Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Jackie
I didn't sleep last night.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Orvik's face when I told him to leave and pain tears through me all over again. The pearl rests warm against my collarbone. I press my hand against it and feel it pulse, slow and steady, like a second heartbeat that doesn't belong to me.
By the time the sun comes up, I'm running on caffeine and stubbornness, which is basically my natural state at this point.
I get ready on autopilot. Ponytail. No makeup.
Work clothes. I don't even glance at the kitchen, where Chase's grocery bags are still on the counter, the olive oil and the truffle pasta and the fancy cheese sitting exactly where he left them before everything went sideways.
Chase hasn’t texted me, and neither has Orvik. I haven’t texted any of them, either.
The drive to Flippers and Feathers is short and familiar. I pull into the gravel lot, grab my bag, and head inside. The center’s smell and sight settles something in my chest that I desperately need settled.
I worked so hard to get where I am. I’m not going to stop because of some random black coral on my doorstep and a man’s overbearing need to protect me.
Callum is still in Portland for the grant meeting, which means I'm the senior staff on-site.
I start my rounds. The seal pups are doing well, weight gain on track, appetites strong.
I mix formula, check charts, clean tanks.
Rumple greets me with his usual enthusiastic barking when I reach his pool, excitedly swimming circles and splashing water over the edge.
"Morning, handsome," I say, reaching in to scratch behind his ear. "At least someone's happy to see me."
Rumple barks and nudges my hand with his wet nose. His rehab is going beautifully. He's put on so much weight he looks like a proper little sausage roll with flippers. Another few weeks of outdoor acclimatization and live fish practice and he'll be ready for release.
I lean against the pool edge, watching him swim, and that's when I notice it.
The pearl is glowing.
Not the faint warmth I've gotten used to—this is brighter, a soft pulse of blue-white light visible even through my shirt.
I pull it out and hold it in my palm. It pulses again, stronger, and there's a warmth to it that runs up my fingers and along my wrist where my own bioluminescent marks are faintly visible.
I look at the salt water in Rumple's pool. I look at the pearl. I hold it closer to the water.
It brightens.
I pull it back. It dims.
I dip my hand into the pool, the pearl resting in my palm, and the glow intensifies until it's throwing light across the surface of the water like a tiny blue lantern. Rumple swims over and bumps his nose against my submerged fingers, curious.
"What are you doing?" I murmur to the pearl, because apparently I've reached the stage of my life where I talk to jewelry.
It doesn't answer. Obviously. But it keeps pulsing, warm and steady, and there's something about the rhythm that reminds me of the ocean. Not waves crashing—more like the deep, slow pull of a current far below the surface.
I lift my hand out of the water and the pearl settles back to its quiet glow. I tuck it under my shirt and dry my hand on my pants and stand there for a moment, trying to process what happened.
Orvik didn’t have time to explain to me what the pearl was, except that it was sacred to him and something a kraken gives to his mate. He wasn’t even sure how the bioluminescence transferred to me, a human.
I file this under things I cannot deal with right now and go back to work.
The morning passes. It’s almost noon when Sylvie finds me in the aviary, checking on a cormorant with a wing splint.
"Hey," she says from the doorway, her voice softer than usual.
I look up. Sylvie's wings are moving slowly at her back and she's not dressed in her usual flashy style, just a simple top, jeans, her pink hair pulled back. She looks smaller without the sparkle.
I try my best to look at her with what could be considered a cordial, professional smile.
I have no idea if it works, but she takes a step forward.
I have no idea if Chase ended up going to her for help when I threw him out yesterday and quite frankly, I don’t want to know. I’m done micro-managing him.
"Hey," I say back. "Everything okay out front?"
"Quiet morning. Two calls about the gala, one lost dog report that I redirected to the sheriff." She lingers in the doorway. "Jackie, can I ask you something?"
I set down the chart. "Sure."
"Why don’t you want Chase to date me?"
The words land like a pebble in a still pond. I blink at her a few times, considering what my warnings to Chase about dating her might sound like from her perspective. Jeez, I’ve made a mess.
"No," I say. "It’s not like that. I’m just trying to protect you, that’s all."
"I know about his past, Jackie. He told me all about it." Sylvie crosses her arms and her wings dip. “But I like him, and he likes me. Why can’t you just be happy for us?”
"Sylvie." I set the cormorant chart on the shelf and turn to face her fully. "Chase has been doing this for a long, long time. He gets all excited, all in with a business idea or a relationship. Then after a few months, the excitement wears off and so does he. He leaves. He flakes out."
Sylvie stares at me. Her wings close at her back.
The silence that follows is the kind that tells you a friendship has just shifted on its foundation.
"You know," Sylvie says, her voice very controlled, "it's funny. You sound exactly like someone who's already decided how this story ends."
"I’m trying to spare you the heartbreak, that’s all."
"I didn't ask you to protect me." She holds my gaze. "I’m perfectly capable of making those decisions for myself."
The words hit close enough to the bone that I actually flinch. How am I different than Orvik if I try to pull these two people apart for fear that they get hurt? It’s not my place to tell them how to live their life.
"I’m sorry," I say, quieter now. "I won’t intervene again if that’s what you want. You both have my blessing and I would be delighted to have you as a sister-in-law."
She nods. Her wings resume their flutter, but slower. Sadder.
"Okay," she says. "Thanks." She turns toward her office, then pauses without looking back. "I’m taking you out to the Siren’s Call tonight. Don’t even try to get out of it."
She leaves. The aviary is quiet except for the cormorant rustling in its cage.
I stand there for a long time, then I go back to work.
The afternoon is quiet in the way that loneliness is quiet.
I do Rumple's outdoor pool session, guiding him through exercises in the larger enclosure where the water temperature matches the bay.
The pearl pulses the whole time, brighter in the salt water, dimmer when I step back onto dry ground. I try to ignore it. It doesn't let me.
I'm finishing the afternoon medication rounds when the center phone rings. I answer it on the third ring.
"Flippers and Feathers Rescue Center."
"Yeah, hi." It’s a man's voice, gruff and a little out of breath. "I'm out near Gannet Rock pulling traps and there's a bird in bad shape out here. It’s tangled up on the rocks on the windward side. Looks like fishing net. It's alive, but it's in a bad way."
My hand tightens on the phone. Gannet Rock is four miles offshore.
"Can you describe the bird?" I ask, pulling a notepad toward me.
"Big. White body, black wingtips. Long neck. I can't get to it with my boat, too many submerged rocks on that side."
Ugh. That’s a Northern gannet, caught in fishing debris on the windward side of Gannet Rock, which is the exposed side. It’s the side Orvik specifically avoided when we released Captain Peck, steering instead to the sheltered leeward cove.
"Can you stay near the area?" I ask.
"Sorry, I've got traps to run. But it's not going anywhere. Poor thing's stuck tight."
He gives me his approximate coordinates, which match what I remember of the formation. I thank him and hang up.
I’m not sure what to do.
The center has its own skiff. It’s smaller than Orvik's, but it’s seaworthy and I've been on it dozens of times. I’m fully trained to operate it, although I’m still technically not supposed to use it alone.
I look at the time and realize the tide is rising, meaning that bird is likely to drown if someone doesn’t get it out in time.
I pick up the phone and call Callum, but it goes straight to voicemail. I leave a message explaining the situation and ask him to call back.
I text Dr. Enid. She responds in two minutes: Not trained for marine rescue. Call Orvik.
I put my phone down. I pick it up. I put it down again.
I could call him. He would come. I know he would come, because whatever happened between us last night, there is an injured animal on those rocks and Orvik would not let it suffer because of a fight. He would set everything aside and he would pilot the skiff and he would get me to that bird.
And I would owe him the rescue. And he would be right that I needed him. And the next time he told me I was vulnerable and needed protecting, he'd have evidence.
The thought is petty and unfair and I know it's petty and unfair even as I think it, but the rawness of last night is still sitting in my chest like broken glass and I cannot make myself dial his number.
I find Sylvie in her office.
"We got a call," I say from the doorway. "Injured gannet at Gannet Rock, tangled in fishing debris on the windward side. I already called Callum and left a message."
Sylvie looks up from her computer. "Okay. Do you need me to call Orvik?"
"No."
She frowns.
"I'm going to take the center's skiff," I say. "The bird is in bad shape and we don't know how long it's been tangled. If the net is cutting off circulation to a wing, every hour matters."
"Jackie." Sylvie's wings lift slightly. "You’re sure you want to take the skiff out to Gannet Rock alone?"