Wake (Watersong Novels) (24 page)

Alex looked up at her then, his eyes searching her face. Brushing the hair back from her face, he forced a thin smile.

“You don’t need to know,” he told her. “You don’t need to have that image burned in your mind. You are far too sweet to have to deal with something that awful.”

“I’m not.”

“You are,” he insisted. “And that’s part of the reason why I…” He licked his lips and stared into her eyes. “It’s why I’m falling for you.”

Gemma leaned over and kissed him then, partially to keep herself from crying. It was what she’d wanted, what she’d been hoping for, but … she couldn’t have it now. She didn’t deserve it.

The evil that had traumatized Alex like this—Gemma was a part of that. Maybe not completely yet, but she was becoming a monster.

A few times, she had thought of telling Harper or Alex about the sirens. Before she’d found out that was what she was, Gemma had been on the brink of telling Harper about the strange things going on with her.

Now, with the murders and knowing that she was somehow connected to them, Gemma could never tell Harper or Alex or her father.

But there was one person she might be able to talk to, one person whose grasp on reality had become so tenuous, she would never doubt Gemma’s story—her mother.

*   *   *

“How are things going with Alex?” Harper asked as she drove them both to see their mother on Sunday morning.

“Do you mean in our relationship, or how he’s holding up in general?” Gemma asked. She was slouched low in the passenger seat, staring through her dark sunglasses out the window.

“Um, both.” Harper glanced over at her, as if surprised that her sister had said that much.

They’d barely spoken on the entire twenty-minute ride to Briar Ridge, despite Harper’s many attempts at conversation. Now that they were almost to the group home, Gemma started to respond with whole sentences.

“Good, considering. On both counts.” Gemma tugged at her ears, trying to alleviate the watersong. It only seemed to get louder, no matter what she tried, and it was maddening.

“Well, I’m glad that you came with me to see Mom today,” Harper said. “I know it was hard for you to break away from Alex, but Mom loves to see you.”

“About that.” Gemma turned to her sister as they pulled in front of the group home. “I want to see Mom by myself today.”

“What do you mean?” Harper turned off the car and narrowed her eyes at Gemma.

“I need to talk to her by myself.”

“Why? About what?”

“If I wanted to tell you about it, I wouldn’t need to see Mom alone,” Gemma pointed out.

“Well…” Harper sighed and looked out the front window. “Why did you wait until now to tell me that? Why didn’t you just come here by yourself?”

“My car’s broken, and I knew you’d never let me go anywhere by myself,” Gemma said. “At least not in your car. I’m actually a little surprised you let me walk over to Alex’s house by myself.”

“Don’t do that.” Harper shook her head. “Don’t make me sound like the bad guy. You’re the one who has been running around doing God knows what with those awful girls! It’s your fault we don’t trust you.”

“Harper.” Gemma groaned and hit her head on the back of the car seat. “I never said it wasn’t my fault.”

“You’re acting totally bananas lately,” Harper went on, as if she hadn’t heard a thing that Gemma had said. “And there’s a serial killer on the loose on top of everything. What else am I supposed to do? Just let you run wild?”

“God! You’re not my mom, Harper!” Gemma snapped.

“And she is?” Harper pointed to the group home next to them.

Gemma looked at her like she was an idiot. “Um, yeah, she is.”

“Maybe she was, and through no fault of her own, she had to give that up. But who’s been raising you the past nine years? Who helps you with your homework? Who worries sick about you all night when you don’t come home, and then takes care of you when you’re hungover and beat up?” Harper demanded.

“I never asked you to do any of that!” Gemma yelled back. “I never asked for you to take care of me!”

“I know you didn’t!” Harper shouted angrily, as if that made some kind of point. She let out a shaky breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was much softer. “How come you can tell her what’s going on with you, and not me?”

Gemma stared down at her lap, pulling at the frayed ends of her shorts, and didn’t say anything. There was no way she could answer the question without giving something up. She couldn’t let Harper know what she’d become.

“Fine.” Harper sat back in her seat and turned the car battery on, so she could flip on the radio. “Go on. Tell Mom I say hi. I’ll be out here, waiting.”

“Thank you,” Gemma said quietly and got out of the car.

Often Nathalie would rush out to greet them when she saw their car, but she didn’t do that today. That was probably a bad sign, but Gemma needed to talk to someone, and her mother was the only person who would understand.

When Gemma got to the front door, she could already hear the yelling from the inside. Bracing herself, she knocked on the door and waited.

“You never let me do anything!” Nathalie was shouting in the background when one of the staff opened the door. “This is a damn prison!”

“Oh, hi, Gemma.” Becky smiled wanly at her. Becky wasn’t that much older than Harper, but she’d been working at the group home the past two years, so she’d gotten pretty familiar with the girls and their mother. “I didn’t think you were coming this weekend, since you missed yesterday.”

“How is she doing today?” Gemma asked, even though she could hear how her mother was doing. From the other room, Nathalie swore and banged something loudly.

“Not so great. But maybe you can cheer her up.” Becky stepped back so Gemma could come inside. “Nathalie, your daughter is here. Maybe you should calm down so you can talk to her.”

“I don’t want to talk to her!” Nathalie snarled.

Gemma flinched, then shook it off. She took off her sunglasses and walked farther into the house. She found Nathalie in the dining room, standing next to the table and glaring at the staff on the other side. Nathalie’s stance was wide and her eyes were wild, making her look like an animal about to pounce.

“Nathalie,” Becky said, keeping her tone soothing. “Your daughter drove all this way to see you. You should at least say hi to her.”

“Hi, Mom.” Gemma waved when Nathalie glanced over at her.

“Gemma, get me out of here,” Nathalie said, returning her angry glare to the staff opposite her. She grabbed the chair in front of her and shook it so it would bang loudly on the floor. “Get me out of here!”

“Nathalie!” Becky moved closer to her, holding her hands up, palms out. “If you want to visit with your daughter, then you need to calm down. This behavior is not tolerated, and you know it.”

Nathalie stepped back from the chair and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Her eyes darted around the room, and she seemed unable to focus on anything as she thought through her next move.

“Fine.” She nodded once. “Gemma, let’s go to my room.”

Nathalie practically ran to her room, and Gemma followed her. Becky was telling Nathalie that she still had to behave, or her daughter would have to leave. As soon as they were in her room, Nathalie slammed the bedroom door shut.

“Bitch,” Nathalie muttered at the closed door.

Ordinarily when Gemma visited, her mom’s room was pretty clean. Not because Nathalie was clean or organized, but because the staff would get on her if it was too messy. Today it was a total disaster area. Clothes, CDs, jewelry—everything was thrown about her room. Her stereo was smashed in a corner, and her beloved Justin Bieber poster was torn in half.

“Mom, what happened today?” Gemma asked.

“You have to get me out of here.” Nathalie grabbed a pink backpack from a pile in the middle of the floor, then flew around the room, grabbing clothes and junk to fill it with. “You have a car, right?”

“My car’s broken.” She toyed with the sunglasses in her hands and watched her mother trying to shove a Velcro Reebok into her bag, even though the bag was already overflowing. “Mom, I can’t take you away from here.”

Nathalie instantly stopped what she was doing, half crouched on the floor with the shoe and bag still in her hands, and glared up at her daughter. “Then why did you come here, if you’re not taking me away? Did you come here just to rub it in my face?”

“Rub what in your face?” Gemma shook her head. “Mom, I visit you every week. I just come to see you and talk with you because I miss you and love you. We usually come on Saturdays, but there’s been a lot going on at home.”

“So I have to stay here?” Nathalie straightened up and dropped her bag and shoe on the floor. “For how long?”

“I don’t know. But this is where you live.”

“But they don’t let me do anything!” Nathalie whined.

“Everywhere you live has rules,” Gemma tried to explain to her. “You’ll never be allowed to do whatever you want. Nobody can.”

“Well, that stinks.” She looked around the room in disgust and kicked a teddy bear that Gemma had gotten her for Mother’s Day.

“Listen, Mom, can I talk to you?” Gemma asked.

“I guess.” Nathalie sighed and went over to the bed so she could flop down on it. “If I can’t leave, we might as well talk.”

“Thanks.” Gemma sat down next to her. “I need your advice.”

“About what?” Nathalie looked up at her, intrigued that someone was coming to her for help.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on right now, and it’s all so crazy.” She chewed her lip, then looked at Nathalie. “Do you believe in monsters?”

“You mean like real monsters?” Her eyes widened, and she leaned in closer to Gemma. “Yeah. Of course I do. Why? Did you see one? What was it like?”

“I don’t know, actually.” Gemma shook her head. “It seemed sorta awesome, but I know it’s not right.”

“Well, what does the monster look like?” Nathalie asked. She pulled her legs underneath her so she could sit cross-legged, facing Gemma.

“I guess it’s like a mermaid.”

“A mermaid?” Nathalie gasped and her eyes widened even farther. “Oh, my gosh, Gemma, that’s so awesome!”

“I know, but…” She rolled her shoulders. “They want me to join them, to be a mermaid like them—”

“Oh, Gemma, you have to!” Nathalie cut her off before she could finish her thought. “You have to be a mermaid! That would be the most amazing thing in the whole world! You could swim on and on forever! Nobody would ever tell you what to do.”

“But…” She swallowed hard and stared down at her sunglasses in her hands. “But I think they’re doing something bad. They hurt people.”

“The mermaids hurt people?” Nathalie asked. “How? Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know. But I know they are. I think they might be evil.”

“Oh, no.” Nathalie chewed her thumbnail, considering her daughter’s story very seriously.

“So I think if I went with them, I would have to hurt people.” Gemma looked up, trying to hold back her tears.

“Then don’t go with them. You don’t want to hurt people. Do you?”

“No,” she admitted. “I really don’t. But … there’s this boy.”

“A boy?” Nathalie smiled widely and grabbed Gemma’s arm. “Is he cute? Have you kissed him? Does he look like Justin?”

“He’s really cute.” Gemma couldn’t help smiling with her mother staring so excitedly at her. “And we kissed.” Nathalie squealed in delight at that. “And I think we really, really like each other.”

“That’s wonderful!” Nathalie clapped her hands together.

“Yeah, but if I go with the mermaids, I’d have to leave him behind. I wouldn’t be able to see you anymore, either. I’d have to go away forever.”

“Oh.” She furrowed her brow. “Well. What happens if you stay? If you don’t go away with the mermaids?”

“I don’t know for sure. But I think…” Gemma took a deep breath. She didn’t want to tell her mother that she’d die because she had no idea how Nathalie would handle that information. “Something bad would happen to me.”

“So…” Nathalie’s face twisted in confusion as she tried to understand, and she chewed on a long strand of her hair. “If you go with the mermaids, you can swim around forever, but you wouldn’t be able to see me anymore, and you might have to do bad things.”

“Right.”

“But if you don’t go with them, something bad happens to you?” Nathalie asked, and Gemma nodded. “If you stay, will you still be able to visit me and see that boy you like?”

“I don’t know.” Gemma shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, then, I think you know what you need to do.”

“I do?”

“Yeah.” Nathalie nodded. “You have to go with them.”

“But I’ll have to hurt people,” Gemma reminded her.

“It doesn’t matter.” Nathalie shrugged. “You won’t get hurt. Either way, you don’t get to see me or your boyfriend anymore. So the choice really breaks down to being a mermaid or getting hurt. And you can’t get hurt.”

“I don’t know.” Gemma looked away from her. “I don’t think I could hurt people.”

“Gemma, listen to me. I’m your mother.” Nathalie took her hand and squeezed it emphatically. “I can’t take care of you anymore. I wish I could, but I know I can’t. So you have to take care of yourself.”

Gemma took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. But I probably won’t be able to come around anymore.”

“Because you’ll be off being a mermaid?” Nathalie asked.

“Yep.” Gemma nodded and blinked back tears. She hugged her mother then, knowing this would probably be the last time she ever saw her. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too.” Nathalie hugged her back, but only for a second, because she couldn’t sit still for very long.

When Gemma left, Nathalie told all the staff that her daughter was leaving to become a mermaid.

TWENTY-THREE

Peace

If this was going to be her last night at home, Gemma wanted to make the most of it. She still hadn’t decided exactly what she would do, but she knew she couldn’t stay here anymore.

Even though she didn’t feel it, Gemma did her best to act cheery and happy. She spent the afternoon with her father in the garage, helping him fix her car. They never did manage to get the damn thing running, but that didn’t really matter. She’d just wanted to hang out with her dad.