at the table. Loud
music was playing on the stereo.

Anger boiled up inside of me. What the hell
was he doing sitting there without a shirt on with these people? He
had a pair of black thong underwear dangling from his finger. When
I walked over, he kissed it.

What a bastard.

He ignored me and laughed when he lost the
game and had to take off his shorts and take another shot of vodka.
I guess he really did like hanging out in his underwear. One girl
with big hazel eyes and a short pixie haircut that looked as cute
as a cheerleader was wearing only a bra and a mini skirt. I could
tell she was after Dylan. She kept trying to flirt with him. Maybe
the panties were hers.

I wasn’t sure if he liked her or not. He just
seemed to like being naked and I guess underwear was his new thing.
I supposed I didn’t really know him as I thought I did. But more
than anything, I wanted to kill that horrible girl who was staring
at him like that.

“Put the bags and boxes in the bedroom,” Wren
said to Travis and Blake.

They did as told, but were back in no time
sizing up the girls. I was as mad as hell seeing that instead of
two young women as there usually were, Dylan had brought home
three. Everybody had a match but me. Unless, he was trying to short
one of the triplets which I doubted.

Wren whispered in my ear, “Dylan used to be
worse before you came along. He was a real bad boy.”

Not knowing what to say, I tried to ignore
her.

The guys at the table were staring at the
triplets and me by now. “Hey,” one good looking guy with grey eyes
and a crooked nose said to Wren. “Why don’t you join us?”

“I have a better idea,” Wren said in her
loveliest voice. “Why don’t we play spin the bottle.” She was
always trying to control the situation.

The crooked nose guy didn’t seem to mind
though. “We can do that.” He smiled with narrow eyes.

The pixie girl in her bra and mini skirt
leaned over Dylan’s chair. “You wanna play?” she asked in her too
cute voice.

“Huh?” He said, leaning back in his chair
with his head tilted back. He looked drunk.

“Sit on the sofa next to me.” She tried to
pull him by the arm, but he fell out of the chair, knocking an
empty bottle to the floor. It only broke into a few pieces which he
picked up and set on the table. He got up laughing and tossed the
panties at her. I could see that he nicked his finger on the glass
and it was bleeding, but he didn’t care.

Blake and one of the guys with black curly
hair named Aiden pulled chairs from the table and arranged them in
a circle around the coffee table in the living room. “Boy, girl,
boy, girl,” Aiden said to the group trying to direct us where to
sit. “Luke, sit next to Cinderella. He pointed at Wren who raised
an eyebrow at his nickname for her. Paul sit next to…” he stopped
to think for a second. “What’s your name again?” he looked at
me.

With a scowl on my face, I snapped,
“Hailey.”

“Right,” He squinted his eyes and looked at
me more closely. “You sit next to me.”

I just stood there not budging. I glanced
over at Dylan, but he was just drawing with the blood from his
finger on a plate.

“Snow White next to Paul.” He nodded at Lyra
and pointed at the chairs. “Lover boy next to Brenda.” He was
referring to Dylan and the pixie girl.

Dylan pulled on his shorts and t-shirt.
Without saying anything he walked for the door.

“Wait!” Brenda ran after him. “Can I
come?”

He looked back at the room and thought for a
second. “Okay,” he mumbled.

My heart fell.

She ran back and grabbed her clothes off the
floor. By the time she was at the door, he had already left.
Probably he was waiting in the outer hall for her.

My body ached. I just felt sick inside. What
the hell was I doing here? Look at my life. For all eternity would
I be hooking up with different guys and then killing them?

I just wished I could turn off the pain I was
feeling. My mind whirled as Wren spun the bottle first. It landed
on Lyra. Everyone but me laughed.

“If the bottle lands on someone of the same
sex, you kiss the guy to the person’s right,” Paul said with a wry
smile on his face because the one to Lyra’s right was him. He had
short strawberry blond hair and pale skin. All the people Dylan
brought over were attractive or Wren would punish him.

Wren slinked across the circle, ran the tips
of her fingers down Paul’s face and kissed him on the lips. Aiden
and Luke whistled.

“Get it on, Paul,” Aiden called out.

The whole thing made me even sicker. I wanted
to leave. Now Luke said it was his turn. He was medium height with
thick eyebrows and sad brown eyes. I don’t think he wanted to play
either, but he spun the bottle as he shook his head and raised his
eyes up.

It landed on me. I blushed. Nobody knew, but
the only boy I had ever kissed was Dylan. And that was only once in
a desperate moment. But now I had all these hungers and feelings I
wasn’t used to. Luke was cute. He even looked nice. And soon he
would be dead.

He walked over to me shyly. And just as he
leaned over about to kiss me, I threw up on the floor! He backed
up, shocked.

His friends, Travis, and Blake were all
cracking up. They thought my vomit was the funniest thing they had
ever seen. I looked at the triplets and they seemed surprised. Lyra
was embarrassed. Wren appeared slightly annoyed. Gia started to
laugh along with the boys.

Luke just backed up. His cheeks reddened.
“Are you okay, Hailey?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled as I got up,
walking for the kitchen to get a towel. “I’m sorry,” I managed to
say. If I wasn’t imagining how devastated these kids’ parents would
be once they showed up missing, their bodies never to be found, I
might have been embarrassed. But I knew it didn’t matter one damn
bit what Luke or any of his friends thought of me because soon they
would be dead.

And it didn’t matter that Luke was sweet and
kind and would never grow up to get married or start a family. He
didn’t matter at all. At least not to Wren, Lyra, or Gia. And as
far as I could tell there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to save
his life.

And now Dylan was gone with some other girl.
What was he going to do with her? Maybe he was just tired of me. I
knew the kinds of desires sirens felt. I couldn’t blame him for not
wanting to be committed to just one girl. Even still, I needed him.
I couldn’t live this life without him.

But as I was going for the towel I saw the
plate that Dylan was rubbing his bloodied finger on. Written in the
blood was my name. It said
Hailey
!

“I gotta get some fresh air,” I blurted out
to the others.

Wren looked down at the vomit and wrinkled
her nose.

I grabbed a towel and tossed it to her.

“Clean it up, Travis.” I heard Wren say as I
rushed out the door.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Death is when the monsters
get you.
–STEPHEN
KING, 
Salem's Lot

Glancing down the hall, I looked to see if
Dylan and the pixie girl were there, but they were gone. He must be
somewhere near. I took the elevator down to the lobby. He wasn’t
there either.

I hurried though the tall glass doors to the
waterfall. “Have you seen my friend, a dark haired guy about my
age?” I asked the security man with grey hair dressed in a
tuxedo.

“Dylan?” he said. “You must be Hailey.” And
to my surprise, he smiled.

“Uh, yes.” My eyes lit up. “I am Hailey.”

“He said he was going for an evening
swim.”

“In the pool?” My voice was anxious.

The man nodded. “Well, I’m not sure.” He
looked confused. “Maybe. He didn’t say.”

“Thank you,” I said, hurrying back into the
lobby.

Anxiously, I pushed the elevator button. It
seemed like it took forever to come. But finally it dinged and the
doors opened. I took it up to the roof where the pool was.

When I stepped out onto the deck looking out
at the glassy dark water, I saw that Dylan wasn’t there. I sat down
on a lounge chair. The evening wind sent chills up my back. Where
could he be? He had to be close by. And then I heard this whisper
in my mind.

“The ocean,” it said. That’s it! He must be
at the beach. Why didn’t I think of that?

I rushed back to the elevator and pressed the
button. It wouldn’t light. Over and over again, I kept pushing it.
Nothing happened. The stairs, I thought.

At once, I hurried over to the door that
opened to the stairwell and started running down the flights. My
legs were strong, probably from the short feeding the night
before.

When I got back out to the street, I saw a
group of guys hanging around drinking beers. They were leaning
against the outer wall of a closed surfboard shop.

“Hey!” the biggest one said. He was thick
with muscles and a mean looking face. He grabbed me by the arm and
swung me around.

“Let go,” I said and pulled away. A couple of
cars passed on the street, but the area was mostly quiet.

He lost his grip on me which seemed to anger
him. “Where you going?” He called out to me as I jogged away.

I hurried through a dark alley toward the
ocean. I heard footsteps. Just feet away from the end, the mean
looking guy and his friend ran in. “You think you can ignore us?”
the mean guy asked as they walked up to me.

“Leave me alone,” I hissed as I turned
around, jogging in the other direction now.

But then, the guys’ other friends closed in
on me from the other side of the alley. There were two more guys.
They all looked to be in their mid-twenties. All tough, probably
from an inner city neighborhood.

“Let me pass,” I said.

Their eyes were glossy. They must have been
high on something. Before I could think of what to do, they rushed
in on me, slamming me hard against the brick wall. In rapid fire
their fists were hitting me hard in the face, in the gut. I was
surprised how much it hurt. One was pushing up my skirt. Another
was trying to pin my arms back.

Even though I had no experience fighting, I
started kicking back with all my might. I was gasping for air as
one of them slobbered all over my face. I wrestled my arms out of
their grasp. My nails dug into their skin, but it didn’t seem to
make a difference. Their passions were so heated.