washes the black blood off with it. He walks toward the entrance with
his blue eyes focused on Thalia. His face registers shock as Kurt
raises his bow and arrow at him. Kurt’s face is stone. Ryan holds his
hands up in the air.
“What are you doing ?” I yell at Kurt. But then I see what he’s
doing. The arrow is pointed past Ryan to where the third creature, the
blowfish, stands a few feet behind our friend.
“Ryan,” Kurt says. He raises his arrow a little higher. “Don’t.
Move.”
I don’t know what I can do with just a dagger. If I throw it at
the creature, I could very well miss and stab my friend. I do know
that none of these creatures want my friends. They want me.
And before I can say duck , before I can even raise my dagger, the
creature puffs out his face and snaps his neck in my direction.
I raise my hands to cover my face, and my entire body is a scream
as Layla jumps in front of me, arms wrapped around my neck, mouth open
in a pained gasp as the needles pierce her back.
The rain beats hard against my neck.
Layla’s eyes are wide and staring right at me. She’s still
standing. I’m afraid to hold her too tightly.
Behind us the creature falls, an arrow pierced though his throat.
Layla’s knees bend. She says my name. The thunder is loud, and the
rain is like pellets against the ground, but I know she says my name.
Her weight goes slack, and I keep my hands under her arms to try to
keep her up.
“Help me.” I don’t know if I’ve actually said it.
Their footsteps splash against the ground. Thalia is at my side,
helping me lay Layla facedown on the ground.
“Do something,” I say. I look up at Kurt, who stands over me.
Doing nothing. He could’ve shot sooner. Why did he hesitate? Why did I
just stand there?
“There’s too much poison,” he says helplessly.
I take my dagger and, as gently as I can, rip the thin cotton of
her T-shirt. The needles go right through it, and I can’t take the
shirt off without hurting her. I drop my blade on the ground. Run my
hands through my hair. Press against my skull as if I can make all of
this go away. Thalia is pulling out the spikes and sobbing at the same
time. Layla’s back is like a dark board of tiny red dots where blood
pools out and is washed away just as quickly by the rain.
My knees are raw from kneeling on the turf. I hold her hand in
mine, but there’s no pressure, no weight. My body is cold. My skin is
numb in the rain.
“That’s all of it,” Thalia says, holding out a handful of black
needles. They’re slick and black and don’t look like much.
“Wake up,” I whisper in Layla’s ear. I flip her over in my arms so
that I can look at her again. I never used to understand what people
meant when they said they felt small against the rest of the world.
But I do now. Her body is motionless in my arms. Her lips are purple.
Her eyelids are wet. She looks the same way she did when she was
sleeping in my chambers on the island, when we’d fall asleep in my
living room when we were littler, when we’d lie out on the beach at
noon and I’d wear my black sunglasses so she wouldn’t see that I was
looking at her. Something inside me breaks over and over again, and I
don’t know how to stop it.
“Tristan.”
The rain stops. The clouds push away. I can feel the warmth of the
sun against my skin. When I open my eyes, it’s still dark out. The
light isn’t coming from the sky; it comes from Layla. The necklace my
grandfather gave her glows under her shirt. No harm can come to you by
me or mine , he’d said.
Her lips move again. “Tristan.”
She smiles at me, and I try not to hug her too hard. I’m about to
say something, anything, when a rough voice cuts through the field and
yells, “Hands in the air!”
At the entrance of the field are maybe half a dozen cops. The
creatures have completely washed away. The targets are all split into
pieces; there’s a huge hole at the gate and arrows all over the grass.
The officer repeats himself, and this time they all cock their
guns.
An EMT drapes an itchy blanket around my shoulders. I’m shirtless
with a bandage around my ribs, where apparently two of them are
broken.
The rain has stopped, except for the thin sheet of mist that
clings low to the ground. The EMT hands me a cup of black coffee. I
shake my head at the bitter hotness that burns my tongue.
Detective Donovan has his hands in his leather jacket, nodding
periodically as the hysterical girls give him their versions of what
happened. Regular, end-of-the-year fun. Three monsters break through
the fence. The girls giving their witness accounts point at me.
Detective Donovan comes over to me, finally.
“Hurts?” He nods at my bandaged hand.
“No,” I lie, and squeeze it for show.
“Are you up to giving a statement?”
“Like the girls said,” I tell him. “We were hanging out on the
field. These guys just came through the fence. Attacked. We tried to
fight them off, and they went away.”
“Guys?” The question lingers as he chews his gum. “The other
students say they were creatures . That they looked like sharks
and”-he stops himself, because he might just be too professional to
even utter this-“creatures from the blue lagoon.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s the black lagoon,” I say, regretting my
smart mouth. “I think they had masks on.”
“The girls say that they melted into the rain.”
I shake my head, thankful that Ryan had been smart enough to put
our weapons away for us, thankful that Layla was alive in my arms.
She’d just left with her parents, wearing my shirt because we had to
rip hers. “It happened so fast. They ran away after they heard the
sirens.”
I can smell Detective Donovan’s doubt and his irritation, like
dirt in my mouth.
“You kids involved in some kind of gang activity?”
“No, sir.”
“You don’t go here, do you, son?” He turns to Kurt. Thalia sits
beside her brother. The blanket slips from her shoulders and onto the
floor. No one moves to pick it up.
“I am not your son, sir, and no, this is not my school. We’re
Tristan’s cousins, visiting students for the remainder of the summer.”
“Some summer,” he scoffs. His dark eyes squint, like if he looks
hard enough I’ll cave and tell him I’m a criminal.
An argument breaks out over in the parking lot. “Ma’am, please
stay behind the tape!”
“Don’t you touch me. I need to see my son!” My mom pushes her way
through. She pulls me into such a tight hug that I spill coffee on
myself.
“Sorry! Sorry. Oh my goddess-”
“Ma’am, are these your niece and nephew?”
“Yes, why?
“They have no identification.”
“Well, yes, it’s all at home. I didn’t anticipate they’d need
their passports in case there was an attack on the school.” She sniffs
down her nose at him. “Dad’s waiting in the car around the corner.
Most of the streets are blocked off.”
“Tristan,” Detective Donovan tries once more. His hard mask falls,
and his frustration peeks through. “Do you remember what these men
looked like? Anything that can help us? Any of you.”
What am I supposed to say? There’s no Sea King, so the nasty
things that live in the ocean have come out to play? I’d be halfway to
the nuthouse before anyone can say, Are mermen supposed to be so
shiny? “It was dark. They came out of nowhere.”
“Are you finished?” Mom asks Detective Donovan.