Chapter 31
Kiora
I WOKE UP IN YET ANOTHER unfamiliar bed. Nothing new here except I woke up in my parents’ house, and Billy wasn’t my father. Billy was dead.
Waves, Billy was dead.
I got up on autopilot, grabbed the clothes Mom had given me yesterday, and ambled to the bathroom. There was a new toothbrush still in the package waiting for me on top of a neat stack of towels on a shelf.
Billy wasn’t my father.
I looked around the bathroom for any personal touches, but there weren’t many. Mom and Dylan must be using a different bathroom. There was a basket of pads and tampons out in the open, though. That in itself was telling. Billy would’ve lost his shit if he saw feminine hygiene products out where everyone could see them.
But Billy was dead.
I got through the morning routine in a daze. I didn’t exactly grieve Billy. He had been a monster, but he had been the monster who raised me. The monster who haunted me. And he was dead.
And now there was Dylan who didn’t care if there were tampons out in the open. He was all like, “Hey, my wife and daughter are women, and they might need it, so, why shouldn’t it be out there?”
I was his daughter. Billy wasn’t my father, and Billy was dead.
“Dude, why are you bringing my daughter flowers?” Dylan’s muffled voice reached into the bathroom.
Oh, damn. Was it Troy? It had to be, right? If not, then it was Azar, and the guy was cute and all, but he wasn’t Troy.
“Because she had a few rough days and could use something nice,” Troy answered.
I couldn’t suppress my smile as I threw a shirt on and walked down the stairs. I didn't run because I didn’t want to look too eager, even though I totally was.
And then I remembered that Billy was dead. What did it say about me that I could be happy so soon after finding out that the man I had thought was my father was dead?
“Good morning,” I said to Troy and Dylan. “Where’s Mom?”
“Getting the vase,” Mom called out from the kitchen, then emerged a moment later with the vase and the sweet peas flowers in it.
I took it from her, inhaled deeply, then looked Troy in the eyes. “Thanks. But they’re not my favorite anymore.”
He arched a brow at me? “What stole the number one spot?”
“Those flowers that grow in the mountains.”
Troy looked at the ceiling like he was thinking hard before saying, “Yeah, I’m not climbing up there.”
I smelled the flowers again, then put them on the dining room table and sat down to stare at them.
Billy was dead and the man I was very much into was giving me flowers. Another man was glaring at Troy in that “Are you trying to sleep with my daughter” way. And that man wasn’t Billy. Because Billy wasn’t my father. And he was dead.
“Hey,” Troy said gently as he took the chair next to me. “How are you holding up?”
“He’s dead.” Seaweed on a stick, he was actually dead.
“Yeah.”
“And he wasn’t my father.” I had a different father now. How crazy was that?
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked accusingly because damn it, he could’ve told me days ago.
“I wanted your mom to tell you. Remember how I said I’d like you to talk to a selkie I know?” His eyes begged me not to hate him as if I ever could. “I figured you’d have an easier time with it if you heard it from her.”
“You lied to me.”
I expected him to deny it, to say he simply didn’t tell me the whole truth, but Troy did none of that.
“I did,” he answered. “And I’m not sorry. How would you have reacted if some guy you just met told you all of that?”
Poorly.
“I trusted you.”
“Did you, though?” Troy asked. “You wouldn’t have drugged me and run away if you really trusted me.”
I had trusted him, though. Until...
“I heard you talking on the phone,” I admitted.
Troy’s eyes widened for a moment, then he cringed and waved at Dylan. “I was talking to him.”
Yeah, I knew that now, but back in the cave, it had taken me right back to that hotel room with Dad talking on the phone, promising to bring a young mermaid.
“Are we going to the Magic Bean or what?” I asked so I wouldn’t have to think about the painful parts anymore.
Mom put the tray with four coffee cups in front of me. “Troy already brought it.”
“Honey lavender latte,” Troy said, naming the drink I had ordered on that blind date he had saved me from.
“With a side of heart attack, judging by the number of cups.” I smiled at him. “Thanks.”
“Well, if you don’t want all four, I won’t say no to a honey lavender latte,” Mom said, picking up one cup and handing me the other. “Cheers?”
“Cheers,” I echoed and took the first sip.
Nothing happened at first, then I remembered stopping at the truck stop near a major city. My two days off coincided with that stop, and while I usually liked getting the chance to walk through state parks to keep my legs in shape, a city gave me a chance to buy fresh produce.
I went to the nearby supermarket and went straight for the clementines. The first bag I checked had one funky clementine, but the second was better. Except it wasn’t. Now that I could remember everything more clearly, I could see a moldy spot. That was the bag I had in my mangled truck.
“Anything?” Troy asked.
“Just remembering my bag of clementines that’s rotting in my poor truck.”
Troy snorted a laugh while Dylan retreated into the kitchen like I had just told him to go make me a sandwich. Come to think of it, I was hungry. Maybe that was why my mind went there.
Mom remained motionless, stuck in her own memories, and by the look on her face, it wasn’t pleasant.
“Mom? You know you don’t have to do this with me, right?”
“The Shade,” Mom said instead of acknowledging me. “He had a phone number written down on a business card from a car dealership. It said The Shade next to the number. I don’t know if it means anything or not.”
Troy already had his phone out before Mom even stopped talking. While he waited for the person on the other end to answer, Dylan came back to the dining room and he did, in fact, bring me a sandwich.
“Thanks. You didn’t have to.”
Dylan shrugged. “I owe you a couple of decades’ worth of sandwiches.”
“Good morning, officer,” Troy said into the phone. “Does The Shade mean anything to you?”
While Troy listened, I took a bite of the first sandwich my father had made me. Billy had never made food for me.
Mmm. Cured salmon, sea cucumber, and thin slices of avocado hit the spot perfectly. Did mermen just automatically know how to make food because damn, this was a good sandwich.
Billy never wanted to have fish in the house. But he was also not my father, so was it any wonder he didn’t care if Mom and I loved fish?
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll call you if I have anything more solid,” Troy promised before ending the call and addressing us. “The Shade is the boss of the Vezold’s Cancun branch. No one knows who he actually is, though.”
Cancun. That’s where Dad had taken me on “vacation” that almost turned into my enslavement.
Billy, I corrected myself because Billy wasn’t my father.
I took the second latte and downed it in one go in hopes that it would wash away the bitterness of remembering everything Billy had done. Instead, I remembered it more vividly.
I returned from the pool early. Despite going on vacation to Cancun, Billy had booked us a room in the hotel that was as far from the beach as he could possibly get, so the pool was all I had.
At first, I didn’t see him, but then his voice carried from the balcony. “She’s sixteen, and as far as I know, she’s still a virgin. I’m sure you can find the right buyer for a young little mermaid like her.”
At first, I couldn't believe what I was hearing and tried to find a reasonable explanation. Sure, I always knew Dad was a piece of shit, but he wouldn’t sell his own daughter. Would he?
“Be serious. It cost me more to feed her all these years. You think I’ve been putting up with this brat for the fun of it?”
I stood frozen for a good minute, then my legs started to tremble with the need to run. I had to get out of there before it was too late. If Billy knew I had overheard, he’d never let me escape.
“That’s not a serious offer, Lucius.” Then a moment later, “Sorry, sorry. No names. Got it.”
“Lucius,” I repeated as the memory faded again. “His first name is Lucius. Whoever he was talking to on the phone, I mean.”
“Lucius Blackwood?” Mom asked. When I didn’t answer because I honestly didn’t know who she was talking about, she explained, “Lucius Blackwood visited us right before Billy booked that trip to Cancun. He said it was a high school friend. He was weirdly interested in you. Not in the ‘he wants to bang an underaged girl’ kind of way, but he was definitely asking too many questions.”