Chapter 35

A moment later,human Liam emerges from the waves. Gone is the gaunt pallor, the cracked skin. Instead, he stands before me, gloriously restored, black hair gleaming, mercury eyes glinting. With a quick intake of air, I note that he's also not wearing any clothes. I look down, face hot.

He stops where the surf comes to his waist, pulls up a slippery vine to fashion a covering for himself, then strides out of the water, the Seaweed King, reborn.

He's smiling but his eyes are sad, like rain on window glass. "Thank you," he says. "I didn't mean to leave you behind, it was just…I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry. After we were expelled from the Garden, I tried to go looking for you. But the Coast Guard apprehended me for Wade's murder."

"Wade's alive! At least, he was."

"No body. No evidence. The authorities let me go," Liam says. "What do you mean? You saw him? Where?"

"I'll get to that." First, I need to know what happened to him. "If you were in jail, how did you end up floating in a bunch of sea junk?"

Liam glances out at the ocean and exhales a heavy sigh, as if he both dreads and pines for the sea at the same time. I guess it's kind of how I feel about him. My heart fills with sorrow for his plight, followed by rising anger. None of this is fair. Or right. But when my burned hands begin to heat, I swallow down my rage. I can't risk getting angry. Not now.

"After they released me," he says, "Randy's men grabbed me and beat me, because apparently now Randy's gone missing, and they thought I had something to do with it. I had no idea what they were talking about, so they left me out there to drift, half conscious. Until you found me and helped me get to my skin."

His words floor me. Could Randy truly be gone? "Oh my God. Liam, about Randy, I think…" Voice shaking, I show him my burned hands. "He's dead. Somehow, I barbecued him."

Liam's jaw goes taut. Finally, I tell him about my face-off with Randy, the encounter with Wade, the underground lake and field of salttain. I conclude with the destruction of Evan's boat and Randy along with it.

Drawing a deep breath, he looks up at the sky. When his gaze meets mine at last, it's ferocious and rimmed with ice. "That's not possible."

"You think I'm making it up?"

"That's not what I said."

"When he tried to kill Wade—I zapped him somehow. It destroyed the boat."

Disbelief twists Liam's features. "Randy tried to kill Wade?"

"Randy admitted to buying him off his real parents, then blathered some crazy nonsense about searching for someone like me—" I stop before mentioning the part about Tyler.

"He isn't dead." Liam grips me by both arms, eyes wild. "Randy's died many times before, yet each time he comes back…stronger."

"You can't really believe that."

His fingers dig into my skin. "Ten years ago, the Landsider power plant where Randy worked was struck by lightning. It sparked a terrible fire and seven workers from Salttain were burned alive. Their corpses were shipped back for the memorial and laid out together, as is our custom. Randy's charred corpse was among them. The next day, his body was gone. A week later, he sauntered back into town, unscathed."

My heart pounds, an insistent drumbeat in my ears. "Maybe they misidentified the body."

"The body wore Randy's silver belt," Liam says, "the burned remnants of his straw hat. His rings. When he returned, he wore the same clothing and gear, as if it had never been through a fire."

I stare out at the languid sea. It's calm out there. Too calm. But inside, my brain is roiling.

Does Liam even remember Tyler/Fionn—or were his memories somehow altered, too? I need to tell him that the boy who Randy murdered in California is his half-brother. But not yet. I can't face his reaction. "How is that possible? Do you think…"

"He wanted you to attack him. Maybe that's what he's wanted all along."

"He lured me here to kill him? That's batshit crazy."

Liam tilts his head. "So is talking to a guy who was a seal ten minutes ago. All I know is, he's not dead. It could take weeks. Or months. But Randy's gathering strength and waiting to make his next move."

I shiver in my wet clothes and try not to look into those silver eyes. Try not to think about how he's wearing nothing but a seaweed kilt. And, mostly, try not to see Tyler in the curve of his cheekbones and upward slant of his eyes. "Maybe I have more power than he bargained for."

"I doubt it." Liam paces the sand, his hands balled into fists. "If he thought he couldn't manage you, he'd have killed you in California."

It keeps all my strength to keep my gaze level. To keep from mentioning Tyler . Not when Liam is in a temper like this. "Not if he's as cocky as you say he is. Maybe he decided to take a gamble on me."

He stops pacing and sighs. "Randy's figured out the game six moves ahead. He needed you here to achieve something and calculated the benefits outweighed the risks."

"Let's say I did manage to kill him. Would your curse be broken?"

Liam kicks the wet sand, throwing up clods of it. "Even if Randy is reduced to dust and cinders, the curse is binding by Council edict. He saw to it that we're all dead-ends—Lila, Aurora, and me."

And Tyler, I think, sorrowfully. "If he is dead," I whisper, risking a glance at him, "so many other things would change around here. Maybe you're just afraid to hope, Liam."

"I do hope," Liam says, his lips pressed into a tight line, "that you actually did destroy the bastard, and free this island from him once and for all."

Tyler's sacrifice has to mean something. Maybe it was Liam I was destined to meet. The words spill out. "What about us?"

Liam's brows shoot up, eyes wide. "Us? I told you…" He stops and breathes in slowly. "The Council has no mercy. And neither does Randy. You can't fathom the depths of his rage—what lengths he'll go for revenge."

Liam resumes pacing. "He believes he's the island's protector—but it's all about his own crazed ambition and hurt feelings. He's a master manipulator. A monster. He pinned Charles Bailey's disappearance on my legal father, Calvin O'Donnell, then killed him to hide his crime. Then he turned Lila over to the Council."

"Bastard," I mutter and wait for a mention of Fionn aka Tyler, but it doesn't come. The truth sits like a hard lump in my stomach. The longer I wait to tell him, the worse it will be.

"I think he regrets letting us live. Our existence reminds him of what he can never have—my mother." Liam glances up at me, cheeks flushed. "What better way to curse a Siren than to make loving us a crime?"

My head spins. I reach for his hand and squeeze. "I'm sorry, Liam."

"I don't need your sympathy," he says wearily. "But if you think after one skirmish you've achieved the impossible, you're kidding yourself."

He turns my hand over in both of his and traces my burned palm with a finger. The circular mark of the Hand is still etched faintly beneath the raw flesh. His movements are so tender, so gentle, I cling to the kernel of hope that, maybe, despite the obstacles we face, he will fight for us to be together.

But his next words are acid, transforming the kernel to stone. "In the end, it doesn't matter if I fell in love with you. Facing down the wrath of Randy Lambert is a rigged game. And the O'Donnells always lose."

Did he just admit he's in love with me?

My heart hammers, ready to crack open my ribs and fall beating onto the sand. It must show on my face, because Liam drops my hand and pulls in a long breath. "This life," he says softly, "is all I've known for so long. Calvin O'Donnell was a lousy father. Charles Bailey was a real father to me. He taught me to fish. He used to take me to play in secret with Evan. I miss those days. And most of all, I miss having hope."

I envision Liam and Evan as little boys chasing each other through the dunes. Tyler, forgotten by everyone, must have been there as well. It feels even crueler to remove someone from their home and erase their existence. I'm on the verge of telling Liam about his lost brother when he blurts, "I'm afraid to be around you, Rosalie."

I reach for him and wince when he withdraws. "If we want to be with each other, we should be able to."

Liam turns from me and faces the sea. "In your world, maybe. In mine, we can't be—ever."