Wrecked (10 page)

“Sephie, my brother didn’t mean to do what he did. I promise that he’s learned his lesson, and he’ll never Surface . . . ,” Valentine said, his voice shaking slightly.

“Always loyal to everyone,” Sephie said. “No. You go. I will speak with your brother.”

Valentine shot Sephie a pleading look and Christian held his breath, unsure whether he wanted Sephie to allow Valentine to come with him or not. Was he about to be executed? And if so, why wasn’t he feeling anything?

“Go along,” Sephie said, pulling Christian through the gates
and into a small coral cavern. The gates slammed shut.

“I’m sorry,” Christian said meekly. The cavern was pitch black, except for a few brightly colored orbs floating around them. Christian gazed at them in horror. He knew what those were—the souls that had been lost below the sea.

“I’m sorry, too,” Sephie said. All Christian could see were her eyes, glittering in the darkness. The water in the cavern was so still and cold, he could hear his teeth chattering. “I’m sorry I didn’t get the souls I aimed for. I’m sorry you thought you could play God. And I’m sorry that you and I seemed to have a miscommunication.”

“There was a storm. And she was trapped, and I knew it was wrong, but I thought . . . I thought it would be all right if I saved her,” Christian said in a small voice. The truth was, he hadn’t been thinking at all in the moment that he’d set the girl free, all he knew was that if he hadn’t done something, he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself.

Sephie laughed, the noise sounding like a hiss and a bark. “Well, that’s where our miscommunication lies. Because it wasn’t all right that you saved her. I wanted her soul. I wanted all their souls. But I’m letting you off easy,” she said, not letting go of her grip on his arm.

“Thank you,” Christian said.

“I need her soul. I’ll collect the rest in my own time, but her soul is on you. You have one week.”

Christian gulped, remembering how his lungs burned when
he’d been denied access to the surface. He couldn’t let anyone else go through that type of pain.

“But of course, I’m reasonable. That’s not your only option . . . ,” Sephie said.

“I’ll do anything!” Christian replied eagerly, hoping that somehow, she was providing one way of atoning without killing.

“Your death,” Sephie said simply. “It’s only fair. Yours or hers. One or the other.”

Christian’s heart thudded. “I will kill her,” he said, dully. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from her eyes. It was similar to when he’d been entranced by the boat wreck, when the fire seemed to dance on the water.

“Good,” Sephie said. “One week. I need her soul. And that’s a favor to you. I’m allowing you the opportunity to see her one last time. And she’ll thank you. She didn’t want to be saved. She wanted to die.”

“Thank you,” Christian said woodenly, turning to the gates. He looked over his shoulder, but Sephie had vanished into the darkness. The orbs surrounding him shimmered in the water, as though they were winking at him.

“And, Christian?”

Christian heard Sephie’s voice, coming from somewhere that was both above him and behind him. He couldn’t see her anywhere. “Sephie?” he called, his voice shaking.

“Her name is Miranda,” she said, before a tidal wave of water came from nowhere and pushed him out of the gates and
threw him in the middle of the messy, vibrant, teeming Down Below, wild and terrible and refreshing after the cloying silence of Sephie’s cavern. Not waiting to update Valentine, he swam immediately up to the Surface, the name
Miranda
echoing in his head like an endless incantation.

When he got to the Surface, the waters parted easily, and he made his way to the area where he’d always seen her before, right by the shipwrecked boat hull. The sun was sinking low on the horizon. Maybe Sephie was right. Maybe the girl had wanted to die. The rules of the ocean weren’t polite, but maybe they were fair.

He scanned the waves, but he didn’t see anything, except sea gulls swooping in and out of the water. The girl—Miranda—was nowhere to be found. Christian felt relief, followed by a wave of fear. What if he couldn’t find her? Or worse—would he be able to do what he had to do if he did?

“W
E CAN
’
T DO THIS HERE,
” M
IRANDA SAID, NERVOUSLY
looking at Fletch. Half obscured by the shadows from the palmetto trees, she couldn’t help but notice how low his swim trunks lay on his hips. Miranda was wearing a white bikini—its first appearance this summer, after Genevieve had helpfully told her it was completely see-through when wet.

“Why not?” Fletch took a step closer to her and smiled, leaning in toward her upturned face.

“Because . . . ,” Miranda trailed off. “Because people might see us. It’s trashy.” She wrinkled her nose and stepped away.

“Who’s going to see us?” Fletch asked, taking a step back and
holding his hand to his forehead, casting his gaze on the horizon. “The sea witch?” he joked. “No, sorry, that was dumb,” he allowed, noticing Miranda’s annoyed expression. “And it’s not trashy, it’s beautiful. It’s love!”

Miranda rolled her eyes. “You’re so lame. That’s the cheesiest pickup line ever.”

“So?” Fletch asked, mischief dancing in his dark eyes. “Am I picking you up?”

“Maybe . . . ,” Miranda said coyly. She glanced down and drew an F in the sand with her toe. She did want this. She wanted this more than anything. But it also felt supremely awkward to have sex on the beach, just miles from where her parents had drowned. If they did have ghosts or souls who hung around the spot, this wasn’t a moment she wanted them to witness.

“Miranda, come on,” Fletch said, puffing out his lower lip and giving her a puppy dog stare.

“Fletch!” Miranda said, about to kiss him just to shut him up when suddenly, as she leaned in, Fletch’s features began morphing, becoming taut and more angular, his skin more shiny until suddenly, she was kissing the boy who saved her. But instead of pulling back, she kissed him harder and harder, until . . .

Miranda’s eyes flew open. The pink curtains were swaying in the breeze and her room was pitch dark except for the alarm clock on the bedside table, whose luminescent numbers read 2:48 a.m. It was the same thing every night. She couldn’t stop
thinking about the guy who saved her, except his face was always blurry in her dreams. Did he have brown hair? Blond hair? What kind of chin? Even in her dreams, whenever she tried to get closer to the guy, he moved away. Even her
hallucinations
didn’t want to be around her.

“Hello?” Miranda called softly in the darkness. It had been a habit she’d picked up right after her parents died that she’d never stopped doing, especially after a weird dream.

“Fletch?” she whispered, just in case their love—or deep like, or whatever they shared—could somehow transcend comas and distance and the laws of physics. Nothing except for the faint sound of an owl hooting, far off in the distance.

Miranda swung her legs out of bed and padded onto the hardwood floors, her nightgown mopping the floor underneath her. She’d never worn nightgowns before, preferring to sleep in boxers and tank tops, but the boxers irritated her still-healing leg. After the accident, Eleanor had bought her dozens of floor-sweeping silk nightgowns of various lengths, better suited to a Victorian bride than an injured soccer player. She hiked up the nightgown to climb the winding staircase toward the attic, then stepped onto the creaky widow’s walk that sat on top of the house.

Although the narrow lookout that wrapped the southern wing of the house was weathered as if it’d been there since the house was built in the nineteenth century, it was a recent addition put in by Eleanor when she’d inherited the house from
her
parents. Eleanor had had it built so society photographers could climb up to take panoramic shots of the many midsummer garden club parties that occurred on the land. Or had occurred, before Astrid died. Now, although Eleanor still attended all her historical society meetings and garden club gatherings, she’d stopped having parties.

But ever since Miranda could remember, it had been her place to dream, to hide, and, once she got older, to make out with Fletch. She remembered the first time they came up here. It had been a warm day in October, only two weeks after they’d started dating. Fletch had driven her home from a party at Genevieve’s house and Miranda had surprised herself when she’d invited him in. She’d grabbed the pink duvet from her bedroom and showed him how to access the roof. Even though Eleanor would have given them plenty of privacy if they’d stayed in Miranda’s room—in fact, Miranda had been pretty positive that Eleanor hadn’t even known Fletch was there—it had seemed far more romantic to sneak outside together. They’d watched the stars, and then, at one point, Fletch had leaned over to kiss her.

“
That’s it
?” She’d wanted to ask in disappointment when they finally pulled away from each other. It had been her first kiss and she’d expected fireworks or magic or at least the knee-jerk thrill she’d always assumed she was supposed to experience.

But she’d gotten used to it, and had learned to find excitement
and anticipation in all of Fletch’s embraces. So why couldn’t she tap into any of their history in the hospital room? Miranda sat and hugged her knees to her chest. The dark sky was starless, and the weathered floor was damp. She wished more than anything she had someone, anyone, to talk to. That was the worst part, feeling so lonely and so alone. Why had that boy pulled her across the water and made her feel safe? Who was he? And why did he choose her?

She’d mentioned him once to the shrink, Dr. Dorn, in the fifth or sixth session. He’d nodded, then said it sounded like a physiological reaction that had occurred because of lack of oxygen. Miranda had spent the rest of that therapy hour lying silently on the couch, staring at the water stain in the corner that was at odds with the rest of the stark, almost sterile black and chrome office.

“I think we made some good inroads, don’t you?” Dr. Dorn had asked when the hour was up.

Miranda had nodded, more convinced than ever that the
worst
thing to do was let Dr. Dorn know what she was thinking. Because she’d known it sounded crazy as she said it.
I got saved by a sparkly guy who set me free from a trap. He was beautiful.
It was something over-the-top romantic that Miranda could imagine Alexa saying about Jeremiah. It was ridiculous.

But it was also the only thing in her life that had seemed more and more certain the more she remembered back to the accident. She’d felt warmth where his fingers had touched her,
remembered the way he’d kept shushing her over and over again, a noise she’d heard above the waves. As soon as he’d begun pulling her to shore, she’d realized that everyone else was drowning around her, and that there was nothing she could do. But even though she’d understood that, at that moment, she hadn’t felt sad. Instead, she’d felt numb . . . but safe. And then, she’d been carefully dragged onto the beach, and she remembered that the boy had leaned down and brushed his lips against her forehead. Then, everything faded, not to black, but to a sparkly silver that was like a dream combination of ocean and sky.

She’d woken up at the hospital.

“Miranda O’Rourke, seventeen. Waiting for swelling to go down to determine the action for right leg. Swallowed a lot of water. Some bad bleeding. So far, in and out of consciousness, responds to light,” a doctor intoned. Miranda felt her eyelids being flipped up; then saw a ridiculously shiny light in front of her. She’d squirmed away, wanting to go back to the boy in the ocean but instead, only saw a sea of white coats.

“Where am I?” she’d asked, but it felt like she was talking underwater.

“Shh!” The doctor said, laying the flashlight on her abdomen. “Shh. She’s awake. I’m Dr. Faville, your neurologist. You’re just waking up, and you’re on some medication for pain, so you may be feeling fuzzy. You were rescued from a boat crash. Don’t try to talk. You’re all right. You’re at the hospital, we’re taking
care of you,” he said so loudly Miranda’s ears hurt. “Now, can you tell me your name and the date?” he asked in an even voice.