and grabs hold of Maddy’s arm. The three of us run down the carpeted
stairs.
“Ryan.” Thalia pushes girls out of her way and runs ahead of me.
“What is that smell ?” Gwen covers her mouth with her free hand.
I can feel the heat of my dagger, like it’s burning its way
through the backpack. Kids race past us out of the house as we run
toward the backyard. The music is still blaring, masking the screams.
In the kitchen the floor is covered with broken glass. Some guy
has a phone shaking in his hands as he tries to dial 911 but messes up
every time. Outside, anyone who couldn’t run away is hiding behind
lawn chairs, bushes, and garbage cans.
Gwen lets go of Maddy and rushes to the poolside. Princess Violet
is lying with her hand against her chest. There’s a shard of glass
sticking out from it. The girl’s green eyes are full of tears. Gwen
pulls out the glass and helps her stand up. Angelo swims out of the
pool. He doesn’t notice the bloody cut on his shoulder, or he doesn’t
care. He just drapes the princess’s arm around his neck and helps her
inside.
The lights in the house go out, which only leaves the mosquito
torches that line the backyard. The darkness is still. The merrows are
hiding.
Kurt pulls out a thin bow, and the metal symbols on it catch the
firelight and glisten. I fumble with the zipper to my backpack. The
blade of my knife glows in the dark. Thalia brandishes two long and
thin swords.
“I shouldn’t have come here,” I say. “I should’ve known.”
Layla looks at me and speaks. But as a scream rips through the
scared silence of the backyard, I can’t even hear her.
The merrows seem to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.
One with yellow scales along his arms seems to be more human than
fish. Then he bares his rows of shark teeth. He smells the air and
lets loose with an angry wail.
“Stay down,” I tell Maddy, pushing her as gently as I can behind a
patio chair.
In the meantime the yellow merrow has vanished. Kurt wrestles with
a hammerhead merrow who looks like nothing but sinewy strength. Angelo
runs out brandishing an aluminum baseball bat. I’m ready to run to
Angelo’s side, but he’s caught a red one with a face like something
that hasn’t surfaced from the depths of the sea in years. Once it’s
dead, it starts decomposing, but he keeps swinging.
Their rotting flesh and black blood covers the ground, sticky
under our bare feet. We stand waiting as the merrows hide in the
shadows again, watching us.
Maddy is pulling on my shirt. “What’s happening?” She cries when
she realizes there’s a thin line of blood on her arm. I wipe it off.
It isn’t hers. It’s dripping from above us.
The yellow-scaled merrow wrestles with someone on the balcony.
It’s so dark I can’t see who he’s fighting, I can only hear the loud
snap of a neck. The wail of triumph. The heave of the body over the
merrow’s head. He throws the limp body over the balcony but misses the
pool by a few inches. The body rolls over once until it lies on the
blue tiles, broken. Then again until it falls into the pool with a
splash.
Not it. He. Until he falls.
“Tristan!” Kurt yells. The hammerhead is on Kurt’s back, jaws open
to bite.
I run.
I slip on the slick ground.
I keep my blade out and cut cleanly across both the hammerhead’s
ankles. When I right myself, I see Thalia’s thin dagger pierce the
creature’s neck. The weight of him collapses on top of Kurt, and they
topple into the pool.
Maddy screams. A blue merrow sniffs at the air around her.
It smells me.
It goes in for her.
I don’t think about the fact that they’re yards away, that if I
miss by a few centimeters I will probably slice off my ex-girlfriend’s
face, which might make her like me even less. What I do know is that I
can make it. I know it like I know I’m my mother’s son. I throw my
dagger and it pierces the merrow’s spine.
The merrow stumbles once, deteriorating into mush as he does. It’s
like smelling a fish market and burning sulfur in chemistry class at
the same time. It’s not the most opportune time to think that I’ll
never get the smell off me. The black blood splatters over Maddy’s
clothes.
I walk over and pull my dagger out of what’s left of the merrow’s
back.
Gwen walks out of the shattered doorframe. There are black smudges
on her white-blond hair. “The human authorities are on their way. I
can hear their sirens.”
In the pool, the body of the dead boy floats face down. The water
is muddy with merrow chunks and blood. Kurt lies on his back with his
bow clutched to his chest. Layla bends down at his side. There’s a
long gash on her arm. How could I have been so stupid? I get on my
knees and hold Maddy’s face in my hands. She rubs her cheek against my
dirty palm.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I can say it a million times and it won’t
matter. But this does. I can’t explain it now. I don’t know if I ever
could. But I need that necklace.”
She sobs once and shuts her eyes like she’s still trying to shut
me out.
“Or this is just going to keep happening.”
She puts her shut palm over mine and opens it slowly, a flower
blooming in the dark. The Venus pearl is in her hand, glowing pink in
the blinking light above us. We’re both so still that the automatic
motion detector light goes out.
When I take it from her, the lights come back on. I pocket it
before she changes her mind.
I slink her arm around my shoulder. I press my lips on her cheek
and she pulls away.
“You stink,” she says.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Behind us, those who notice the quiet come out of their hiding
places. There is so much confusion, but it’s mostly a lot of screaming
poolside. My insides churn when I recognize the clothes. Thalia’s
small, shaking frame is draped over his still body. The lights of the
house come back on. The floor is littered with glass, and the stone
ground is stained forever.
None of that matters. I have the pearl in my pocket, but it
doesn’t matter, because I let this happen. I did nothing, and now Ryan
is dead. His gaping blue eyes stare at nothing. Thalia takes his hand
and presses it against her wet face. She smooths his hair back. She
brings her fist down on his chest. Between all the cries the only one
I hear is hers.
“Stay,” she says in a whisper so small, I’m not sure she even says
it at all.
Get up,” she says in my ear. “Get up right now.”
Gwen grabs my hand and pulls on it. I can’t move. I can’t close my
eyes. For what seems like forever, I sit in the shadows of the
backyard watching as the others mourn Ryan’s body. I watched it
happen. I didn’t know it was him. I could’ve done something. I
should’ve kept my worlds separate like Kurt said. How can I protect
everyone I care about? I can’t. I have to go through with this. I
can’t keep losing.
Gwen’s hand slaps across my face.
“That hurt.”
“It was supposed to.”
She stands above me, holding her hand out. I take it and don’t let
go as we run along the narrow path around the house and into the front
yard.
“What are you doing?” She hesitates as I pick out one of the bikes
parked out front. I pull out my dagger and cut the chains off.
“Just put your feet on those little metal bars and hold on to me.”
“Tristan.” She says my name nervously.