Underwater (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

“Miss Prosser, do you need something from me?”

Blinking, I focused on my trigonometry teacher, who was standing in front of me with her hands on her hips. “Uh…sorry, Mrs. Hobert. Just zoning out.”

“I’ll say.” She went back to pacing. “You need to focus.”

I looked down at my empty test page and stifled a sigh. I’d been staring out the window at the tree line beyond the football field. I would have done anything for a glimpse of Saxon. Yet another night had gone by without a visit from him, proof that he’d listened to the message I sent back with Ian.

At least I hoped.

Anxiety roiled in my stomach, and the equations on the white test paper blurred together. I couldn’t focus for crap. Ian’s impending memorial service hung over the school like a dark cloud heavy with rain. I was pretty sure I was going to get stress-induced ulcers before prom night.

Mrs. Hobert glanced up at the clock ticking quietly on the wall. “Kids, I’m going to run to the office. I’ll be back in two minutes.”

We exchanged a collective glance as she skittered through the door. Things around Sandpoint High were starting to get more than a little relaxed. Hence, my teacher wandering out of a classroom filled with seniors getting ready to take their last final. As soon as the door clicked behind Mrs. Hobert’s back, heads turned and the room filled with the sound of conversations.

My eyes immediately rolled back to the window just in time to see a speck of black at the edge of the pine trees. Gasping, I dropped my pencil and grabbed my wheels.

Saxon. Saxon. Saxon.

His name pounded inside my ears with every beat of my heart as I shoved myself toward the classroom door, ramming into at least three desks as I moved. The other kids watched me, open-mouthed, as my test sheet fluttered to the floor and my backpack slid off of the back of my chair with a thud. Calling a half-hearted apology over my shoulder, I jerked the door open with all of my strength and rolled through before it swung closed again.

I was down the thirty-foot hallway in a flash, nearly knocking Mrs. Hobert off of her feet when she came out of the office.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she called as I whizzed by.

“Sick!” I yelled, skidding around the corner. “Gonna hurl!”

The air in the hallway behind the gym was thick with steam from the locker room showers and carried the faint stench of sweaty socks. I pushed my wheels with all of my strength, praying Saxon would still be there when I managed to get outside and around the field.

Saxon, Saxon, Saxon.

He was alive. I shoved the heavy metal door open and searched the tree line, my heart skipping when I saw Saxon watching me with a hand held up in a silent wave. A relief-filled cry escaped the back of my throat, and I let the door shut right as the boys baseball coach called something from the opposite end of the hall. Ignoring him, I wheeled down the bumpy cement ramp. My eyes blurred with tears as I muscled my way across the rough parking lot to the football field.

Saxon rocked up onto his toes, then back onto his heels as I approached. His hair was dripping, his black T-shirt had wet spots on it, and the laces on his thick boots were untied. In the bushes where he lurked, a crumpled shopping bag lay in the ferns. My arms burned from pushing my wheels as hard as I could, and when I approached the tree line, he took a step out of the bushes.

“No!” I called, looking all around. I didn’t want him to be seen. By any of the teachers in the classrooms, who could see me as I huffed and puffed along the track…or by any members of the Council who could be lurking. “Stay there. I’ll come to you!”

He stopped, clenching his fists at his side, pacing in the thick fern. My biceps seared as I shoved my wheels—faster, faster, faster—toward the trees, bouncing on the cracked cement edge of the track. A lump formed in my throat, making it hard to suck in oxygen as I crossed the last six feet of patchy grass to the tree line.

Saxon, Saxon, Saxon.

My heart hammered through my chest from the inside. He wasn’t in the best shape, either. The cut above his eyebrow looked to be in desperate need of some air so it could congeal. The skin around it was puffy and sagging like chicken skin hanging off of the bone before my mom put it into the pan to fry. The bruise below his left eye cast a purplish green shadow down his cheek.

Saxon dropped to his knees when I released my wheels and rolled to a stop. Gasping, we crashed into each other, his arms enveloping me and filling my body with their all-too-familiar warmth, our lips pressing together. Without even stopping to ask if it was OK—which, of course, it was—Saxon lifted me up with one arm around my waist, my legs dangling as I pressed my face against the side of his neck to draw in his scent. He carried me back into the thicket, dragging my chair out of sight, letting the pine tree branches snap closed like a hinged door behind us.

Once we were out of view, Saxon sat down on the soft ground, bringing me to rest in between his bent knees, with my back against his chest. Winding both his arms around my middle, he pressed kiss after kiss on my temple.
I was so afraid I wouldn’t see you before I had to go back. I don’t have much time.

I wiped my eyes and released a long, guttural sigh. “I’ve been so scared. I saw Ian. Did he tell you?”

Saxon nodded.
He said you wanted me to stop fighting the Council so I wouldn’t get hurt.

“Which you obviously didn’t listen to.” I shifted my body so I could look at him. “Your face…what happened to you?”

Saxon’s aquamarine eyes flashed, and anger brewed just below his surface.
I just wanted to tell you I was OK. They wouldn’t let me leave.

I fingered the reddened skin next to the cut, making him hiss. “So they decked you instead?”

Decked me?
He pinched his eyebrows closely together.

“They punched you in the face to keep you from leaving?” Pulling a piece of crumpled napkin out of my pocket, I used the corner to dab at some blood.

A vein in Saxon’s neck bulged.
I was shifting, and they didn’t believe me. It’d been over a day since I’d shifted, and I couldn’t control it anymore. They thought I was coming to see you, so they…restrained me.

“Sax, you could have drowned! You’ve got to get away from these monsters. They’re going to kill you.” I raised my voice, and he pressed a finger to my lips.

The teachers will hear you, and come looking.
I nodded, pressing my lips together tightly, and Saxon tried to smile. The sentiment didn’t quite make it to his eyes.
They’re trying to do the right thing. They think they’re protecting me from myself.

“That’s nuts.” I closed my eyes. Until a few months ago, nothing got through my hard candy shell, and now I spent most of my time either crying or worrying myself into a total freakout. I needed to get my grip back.

It’s not just me they think they’re protecting.
He lifted his hand and tucked my hair behind one of my ears. He touched my skin, leaving a trail of sparks.

I’d missed these simple, innocent touches so much. It wasn’t as if my time with Saxon was spent ripping our clothes off in a horny frenzy. Every movement, every brush of his fingers across my knuckles, or his knee brushing my leg when we sat close together, solidified the fact that we loved each other and that this was something bigger and more permanent than anything I’d experienced before.

“You’re not hurting anybody by being here with me. Besides, they
want
you to drown me. What do they think they’re protecting me from?”

They’re protecting all the other Mer. From me.

“They’re crazy.” I clenched my jaw. “You’re not a threat to them. The Council is. Look at your face.”

He cupped my face, holding me still and forcing me to look him in the eye.
The Council does what it does to keep the existence of Mer a secret. I’m the one who broke the rules by coming into town. I’m the one who snuck into schools and mingled with humans. I’m the one who…

He paused, his eyes liquefying.
I’m the one who fell in love. I knew it was against the rules. I knew there would be consequences. I must be responsible for my actions.

I leaned forward and swept my lips across his. Smiling to myself when his breath quickened. “Has anybody ever told you you’ve got a goody-goody complex?”

He ticked one side of his full lips upward.
I don’t know what that means.

“Never mind.” I plucked a pine needle out of his hair. “But you don’t have to do this.”

Yes, I do.
He dropped his voice an octave. Maybe two.
I told you this already. I’m not going to hurt you.

“Then let’s run away.” I took his hands in mine and squeezed. “Let’s go. We’ll take a bus and ride with the windows down so you won’t get too hot. We can stop so you can be near water every night and then leave again in the mornings. We’ll go to Seattle. They have all sorts of lakes over there, and—”

Luna, you’re a month away from graduating.

“I don’t care! I can graduate anywhere. I’m eighteen, an adult. I can enroll wherever we stop—”

They’ve agreed to hear me out.

I halted my words. “What?”

He took a deep breath, then released it slowly.
The Council agreed to hear me plea my case.

“When?” My voice came out shrill.

I’ll go before the Council tomorrow. Midday.

“What do you think they’re gonna say?” I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer. I needed to feel his arms around me again. It suddenly felt icy cold outside, in spite of the sun shining down.

I…I honestly don’t know. Maybe if more humans knew about our kind and worked harder at protecting the lake, we could live peacefully. Not every human would want to exploit the lake or the Mer. Maybe if we understood humans more, we wouldn’t have Mer like Isolde who hurt humans for fun. It’s possible humans could help us to find a solution for…

His voice trailed off, and I looked up into his eyes. “What? Solution for what?”

He shuddered.
Remember when you first learned about Isolde, and you told me about those missing fishermen?

Gulping, I nodded. “This winter three ice fishermen went missing, and then another disappeared in March. I assumed it was her.”

He shook his head.
I never meant to lie to you. I just didn’t want you to be scared.

I tilted my head at him. “What was it?”

Mere Monstrom.

There was that term again. I’d Googled it after hearing Saxon and Isolde’s conversation in the woods, but my mother had come into the kitchen while I was using the laptop, slammed it shut, and announced that us kids were getting too dependent on technology. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew she was mad at my dad for working late that night, but arguing with her was like arguing with a tree. Except a tree was more reasonable.

“You’re going to have to dumb that down for me, Sax. I’m not real good with word problems.”

A flicker of amusement crossed his face before his cheeks paled.
The reason the Council works so hard to keep the Mer adhering to the rules isn’t just because of humans. It’s because there is something bigger and infinitely more dangerous than humans
and
Mer combined.

“Mere Monstrom.” I let the words sit on my tongue for a few beats. “It sounds like monster.”

Saxon nodded. Just once.
There is a creature in Pend Oreille that kills both our kind at will. The Mere Monstrom is the size of three of your submarines and has been known to throw boats hundreds of feet into the woods.”

My throat threatened to close, and the woods around us started to blur. I could hear my heart beating in my ears. All of the stories my dad had told to us while holding a flashlight under his chin on those dark summer nights. My mom called them folklore, but my dad claimed that his grandfather had seen the remains of a yacht so far in the woods, he’d claimed it was as if God himself had dropped it there.

“The scary stories.” I licked my lips. My mouth was suddenly so dry. “The legends. They’re…true?”

Yes. It’s a grotesque, fish-beast type creature. I’ve only ever seen it from afar, but it was horrific. Teeth covered in algae, and as sharp as blades. Yellow eyes that glow for a mile under the water, and a stench that resembles the decay of flesh mixed with its own filth. Its fins are like massive webbed arms that it uses to drag itself around, and the back and tail are jagged and spiked with this row of barbed coral. It swims faster than anything I’ve ever seen, like a pitch-black streak the size of a ten-story building, crashing through rock walls like they’re made of paper.

“Where does it live? Is it near your clan?” I trembled, picturing this streak of ominous darkness gliding along the bottom of Pend Oreille. So many swimmers braved the cold water in the summertime, and they had no idea that there was a dinosaur-sized creature beneath their toes.

The Mare Monstrom lives below Cape Horn, on the southern end of Pend Oreille. There are underwater caves that extend back underground for miles, connecting Pend Orielle to other lakes. Once a month, my clan travels to the cape to make an offering. When we do so, it remains dormant, and humans and Mer are safe—somewhat.

“An offering?” A dozen different scenarios flooded my mind. An animal? A youngling? A
virgin
, for Pete’s sake?

Saxon raked a hand through his tousled brown hair.
We take food. Animals. Fish. Plants. It lusts for blood—human or Mer, it doesn’t matter. My clan works very hard at feeding both ourselves and the Mere Monstrom. There are times when we go without because we have to take half of our provisions to the creature. We have to keep it fed and appeased, otherwise we’re picked off like snacks.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. “How is it that humans haven’t spotted this creature yet?”

They have. Your grandfather likely saw some of the Mare Monstrom’s handiwork, and the ice fishermen were also victims. We lost two members of our clan this winter, when they hunted too close to Cape Horn. And not every missing human in Pend Oreille can be attributed to the Mer. The problem with this happening, besides the obvious loss of human and Mer life, is that missing people precipitates an interest in the lake.