Deep Betrayal Page 0,23

you sure he’s okay? Maybe I should go check on him.”

“Relax, Lily. This went much better than either of us expected. Something about science types, they find this whole thing more fascinating than horrifying. That must be why Mother sought them out.”

I groaned in disgust.

“Hey,” Calder said. “Don’t forget this was your idea. We’re heading out again at sunrise.”

I climbed into the hammock alongside Calder. His muscular arms enveloped me, warming me against the night air. Then his fingers lifted the beach-glass pendant off my chest and turned it around in his fingers, just as he had once before.

“What is it?” I asked.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. There’s something different about you. The last couple of days, it’s like your colors are changing. I can see them even in the dark.”

I shifted uncomfortably in his arms. “Well, I have been under a little stress.”

“I know what stress looks like and, yes, I can see that, too, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Well, do I look different good or different bad?”

“Neither. Just different. You said your parents gave this to you?” he asked, still studying the pendant.

“It was a family heirloom from my grandpa,” I said, gently taking his hands from the necklace.

“Tom Hancock?” he asked, his voice raising.

“Shush. Geez, relax.”

“You’re right. You’re right,” he said, stroking my hair. “I’m sorry. Old prejudices die hard. Still, could you take it off for a second?”

“Why?”

“Just curious.” He reached behind my neck with both hands and undid the clasp, releasing the chain around my neck. I took it from him and slipped it into the pocket of my sweatpants.

“Better,” he said. “You look more like you again. I wonder why that is.”

We lay in silence, the night pressing in on us, as I convinced myself that any kind of different would mean different-bad to Calder. When the silence grew to an uncomfortable length, I broke it.

“It’s killing me to think about you and Dad out there when I can’t come with.” My lips brushed against his shoulder as I spoke. A strange bitterness percolated in my gut.

“I know it is. I can see that, too—probably more clearly than you’d like to let on.”

“I never thought I’d have to be jealous of my dad. Other girls, sure, but—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, his hand slipping under my shirt, his long fingers encircling my waist.

“Did you ever think what would have happened if Dad hadn’t been there to pull me out?”

“I try not to.”

I pressed my nose to his neck, behind his ear, and breathed in the heady scent of him. I whispered, “If Dad hadn’t pulled me out of the water, I would have died.”

I felt a shiver run through him, and I cherished the confirmation that changing colors apparently didn’t change how he felt about me. “You said you would have reinvigorated me and made me a mermaid.”

“Those were desperate times. Desperate thoughts. It wouldn’t have worked. I told you before, only a mermaid can reinvigorate.”

I ignored him. “Then I’d be the one swimming with you this summer, instead of being on house arrest.”

“A part of me does wish you could come with us.”

“Then bring me,” I said, tracing the contours of his lips and then kissing them softly.

He pulled away, saying, “Please take this seriously. It’s important. You don’t want to undo everything we’ve worked for. Your dad without a target on his back. My freedom. Your safety.”

His words slowed to a deep, rhythmic pulse. Like blood through a vein. Like salmon pushing upstream against the current. I stared into his eyes and found my mind adopting the same steady pulse as his words, until my thoughts slowed to a stop, incomplete and lost. Just as a brilliant counterargument would occur to me, it would dissipate in the night.

“Go to sleep, Lily,” he said, and although I protested with my words, my mind was in complete agreement. I closed my eyes for only a second. That was my first mistake, because when I opened them again, it was morning. It was raining. And Calder was gone.

I did my best to follow Calder’s house-arrest orders. Honest truth. The first day, I folded everyone’s laundry and did the dishes for Mom. I dusted; I vacuumed; I alphabetized the CD rack, then the spice rack—pretty much did anything I could think of to kill time.

But by the second day there was nothing left to clean. I stared into my closet, wondering if I could color-code it, but the whole thing was getting