Deep Betrayal Page 0,28

family shrinking while the Hancocks all remain?”

“I—”

Calder quieted me again with a sharp twitch of his head.

“Watch your back,” Maris said. “You will pay. You will all pay.” Then she shot from the water, arching with a black flash of her tail, and was gone.

“Pavati,” Calder said. “Tell her. Convince her I’m right. The debt has been paid.”

Pavati didn’t respond. She slinked into the water, her eyes never leaving Calder’s face.

When she was gone, Calder didn’t say a word to me. He merely wrapped an arm around my body and swam me back to shore.

“I can explain,” I said.

He stared straight ahead, his full lips drawn thin and tight. “I doubt it” was all he said.

11

NAKED

When my feet hit the shore, I pushed Calder’s arms off me and staggered to the house. My legs shook under me, and I tripped as I ran up the stairs to the bathroom. I flung open the door, locked it, then filled the tub with hot water until the mirror and the windows fogged over. I emptied what was left of Sophie’s bubble bath into the tub, sure that Calder was outside apprising my dad, telling him how childish and impulsive and reckless I’d been. How I couldn’t be trusted. How I should be sent back to the cities without a chance for appeal.

How much time did I have? Still shaking, I stepped into the tub and slipped under the mountain of bubbles. Maybe if I promised to never go near the water ever again, they’d let me stay. I was glad Mom had gone with Sophie to the Girl Scout retreat. Neither I nor Dad would want to explain this one, not that he’d been there to see. For a second, I wondered why that was, but of course Calder would never have let him get so close to Maris, so soon.

There was a soft knock on the bathroom door. Through the sound of running water, a muffled voice said, “Lily?”

“G-go away!” I yelled. “You can’t say anything I don’t already know.”

The handle jiggled against the lock. “I thought you agreed to stay in the house.”

I cranked off the tub faucet. “If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re going to have to work a little harder.”

“Tell me you’re okay,” the voice said.

“I’m not okay.”

There was a click, chick, chick from the hallway, and then the bathroom door slowly opened. Calder slipped inside and dropped my wet skirt on the bathroom floor.

“Geez!” I grabbed at the bubbles, trying to strategically place them. Sure, he might have been used to nudity, but I wasn’t. He kept his eyes on me but, for all it mattered, I could have been wearing a burka. He was irritatingly blasé about this. Yeah, I knew I was nothing to look at compared to a mermaid’s physical perfection, but he could at least pretend to be interested. I looked over the edge of the tub for a towel.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked.

“Outside, watching the lake.”

If not for the fading silver line around Calder’s neck, I would have never suspected he’d just come from the lake himself. He was completely, and infuriatingly, self-composed.

“Now tell me what happened today,” he said, his voice flat and parental.

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t look at him and try to explain myself. Instead, I said, “Did I ever tell you I’m allergic to bees?”

“What does that have to do—”

“They always know where to find me. There could be ten of us, sitting side by side on a porch, minding our own business. If a bee came by, I’d be the one it would sting.” I looked up at the ceiling above the tub. A long jagged crack ran from the corner.

“Bees have those special eyes,” he said. “Maybe they’re seeing the same thing in you that I do.”

“My mom says I’m too willing to open a vein for whoever comes along.”

“Is this how you’re answering me? You went into the lake because you wanted to ‘open a vein’?”

“I was …” How was I supposed to explain? It sounded so pathetic. I’d opened myself up to the danger—risked everything—because the lake begged for me. Because I couldn’t say no to it when it asked. Because every cell in my body wanted to be what, somehow, it couldn’t make itself be.

Without warning, I was crying. I pulled up my knees to bury my head.

Calder dropped to the pink bathroom tile, grabbing my hand out of the water. Soapsuds slid down his arm. He pressed my palm