Tempest Revealed (7 page)

We hurried up the street to my house, Mark’s arm wrapped around my shoulders in an unsuccessful effort to keep me warm. I invited him in, but he declined. It was close to three in the morning and at some point even his parents would expect him to make an appearance at home.

He kissed me slowly, lingeringly, and I focused on that instead of all my insecurities as I kind of floated into the house, my fingers pressed against my lips. It had been a good night, a really good night.

I thought back on my worries from earlier. While they were real, and haunted me every day, right now—at this moment—they seemed almost silly. Mark and I were good for each other. We loved each other. No, our relationship wasn’t following the most conventional route in the world, but then, who said it had to? If we wanted this, and worked hard at it, we could make it. And if I was really smart and really lucky in the next few
months—and everything turned out the way I wanted it to with Tiamat and Sabyn—we’d have the chance to make a real, long-term go of it.

When I got to the top of the stairs, I turned right and went down the hall to peer into Moku’s room. He was sound asleep, curled into a little ball in the center of his bed. His covers were pushed down to the bottom of the mattress, and I walked forward, pulled them back over him with an indulgent smile. Almost immediately, he unwound from the ball, his body relaxing into the warmth of the comforter we’d picked out together last year when he’d decided his old one—with dinosaurs on it—was for babies.

I bent down, brushed a kiss over his forehead. Over the scar he’d gotten when Tiamat had injured him so severely a few months before. I swear, standing there, looking at him like this—so sweet, so vulnerable—made a murderous rage rise within me. Never again was that bitch going to touch my family. I would make sure of it.

“He’s fine, Tempest.”

I turned, saw my dad lounging in the doorway, one shoulder pressed against the doorframe.

“He was cold. I was just—”

“Checking on him. I know. I do it two or three times a night myself.”

“You’re supposed to
sleep
at night, Dad.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t do too much of that anymore.”

Guilt assailed me. “I won’t let her hurt Moku again. I promise.”

My dad gave me an arch look. “He’s not the only one I’m
worried about, you know. The ocean killed your mother. The idea that it could take you too—” He broke off, looked away.

The guilt grew worse until it was almost suffocating me. “You said you were okay with me being mermaid.”

“I am. It’s your life, your decision, Tempest. I believe that firmly. But that doesn’t mean I don’t worry about you. You’re my kid. It’s my job to worry.”

“Dad—”

He arched an eyebrow at me and I looked away, suddenly unable to look him in the eye. “Where’s Sabrina?”

“Asleep.”

“Oh. I should let you get back—”

“She’s a big girl,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “I think she can handle sleeping on her own for a while.” Then he changed the subject. “How’d your date with Mark go?”

“It was great.”

“Yeah? Then why do you sound so down?”

Because it was time to have a conversation with him that I should have had ten months ago, when I’d mistakenly given up the idea of being mermaid and committed to life on land. I had been too cowardly to tell him then, but if he was so worried about me that he had insomnia, it was time to tell him the whole truth about what had happened to my mother. Besides, if things went wrong and I didn’t come back, he had a right to know.

“You want to go downstairs? I can make some hot chocolate or something?”

His eyes darkened with concern, but his smile never faltered as he stepped back into the hall. “Have you forgotten the rules? I make the hot chocolate while you talk.”

“That’s kind of what I was counting on.”

We didn’t speak again until we were downstairs in the kitchen. My dad puttered around, making the cocoa from scratch—because that’s just how awesome he’s always been—and I watched him, not sure where to start.

No, that wasn’t exactly true. I knew exactly where to start—there was really only one way to tell this story—but I was too cowardly to say anything. I was one of the lucky ones. I’d always had an amazing relationship with my dad, and I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.

He didn’t push me, didn’t ask leading questions or look at me searchingly. But I felt him waiting, could see how he’d braced himself for a blow. His shoulders were straight, his mouth grim, tension in every line of his body even as he whistled one of my favorite childhood songs. Part of me wanted to belt out the lyrics about the bear and the mountain, to sing along like I used to as a child when the biggest thing on my mind was messing up on the waves.

In the end, that was what got me talking. My dad knew something big was coming, so why the hell should I keep him suffering on the knife’s edge of suspense simply because I was afraid? I glanced behind me, into the living room and up the stairs in an effort to ensure Sabrina and my brothers hadn’t woken up. I wouldn’t be able to get this out if they were around.

Then I took a deep breath and said the words that had been haunting me for almost a year. “I killed Mom.”

My father stared at me, a haze of non-comprehension on his face. “That’s ridiculous—”

“No. It isn’t. I mean, I didn’t actually kill her. Tiamat did, but—”

“Tiamat?”

“Yes. The same witch who attacked Moku.”

“I know who she is, Tempest. I’ve known who she was since you were ten years old. She’s who came after you on that beach in Hawaii.”

I had forgotten about that. “Yes.”

“She killed your mother?”

“Because of me.” They were the hardest words I’d ever said, but I wouldn’t take them back. My dad had a right to know what had happened to Cecily. She was the only woman he’d ever loved and he had spent most of the last decade pining for her.

“It’s not your fault if she was protecting you—”

“I was supposed to be protecting her.”

My dad slid a cup of hot cocoa across the counter at me, his expression pained but not nearly as condemning as I’d expected it to be. As I’d feared it would be.

“Explain.”

So I did, telling him how I’d been in a face-off with Tiamat only weeks after I’d become mermaid. How I’d had to make a choice between Kona and Cecily, had to decide who she was going to go for first. How I’d made the wrong choice and then had to watch as she’d killed my mother in front of me.

My father seemed to collapse inward a little more with each word I said, each new fact that I revealed. When I was done, I braced myself for his condemnation, for the anger I knew was well deserved. Not only had I failed to protect my mother, I had spent nearly a year lying to him about it.

For a long time, he didn’t say anything. Didn’t
do
anything. Then, when he did move, it was for something completely unexpected. He came around the counter and wrapped me in his arms, hugging me as tightly as he could.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you had to go through that and so sorry you felt you couldn’t talk to me about it before. I love you and think you are the bravest young woman I have ever met.”

He kissed the top of my head, and then I was hugging him too. Hugging and sobbing in a way I hadn’t done since I was a little girl. And he let me, settling down on the nearest barstool and pulling me onto his lap, where he rocked me back and forth. He didn’t try to interrupt, didn’t try to reason with me. He just held me like I was a child, soothing me while I cried out all the pain and grief and confusion that had haunted me for the last year.

“My poor girl,” he murmured as I sobbed. “My poor little girl.”

When I finally wound down, he reached behind him and ripped some paper towels off the roll. Then handed them to me with the order to “Blow.”

I did, a couple of times, before wiping the salty residue of tears from my cheeks. Then, embarrassed to have behaved like such a baby, I slid off his lap and dumped the paper towels in the trash can at the end of the island.

I couldn’t look him in the eye, not now that he knew the truth about me. I felt exposed, raw, ashamed, as I waited for the other shoe to drop.

But it never came. Instead, my dad nudged my cup of hot chocolate toward me and said, “Drink it. The warmth will do you good.”

I did, but then it was my turn to be tension filled, my turn to brace for a blow. When I couldn’t take it any longer, I demanded, “Aren’t you going to say something? Anything?”

“Not until you look at me.”

It was a command, for all that it was voiced softly, and my gaze shot up to his.

“That’s better.” He smiled faintly, but it faded quickly, replaced by a look of such intense determination and anger and love that I sucked a breath in, held it. “Tempest, I think you are one of the bravest, most incredible people I have ever met in my life. That you would even
think
to go up against that heinous, evil bitch to save your mother—after only weeks in the ocean—both terrifies me and makes me so incredibly proud. You have nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to feel responsible for—”

“You don’t understand! I made the wrong decision; I got her killed—”

“Cecily got herself killed, Tempest. She chose that way of life, chose to be mermaid even when it demanded impossible things from her. She could have walked away. Hell, she did walk away for ten years. But in the end …”

“She missed the ocean.”

“She missed the
power
.” He drained his own cup of hot chocolate before placing it carefully on the counter where he played with it for impossibly long, tense seconds. “I loved your mother, more than I ever thought it possible to love a woman. But that doesn’t mean I was blind to her faults. I knew she loved me, but she loved what she could do as mermaid more, loved the power that came with her heritage. I knew, very early on, that I only had her on loan. That eventually the lure of that power,
the lure of who she used to be, would take her from me. From us.”

“And you married her anyway?” I didn’t understand. “You had kids with her knowing she would abandon us?”

“Yes.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Hope springs eternal. And besides, would you have me wish you out of existence? Or Rio? Or Moku?”

“No. Of course not.” I couldn’t imagine a world without my brothers in it. Wouldn’t want to imagine it.

“I made some mistakes along the way, Tempest, as did your mother. But you and your brothers were never one of them. Your mother died how she lived—fighting Tiamat, high on power, determined to be the one to end her so that—”

“So that I wouldn’t have to.” The truth came to me then, harsh and unrelenting. “She fought Tiamat so hard and for so long so that I would never have to fulfill my part of the prophecy.”

“What prophecy?”

I shook my head, unwilling to get into the ancient prophecy that had predicted my upcoming showdown with Tiamat. “It’s not important.”

At first I thought he was going to push, but in the end, he just shook his head. “She was your mother and she loved you. It was her job to protect you. Don’t take away her sacrifice by making her death all about you.”

His words made sense even as they conflicted with the suffocating sense of guilt I had lived under for so long. I didn’t know if I could believe them, but I would at least think about them. Especially when he seemed right on about my mother’s need for power.

For a second, the memory of her killing a merfamily rose up, taunted me. But I shoved it back down, deep inside myself. That was somewhere I couldn’t go, not tonight and maybe not ever.

I stood up, carried our dirty cups to the sink. It was after three thirty in the morning and I should be exhausted. Instead, I felt wired, like I’d had a few too many double espressos. My skin itched, and it was taking all the concentration I had to keep from twitching.

“You tired?” my dad asked, eyeing me carefully as I rinsed out the cups and loaded them in the dishwasher.

“Not really. I mean, I know I should be, but a lot has gone on tonight and I think I need some time to process it all.”

“Did something happen with Mark?” he asked, with his usual insight.

I thought of the belly chain wrapped around my waist, of all the things Mark and I had—and hadn’t—said earlier. “I love him, Dad.”

“I know.”

“I want it to work between us.”

He nodded. “So make it work.”

“I don’t know how to. I mean, not for the long term.”

My dad seemed to startle a little at that. “Do you have to?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re not even eighteen years old, Tempest, and Mark barely is. Don’t you think you should cut yourselves some slack? If things were normal—”

“You mean, if
I were
normal.”

“If that’s what I’d meant, that’s what I would have said.” The
look he shot me warned me to keep my mouth shut until he was finished. “If things were normal, you’d be applying to colleges right now, waiting to see where you were accepted. There are no guarantees that you and Mark would end up at the same university anyway. This isn’t much different than that—at least for now.”

“You mean except for the fact that I grow a tail and live at the bottom of the ocean. It’s not like Mark can exactly visit for the weekend.”

“Even more reason to take your time, to see where this goes. A lot of things can change in four years.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “Is this the guy who lived through a human-mermaid relationship talking or just my dad?”

He grinned. “Maybe a little of both?”

“That’s what I figured.”

Part of me knew he was right, that I had had some of the same thoughts up in my bedroom earlier that evening. Especially when my own future was so insecure—who knew if I’d even be around in six months to try to work on a relationship with Mark. I was determined to bring Tiamat down the next time we went against each other, no matter what. If I had to die to do it, then I was willing to pay that price. Worrying about what would or wouldn’t happen between Mark and me in a nebulous future that might not even exist was neither reasonable nor logical.