Page 65 of Blood of the Sirens
I mouthed ‘thank you’ at them all, and one by one Javi shooed them away. “We’ll get you to the docks. You’re sure youdon’t want to go to the hospital? Not even to get your voice looked at? I need to at least tell the police we found her.”
I shook my head again.
Javi sat down next to me as the boat slowly turned, and headed toward shore. “You know, sometimes the body does weird shit after traumatic events. What happened to you ,Jesse? You fell off Mike’s boat and that Merrick guy went after you, then all the other guys went after you, and it was all Mike and I could do to get the boat back to shore and report the whole thing. You know the weirdest part?”
I shrugged my shoulders, already having a good guess.
“No one reported any of those guys missing. No one came looking for Merrick. You were the only one we could really file a report on. It’s like those guys just went into the ocean and disappeared. No bodies, no nothing.”
Javi went quiet, staring out at the water for a while. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I’ll take you home, but the police will probably ask questions. You were in the water fora long time, Jesse, and you look like you’ve only been gone a few hours. You should be dead.”
I had nothing to say to that, literally and figuratively.
Javi sighed, and I leaned against him. He gathered me into a hug, and it was exactly what I needed. I clutched onto him as my last remaining lifeline above the water.
“You’ll tell me when you can, yeah?” he asked softly.
I nodded as we raced toward the shore.
TWENTY-ONE
Jesse
I thoughtonce I was back in my house, that I’d feel better. That the solid land under my feet would help put all my problems into perspective.
Instead, I couldn’t stop thinking about Merrick. And also Caspian.
“Jesse, you’re going to wear a trench in the hardwood floors,” Javi remarked casually, but his eyes were worried as he watched from a stool at the kitchen bar. “Are you sure I can’t call the police? If those guys are still hanging around, we don’t want them to attack anyone else.”
I huffed in frustration. How could I tell Javi that they were looking for someone very specific?
My friend was smarter than most, though. He pursed his lips, crossing his arms over his chest. “They’re looking for someone like you?”
I hesitated, then nodded.
His eyes narrowed. “My family won’t stop raving about sirens and Chalchiuhtlicue and—”
I blinked, taken aback by the strange names.
“Sirenas,” Javi shot back impatiently. “You know,sirens.”
I shook my head, twirling my fingers in a backward circle.
He raised an eyebrow. “Chalchiuhtlicue?”
My head nodded.
Javi rolled his eyes so hard I thought he might fall off his stool. “Chalchiuhtlicue, or sometimes called Tlanchana. You know, mermaids and shit,” he clarified quickly, seeing my confusion.
Alarm shot through my body. His family thought I was a mermaid? I tried to play it off with a silent laugh, but my face twisted and my fear likely showed through.
Javi wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t even smiling. “All they could agree on was that you shouldn’t have survived out in open water that long. It’s been days, Jesse.”
My mouth went dry. There wasn’t any way I could lie my way out of this. Nor did I want to.
“Jesse. I don’t require an answer from you, even though I know you can’t exactly give it right now. My family was more than happy to help you because I asked them to, and it’s what family does. I just ...” He paused, running a frustrated hand through his hair. “Jesus girl, I thought you were dead. Mike thinks you’re dead. What the fuck happened?”
It’s what family does.
