Awaken (14 page)

She was silent for a moment. “Were the dreams
about… you know?”

My heart jumped. I looked back at her.
“Huh?”

“Jesse.”

My panic cleared. Of course she wasn’t asking
about the ocean. I hadn’t told her anything about that and I wasn’t
going to.

I desperately wanted a car out of here.

“No,” I said. “It was… other stuff. Nothing.
It’s fine.”

I tried for a smile.

She didn’t look convinced. “You want to talk
about it?”

An incredulous laugh bubbled up inside me,
though nothing was funny at all. Swallowing it back down, I shook
my head. “I’m fine. Really.”

I stuffed my pajamas back into the bag and
then headed for the door. A moment passed before she followed.

In the kitchen, Diane already had breakfast
prepared. Fresh-baked muffins were piled high in a basket next to a
glass carafe of orange juice. Bacon slices and eggs took up other
plates nearby, all on top of a brightly patterned tablecloth.

I picked up a muffin and a small plate, and
then hesitated, my gaze twitching toward the view beyond the dining
room table and just as quickly darting away. The sea air drifting
through the open windows made shivers run over my skin, and tears
wanted to rise at the feeling.

I couldn’t be in here.

Turning abruptly, I walked past Baylie,
hurrying to the sitting room near the front door.

I could feel her watching me the whole
way.

In the front room, I dropped into one of the
stiff armchairs that flanked a tiny lamp table. Through the window,
I could see the driveway and the gate that led to the road. Bushes
lined the perimeter of the property, blocking most of the view of
the neighborhood.

Working to calm down, I drew a breath and
then took a bite of the muffin.

I needed to get out of here.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to push the
thought away. I didn’t have a car, and I couldn’t exactly take
Baylie’s. She sort of needed it to get home. But our ‘vacation’, or
whatever it could be called now, wasn’t due to be over for another
three days.

And I wasn’t sure I could keep from having a
breakdown for that long.

My eyes stung. This was so stupid. My whole
life, I’d wanted to visit the ocean. But that was
normal
,
not because my skin turned to scales and some boy claimed I was
part fish. Part
fish
. It was madness.

I mean, sure, I’d been drawn to the water.
But really, besides my parents, who wasn’t? Baylie loved it here,
and Noah had as much as said he felt the same way as me. Plenty of
people out there probably did too. Sailors, and oceanographers, and
all sorts of people. There wasn’t anything weird about that.

It didn’t mean everyone was a
fish
thing.

Though I doubted many of them took a bus
halfway across the country on some strange compulsion they couldn’t
shake. A compulsion that made them nearly go out of their minds at
the idea of being too far from the water.

I swallowed. When I was a kid, I’d wished I
was a mermaid. But I’d wished for a lot of things – among them, to
be a bird, a princess, or if nothing else, just to be adopted. But
that didn’t mean much. Lots of kids daydreamed about those sorts of
things.

And fantasizing about swimming through the
ocean was a far cry from watching your body change into something
else right before your eyes.

Shivering, I looked back to the window. Past
the gate, a gray-haired man strolled by, his hands clasped idly
behind his back and his gaze drifting over the house as he walked
along.

The urge to hide struck me, as though from a
hundred feet off, he could see the thing I was inside.

I turned away, tears burning my eyes. It was
ridiculous. I was jumpy and I needed distance from this place. From
the ocean, and kidnappers, and boys who could talk underwater. But
there wasn’t anywhere to go.

Except home.

My gaze dropped to the half-eaten muffin on
the plate. It was an option. As weird as home could be, it was a
strangeness to which I’d long since become accustomed.

And right now, that’d practically be
comforting.

Drawing a shaky breath, I rose to take the
plate to the kitchen. Mom and Dad probably weren’t too far away.
And once we were back in Kansas, they could ground me till
Armageddon if they wanted. I didn’t care.

I just needed to get out of here.

Baylie and Diane watched me as I came into
the kitchen. Avoiding their eyes, I made a beeline for the counter
and put the plate in the sink. Neither of them spoke as I left
again, though it seemed like I’d interrupted them talking.

And vain as it felt to think it, something in
the way they looked made it seem like the conversation had been
about me.

Up in the guest room, I shut the door behind
me and crossed to the nightstand. Grabbing my cell, I dialed Dad’s
number and then waited as the line rang.

No answer.

My brow furrowed as the voicemail clicked on.
I considered leaving a message, but hung up and then dialed Mom
instead.

Seconds slid past. The phone kept ringing. I
glanced to the door, wondering if anyone else had heard from them
since their message a few days ago.

“Hello?”

My attention snapped back. “Mom?”

“Chloe?”

“Yeah. Look, I was wondering–”

“How are you?”

I paused. It sounded like an accusation, not
a question.

“I-I’m okay,” I lied. “I just–”

“Are you sure?”

My brow drew down. “Mom, what is it? Why are
you–”

“Have you gone back in the water, Chloe?”

I tensed at her harsh tone, feeling suddenly
like I was five years old again. “No.”

Which was technically true. Sort of,
anyway.

She let out a breath on the other end of the
line. “Good. Don’t. Just… we’re on our way. We’ll be there as soon
as we can.”

“Where are you?”

She hesitated. “Your father had a minor
health issue. But he’s fine. The doctors–”

“Doctors? What happened?”

“It’s fine.”

“Mom!”

The pause came again, like out of a million
responses, she was cherry picking only certain ones.

“Your father had a very minor problem that
required a doctor’s attention. But we’ll be on the road again as
soon as he’s cleared to leave the hospital, which should be this
afternoon.”

I was speechless. Swallowing hard, I tried to
regroup. “Wh-what was wrong?”

“It’s not your concern.”

I looked down, the phone still clutched to my
ear. He’d really looked bad when I left.

“Is he going to be okay?”

She was silent for a moment. “We just need to
get home and everything will be fine.”

Guilt chewed at me. I’d run off, and then
this happened. But if I hadn’t, maybe…

“Mom, why are you guys so crazy about the
ocean? I mean, is there something–”

“We are
not
crazy, Chloe.”

I grimaced. They were, but whatever. I didn’t
want to argue. And I had no idea how to ask what I needed to know.
Was it because I was a fish creature? A de-whatever or mermaid? And
for that matter, were they?

How was I supposed to say that?

“Is there a reason, Mom?”

A heartbeat passed. “It’s dangerous. There
are… sharks. Diseases.”

I let out a groan.
She
didn’t even
sound like she believed the words.

“Mom, what the hell is it?”

“Don’t you swear at me, young lady.”

“I’m serious! I… something happened, okay? I
met this guy and he–”

“What guy?”

I hesitated. “Just a guy. But he said some
stuff. About me. About the, uh…”

“Chloe, you listen to me. You stay away from
him. We’ll be there soon.”

“Mom,
please
! Why are you so scared
about the ocean? And don’t say it’s because of diseases. I… I know
that’s not it.”

I waited, barely breathing, and for the
longest time, she was silent.

“Mom?”

“We’ll talk about this once we get there,”
she said quietly.

“Mom! Please, I need to know if–”

“I said we’ll talk about it once we’re there!
You stay out of the water, stay away from that boy, and wait for
us, do you understand?”

“But I–”

“I mean it, Chloe.”

She hung up. My hand shook as I lowered the
phone and stared at the screen.

I felt like crying. She never listened.
Never. I had no idea when they were going to be here, and if they
weren’t leaving whatever hospital Dad was staying at until this
afternoon…

A breath pressed from my chest as my heart
began to pound. I had to get out of here. I didn’t want to be this
thing. I wanted to be normal. To have normal parents and normal
vacations and normal everything and I just–

My arms hurt. I looked down.

A shriek escaped me.

Things were emerging from the backs of my
forearms. In a single row from my wrists to my elbows and pointing
away from my hands, spikes like translucent, iridescent knives
pushed bloodlessly through my skin. With every second, they grew
longer, gradually beginning to fan outward.

“No, no,” I begged, choking on a sob. Shaking
hard, my fingers tried to push them down, but they were so sharp,
they pricked my fingertips. I could feel the pressure of the
contact beneath my skin, though, as if the spikes were attached to
the muscle and bone there. “Stop. Oh God, please stop.”

A knock at the door made me jump. Frantic, I
looked around, trying to find some way to hide my arms.

“Chloe?”

Baylie opened the door. Desperately, I
dropped the phone and tucked my arms behind my back.

“Yeah?” I said.

She paused. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

Her brow drew down. “Well, um… we were
thinking of doing a movie day. Maybe just hanging out here, taking
it easy for a while. That sound good to you?”

I couldn’t think of anything worse, short of
going to the beach. Not right now.

But I couldn’t say that. And I really needed
her to leave. “Sure.”

Her concerned expression didn’t fade. “You
sure you’re okay?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Alright, well, we’ll be downstairs whenever
you want to join us.”

I nodded.

She hesitated a moment more, and then left
the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

I let out a breath. Trembling, I brought my
arms back into view.

The spikes were gone. Nothing but my own skin
remained, without a single trace that anything had been pushing
through it only moments ago.

Tears stung my eyes. I had to get out of
here. I had to find some way to stop this, before something else
impossible and horrible came along.

And before anyone found out what was
happening to me.

~~~~~

We watched movies till after dark.

And I barely remembered a single one.

It hadn’t taken me long to ask the others if
they wouldn’t mind closing the windows of the living room. The sea
air made me tremble. My hands twitched to rub my legs or arms every
few seconds, and by the time the movies were over, I was a cramped
ball of muscle from trying to hold still.

But thankfully, nothing else weird had
happened to my body, and when I stood to help the others bring the
popcorn bowls back to the kitchen, my relief at that simple fact
left me shaking. Diane set to washing the bowls in the sink and
Baylie grabbed a towel. Fighting to keep my gaze from being pulled
toward the ocean, I took the dried dishes and returned them to the
cupboards.

While hoping every second to hear the sound
of my parents’ car pulling into the driveway.

Finally, the last dish was put away. Baylie
hung the towels up to dry as Maddox and Noah called goodnight and
headed to their rooms. Peter had gone upstairs a few minutes
before, and without anything else to do, I returned to the living
room to collect the blanket I’d been curled under for the past few
films.

I jumped as Diane touched my arm.

“You doing okay, honey?” she asked
quietly.

“Y-yeah. I’m fine.”

Her mouth tightened. “Chloe, you’ve been on
edge since this morning. More than I’ve seen you since that
horrible man attacked. Now, I know this isn’t quite the same as the
hospital, but… has something happened? Is there some other reason
you’re so tense?”

She looked up at me, her brown eyes so
earnest, I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t hope to tell anyone
here what was happening, and as much as I’d tried to hide it, the
others obviously had picked up on how anxious I’d been. But the
only option I could see for fixing this – and for staying
human
– was to get out of here as quickly as possible. How
did I explain that?

Struggling to find words, I turned away, my
gaze landing on the view beyond the living room windows.

A man stood by the bushes at the edge of the
lawn.

I gasped.

“What is it?” Diane asked.

The man stepped back through the bushes and
disappeared.

“Chloe?”

“A man.” I pointed. “There. He was right
there, watching the house. He–”

“Peter!” Diane called.

I stared at the place where the man had been
standing while footsteps pounded on the stairs.

“What?” Peter said, coming into the
kitchen.

“Chloe saw someone outside.”

“Where?”

I pointed again. “The bushes. Watching the
house.”

Peter nodded. He opened a drawer and drew out
a flashlight. “You all just stay put.”

He headed out the door. Baylie retreated
across the kitchen toward us while, at my side, I could see Diane
wringing her hands. Silent, we watched him approach the edge of the
yard.

The beam of the flashlight swept the bushes.
A minute ticked past, and then he turned, coming back to the
house.

“He’s gone, whoever he was,” Peter said. He
tucked the flashlight back into the drawer. “I’ll call the police
though. Ask them to do a patrol of the area, just in case.”