East Three #2
Mouth throbbing, I peered down and saw my fresh cuts had already closed.
The lines where I had been bleeding, due to her teeth, were now black, like her skin had turned when angry at Styx for interfering…
The symbol was like no artwork I’d ever seen.
It was actually badass. I had been marked by her.
The image looked ancient appearance, like something you would imagine on the wall of a cave from many centuries ago.
Sadly, Saleeni couldn’t offer any answers. She seemed as baffled as we were. Tears slid down her beautiful cheeks as she stared at her artwork, ashamed she’d also been lost in a trance.
While Styx kept wiping my face, I reached and touched hers. “Aw, ’aby. I’ o’ay. No c’y.”
Tears kept flowing as she kissed my palm. “Mad-G. Mad-G.”
My brain started to feel a little lightheaded, and I sounded like a schoolboy as I asked Styx, “Ca’ she stay da nigh’?”
Tilting his head back, he responded. “You want the mermaid to have a sleepover?”
As my upper body began to sway, I wasn’t sure of what was happening. “Yeah, Saweeni mek eve’thing be’er.”
“Oh fuck!” Styx caught my upper body, and that was all I remembered of that night.
I woke the next morning to daylight shining through the bulletproof window. I was back in bed and under the blanket. Besides being a little confused about how I ended up here, or why I was only in my underwear briefs, I didn’t feel absolutely horrible.
On the nightstand closest to the bathroom, I saw my knuckles. Styx was resting in a chair facing my side. As soon as he heard me wake, his eyes popped open, and with his head hung forward, he quietly chanted, “Thank you. Thank you…”
Unable to process his reaction, my thoughts instantly centered on Saleeni. “Where is she? What happened?”
Elbows to his knees, he lifted his head, taking a deep breath.
“She was at the seawall last time I saw her. You passed out. I had to bring you inside and tend to you.” His words began to rush as I attempted to sit up to find her.
“Maddox, please.” Standing, he easily pushed my weak body back down. “We need to talk.”
I went to push him away but noticed my hand. “Where’s the bandage?”
“Maddox, we need to talk,” he repeated with more urgency.
Staring at where I had cut my hand to blood bond with my fellow fosters, I mumbled, “Healed.”
With a touch of exhaustion, Styx nodded. “Everything is healed. Your hand, your chest, your—” He looked away.
“My what?”
He plopped down in the chair again. “Your… new teeth.”
My eyes closed, remembering all the blood last night…
It felt as if the mattress I was lying on was opening up and trying to swallow me alive.
In fear of being lost forever, my right hand shot into the air above me.
In less than three days, I had been surrendered by my foster parents, picked up by a man who I was told was dead and ‘by the way I’m your grandpa’, brought to a new/old home, told my father was biologically part of some sort of aquatic race, and that my childhood imagination was actually factual.
I needed a savior. Someone to keep me from falling into an oblivion most have never even heard of.
Styx’s grip—palm to palm and forearm to forearm—was once again the stability to keep me from altogether losing my shit.
Eyes still closed, a deep voice whispered in my ear, “Nothing is impossible. Nothing is impossible…”
Air started to fill my lungs again as my low voice joined his chant, “Nothing is impossible. Nothing is impossible…”
Three simple words spoke so much truth. Not believing in myths didn’t mean they didn’t exist. Thinking I was human didn’t mean it was wrong to be a hybrid. What is a human, after all, if not the result of millions of years of evolution?
Holding his hand so tightly I might have stopped his blood flow, my eyes drifted open. I teetered on the verge of either tears or fire-breathing rage. “Every time I get smacked with my new reality, I feel as if I might implode or explode. Not sure which to do.”
He pulled our joined arms to his chest. “I say do nothing until you’re sure.”
Noma… My eyes welled. “You sound like her.”
He exhaled so much sorrow, yet spoke words that showed he was deeply touched. “What a kind thing to say.”
Very few times did I speak of the woman I missed so damn badly, but for some reason, it felt like the right thing to do at this crucial moment. “Since she had you in her life, that means she… wasn’t lonely, right?”
Styx, sucking in air, told me how off-guard I had caught him. “Umm…” He appeared perplexed before adding, “Shit, kid. In one of your loneliest moments, you ask about her well-being?”
“How do you know I’m lonely?”
“Well, because… to my knowledge, you are the only one of… you.” He smirked. “Google swears there’s no other mermen on the East Coast.”
There was a silence… then a burst of laughter from both of us. It was much needed. The tightness eased from my chest.
Styx even sighed. “I did my best to take care of your Noma, kid. Often from afar, but I did my best to support her.”
Closing one eye, my face cringed. “You’re not the grandpa who loved her ‘putty cat’, correct?”
His eyes went wide as he gawked. “She told you?”
I released his hand and shoved it so I could cover my face and roll away. “So. Fucking. Gross.” Not facing him, I smiled, relieved she had an adult in her life. Then I teased, “Don’t expect me to need the same attention.”
He roared with belly laughter. “How on earth could I compare to your dominant finned beauty?”
Rolling on the smaller bed, it was easy to find the edge and sit up. Hands resting on the mattress on each side of my thighs, I exhaled. “Thank you for being there for Noma.”
“I thank you for the same. No one meant more to her than you. You gave her mad love, kid.”
Mad love. My head lifted to stare at the metal door. Mad. G. “I need to see her, let her know I’m okay.”
“I bet she already senses it. There’s something intense between you two.” He spoke as if that was something he had witnessed before. Noma had said that ‘intense’ was how my mother and father were when together. Were Saleeni and I headed for the same fate? Only to be ripped apart as they had?
I let my heavy head droop again. “How the hell do I make this work? I mean… for real?”
“Seeing how she literally has claimed you in some sort of twisted… scarring, uh, you are kind of, uh, committed to the hot fish.”
Hot fish? I glared over my right shoulder. “I mean so that she doesn’t die like mine and Dad’s mother did.”
Styx grimaced. “I’d say no pregnancies, but the way last night was going—Eek!”
I stood. Faced him. “Are you fucking joking around right now?”
Styx said, “Ease up. Bad timing.”
“Not funny.”
“Noted.” He peered around the room, then pointed. “I brought your bags in.”
My brows bunched. “Thanks? I mean, I guess I could’ve found the time to grab them myself after dying and becoming less human.”
His head bobbled. “Does outweigh my good deed.”
I sulked. “Please help me with how to handle her.”
“Umm, how about starting small with her? Like, on the road. I couldn’t hear my brothers over our HOGs, but we found a way to communicate.” He shrugged.
I hated that he was forced to speak of my uncles in the past tense. I hated that they were gone, even more so, possibly due to me.
Styx continued, “On the road, we used hand signals.” He did simple gestures, explaining each one.
“Slow down… Grease in the road… Another club incoming… Stopping for gas… and so on. Saleeni has already proven to be very intelligent—Nothing like The Little Mermaid. That dumb bitch brushed her hair with a fork for God’s sake.
” He paused in thought. “Although she even learned how to—well, not talk since the witch took her voice and all that—” He noticed my stare. “What?”
Er… “You watched a Disney cartoon?”
He crossed his tattooed arms over his broad chest. “Research.”
I lifted a brow.
“Pfft,” he brushed me off. “I personally like Hans Christian Andersen’s original better.” Licked his teeth while nodding. “Darker and much more realistic.”
Throwing my arms wide. “Realistic?” Welcome to my life, fucker! I crossed my arms, mimicking him. “Please do explain.”
He started pacing, as if he was glad he finally had someone to share his ‘research’ with.
“Well, in Disney’s version, it’s all mushy and gushy with the nonsense of this ‘happily ever after’.
” He pretended to gag. “However, oh, Hans understood life. Sometimes you make sacrifices for those you love. And there’s no happy ending.
Only hopes that you made the right decision. ”
My stomach turned, and my arms dropped to my sides. “What sacrifice did the prince make?”
He leaned back. “How do you know about there being a prince in The Little Mermaid?”
“I—” Uh. I thought about it. “I have no fucking clue.” Just then, I had a memory of Noma crying, sitting next to me on a couch, watching the Disney movie.
He grabbed his chest. “Ya don’t say.”
I nodded. “Yeah.” I shook it off. “Just a coincidence. Not that she knew anything about—” I stopped when Styx stared at a corner in the ceiling, scratching the back of his head in a guiltily. “There is no way she knew!”
Grandpa’s eyes found another corner to stare at while wincing through complicated shame.
I marched around the bed, past him, and headed to the bathroom. “Of course, there are more lies to uncover.”
Styx followed me. “During your challenging birth—”
I stopped. To hear any detail Noma never shared was an answered prayer.
“—your mother told Noma what she knew about Lennox—she broke a promise to warn Noma. She knew she was dying, but understandably, Noma assumed it was only words of delirium.”
Slowly, I faced him. “Noma told me Dad found them both at the end. What does that mean?”