are chasing me. Please help." I was panicking and peeked around the side of the building. "Please hurry, I'm at Salinity Cove High School."
The operator went through a series of questions and told me to stay calm. She suggested I try to find the custodian, but I was glued to my spot.
I could hear sirens in the distance and a sob escaped as relief flooded my body. They came to a stop in the parking lot.
"Ma'am are you still there? They say to stay where you are and they'll find you."
They found me sitting on the side of the building, shivering uncontrollably. It wasn't even that cold outside, but the adrenaline dump had left me feeling worn out and freezing cold.
An officer sat me in the front of a police car with a blanket wrapped around me. My bag sat on the pavement in front of my feet, tire marks covering it. I didn't know how I was going to explain to Mr. Garcia that a car had run over it and smashed the expensive camera to smithereens.
"Do you know who was chasing you?" An officer squatted down in front of me and handed me a water bottle.
I took a long drink and shut my eyes. "The Tritons." A deadly calm like I'd never felt before washed over me. "They chased me from the aquatic center."
"The who? The dad from The Little Mermaid?" The officer scratched his head.
I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Were they mermaids? They couldn't be. Morgan had jumped out of the pool and landed on two feet. But his eyes had been the same as the ones I saw the day I almost drowned.
"Jax West, Blake Huron, and Morgan Wade."
"Those boys? Why would they do this?" He stood and gestured for a man dressed in plain clothes to join us.
"Where is Detective Wilson? I'd been in contact with him about one of them breaking into my house."
"Leave of absence."
"I think I'm going to be sick." I rushed out of the car and made it to the planter just in time.
Chapter Eighteen
After a weekend of eating too much ice cream and watching the video on my phone from the swimming meet on repeat, a few things had become clear to me: they were on some crazy type of performance enhancers, or they weren't human.
I found myself giggling like a mad woman anytime I thought about them being something other than human. Humans were it. There were no other lifeforms with our level of intelligence.
Or was there?
I didn't want to believe what I had seen in the aquatic center. It could have just been my nerves playing tricks on me. It had been so dark that when Morgan had looked at me, his eyes had flashed to something non-human. Unless it was just a trick of the light or a side effect of taking drugs.
Things were too quiet at school on Monday. I'd come to anticipate something happening and was on edge. I was pretty sure I was developing an ulcer; my stomach was constantly in knots.
Added to that was having to go to yearbook. Every Monday we did a debrief of any photographs taken from the week before and shared the best shots with staff. I had considered sharing the video on my phone, but I didn't have enough evidence to accuse them of anything yet.
As soon as I entered the room, I walked over to Mr. Garcia, who was already powering up his computer and connecting the projector.
"Mr. Garcia. There was an accident over the weekend with the camera." I kept my voice low so no one would hear me. He looked up and waited for me to continue. "I was chased after the swim meet on Saturday night and I dropped the bag. It was run over."
"Chased?" The room behind me fell silent and I felt all eyes on me. "We can always send it to the repair shop."
I pulled the camera bag out of my bag and opened it. "I'm afraid it's damaged beyond repair."
He took the bag from me and looked inside. "This is our best and most expensive camera, Riley."
I guess he had missed the part about me being chased. "I know. I... they were going to hurt me."
He put the camera off to the side and looked up at me. "Did the surveillance get them?"
"The cameras were conveniently rebooting." I turned and looked over my shoulder at Jax. He was sitting with his arms crossed over his