Made to Love (10 page)

I started toward the door,
and Dad held up a hand.

“
What
now
?” I
sighed.

“
He can be here,” Dad
said, “but he can't come inside.”

I stomped my food on the
ground.  “What is your
problem
?”

He blinked.  “He'll
track crud on the floor.”

“
And I won't?” I said,
using my hand to point all all the gross we were covered in. 
“We need to shower!”

My dad blanched in
panic.  “
You
can shower,” he said, pointing to
me.  “
He
can use the garden hose.”

“
Cal,” Octavius
said.  “It's okay.  Really.”

I turned to look at
him.  Even covered in white ooze, I had never seen anything
prettier.  I didn't know how he could stand to even peep at me
when he could look in the mirror and lose himself in the best face
the world had ever seen.

“
Octavius,” I said in a
low voice.  “You're with me.  He has to accept
that.”

“
No I don't!” Dad
said.  We ignored him.

Octavius cupped my face in
his hands.  I leaned to kiss his fingers and tasted the salty
goop of the sea monster.  I gagged, and Octavius
laughed.

“
I'll talk to your dad,”
he said, dropping his hand.  “It'll be fine.  Right,
sir?”

Dad didn't seem to think
any such thing.  He stormed toward the garage, saying, “Follow
me” in a curt tone.  Octavius shrugged and followed, his wings
drooping slightly.

I went inside and headed
upstairs.  True to my word, I was dragging all sorts of
disgusting behind me.  I didn't pity the maid in the
slightest, although I did kind of want to see her face when she saw
how the floors looked.  It'd be classic.

As I went in my bathroom, I
shrugged off my clothes and looked in the mirror.  I seemed
even more blah than usual, thanks to my limp hair and cut-up
body.  And it looked like I lost a lot of weight, too, so I
was probably going to go up
another
cup size. 
Ugh.  As if this day wasn't rough enough.  Why was eating
so hard?

I climbed into the shower
and let the water sluice off my body.  It was great to be able
to choose the temperature: in this case, so hot my skin would turn
red.  I didn't care if I looked like a lobster – I needed
everything off me, as soon as possible.

After a few minutes, I was
pretty clean, so I stepped out of the shower and started
towel-drying my hair.  The last thing I needed was a blow
dryer right now; I was very low-maintenance, so even the thought of
digging it out of my things right now made me scowl.  I even
limited my makeup application to mascara, eyeshadow, foundation,
and lipstick.   Just enough to not look like a
cow.

I put a terrycloth bathrobe
on and stepped out into the house.  I found a window that
looked over the garage area and spotted my dad and Octavius. 
Dad had the hose trained on Octavius's body, and he looked
downright malicious, but Octavius was taking the spray with his
eyes closed and his arms extended.  He looked more like he was
dancing than hosing off octopus goo.  I couldn't take my eyes
off him, and I didn't much want to, either.

Which is why I didn't
notice when a tall body approached, pinned my arms behind me, and
clapped a hand over my mouth.  I shrieked, but the noise was
eaten by the massive palm over my lips.

I took a closer look at the
arm.  There was stitching all up and down, and at least two
different skin tones.

Byron.

Chapter
Twenty-Five

“
Don’t scream,” he
murmured, “please, please don’t scream.”

Eyes bulging, I tried to
twist around to look at him, but he held me firm.  I
struggled, but his arms were like iron-clad straps holding me in
place.  It was like struggling against a tall, muscular brick
wall.

When I realized I couldn’t
fight him, I forced my body to relax.  Byron’s hand on my face
smelled musty, with a chemical tang—like my dad’s lab.

He breathed heavily against
my hair, refusing to budge until my body had gone completely
limp.  His breath was hot.  Even in the cold, drafty
room, I felt like I was sweltering in his grip.  He must have
been running an internal temperature well over a
hundred.

“
Promise you won’t
scream?” Byron asked.

No
.

Of course I wanted to
scream.  I wanted Octavius to come save me from this new
monster.  But he wouldn’t have been able to hear me out on the
lawn—especially past the thunder and the sound of the
hose.

And yet, something in
Byron’s voice was so gentle, so fragile, like he was breakable
despite his rock-hard body.  So I nodded, and he eased up on
me.  Byron stepped back, and I turned to face him.

I didn’t know who had
dressed him, but his fashion sense was terrible.  He wore a
plaid cardigan rolled up to the elbows over a pair of normal,
boot-cut jeans – so last decade – with brown loafers.  Byron
didn’t quite fit the clothes.  His shoulders and muscular
chest bulged against the material, and his thighs filled out the
jeans tightly enough that it looked like it might burst.

My eyes traveled up to his
face, slowly, reluctantly—I was afraid he would be terrifying, like
the time I had glimpsed him in the lab.

But his eyes were soft
under soft blond curls, mismatched as the colors were, and his lips
were sensitive.  His cheek bones sloped gracefully down to the
curves of his mouth, and stitches ran tracks across his face,
splitting the flesh into pieces.

The very tips of his ears
were pointed.  I reached up with shaking fingers to trace
their edge, forgetting that I was supposed to be scared of
him.  His ears were just as attached as the rest of his
parts.  They almost looked natural.

Byron sighed in his deep,
rumbling voice, and I realized what I was doing.  I jerked my
hand back.

“
So you’re my dad’s latest
experiment,” I said.  He nodded silently.  “You’re
Byron.  You’re the one who cries at night.”  Another
nod.

I bit my lip.  I
should have been scared of him, but this close, he was kind of
cute.  He looked surprisingly harmless.

One of his hands came up,
and I stepped back, ready to flee.  He looked hurt when I
reacted so strongly, bringing his fist to his chest.  He
clutched the stem of a rose just like the one I had found at my
door a week before and was now dried and pressed to go in my poetry
book.

“
Oh,” I said.  “That
was your rose.”

Byron held out the new
flower, and I took it from him.  “I shouldn’t be here,” he
said.  “He will be mad at me.”  I stared at him
dumbly.  I nodded, although I wasn’t sure why, and a very
faint smile touched his eyes.  “Please don’t tell him I got
out.”

“
I won’t,” I said, and I
meant it.  It surprised me.

Byron stepped away, heading
up the stairs.  He shot a shy look at me from the top before
he disappeared onto the second floor, and I stared after him, mouth
gaping open.

I heard the creak of the
secret passage opening, and then a gentle
thump
as it
shut.

So that was the monster in
my dad’s basement.

Unbelievable.

My life was suddenly so
bizarre.  Like something out of a fairy tale.  A big
tentacle monster one moment, a gentle Frankenstein-like man the
next.  And Octavius—whatever
he
was.

“
Calliope?”

I turned, surprised to see
my dad in my doorway.  I quickly hid the rose behind my
back.  “What?”

“
I thought you might want
to know that thing is cleaned off and waiting for you on the back
porch,” Dad said gruffly.

“
That
thing
is
named Octavius, and I think he’s my boyfriend,” I said,
glaring.  “You better treat him like that.”

“
He is a siren, and he is
dangerous
.”

I stared.  “A
siren?  Really?  But I thought sirens were
women.”

“
They must breed
somehow.  What did you expect?”

“
I expected that they’re
creatures from mythology that don’t have to breed.  Dad,
what’s going on?”

 
He grunted. 
“You are too young to know.”

“
I’m seventeen! 
Eighteen, in a month.”

Dad gave me an appraising
look.  “You know I moved here to work on a special
project.  Yes?”  I nodded.  “It is not ordinary
biology or chemistry.  That much I will tell
you.” 

I remembered how Dad had
been talking in the lab the other night.  “Are you working
alone?”

His jaw tightened. 
“Why would you ask such a thing?”

“
I just thought...” He
probably wouldn't have been happy to know I'd been eavesdropping,
much less that I'd met the creature in our basement.  “If it
isn't ordinary, it's probably hard, right?”

Dad scowled at me.  “I
have told you that your thing is done and I do not wish to discuss
this anymore.”

He spun and exited, leaving
me alone in my bedroom with a rose and a whole lot more
questions.

Chapter
Twenty-Six

Saturday was a complete
waste from that point on.  Octavius had left at my father's
urging after his hose bath and didn't even wait to say goodbye to
me.  It hurt, but I figured that even sirens had their
limits.  I know I certainly did.

I did some homework and
went to sleep super early.  I heard the crying again, but I
was almost used to it as this point; it was a lullaby all its own,
after all.

My sleep was
dreamless.  I couldn't help but be disappointed.  After
the glimpse of Heaven I'd received, I wanted to return. 
Desperately.  But like a gate over my mind, I was blocked from
it.  I didn't even dream of Octavius, my winged savior. 
It was nothing but blackness.  Like my soul.

I decided, when I woke up,
that I would spend Sunday doing a little writing, followed by a lot
of exploring.  I hoped to get a hold of Octavius, since he was
the one who could explain the most to me right now, but I had the
impression he'd remain hidden from me.

Well, only one way to find
out.

For part one of my plan, I
climbed out of bed and grabbed my notebook and pen.  I settled
in the bathroom to write – it seemed the best place to do it – and
I found something completely alarming.

I didn't have any
words.

My pen hovered over the
page for some five minutes, and nothing came out.  Apparently,
my muse hated me.  Fine, I'd had days like that before. 
I'd scribble my name and see if anything came from that.

I couldn't write my
name.  I couldn't see the letters in my mind, or get them on
the page.  My own
name
.  I threw the notebook and
the pen across the room.

“
What
is
it with
this place?” I cried.

No one
answered. 

I stepped out into the
hallway and yelled again.  “What's with this
place?”

Again, no
answer.

It was odd; I hadn't seen
my mom for a while, and even my dad was keeping things quieter than
usual.  If anyone was going to make noise, it was
him.

I ran outside, into the
mist.  There was no one around, but then, there wouldn't be
around my house.  I started walking toward town, even though I
was in my bare feet and a big white dress that would get dirty
easily.  It didn't seem to bother me.  It was almost like
I was gliding over the road, like I had wings of my own.  In a
metaphorical way, anyway.

The town emerged from the
mist, and again, no one was around.  I gasped, and mist filled
my lungs, almost like it was forcing itself in.

“
Help!” I choked, but
barely any sound came out.  It didn't matter; no one could
hear me, anyway.

What felt like tentacles
with big suckers wrapped around me.  I tried screaming again,
but to no avail.  I couldn't draw in air, anyway.

I was alone, and I was
going to die alone.

Except that I woke
up.

“
Calliope!” my mom yelled
from outside my door as I sat up in bed.  “It's time for
breakfast!  And you have to eat today!  You can't get
attacked by squids or octopi or whatever and not get your full
protein!”

“
Ha ha,” I said
weakly.  I don't think she heard, but she walked away from my
door anyway.

I dressed and went
downstairs.

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

My family sat at the
breakfast table, eating in silence.  Mom and Dad were on one
end, and I on the other, picking at my food absently and
occasionally casting looks at them through my bangs.

There were a lot of
questions that still needed to be answered:  How did my dad
know Octavius is a siren?  Why did he hate him so much? 
Why did he make Byron –
how
did he make Byron – and what
were his other experiments?  And where in the world did that
thing in the ocean come from?