Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
RILEY
The swim meet started and Jax came out of the locker room, fully dressed, and sat next to his father in the stands. I sent him a text, but he didn't take out his phone to check his messages.
"What do you think happened?" Ivy handed me the bowl of nachos she had bought from the concession stand. "They both look pissed."
"No clue." My stomach grumbled, and I popped a cheese-covered chip in my mouth.
I hadn't been hungry in the morning with everything that had been on my mind. Now that I was occupying myself with Ivy and the meet, I felt better. People kept staring at me and whispering behind their hands, but they were doing that before my father washed up dead on the beach.
"After the meet is done, are we going straight to my place or do you need to see your lover boys first?" Ivy ate a nacho with a jalapeno and started coughing. "How can you eat those things?"
"How can you not?" I laughed. "I'll just text them and let them know we're going straight to your place."
After the meet, which we won despite Jax sitting out, Ivy and I went to her house. Her parents were out, so we had the entire place to ourselves.
"Are you doing okay with what happened to your dad?" Ivy handed me a Sprite and we went to the living room to curl up on the couch.
I took a sip of my drink and considered the best way to approach the subject of me being different. There really was no good way to go about it. She already hadn't believed me the two other times I tried telling her.
"Do you remember how I told you I was part siren?" She nodded. "I wasn't lying."
"But you're scared of water." Her brows pulled in. "You would think you'd be on the swim team and going to the beach every chance you got." She looked away and then her eyes snapped back to mine, going wide. "That would mean your mom-"
"Is even more of a siren." I took a big gulp of Sprite, my throat suddenly running dry. "She was on the swim team and we went to the beach all the time. But we never got in the water."
"None of this makes any sense, Riley. Sirens have legs?" She shuddered. "What are you going to tell me next, that the Tritons are literally tritons?"
I flinched and she stood, almost spilling soda out of her cup. She gaped at me and then started pacing in front of the coffee table, occasionally looking at me.
"They will kill you if they know that you know." I shook my head. "Or at least, Jax's dad will."
"You know, this makes so much sense. They are crazy fast swimmers and it doesn't even seem to make them tired." She sat back down. "What does this mean?"
"I have no clue." I bit my lip. "My dad's body was found mutilated in a way that sirens mark their kills."
"You think your mom..." She frowned deeper. "Well, if she did, she probably had a damn good reason."
After talking about the knife, Ivy suggested we watch a mermaid movie, because it only seemed fitting to the situation. I checked my phone as she got it ready and there was a string of texts from Jax.
Jax: Did you tell anyone about the pills? They did a search and that's why I wasn't swimming.
Jax: I know you're with Ivy, but I really need to know for sure.
Jax: If you did tell about the pills, I'll understand. I've been an asshole.
Jax: My dad is pissed at me for carrying them around.
Jax: Please, text me back.
They were all sent within a two-minute time frame about thirty minutes before. I responded that I hadn't told anyone and to calm down.
"Dylan has been texting me since we left too." She sighed. "He wants me to spend the night at his place tonight."
"He might be an aquatic creature too. We just aren't sure what." I wasn't going to say anything, but he might be dangerous.
"There are more than just sirens and tritons?" She laughed like she still didn't believe what I'd told her. "Are there shark shifters too?"
We both laughed and Ivy went to the bathroom. Just as the bathroom door clicked shut, my phone rang with an unknown number. "Hello?"
"Sweetie? It's Mom."
My hand tightened on my phone. "Mom? Where are you? Dad is-"
"I know. I'm parked down the street. Can you come to me?" I jumped off the couch and rushed out into the front yard, looking both ways. "To your left in the black car."
I spotted the car and sprinted to it, throwing the passenger door open and jumping inside. We were both already crying as we threw our arms around each other and hugged like we would never let go.
My mom pulled away first and wiped her eyes. "Let's go somewhere and talk." She put the car in drive and I put on my seatbelt. "Can I see your phone?"
I handed it to her without another thought and she threw it out the window as she pulled onto the busy street outside the subdivision. Was throwing cell phones out car windows a siren thing?
"What the hell?" I gaped at her.
She tensed and I really examined her appearance. She looked better than she usually did, which was saying a lot since she was already drop-dead gorgeous. Her hair shined like she had just had a moisturizing treatment done and her skin was clear and wrinkle free. She looked younger and healthier.
"Sorry. They’re probably tracking you and I can't risk being caught." She was nearly strangling the wheel. "Where's the knife?"
I sucked my bottom lip in between my teeth, and she looked over at me. "It's in a safe."
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Where?"
"Were you the water monster that tried to drown me?" I blurted. She was asking for the knife, and so was the monster.
"No. That was the Wades. Now where's the safe the knife is in?"
"Wait, what? The Wades? They're dead."
She shut her eyes, and when she opened them they were an even brighter shade of green. "I had to make you hate the water, and the Wades had long been an ally of sirens."
She thought the monster I was referring to was from almost drowning when I was seven. I had referred to it then as feeling like arms were pulling me out to sea.
I suddenly felt sick. "Did you pay them two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars?"
"It was the only way to ensure your safety." She pulled into a nearly empty parking lot and put the car in park. "I need the knife."
I wiped at the tears that had started trickling down my face. "Why would you do that? How?"
She took my hand and I yanked it away from her. She took another deep breath and let it out slowly. She was scaring me.
"There's only one knife left, Riley. I had to because if I let you start transitioning, then you'd need a knife too.
It took a lot of planning and waiting for the opportune moment.
" She spoke as if I should know this already and be okay with it.
"I've only been without the knife for two months and look at me! "
She laughed and then started crying, her choked sobs filling the car. I should have gotten out of the car and run, but then what? She was my mom, and if something was wrong with her, I needed to help.
"What if I would have died?" I was starting to lose my breath with how upset I was. "I have a scar!"
"I'm so sorry. You have to understand... the more time you spend in the water, the quicker the transition comes. You'd already spent so much time before then in the water. I was careless."
I pinched the bridge of my nose. Did protecting me really require her to hurt me? She could have just made me stay out of the water or told me.
"Did you kill the Wades?" I put my hand near the door handle, ready to bail. "The invoice for the money was the same summer I almost drowned and the summer they died."
"I don't know what happened to them." She hiccupped. "I need that knife, Riley."
"The knife is at the guys' house in their safe." I jumped as she slammed her hands against the steering wheel and let out a pained cry.
She grabbed a tissue from a box in the console and blew her nose. "I thought I was strong enough without it, but Robert pushed me too hard. Anger makes everything worse."
"What?" I was shaking all over with the confirmation that she had murdered him.
"He knew, Riley! He knew everything, and he said if I didn't come with him and protect him against the tritons, he'd expose us all.
.. Finn, the rest of them, you, me. I couldn't let that happen.
" She reached for my hand again and I let her take it, even though I was unsure about her.
"He didn't know about the knife and how it's calming for sirens. "
That would explain why she was going crazy at the moment. It would also explain how I felt tense when it wasn't near. "Did you kill him?"
"I had to. He left me with no other choice." She started crying again. "The video of you Finn sent... it was the final straw. Robert was going to go to the government. It's in my blood to protect the palace, and part of that is protecting the tritons too. I was so angry and scared. I snapped."
I squeezed her hand. "Let's switch places and I'll drive us to get the knife."
She stared out the front window. "I can't go there. If they see me, they'll kill me. You need to get away from those boys, Riley. It's only a matter of time before they decide you're too much of a risk to keep alive."
I didn't want to believe her, but I couldn't stop the fear from spiraling through me. "You used to date Finn."
"Finn didn't know. I had myself under control." She put the car in drive after wiping her face. "Your father found out about both of us and threatened to expose Finn for what he was if I didn't stop seeing him and be with him instead."
We drove in silence until she pulled down the street from Ivy's house. Jax's SUV was parked out front and I directed her to turn onto the next street so we wouldn't be seen.
"I'll get the knife tonight. How am I supposed to get it to you since now I don't have a phone or a car?"
"I'll wait at the bottom of the cliff their house is on. You can just drop it and I'll get it."
"Jax's shark might be out there waiting for threats." Saying it sounded so surreal.
"Great whites are easily lulled to sleep." She pulled me into a hug. "Don't change your number once you get a new phone. I'll call you again so you can have the knife back. We'll have to figure out an arrangement to share it unless we can find another."
She pulled a bag out of the back and handed me a stack of money. I gaped at it. "Did you rob a bank?"
She laughed. "Maybe I'll do that once I get the knife." When she saw the face I made, she patted my arm. "That's from when I left. I know things have been rough on you. I hope you can one day forgive me."
I pulled away and climbed out of the car. "I love you, Mom."
"I love you too, sweetie."
I shut the door and took a deep breath before heading to what was going to be an unpleasant conversation.
"I needed to get some air, and I was crossing the street when a car practically ran me over. I dropped my phone and another car ran it over." I avoided everyone's questioning eyes and stared at the stack of money instead. "The person gave me that."
"And you expect us to believe you?" Blake seemed the most suspicious of my story. "Someone just carries a stack of hundreds around and hands them to girls on the street?"
"He was in a Lamborghini." It was the first expensive car I could think of. "You mean you all don't carry around a lot of cash?"
Morgan grabbed the stack and flipped through it. "Not this much."
"Why are you three even here anyway?" I crossed my arms. "I told you I was hanging out with Ivy."
"You didn't text Jax back, so we got worried, and-" Blake shifted in his seat.
"Don't," Jax warned.
They were hiding something. "Well, if you three are done giving me the third-degree, you can leave now. Ivy can give me a ride to your place later or you can come back to pick me up."
"I don't think it's safe for you to be here alone. Someone is out to get us." Jax sounded ultra-paranoid. If I had seen them taking the pills, who knows who else had.
"We'll go get her a new phone and then come right back." Ivy had been quiet and watching the guys as we talked. I'm sure she was imagining them with tails.
They finally left after I promised to text one of them that I had safely gotten back to Ivy's. Ivy started pacing the living room as soon as she locked the front door.
"Just say it."
"It was your mom, wasn't it?" I nodded and she threw her hands up. "Jesus, Riley. She's dangerous."
"She needs the knife." I shoved the money in my purse. "Let's go get a new phone."
"Speaking of phones. They barged in here wanting to know why your phone signal stopped in the middle of Sunset. They drove by there and said they saw nothing." She grabbed her purse and keys and then turned to look at me with a frown. "They were tracking you."
Of course they were.