Blueisland (Watermagic Series, #4) (11 page)

That was him? It really happened? “Okay,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest. I tried to subdue my anger and hide my ignorance.

He stared at me hard for a minute, causing me much internal frustration. “
Sometimes I have pity on losers,” He murmured as he walked a couple of steps across the room and looked out the open window.

There was that fury
boiling up inside of me again. “You’re a bigger loser than me cheating on your girlfriend. Phonies like you have no sense of loyalty.”

That seemed to get him because even though he wasn’t looking at me, I saw his hands ball up into fists
the way mine had earlier. But when he turned around he was all cool and smooth again. “A slut like you shouldn’t talk. I ate your scrawny lay myself. Donny Smith. Oh how he bled…”

Before he could stop talking, I jumped out of the bed
and pounced right on top of him. He must be one of the monsters I saw under water after I plummeted into the ocean from the yacht. Apparently, I wasn’t hallucinating. I started wailing him in the face with my fists. “You bastard. I hate you,” I said through clenched teeth. “I hate you so much.”

Startled, h
e pulled my hands away and threw me down on the bed, pinning my arms back against the feather mattress. His nostrils flared as he looked down at me.

My heart
pounded much too fast. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to rip apart his perfect face. But then Pascal, shirtless with dark wet hair in wild disarray, rushed into the room and pulled Marcel off of me. “Leave the girl alone.”

“Hey, back off,” Marcel said, chuckling at Pascal who
held him back. His lips turned a deeper shade of red.

Quickly,
I wiped the tears out of my eyes with the back of my hands as I tried to pull myself together to no avail. Everything happened so fast. There was a struggle now, but I sensed they were just playing around. I wasn’t sure. Was this rough play normal for them?

Unaware, Pascal bumped into me in the tight space and I stumbled to the wall. His body felt hard like steel. It didn’t hurt, but only made me feel more disoriented.

Before I could think anything else, Marcel spun Pascal around and threw him face down on the bed. In a rush, he snatched Pascal’s wallet out of his pants pocket and pulled out the cash, waving a stack of one hundred dollar bills before his face as Pascal threw him off. Grinning wryly, Marcel continued to wave the money tauntingly as he leaned over to me. To my shock, before I could move away in the tight space, he ran his tongue down my cheek to mess with Pascal and apparently me too.

Furious, I pushed him away only for him to laugh.

“Give that back,” Pascal said as he lunged for the money.

But before he could snatch the cash out of Marcel’s hand, Marcel ripped up the hundred dollar bills and threw them in the air
as he raised an eyebrow.

I was outraged
; somehow I managed to get past them. Marcel was horrible. Before I knew what I was doing, I ran out of the room and down the ladder of the tree house. I just kept running through the trees not knowing where I was going. It was so dark. How could he kill Donny? What an atrocious, ghastly being.

Chapter Seven

I didn’t know how long I ran through the dark jungle before I collapsed to the wet ground and started balling like a baby. It was as if all the emotions of everything that had been building inside of me came pouring out like a gigantic flood. Now I wanted my mom more than ever. I needed her to say this was all just a nightmare and that soon I would wake up.

But I knew I wasn’t asleep
. I had never been so aware. Way too many teenagers dead. Such a damn shame. What a waste of life. I wiped my eyes in anger. And that bastard killed Donny. Who were these freaks? These French exchange students. The strange thing was now that I was so furious and had seen so much senseless death around me, I wanted to live. For the first time in months, I sought life.

People were dying around me and that just wasn’t right.
I had to do something to stop this. I lay in the mud with all the insect sounds around me and tried to figure it all out.

It seemed to me that there were two types of monsters. There were
those mers that I saw this past afternoon in the ocean with their beautiful fish tails and human upper bodies. I got the impression that they lived in the ocean, but maybe they could transform their tails into legs and go on land. I wasn’t sure. And there seemed to be another type of creatures that looked like normal, yet gorgeous human beings. These creatures seemed to be able to dwell under water and on land. That must be the monster that I had transformed into. Maybe Marcel and his friends were of that type, I surmised. He must be something because he said he ate Donny. My body shuddered at the thought. I took in a sharp breath and tried to regain focus.

Sitting up, I stretched my
jean clad legs out in the mud and continued to think. Both types of beings, the ones with tails and the ones without, apparently liked to eat human flesh. My mind reeled with contemplations. How did that huge octopus that overtook the yacht fit into this? That son of a bitch had me puzzled. I remembered that I heard beautiful voices singing during the catastrophe. That seemed so strange. From my recollections I had a vague memory of reading about mermaids lounging on boulders while singing to sailors out at sea. They would call them with their enchanting melodies and the ships would crash into the rocks and sink, thereby, leading the sailors to their certain deaths.

Did those mers or the creatures of my type do something similar? Were they singing to us and causing the captain to crash
the yacht? I thought about that. But after some consideration, I decided the answer was no because we didn’t hit any rocks that I was aware of. Instead, the yacht was overtaken by that gigantic kraken.

When I plummeted into the ocean during the overtaking, I didn’t see any fish people in the water. Instead, I thought I saw human beings ripping apart my classmates with their teeth.
I remembered back to the sighting of the guy who looked like Marcel in the ocean with a beautiful woman. Now that made more sense. That probably was Marcel and the beautiful woman must have been one of these creatures. They weren’t human beings at all and that would account for their odd behaviors of swimming out in the ocean so far from land. They must have been part of the group of human looking creatures that devoured my classmates.

But how and why did I turn into one of them? It appeared as if they ate most of my senior class, left some over, and turned a select number into their own kind. Why would they do that?

Suddenly, I heard a noise. My body froze right there on the wet ground as I listened. Aside from the insect buzz and chirp, there was complete silence. That made me even more frightened because that caused me to think that I was being watched. What could be there? It was stupid of me to run off into the jungle alone at night.

I
sat perfectly still analyzing all the rhythms of the rainforest for predators. After a minute, I detected a break in the predictable sounds. It was the slightest movement, like a light footstep in the brush. Crap. Was it a tiger or maybe a lion? Still frozen, my pulse raced.

But nothing happened and after
what seemed like a few minutes or so, I heard voices and brisk walking through the forest. They were still quite a distance from me, but with my new sharp senses, I could hear them like they were much closer than they actually were. In no time, I recognized the tones though I couldn’t hear everything said.

Without a doubt, it was
Brigitte. I couldn’t forget that lyrical voice. She was complaining to someone… It was… I tilted my head to the side and leaned in. Oh—Marcel! I think she was with him. He also sounded a bit like a song, but it was subtle for the both of them. A funny feeling waded in the pit of my stomach. And then, after my mind clicked in, anger rose up through my body to my throat.

“Sit down for a second,
please
,” Brigitte begged. She must have grabbed onto him or something because the sounds of their feet moving over fallen sticks and leaves ceased.

“You know the arrangement,” Marcel breathed. I could imagine him running his fingers through his hair in an exasperated manner.

“I know, I know. But that little twat.” She sighed. “You are supposed to be discreet with your extra-curricular activities.”

Extra-curricular activities? I shook my head. What was with this guy?
And what kind of arrangement did they have?

“I didn’t hurt her—it
was just plain, ordinary... It meant…”

She interrupted him.
“You should simply commit to me once and for all,” Brigitte said softly. “It gets tiring keeping our secret from our school. We are meant to be and you know it. After all these years…” I sensed she was in love with him, but trying to play it off lightly.

I heard him step back,
probably away from her. “I can’t do that and
you
know it.”

Why? Why wouldn’t he commit to the perfect, beautiful angel before his eyes? To any other she would be the dream girl of all time.
It wasn’t just her stunning appearance—everything about her was cool and mesmerizing from her musical voice to her fluid mannerisms.

He must have walked away because now she was chasing after him. “Why are you out here?” she called out. I detected anger in her
voice.

“Just go home, Brigitte,” he said sternly as he moved closer in my direct
ion. My body was tense. I felt like I couldn’t hide. If I got up, he would hear the sounds the way I could hear him, but if I stayed put, he might run into me. I didn’t want that either.

But I was afraid out there in the jungle. Even though I was much stronger than I could have ever imagined, I still felt vulnerable to predators. I didn’t think I could take on something with sharp teeth and claws.
I’d try for sure, but I’d probably go down. Jaguars were much more experienced at killing than I was. And I was not sure where exactly I was in relation to the beach where my classmates were probably camping out or maybe even being rescued by now.

I must have gotten lost in my thoughts though I didn’t think it was possible because suddenly someone grabbed onto my shoulder from behind. “Don’t move,” Marcel commanded in a hushed, yet urgent voice. How did he get here so quickly like that? From the corner of my eye, I saw Brigitte was next to him. They were both looking at my legs.

Slowly I turned my head to look at my long limbs that were positioned to my side as I rested on one hip in the mud. Right at that, a huge black snake, maybe a boa constrictor, slithered over my jean clad legs. No! I think it was a cobra. I should have been looking out for that. My mouth dried. Holy moly. It reared up. Crap! I was a gonner for sure as I looked it in the dark eyed, flared nostril face. Its red tongue was wagging right between my eyes.

But before I could even think straight, Marcel dove over my shoulder and onto the cobra.
It all happened in seconds. His face was a pale bluish color now and looked a bit monstrous as he tore the thing to shreds with his teeth and hands. It was in speed motion with snake guts and flesh flying into the air.

Once all the pieces had fallen to the ground, Marcel’s face seemed to almost indiscernibly turn back to normal, his golden tan illuminating his perfect features. With the back of his hand he wiped off the discard and then spit at the ground. My eyes were wide with wonder as I stood there flabbergasted. What the hell just happened? Those mers in the ocean didn’t look monstrous like he did when they went in for their kills. They remained perfectly beautiful in their ferociousness. What was he?
Was I the same thing?

I started to back away, but
Marcel grabbed me by the arm forcefully and started pulling me through the rainforest. I looked back at Brigitte who just stood there glaring at me with snake parts at her feet. She swung around and stormed away in the opposite direction.

“You are an idiot,” he said as he pulled me along. “
A walking disaster.”

I tried to pull away, but he was too strong. My mind was spinning. I was still in shock from what had just happened. I should have died and
holy crap…

Now this situation was messed up. The guy who “ate” my friend, just saved me
—again. Marcel was a total contradiction. He was a true hero in every sense—like some kind of frickin’ knight in shining armor while at the same time a heartbreaker, user, and murderer. I couldn’t thank this monster for saving me when he was such a bastard in every other sense. “Take your hands off of me and leave me alone.” Gosh, I hated him.

“No,” he said sternly. Then he just swept me up much too roughly and threw me over his
naked shoulder. “Hands off my chest. Nobody touches my heart.”

Wh
at the hell does that mean? Damn, he was crazy. My hands flung over my head, and now awkwardly clasped the material on his sweat pants to steady myself. It was unnerving holding onto someone so fine and in such a ridiculous position, but anytime an unexpected electrical current rushed through my body, which unfortunately, several did, I just thought about Donny and all my feelings transformed into anger. I hardly had time to think of the absurdity and strangeness of the situation because it all happened so fast and
he
was so damn fast—he wove through the trees, leaping over boulders, fallen branches, or stumps as he went. Bouncing along, I felt so frickin’ dizzy from looking at the fast moving objects from my peripheral as he whizzed past that I just succumbed and closed my eyes tightly, my fury at bay.