Jade
The water around me churns with unnatural violence, and something slimy is wrapped around my ankle like a living rope.
Across from me, Logan slams into the opposite wall with a grunt that makes my chest tighten. His dagger appears in his hand faster than I can track, the blade gleaming in the dim light filtering through the flooded tower.
The torches lining the walls flare to life, burning green-white, casting everything in sickly light that makes the water look like liquid poison.
“What the hell—”
My words are cut off as a geyser erupts from the center of the room.
But it isn’t water. It’s a woman. Or something pretending to be one. Her body shifts between solid and liquid, her hair streaming in impossible currents, her eyes blazing with that same green-white fire.
And the tentacle around my ankle? Definitely hers.
This can’t be real. It can’t.
Then again, if the Hydra was real, this likely is, too.
Maybe it’s another test? With safety features? But something in my gut tells me it isn’t.
“Don’t use your electricity!” Logan’s voice cuts through the roar. “You’ll fry us both.”
From there, everything happens in both a blink and slow motion at once.
The tentacle tightens, crushing my ankle. Logan’s slashing through a tentacle that has him pinned. Black blood clouds the water, and the creature lets out an earsplitting shriek, but Logan keeps cutting with a mechanical efficiency that speaks of muscle memory rather than conscious thought.
I need to help. And while electricity is too dangerous, fire is safe. Fire won’t kill everyone in this tower.
So, I reach deep, remembering the heat I felt when I torched those rejection letters—
“No magic!” Logan’s head snaps toward me, his eyes blazing, and he flips Alessandra’s dagger in his hand. “Catch!”
The weapon flashes through the air and speeds toward me.
The world slows. Because I’m about to die. Logan’s going to kill me. He just finger fucked me, and now he’s going to kill me.
So much for trusting guys with haunted gray eyes who say you’re the first person who’s touched them like they weren’t broken.
Now!” he says, and my hand is suddenly moving, my fingers closing around the leather-wrapped hilt, the weight of it settling into my palm like it belongs there.
I stare at it, shocked. Because holy shit. I caught the dagger by the hilt.
How did I do that? I’ve never caught anything this perfectly in my life. I sometimes drop my phone just trying to answer it.
“Duck!” Logan shouts.
I drop just as a tendril of water slices through the space my head occupied, carving a groove into the stone wall.
Before I can recover, the water beside Logan explodes, and two more creatures surge through, shifting between flesh and water in ways that make panic surge up my throat.
One is on Logan before he can fully turn, its claws raking down his arm, tearing through fabric and skin like it’s nothing. Blood spills bright and horrifying in the sickly green light.
The gash is deep. Too deep. Bile rises in my throat at the glimpse of something white that must be bone. But Logan just spins, fire bursting from his palms in precise, surgical bursts, forcing the creatures back as if he’s done this a million times before.
“Logan!” I scream as another creature rushes at him—which is enough for it to notice me and race toward me instead.
Up close, I can see details I wish I couldn’t. Skin that ripples like water. Fingers that end in translucent claws. A mouth full of too many teeth that definitely don’t have protective heat shields on them.
“Left side, now!” Logan shouts without turning.
I swing in panic, expecting to miss. But the dagger slides between ribs—if these things even have ribs—black blood hissing as it touches steel.
The creature shrieks, the sound rattling my skull.
“Three inches left of center!” Logan yells, fire flaring in his hands. “Aim for the heart!”
The heart. They have hearts? How the hell does he know that?
But more water is flooding in, and the creature I wounded is circling back. Its claws swipe at my face, the wind created from them whistling past my cheek, sending me stumbling back against the stone wall.
My chest tightens, the room closing in around me, my eyes darting around in panic. I’m trapped. I’m never going to make it out of this tower. I’ll die in a watery grave, and my parents will never know, because the Council will erase me from their minds, so they’ll forget I existed at all.
Before I can think about it further, the creature lunges. At the same time, my magic gathers inside me, fueling me with strength.
Because I refuse to be erased.
So, remembering Logan’s instructions, I push forward to gain momentum, gripping the dagger’s hilt with both hands, and drive the blade three inches left of center.
It punches through with a sickening wet sound, and for a moment, we’re frozen like that.
Me holding the hilt, the creature impaled on the blade, staring at each other in mutual surprise.
The light drains from its eyes, and it collapses into the water.
Logan’s fire flares across the flooded space, and the last creature drops and sinks beneath the surface like a dissolving shadow.
Everything’s suddenly quiet—too quiet—and he stands there for a moment, chest heaving, staring at the bodies like he can’t believe it’s over.
I stagger backward until my shoulders hit the wall again. Water swirls around my legs, dark in places where monster blood mixed with seawater. Fresh gouges scar the walls. Logan and I are soaked and disheveled, and I’m clutching the dagger like my life depends on it.
He turns slowly, scanning the room with deliberate care. There’s exhaustion in every line of his body now, like the adrenaline that kept him moving during the fight has drained away.
“What the hell were those things?” I say to him across the room, my voice rising in panic. “What the hell just happened?”
“We need to stay calm,” he says, which is rich coming from someone who just fought water demons without breaking a sweat.
I bark out a laugh that’s closer to a sob. “Stay calm? Are you serious right now? Because unless I hallucinated three murder mermaids with tentacles, I’m way, way past calm.”
“I’ll explain everything later.” He wipes something dark from his cheek. Blood.
That’s when I notice his arm. Because minutes ago, claws ripped it open so deep I saw bone.
Now? There’s smooth skin beneath shredded fabric.
“Your arm.” I stumble sideways, water sloshing around my thighs. “You were bleeding everywhere—”
“The water made it look worse than it was.” His voice is too steady, too controlled. “Blood spreads in water. Small cuts can look fatal.”
“That wasn’t a small cut.” My voice pitches higher, hysteria bubbling up. “That was a tourniquet-and-ambulance cut. That was a you’re-going-to-need-your-arm-amputated cut.”
He steps toward me, his hands raised like he’s approaching a wild animal. Which, honestly, fair. “Jade—”
“Don’t ‘Jade’ me!” I snap, my words tumbling out too fast. “Has this happened before? Do murder mermaids just casually crash school parties? Is this a twisted part of the curriculum no one thought to mention? Another trial, like the one with the Hydra?”
“This has never happened before.” His jaw tightens. “The tower’s been used for parties for centuries. It’s always been safe, even though we make it sound like it isn’t.”
“Well, it sure as hell isn’t safe now.” I splash as I gesture wildly at the rising water. “We need to tell someone. We need to—”
“We need to go back upstairs.” He pushes through the water and moves calmly toward the stairs. “Act normal. Don’t mention this to anyone.”
I laugh, sharp and ragged. “Act normal? I just stabbed a water demon. You healed from a deadly wound in minutes. Nothing about this is normal.”
He pauses halfway to the stairs, one hand braced on the wall, the other holding his dagger so tightly his knuckles are white. When he turns, his gray eyes catch the torchlight, and for a heartbeat, pain flickers there.
“Yes,” he says at last, the word clipped. “We act normal.”
“Does that include…” Heat floods my face as another memory surges.
The wall at my back, his mouth on mine, and the way he took me apart during his experiment to test my control.
“Does that include pretending you didn’t just…
” I motion to the wall he had me pinned to moments before all hell broke loose.
He looks away, and when he speaks, his voice is quieter. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
I’m about to protest, but footsteps echo down the spiral stairwell, and I press my lips together to stay silent.
Logan’s shoulders tense, and he takes a deep breath, like he’s pulling himself together by sheer willpower. “Follow my lead,” he murmurs, barely audible over the approaching footsteps.
“Fine.” I match his quietly clipped tone. “But we’re talking about this later.”
He gives me a look that isn’t a promise or a refusal, which I suppose is enough for now.
We reach the bottom of the stairs as two figures turn the corner. Miles, holding a small flame in his palm for light, and Evie, her eyes widening as she takes in the flooded room.
“Logan?” Miles’s eyebrows shoot up, his gaze moving to me. “And Jade? What are you two doing down here?”