Lullaby (A Watersong Novel) - By Amanda Hocking Page 0,31

with her chin propped up on her hands, while Lexi and Penn were sitting on the white sofa with Sawyer between them.

Lexi kept laughing at what was happening on-screen, but Gemma couldn’t tell if it was because she thought the movie was funny or because of the way mermaids were portrayed.

“Hey, guys,” Gemma said.

Penn turned to her. Her eyes were as dark and sinister as ever, but a seductive smile played on her lips. “Look, girls, it’s alive!”

Sawyer looked confused for a minute, but when Lexi laughed, he joined in.

“Since you slept all morning, Penn thought you might be dead,” Lexi explained with a giggle.

“Well … I’m not.”

“What do you need?” Penn propped her elbow on the back of the couch so she could face her.

“Nothing.” Gemma tried to smile widely. “I just wanted to see what you were up to today.”

Penn narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

“I wanted to see if maybe I could join you,” Gemma said.

Thea turned to look at her for the first time, and for a few moments all three of the sirens just stared at her. Sawyer was too busy watching the movie to notice.

“We’re just watching a movie,” Lexi said finally, breaking the staring contest. “That’s probably what we’re going to do all day, if you want to hang out with us.”

“Sure, that sounds fun.”

Gemma planned on sitting on the other couch in the room, but Lexi scooted over, sliding up right next to Sawyer. He’d been sitting closer to Penn with his hand on her thigh, but when Lexi moved over, he smiled and slid his arm around her.

“Here you go.” Lexi tapped the empty spot on the couch. “You can sit by me, Gemma.”

“There’s not enough room,” Penn said, and glared at Lexi.

“Penn, there’s plenty of room.” Lexi gestured to the spot next to her, and really there was more than enough room for Gemma. In fact, Lexi hadn’t even needed to slide over, and there would’ve been room for her.

“No, there’s not,” Penn growled.

“Fine.” Lexi sighed and turned back to Gemma. “Sorry, I guess—”

“No, Lexi, there’s no room for you,” Penn corrected her.

Lexi’s head snapped back around so she could look at Penn. “What?”

“You know, I’m fine sitting over here,” Gemma interjected as she edged back to the empty couch on the other side of the room. “I can see the TV great from here.”

“Sit on the floor, Lexi,” Penn commanded, ignoring Gemma.

“Penn,” Lexi tried to protest, but Penn just kept glaring at her. “Whatever.” Lexi rolled her eyes, then got up and flopped down on the floor next to Thea.

With Lexi banished to the floor, Penn smiled sweetly up at Gemma. “Why don’t you sit with us on the couch?”

“Uh, sure?” Gemma sat down tentatively on the couch, careful to put as much room between her and Sawyer as she could manage.

Truthfully, she didn’t care where she sat. But this was obviously some sort of power play on Penn’s part, and she didn’t want to get caught in the middle of it. Especially not when she’d just decided to make the best of the situation. She didn’t want to start by pissing off Penn or Lexi.

“Oh, my god.” Sawyer laughed and pointed to the TV. “She thinks the video cameras are trapping her in the box. That’s so funny.”

Eventually, in large part to Sawyer’s oblivious commentary on the movie, the tension in the room seemed to ease. Gemma settled into the couch, and she ended up kind of enjoying the movie. She’d never seen it before, and it had its moments.

The funniest parts probably were Sawyer’s reactions. Most of the time, when Thea, Lexi, and Gemma were laughing, it was at something he’d said. Penn never laughed once, though.

Every now and then Gemma would glance over to see Penn’s eyes fixed blankly on the screen. Despite that, Gemma couldn’t shake the feeling that Penn was watching her out of the corner of her eye, making sure that Gemma was behaving herself.

After the movie ended, the girls argued about what movie to watch next, and finally Lexi put in Mannequin.

Gemma started to relax then. So what if Penn was watching her? It wasn’t like she was doing anything wrong. She was watching a movie, same as everybody else.

Seemingly out of the blue, Gemma’s hunger flared up. The ravenous one that seemed to radiate from her belly all the way through her. She bit her lip and struggled to swallow the feeling down.

Then Sawyer laughed, and Gemma turned to look at him. But