Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
RILEY
Iwas surrounded by water and my bad decisions, waiting for them to take me under and drown me. How had I gone from sitting under a tree, considering the pros and cons of Stanford over UCLA to being kidnapped and shot in the leg?
The gunshot wound burned with every kick of my feet it took to stay above water. I looked around frantically for land, but all I saw was darkness and glistening water in the moonlight. There weren't even faint lights in the distance indicating civilization.
I could inherently sense which way land was, which was eerie. I'd slowly been coming to terms with the idea of being something other than one hundred percent human. I had moments when I felt unlike myself, but when I was around the Tritons, I felt almost normal.
"Riley." Ivy spun me around so I could see her. The moon lent enough light to see the fear and regret in her eyes. "What are we going to do?"
Pain ripped through my leg and I sucked in a sharp breath. "My leg," I choked out on a hysterical sob. "He shot me."
I was certain I was about to go into shock. We were in open water in the middle of the night, and I was undoubtedly spewing blood. A shiver ran through my body, and not because of the cold water.
"I should tie it off or something." Ivy pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. "I'm so sorry, Riley, I-"
"This isn't your fault."
I should have noticed the changes in Ivy sooner; the detachment, the poor judgement, the distance.
But I hadn't. I'd been too invested in my own issues to notice that something was wrong with my best friend. Maybe if I'd noticed, I would have connected all the dots about Mr. Gale.
I fisted my hands under the water as my blood heated, thinking back on everything involving him. He'd swept in and taken us all by surprise. What did he need the knife for, though?
"Riley? Where'd you go?" Ivy put her hand on my arm, and I snapped my attention back to her.
I looked around, spotting a faint blinking light in the distance. "We're going to have to swim."
It wasn't that I couldn't swim. I had lessons before that day in the ocean that made water my greatest fear. Before then I had begged my mom to sign me up for synchronized swimming and the swim team.
"We should try tying off your leg now before we swim so you don't lose as much blood." Her words were muddled through the chattering of her teeth.
My body had adjusted to the water and I wasn't too uncomfortable. The small voice in the back of my mind told me it was because I was meant to be in water. I shivered again.
I nodded and unbuttoned my jeans, pulling them down my thighs. My leg didn't hurt anymore, and I hoped I didn't have nerve damage. If I couldn't dance... I didn't know what I was going to do.
To get the pants off the rest of the way, I had to go under and work them off my legs. It was pitch black, and I wondered what it would be like to be able to see in such conditions.
Jax would get my voicemail soon and they would come looking for us. They wouldn't stop until they found us. I just hoped we didn't get eaten by a shark or die from dehydration first.
I managed to get my jeans off after finally deciding to kick off my shoes. I didn't need them if we were in the water and it might be a little easier to swim without them.
"What are we going to tie it off with?" I let the jeans float next to me. "I don't think you can get the jeans tight enough with them being so wet and thick."
I was nervous for her to look at my wound. It really didn't feel like anything had happened to it, and I wondered if maybe the bullet had just grazed me and the saltwater was helping it.
"We can use my shirt. I have a cami on under it." She removed her long-sleeved shirt and blew out a breath. "Maybe float on your back so I can see it?"
I was thankful the ocean was calm enough that we weren't being thrown around by waves. I laid back, letting the water cradle my body so Ivy could look at my leg. We bobbed gently in the water as I stared up at the stars.
"Holy shit." Her hand ran down my leg near my shin.
"Is it that bad?" I wanted to lift my head and look but was too nervous. "It doesn't hurt."
"It's healed," she said, confusion in her voice.
"It's what?" I shrieked and sat up, immediately sinking under and getting a mouthful of seawater.
I came up coughing, and Ivy grabbed my arm to help. "It was still red, but it was completely closed. I didn't even feel a bump of a bullet or anything."
"That's impossible!" I reached down under the water, bringing my leg up as far as I could.
I felt around where pain had ripped through me when the bullet had hit, but all I felt was smooth skin. Had it been some kind of illusion?
"Maybe he can also control what we feel." Ivy looked toward the flashing light. "We should start swimming before we get tired. Are you going to be all right?"
"Yes."
We began swimming and, oddly enough, I didn't feel the clawing panic I usually felt in water. I'd already had enough siren epiphanies for one night, so I didn't dwell on why that was.
Our pace was slow as we made our way toward what I could only assume was a buoy. I wanted to laugh at the irony of it, but the longer we swam, the more dire the situation became.
There was no telling where we were and how long it would take to be found. The human body could survive three or four days without water, but did that change based on conditions? The sun, even though it was the middle of fall, would beat down on us.
That was if we even made it to the buoy. Things looked closer than they appeared when there was nothing but water. The buoy could be miles and miles away. If the sun rose, we probably wouldn't have the flashing light to guide us. Then there was the matter of what type of buoy it was.
"Your thoughts are so loud; I can hear them." Ivy stopped, her words coming out as a pant. "I thought I was in good shape, but I guess not. I'm so fucking cold."
"It doesn't seem any closer." I actually felt great swimming, but I wasn't about to tell Ivy that.
Ivy's eyes went wide, and she raised her hand to point behind me. "It-it-it's a sh-shark!"
I turned my head just as the fin changed its course and began to circle us. My breathing became heavy, and Ivy and I clung to each other.
"I don't want to die." Ivy was trembling. "Oh God, it's stopping."
The shark stopped near us, and as it raised its head, Ivy let out a blood-curdling scream while I started laughing uncontrollably.
It was Bubba.
"It's okay, Ivy. This is Jax's shark." I reached forward and gave him a rub between the eyes.
"What?" She coughed and cleared her throat. The scream had really been a doozy. "He has a fucking shark?"
"Are you going to take us to safety, buddy?" I continued to stroke him between the eyes, which he really liked. "There's a buoy over that way."
Ivy was looking at me like I was crazy as I pointed to the buoy. Bubba went under again and his fin pointed in that direction. I guess he did have some level of understanding.
I let go of Ivy and swam to one side of him. I gestured to the other side as I grabbed onto his fin. Ivy's eyes darted around, looking for another option, and her chin trembled. I couldn't blame her; it was all a bit crazy.
"He would have eaten us already if that was his plan. Grab on, unless you want to swim there." This was a story I would one day tell my children. Riley Kline, shark surfer.
Ivy whimpered but swam to the other side of him. We both squealed as he swam to the flashing light.
It was a lot farther than anticipated, and if Bubba hadn't shown up, we more than likely wouldn't have made it. As we got closer, I put my forehead against Bubba, grateful that it was a weather buoy that wasn't too high up. It would still be difficult to climb onto, though.
He slowed as we approached, and Ivy swam as quickly as possible to it. She grabbed onto the side, her back and arm muscles straining as she tried to climb on it. Bubba went under and then she screamed as he nudged her up with his head.
"I wish I could have seen your face." I held on to the side of the buoy and Bubba pushed me up.
The surface of the buoy was rough, and I cringed as the bare skin of my legs connected with it. I had lost my jeans during the swim, so my only option was my shirt. I took it off and laid it out to sit on.
"Let me look at your leg now that there's this light." Ivy had been staring at the water, probably wondering if Bubba was going to change his mind about eating us.
He had already disappeared, and I hoped we would be found soon. I flinched as I put my leg out, preparing to see a gaping hole even though Ivy said it was healed. I gasped and reached a shaking hand out to touch it, but hovered my hand there.
"Are those scales?" Ivy climbed on her knees but then almost fell off the buoy as it listed to the side.
I stared at the faint purple scales on my leg. They glimmered in the blinking light on the top of the buoy. I poked at them and they felt slightly rough and squishy. I looked at my other leg, but it was normal.
"Holy shit, Riley." Ivy had sat back and was holding onto a metal bar as I moved my leg in her direction so she could get a closer look at the scales. The buoy swayed, but nothing like before. "You're a mermaid!"
A snort left me. "I'm a siren, Ivy. Not the same thing."
"They most definitely aren't."
Ivy and I both jumped at the masculine voice coming from below.
Finn's cat eyes stared up at us before they landed on my leg. The last person I wanted to see was Jax's father. He might have had his reasons for what he had done to me, but the fact that he'd go after an innocent teenager said a lot about him.
"Get away from us." My warning had no merit. It wasn't like I could fight him off, especially without my knife.
Not that I even knew how to fight with it. If I had, maybe I would have prevented the whole debacle we were in.
"They're already fading." He gestured to my leg. "That's not normal for sirens. You shift, like tritons do."