Everblue (24 page)

“But I’m already promised!” I yelled.

“Shhh, I know.” She pushed her hands downward. “This is such a mess. They sedated your sister, then she couldn’t stay awake to attend.”

“Really?” I scrubbed my hand through my hair. “I can’t believe this is all happening.”

She pressed her palms over her eyes. “This is all my fault.”

I put my arm over her shoulder, suppressing the urge to tear apart the room instead. “It’s not your fault. It’s going to be okay, Mom. Like you said earlier, things could be worse. We still have time. I’ll figure out something.”

“Without your dad, I don’t know how.”

The fire in her eyes from the night before had extinguished, lighting anger inside me. I’d been looking at this whole situation like a child. What could Dad do that I couldn’t? I was a man. It was time I started acting like one.

I swam to the door and pounded on it.

“I want to see the King,” I demanded to the goon.

He looked at me with amusement. “Okay,” he said before shutting the door.

I wedged my fin into the door jam and pushed it back open. “I’m serious. I want to see him tonight.”

He gave me a wild smile; one tooth was missing. “Whatever ya say, Captain.”

I drifted back, alarmed at the craziness in his eyes. Why did he call me Captain? Disturbed, I moved back to my seat and watched mom knead her hands. Once the King showed up, I’d let him know that Lily didn’t want to be with me after all, that my father’s word still stood. Dad said we’d get to choose and neither of us had.

Even if I had to tell him my sister and I wanted to be turned into a human, I would. We still had rights as citizens of Natatoria, and King Phaleon’s rash decisions were breaking the law.

44

ASH

Though I was safely in my grandmother’s room, subconsciously the water seemed to suck me under and hold me there. My family went about their business, coming and going, as they needed. I couldn’t participate. Guilt made me watch the lake out the window and wait.

The appointment earlier with the psychologist didn’t help either.

“How are you?” the older woman with glasses and white curly hair asked.

“Fine,” I said and cracked a fake smile.

“Great. So what brings you here?”

“My mom,” I said with a snicker. “You just talked to her. Remember?”

“That I did. So why did she bring you?”

“So you’ll fix me—they all think I’m suffering from post traumatic stress.”

“And are you?” She tilted her head and smiled.

I looked away from her probing eyes and stared at the sand garden on her coffee table. The sand reminded me of Fin and how he was trapped in Natatoria because of me. I bit my lip until it bled to keep from crying. “Heck if I know.”

“Do you know what post traumatic stress is?”

“I Googled it.”

“And what did Google say?”

“That you get all weird after a stressful or life threatening event. But really, it was no big deal.”

She shifted in her chair but remained pleasant—shooting a knowing smile. I wondered if the mention of “merpeople” would wipe it off.

“Why don’t I tell you what I know about post traumatic stress and you tell me if that’s what’s going on?”

“Whatever,” I said flippantly.

She ignored my rude reply and went on to tell me about how the traumatic events are like a strand of pearls. After the event, your brain doesn’t know how to deal with the information so it’s like someone has snipped the string, the thoughts bouncing in your mind. All your brain knows to do is replay the events over and over to try and put the strand back together again. Eventually, over time, you complete the necklace and put away the memories. Sometimes though, your brain gets stuck and the pearls keep bouncing.

“Nope. Not me. I guess I’m normal then.”

She nodded and hummed. I wanted to rip the pencil from her hand and chuck it out the window.

 “Have you been to the water since the accident?”

“Of course I have.” The night Fin and Tatchi were abducted. I felt my lip quiver.

“And how’d that go?”

Pearls were an understatement. Super balls from the incident bounced around instead, smacking my temples as if it was a bull’s eye. If I was having PTSD, it wasn’t because I almost drowned in the lake, but rather that my friends were taken and I let it happen. “It was water. That wet cold stuff that will take your life if you try to swim in it right now.”

“I see. Fear of the water seems to make you angry.” She wrote something on a small white notepad.

She ripped off the paper and handed it to me. I assumed after seeing I wasn’t going to cooperate, it was a prescription for some meds to dope me up, so I’d comply with my mother’s wishes. An address and phone number was all she’d scrawled across the top.

“This is the number of a support group for teens going through stressful situations. I highly suggest you go and just listen to the stories.”

I shoved the slip of paper into my pocket and creased my forehead. A hundred dollars an hour got me an address and phone number? Mom was going to love that one.

“Am I free to go?”

“Not quite I’m afraid. We still have forty-five more minutes.”

I sighed and stared at the sand again.

She pried for the rest of the time, but I gave her nothing.

Earlier today, when spying on Fin and Tatchi’s house, I noticed it appeared vacant. The traffic going in and out abruptly stopped after the abduction at the beach. Too late to demand answers. Though I doubted Fin’s alluring cousin, who ended up being one of the bad guys, would have told me anything anyway.

My heart hammered knowing the enemy had been so close and I’d almost put myself at risk by going over and trying to talk to him again. Were all merpeople weird and hypnotic like that?

So I just watched the water and waited from a distance.

They had to return soon. They had to.

45

FIN

Somehow, I’d fallen asleep. This was the last thing I wanted to do as I waited for the King to show up. I’d only closed my eyes for what seemed like a half a second when someone grabbed me and sliced something sharp across my arm.

I looked up as a goon restrained me and another held a peculiar green plant against the cut. A tingling sensation began to trail through my limbs, taking with it all my fight.

“He won’t be any trouble now,” the third goon, who held the knife, said to some unseen person behind him.

I tried to stay upright, ready for my confrontation with the King, but slumped down, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. Through the doorway two tittering mermaids entered, carrying armloads of supplies and clothing. They came towards me, singing their sweet melodies. I forgot my anger and closed my eyes while they played with my hair and put different shirts on me. Off to the side I heard Mom interacting with someone as well.

I remained drowsy and eventually opened my eyes. The mermaids were gone. I brushed my hands over the shirt they put on me, which glistened with hundreds of tiny black, polished stones. The weight draped the garment snuggly across my chest and arms.

“I guess I’m all set to give up my life to Lily,” I said sleepily as I grinned to Mom.

She looked like an angel with her hair pinned around her head, adorned with gems and shells. Only, she wasn’t smiling back. “That’s not funny. What about Ashlyn?”

Ash’s beautiful face came to mind. “Oh, right.” I snorted. “Let’s go find her.”

She looked back horrified and shook her head. “Finley, you have to fight what they’ve drugged you with. Drink in some water.”

I swallowed a few gulps, then burped. She sat down, resting her forehead on her hand. Even though my inebriated state made everything seem trivial, I couldn’t deny her worry. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have the strength to care.

“Aw, Mom,” I said and sat on the side of the chair, covering her shoulder with my arm. “It’ll be okay, just like you said.”

She shimmied away and continued to knead her hands together when someone unlocked the door. The same goons who’d poisoned me motioned for us to exit the room. My heart, which should have started to pound, remained at a steady pace.

They escorted us to a large ballroom in the center of the palace. I somewhat expected to see a mass of people, but found a small group of strangers in attendance—mostly females. The front of the room was typical of the décor of the rest of the palace: colorful sea anemones placed on marble columns were staggered between brilliant coral gardens. Vivid fish darted around the display. Definitely not lavishly decorated with items from all over the world, like the King said.

Mom leaned into me and whispered. “I’m hoping for a miracle.”

I looked at her and snickered. “Miracle? I think it’s a little too late.”

“Just . . . just don’t kiss Lily, whatever you do.”

I shrugged and let her pull me inside.

“Welcome,” a mermatron at the door said. “And congratulations. I’m the promising coordinator. Maggie, you’ll wait here to be escorted once the ceremony starts and Finley, you’ll stand on the dais to the right of the King’s attendant. For now you can sit in a chair over there.”

At the ends of her hot pink braids floating in the current, snake faces appeared and hissed at me.

“Eeew,” I said and moved backwards.

My mother grabbed my arm. “Finley. Stop it.”

I wrinkled my face and shook my head—the snakes disappeared. All I remembered her say was that the King would be standing up front with us. “The King is promising us?” I asked.

Her brow creased. “No, the King’s attendant will be. The King is escorting Tatiana down the isle.”

“What?” I let out a gust that flapped my lips. None of this was right. Dad should be taking her down the isle, not Leon. “And Tatch is going to let him?”

Mom nudged me in the side and gave me a hard look. “Fin—” She pointed to the front of the room. “Have a seat. I’ll handle the details.”

I rolled my eyes and followed her instruction, knocking over a sea star sculpture in the process.

Through the doors on the left of the room, a group of merboys filed in and hovered behind a huge harp. They were dressed in white long-sleeved shirts and stood stiff like statues. I tried to follow their example, but felt myself sliding off my chair. Instead, I leaned back and stared at the diamond chandelier that hung from the ceiling. Sunlight disbursed off the glistening stones and rippled in the water throughout the room. I wished the room was air-filled so I could exercise my legs.

The snake-haired lady nudged me. “Fin, it’s time.”

I opened my eyes with a start and maneuvered myself upright. Azor had taken his place on the stage already and to my surprise, our outfits matched. Still shrouded in a cloud of drug induced apathy, I swam up to him and gave him a big high five.

“Finley.” He grinned smugly. “Ready for the big day?”

“Righty-O, dog.” I formed my fingers into a gun and clicked my tongue.

He laughed half-heartily as snake-haired lady moved me over to the other side of the podium. Once she left the stage, the harpist, who had appeared from nowhere, began to play. The boys sang Natatoria’s anthem as a school of seahorses pulled a small pram with my sister and Lily sitting inside. They both wore very ornate head pieces and white dresses, but my sister’s head was tilted haphazardly back onto her chair and her mouth gaped open. The snake-haired lady swam over and jiggled her shoulder.

Tatch snapped her head up and shut her mouth. She canvassed the room and found me, then gave me a half-smile. But Lily’s terror-stricken expression sobered me up. Lily’s father swam to her side of the pram and escorted her to the entrance of the aisle. Behind them, the King entered and took up Tatch’s arm.

At the sight of the King, my heart began to pound. He never came last night as I’d summoned. I’d have to confront him in front of everyone now. The music changed to a soft ballad and the four swam down the aisle behind two merlings who tossed starfish onto the white sandy runway.

Lily gulped hard as they came to the end and behind me, the attendant asked, “Who brings these mermaids to be promised to these mermen?”

“Her Godparents do,” the King said and passed my tipsy sister to Azor.

I looked to my mom, who was horrified as Tatchi snuggled on Azor’s shoulder. Where was my courage? Why couldn’t I say anything?

Lily took my arm, her hand shaking as the attendant began the ceremony.

“We are gathered in front of friends and witnesses today to join Prince Azor and Tatiana, and Sir Finley and Elizabeth—”