Chapter Two
The wind was cool outside. Traffic and pedestrians filled the street, easing the isolated, boxed-in feeling that had been drowning him inside. A line of young birch trees ran along the footpath, their leaves a mix of green, orange and red.
A bell tinkled as the pub’s door opened and shut.
Liam’s presence both soothed and unsettled Austin.
That Liam would protect him, Austin had no doubt.
However, the lengths Liam was willing to go to stirred an old fear that somewhere along the line, Austin had unintentionally used the power of his voice on the man. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
“Do you have a plan?” Austin asked.
“You heard it. I’m here to guard you.” Liam adjusted his cap, pulling it lower to better hide his face.
His involvement in a conspiracy involving posing as a guard, kidnapping a teenager, and framing them for assault had gone viral two years ago.
His face had been broadcast across Ireland for months.
Austin eyed him. His military crew cut had grown out, hair falling past his ears in messy waves, silver strands mixed with the dark brown.
He’d grown out his beard too, healthy scruff now covering the lower half of his face.
The changes softened the soldier image Austin had grown up with.
But then his attention moved to the military trousers and utilitarian jacket, and his shoulders tightened.
Liam noticed his discomfort. “What?”
“Do you have to dress like that still?”
Liam looked down at himself with the mild confusion of someone who had never paid attention to what they wore. Austin scoffed in disgust but dropped the subject as a lost cause.
“Was it hard to be around me in there?”
Liam met Austin’s eyes. He took a minute.
“In a sense.”
“What sense?” Austin didn’t let himself scowl, remembering to keep his breaths steady.
Sometimes he felt he could control every part of himself, down to the speed of his heart and how the muscle contracted.
Other times, not a single limb felt within his power to wield, wild emotions taking the reins and leaving him a horrified passenger in the aftermath of his actions.
“You’re skinny.”
Austin was so surprised by the remark that he had no response.
“I wanted to get you a proper breakfast but…when you’re like this.” Liam made that vague hand gesture again. “Getting food into you is challenging.”
Austin recovered his senses and glared. “Contrary, am I?”
“Sensitive to being controlled?” Liam shrugged. “I’ll bring the car around. Wait here.”
“Wait? I’d love to, but I’m sensitive to being controlled. I think I’ll fuck off somewhere else instead.”
Liam didn’t argue. “Walk with me instead then.”
Stubbornness made Austin want to set his feet and root himself in place, but that had also been one of Liam’s requests.
His unwillingness to do anything asked of him hadn’t manifested immediately upon stumbling into freedom, nor when he took control of Cessair’s assets.
Rather, it had grown in pieces. When Liam left, something big and destabilising had surged inside him.
In the water, the mermen rejected him outright.
On land, Connor’s family gave him a similar icy reception.
Sam’s public rejection of his friendship had been the final straw.
Austin had genuinely tried to connect, to make up for what he’d done wrong.
When he saw that Sam was still hung up on his breakup with Connor, he’d explained that he was the cause—a purposefully seeded interest, the allure of his blood and voice.
He warned Sam about the stalker he’d accidentally set on him, even admitted to ruining Gary with his power. He let himself be vulnerable.
Austin vowed never to offer such a thing again, not to anybody.
He’d sent the freshly arrived Liam packing again.
Since then, nothing had lightened his black mood. He could just about stomach his own irritability, but the effect he had on other people made his eyes burn.
Liam indicated across the road. “I’m just over there. I’ll bring us somewhere for a decent cup of coffee.”
It galled Austin to give in. “Fine.”
Liam didn’t rub the acquiescence in his face.
Austin followed Liam to a small Micra parked across the road and climbed into the passenger seat. Slung across the back seat was a rucksack that sagged as if only half full. The rest of the car was pristine, smelling new.
“Are you staying in that cottage still?” Liam asked as he climbed in, contorting his tall frame to fit such a tiny vehicle.
“You’re well aware of where I’m staying.”
Liam started the engine and got them moving.
“You disappeared for a few months there.”
Austin eyed Liam’s profile. “How do you know that?”
Liam kept his eyes on the road. “Tammy couldn’t get a hold of you. I usually call up every so often to check in. Make sure you’re getting on okay.”
Austin wouldn’t consider what he’d been doing as “getting on” or “okay”.
“And what does she usually say when you ask that?”
“That nothing’s changed.”
Austin huffed. That wasn’t accurate either.
Things had changed, just not in the way Liam might have been expecting to hear.
Austin wasn’t too pleased that even after sending him away, Liam had stayed up to date with how badly things had been going for him.
That he knew how isolated Austin had remained.
Liam tapped the screen in the dash, and “Hallelujah” started playing. Over the name of the song and artist, in little block letters, was written “Austin”. Curious, Austin tapped back to the folder and scrolled through the collected songs. That burning feeling returned to his eyes.
“Who put this together?”
“Is there anyone aside from me who could have?”
The remark stung, but he seriously considered the question.
“When I was with Connor, I used to pretend that his favourite songs were my favourite ones too. I found out beforehand what he listened to and learned them off by heart, set up my music apps so it looked like they were all I’d ever listened to.
” Austin tapped a song on the list he didn’t recognise and leaned back to listen.
Piano keys tinkled delicately, then segued into a bright tangle of instruments. “How do you know?”
“You told me.”
“But did you ask?”
“I believe I invited the conversation by playing a song you didn’t like.” The corner of Liam’s mouth twitched up. “Plus, I’ve been listening to your music selection for years. I have a good sense of it.”
Austin didn’t enjoy the reminder of their old familiarity and closeness.
They stopped at a coffee shop and a large grocery store, and then Liam took his time driving toward the seaside town that had delivered a mermaid into Cessair’s hands and marked out Austin’s life with a black cloud whose shadow was ever-reaching.
His cottage was tiny, had no insulation, and managed to be an icebox even on warm summer days.
The white chalk walls were chipped, the single-pane windows were filthy, and the one in the kitchen had been made opaque by a large spiderweb crack caused by a storm last winter.
Austin had never bothered to get it fixed.
A car Austin had never learned to drive was parked around the back, probably rusted in place by now.
He hadn’t the faintest idea where the key was.
The only thing the property had going for it, and what mattered most to Austin, was its location: it was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a mix of blanket bog and woodlands that Austin owned and had declared a protected reserve.
Close to the house was the ocean. The base urge to be near it at all times had intensified over the past year to an unmanageable level.
They parked, and Liam cast a critical eye over the place. When Liam had last seen it, the cottage had looked half decent. Vines hadn’t been climbing up the walls, potholes hadn’t littered the drive, and the wood on the windowpanes hadn’t been disintegrating.
“Is it damp inside?” Liam asked. “Any mould?”
Just because Austin had been in the cottage a few days ago didn’t mean he remembered what it looked like.
“I’m going for a swim.”
Overgrown nettles crowded the path leading to the ocean.
There was only a tiny slip of space in the middle to go forward, just wide enough to fit Austin.
He paused and turned back to Liam. “There’s a coffee pot inside.
Filters and ground coffee are in the cupboard next to it.
” He knew the coffee pot was clean and ready to be used, the ground coffee in date, unopened, and Liam’s favourite dark brew.
Austin always kept the coffee station ready for Liam, even though he’d banned him from ever showing his face there again.
Liam nodded and began a slow walk around the cottage, surveying and cataloguing it all.
Austin walked through the nettles, letting thorns hook into threads in his clothes and pull them loose.
The breeze the next town over had been cold and bitter, but the ocean breeze washing over him now was a welcoming delight.
On a physical level, Austin knew it was no warmer here, the same way he knew the ocean was cold. He never felt it.
The overgrown wilderness led to a rocky shore, where sharp stones mixed with razorfish to form a deadly walk over coals—but where coals would burn, these shells sliced.
Austin walked to the edge of the lapping water before undressing, tossing his clothes where the waves wouldn’t snatch them away.
Naked and fearless, he entered the ocean.
The waves were choppy, breakers rising above his head when he was waist-deep, so he dove under, strong strokes thrusting him forward.
He opened his eyes underwater, but churning sand and shells obscured his vision.
It wasn’t until he was well past the breakers that the underwater world settled.
Austin grabbed a breath and dove, sinking until his feet touched the ocean floor and daylight was a mere glimmer high above him.
The weight of the ocean pressed in on him, settling every aggravated nerve with its sheer, overwhelming presence.