Surrendering (Swans Landing) (16 page)

“Domnall must have caught him,” Sailor said. “He probably needs our help. We need to go after him.”

“No,” Lake said, standing from the barstool at the counter where he had been eating a box of cheese flavored crackers. “No one is leaving this house.”

Sailor’s eyes shone with tears. “But he could be in trouble. We
have
to help him.”

“Or he could be with Domnall, working with him,” Lake said grimly. “We don’t know, and we can’t risk it right now.”

Sailor’s body trembled and her face turned so dark, she looked like she might explode at any moment. I put my hand on her shoulder.

“Callum isn’t working with Domnall,” I said.

“How do you know?” Dylan asked.

Mara scowled at him. “Dylan, stop. If Josh and Sailor believe that Callum is on our side, that should be good enough for all of us.”

Dylan crossed his arms. “None of you are willing to face the fact that you don’t know this guy as well as you think. If you don’t wake up soon, you’re going to get us all killed.”

I didn’t want to believe that Callum might have joined Domnall. But without knowing the truth about what had happened to Callum that day, even I couldn’t argue forever for his innocence. And if he was really on our side, then what had happened to him? I didn’t want to think about what Domnall might have done if he had caught Callum.

“We can’t do anything about it right now,” Lake said. “It’s too dangerous to go out in the dark, when they could be hiding anywhere, waiting for us. They have the advantage right now of already being out there. In the morning, if Callum still isn’t back, some of us will go to try to find him.”

Mr. Moody nodded. “That’s all that we can do for now, I reckon.”

“Let’s all just get some sleep,” Lake said.

But sleep felt like something that would never come.

CHAPTER TWENTY

I woke with a start, my muscles tensed. I lay quietly on my blanket in the corner, staring up at the skylights overhead, my heart still pounding against my ribs.

For a moment, I thought I had heard the song. I thought my dad was there, his hand stretched toward me. His lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear his voice over the humming in my ears. Then my mom screamed and I woke up.

A dream. Just a dream.

A sound startled me and I lifted my head, blinking as I looked across the room. Dylan was in the kitchen, opening cabinets.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” he said when I slid into a barstool at the counter.

I rubbed my eyes and looked at the clock over the stove. 6:17 A.M. The last time I had remembered looking at the time, it was nearly four. I had managed a couple hours of sleep at least.

Dylan’s eyes were ringed with dark circles. He didn’t look like he’d gotten any more sleep than I had.

“Is everyone else still sleeping?” I asked quietly. His brother’s snores drifted to us from the couch. I only knew Reed vaguely, in the way that everyone in Swans Landing knew everyone else. He was twelve, so our paths didn’t cross much.

Dylan nodded. “I think Lake and my parents and the others are still up in the attic, taking shifts at keeping watch. I saw Mr. Moody down here a little while ago, checking the doors. Then he went back up.”

“How long have you been up?” I asked.

“An hour or so,” Dylan said, shrugging. He found a box of granola bars and offered me one. I took it, tearing the wrapper quietly. Salty peanut flavor, I noted. Finfolk loved their salt.

We chewed our granola bars in silence. I could hear the soft tone of muffled voices floating down from the attic over this part of the house, but I couldn’t make out the words.

I thought of my mother, wondering how she was doing and what might be happening to her.

“Do you think everyone else is okay?” Dylan asked, as if he had sensed my thoughts.

I rubbed a hand over my head, scratching at my scalp. “I don’t know. I hope so. But I don’t know.”

Dylan tapped his fingers on the countertop, biting his lip.

“We need to get more people to work with us,” I said. “There are more of us Swansers than there are of them. Maybe we could take them by surprise, overpower them or something.”

“The humans won’t work with us,” Dylan said.

“Then you have to convince them.”

Dylan rolled his eyes. “Sure, let me get right on that. And they’ll listen to me because…?”

“Maybe they all won’t listen to you,” I said. “But Elizabeth will.”

Dylan’s gaze darted toward me, his nostrils flared. “What makes you think that?”

“Because I know that something happened between you and Elizabeth,” I said. “Recently, I would guess. While Sailor and I were gone.”

“You’re insane.” Dylan turned toward the sink and grabbed a glass, filling it with water.

“I’m observant,” I corrected him. “I see the way the two of you look at each other. How mad you got yesterday when Elizabeth was all over Kyle. She shows off just to piss you off. The two of you can’t help talking about each other, insisting that you don’t really care.”

Dylan spun around, his fingers gripping the glass. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Canavan.”

“Cut the crap, Waverly. I don’t care about the details of your sex life or whether you even have one, but this is more important than that. You have to talk to Elizabeth and you have to get her to listen to you. If you don’t want her to get hurt, you have to talk to her.”

“Elizabeth Connors is not my problem,” Dylan growled.

“If you don’t do something to help her, then you’re not the caring guy I always thought you were.”

Dylan glared at me, then snatched up the salt shaker and dumped salt into his water. He drank it down, gulping the water and sighing when he was done. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then set the glass in the sink.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll talk to her.”

* * *

We tried calling Elizabeth and texting her, but she wouldn’t answer either one. Dylan looked up at me, his hair hanging in his face as he leaned over the island countertop, and I could see the worry in his eyes.

“Do you think they already got to her?” he asked.

I pressed my lips together, not wanting him to see the anxiety that I felt growing inside me. I couldn’t guarantee anything at the moment with Domnall and his people on the island.

“We’ll have to go to her,” I said.

Dylan’s eyebrows shot up. “What if the finfolk are out there waiting for us?”

“Do we really have a choice?” I asked. “Either we hide out in here until we run out of food, or we go out and try to save as many people as we can.”

We decided not to wake anyone or let them know that we were leaving. I was sure they’d try to stop us, after Callum’s disappearance. I didn’t want to worry Mara or Dylan’s parents. We’d go out, talk to Elizabeth, and then come back. We’d be careful. The residential area of Swans Landing wasn’t very big, and so Elizabeth’s house wasn’t far from Sailor’s. We could sneak through yards and use the other houses in between as cover. We had an advantage over Callum, being native Swansers and knowing the island like the back of our hands.

Besides, Artair had already let me go once. I was sure I could convince him to overlook me again. He wasn’t like Domnall, no matter what he said.

I closed the door as quietly as I could and then the two of us slipped down the stairs, ducking as we rounded the side of the house to avoid being seen from the small attic window. It wasn’t much of a lookout, since it was tiny and was never meant to provide a view. Hopefully the angle from the window wasn’t good enough to let the people up there see us.

Of course, that also meant that they would never see the finfolk if they came up on that side of the house.

The island was quiet that morning. Too quiet. Goosebumps prickled all along my arms as we ran half-crouched past the house behind the Mooring home. We ducked behind a large rhododendron, peering out to look for signs of anyone else. There was nothing. Not even birds swooping overhead.

“Does it feel like everything has disappeared to you, or is it just me?” Dylan muttered next to me.

I nodded. “It feels wrong. Too still.”

I didn’t know what that meant for the rest of the population of Swans Landing. The finfolk who weren’t with us at Miss Gale’s house had been called and warned last night to stay in their homes. But there were still the humans who weren’t on our side, who had refused to listen to our warnings.

Dylan shifted, snapping a twig under his foot. I jumped at the noise.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

We raced away from our hiding place, hurrying across the narrow street to the next yard. My gaze darted from one side to the other as we slipped between houses and over fences. My body was so tense, I didn’t realize I was clenching my jaw until it started to ache.

Finally, we reached the sea foam green house where Elizabeth lived. We ducked under the house, hiding behind a black car that didn’t look as if it had been used in a long time. Most people didn’t drive their cars around the island, saving them for trips on the ferry to the mainland.

“Should we ring the doorbell?” I asked.

Dylan snorted. “And have her dad slam it in our faces? Yeah, that’ll work great.”

“Text her,” I said. “See if you can get her to let us in.”

“I have a better idea.” Dylan grabbed a ladder that hung from two hooks above us and carried it around the side of the house. He leaned it against the wooden deck that wrapped around most of the house, then he climbed up.

“I know which room is hers,” Dylan told me.

I smirked. “I’ll bet you do.”

I glanced around, scanning the area, but we were still alone, so I climbed up after him. We crawled on our knees to the edge of the deck, where a single window hung just past the edge of the railing.

Dylan got up on his knees and tapped on the window. We waited, shivering in the cool morning air, but there was no response. Dylan tapped again, harder and longer.

The curtains over the window shifted and Elizabeth peered out at us, her hair tousled and her eyes only half-open. Shock passed across her face when she spotted us, quickly replaced by a scowl.

The window slid open and Elizabeth leaned out. “What the hell?” she whispered. “Do you two have any idea what time it is?”

“You need to listen to us,” Dylan told her. “There are people here who are very dangerous. They’ll come after you and your family.”

Elizabeth crossed her arms. She wore a thin cotton T-shirt, which was slightly transparent. I fought hard to keep my gaze on her face.

“Is this about all that crap Mr. Richter was calling about last night? My daddy said he’s as crazy as the rest of you fish people.”

“This is serious,” I said. “These people have come for us finfolk. They don’t care about you, and they won’t be nice if you get in their way.”

She sneered. “I don’t plan to get in their way. If they want you freaks, they can have you.” Her eyes moved toward Dylan, her expression hardening. “
All
of you.”

“Elizabeth,” Dylan said, “this is not a game—”

“Go back to the ocean, Fish Boy.” Then she slammed the window shut, pulling the curtains tight.

“Dammit,” Dylan muttered. He raised a fist like he was going to punch through the glass and make her listen, but then he lowered his hand. “Fine. If that’s the way she wants to be, she’s on her own.”

He crawled to the ladder and made his way down. I eased myself over the edge and climbed back to the ground, pulling the ladder down and tossing it into the grass.

“Why don’t you just tell her you still like her?” I asked.

Dylan’s eyes narrowed. “Because I don’t.”

“Like hell you don’t. Look at how tense and wound up you are. If I hadn’t been there, you’d probably have crawled right into her window. Maybe if you had, she would have listened to you.”

“I don’t give a damn about Elizabeth Connors,” Dylan told me through clenched teeth.

“Does anyone else know about you and her?” I asked. “Does Mara know?”

Dylan spun around and stalked across the yard, his fists clenched.

“So what happened?” I asked, hurrying to catch up to him. “Whose idea was it? It had to be hers, right? So Elizabeth threw herself at you, you took advantage of the action, and then what? You threatened to tell everyone? You wanted her to be your girlfriend? Or did she figure out she was just a replacement because you couldn’t have Mara?”

Dylan whirled around, moving too fast for me to react. His fist connected with the side of my face, my teeth ripping into my gums on the impact. I spit out a mouthful of blood, wiping my chin with the back of my hand.

Dylan looked as surprised as I felt, his eyes wide as he stared at me. Fury surged through me, starting in my toes and racing up my body. I hated him for how easy he’d had it. What had he done these last five months? He stayed in Swans Landing while Sailor and I swam four thousands miles each way. He got to spend five months with Mara that I hadn’t had. He’d apparently spent time running around the island with Elizabeth, and I had a pretty good idea of what he might have been doing in her bedroom.