Chapter 26

Chapter

Twenty-Six

Reid came home to find a new note in the waterproof journal. Already it was making itself useful.

Good news. Made up with my sister. We have her blessing now.

Was hoping to see you. I'll visit Lorelei for a little while and return this evening. Hoping you'll be back by then.

Miss you.

-Nireed

He traced a finger over Lorelei's name, then Nireed's. The shock hadn't worn off and probably wouldn't for a long while. All these years, he had a sister, and she was friends with his Starfish. What a strange twist of fate.

In a roundabout way, Nireed had brought this heavy secret to light. If he hadn't mentioned her name, if his mom hadn't gotten squirrelly, and he hadn't followed her, he'd still be in the dark about all this.

Now was probably a good time to text his therapist, but he didn't want a professional opinion just yet. He wanted to talk to Nireed first, someone who knew his sister and could tell him what she was like without being dragged down by painful memories.

He uncapped a pen and committed the secret to waterproof paper. Just three simple words.

Lorelei's my sister.

There was so much more to say, but that was all he could manage.

His hands shook as he returned the journal to its pouch, installed on the side of his boat.

Evening was hours away, forever when the same obsessive thoughts cycled through. What he needed was a distraction, but he wasn't going to get it inside. Every spare inch of his home reminded him of Nireed. Her sweet, sea-salt-tinged scent lingered in each breath he took, and her silver scales still clung to his sheets like glitter.

God, he wanted to talk to her.

He stripped down and swam until his body and mind were numb.

Sometime later, someone was shaking his shoulder and calling his name. He swung his legs out and bolted upright with a start, ready to yank on his gear. It took him a second to register where he was—standing off the stern of his houseboat and not in the middle of a berthing area.

Nireed stared up at him from the water with wide, glowing eyes, clutching the waterproof journal in her hand. The last thing he remembered after his swim was sprawling across the diving platform, letting the sun rewarm his skin. He must've fallen asleep.

"Starfish," he said weakly. "You read it?"

She opened her mouth, then shut it, bowing her head to read the words again. They had rendered the siren speechless.

He began pulling on his clothes. "Kinda glad I'm not the only one surprised by this."

"I know what these words say, and yet, the more I try to read them, the less I understand."

"I know. I only found out today."

Dressed, he flopped back down onto the platform, crossing his legs.

"Shorewalker is your sister?"

"Half sister. Same mom, different…" He flexed his hands, trying not to ball them into fists. That was a conversation for another time.

Setting the journal down, Nireed tilted her head, studying him carefully. "You do have the same hair, but that's the only obvious feature."

"I take after my dad." He shrugged. "She's the spitting image of my mom."

Nireed leaned in, nostrils flaring as she sniffed him. She didn't even try to hide it.

A thoughtful look crossed her face. "There's a similarity in your scents. It's subtle. And I think I noticed it before, but I didn't realize what it meant. I just thought it was familiar because I recognized you from the night we met."

"You can smell that we're siblings?"

"It's not that specific. Just that you're family."

"Still, that's wild."

"It's in the blood." Nireed lightly traced a claw down a prominent vein in his forearm. "We can smell emotion too. Whether a person is angry or sad or scared. Any changes in the body really. When someone's aroused. Or pregnant."

He swallowed thickly. "I didn't realize it was that acute."

"It is."

"Why do you call her Shorewalker? What does it mean?"

Nireed's expression darkened. And he did not like it one bit.

"Tell me."

"Shorewalkers don't have happy origins," she forced out. "Not in the last two generations, anyway."

It wasn't like her to be indirect. "What are you saying?"

"The Surface Dwellers weren't willing."

As the meaning filtered in, he felt hot and cold all over. Extreme aggression had been noted repeatedly in the mermaid studies, caused by a mutated morbillivirus with rabies-like symptoms. It also said that the virus expressed itself differently between sexes but not to this extent. The research said nothing about mermen attacking human women on shore.

What happened to his mom wasn't a onetime thing. In fact, it had happened often enough that the merfolk had a special word for it. A word they gave to his sister as a nickname, defining her by her dark history.

"Why would you call her that?" he bit out, unable to hide his anger. He'd never met the woman, but he was furious on her behalf.

Nireed reared back, surprised. "It wasn't always like that. And it isn't anymore."

"But it's real for her!"

She sunk down, her chin skimming the water's surface. "That's true," she admitted quietly. "I never thought of it like that. Don't think the others did either."

"How many other Shorewalkers are out there?"

"We don't know."

Anger boiled inside him. He tried to dial it down to a simmer, but the words that flew out of his mouth were brutal. "What do you mean, you don't know? Your kind just fucks then bolts? Doesn't bother keeping tabs on the kids they force on others?"

Nireed flinched. "Why are you yelling at me? I didn't do this."

"I'm sorry." He yanked his hair, staring up at the sky as he let out a feral growl. "But my mom was one of the people hurt, and she's carried those scars alone for years. No one believed her, not even my dad. Do you realize how fucked up that is? How angry that makes me?"

"As you should be. It made me angry too."

"Made?"

"Our pod dies out if we don't move forward." Her next words were said so quietly, he almost didn't hear them. "It wasn't just Surface Dwellers."

Dread lanced down his spine, a step away from rage. "Nireed, were you…"

Tears sprung to her eyes. "No," she whispered. "My sister. She carries such scars. And your sister—Lorelei and Cure Creator saved us by developing a special cure."

He'd about read that. The study implemented a little used, little researched treatment method—injecting a virophage into the body, essentially co-infecting a patient with another virus, weakening, and deactivating them both simultaneously. Neutralizing the excessive aggression in merfolk, the lack of control, that was the whole point of the study.

That's why…

All the things he knew about Nireed, and extant mermaid science, were finally coalescing in his brain. She'd told him that she was a part of the study, but never why. He'd assumed capture, but that wasn't it, was it? "They needed a test subject, and you gave them one."

A small, pained smile twisted Nireed's lips. "What happened to your mom, my sister, and the others like them, that is my people's greatest shame. It needed to stop, no matter the cost. I went into that tank willingly."

And left it on death's door.

"Nireed, I'm so sorry." When he reached for her, she rose from the water and embraced him. The hurt, the anger, and all the other emotions of the day were still there, sharp as ever, but in that Pandora's Box of dark feelings was another that squeezed his heart and made him hold on to Nireed tighter as he cried like a baby.

Reid buried his nose in her wet hair, not caring a smidge that she was soaking his clothes. And in return, she didn't comment on his tears, just gently stroked her claws through his hair.

"Your sister was angry too." Nireed's breath was warm and comforting against his neck. "She negotiated a deal with our pod leader, a mermaid to study in exchange for a cure. I didn't have to go, but she was right. Things had to change. To this day, Lorelei harbors a lot of guilt for what the study eventually came to, even though what happened to me wasn't her fault. I think it's because, at the start, a part of her wanted revenge. And not just for her origins, but because her entire crew had been devoured."

The Osprey. It wasn't just a storm.

Startled, he pulled back to meet Nireed's tear-filled eyes.

The world didn't know this.

"You might be thinking right now that what's happening to us with Nautic is deserved. That the world is righting itself of past wrongs. But we're trying to be better."

His voice broke. "I know you are. You've a right to defend yourself." But when he looked down at her mouth, all he saw was blood.

"Reid, why do you smell like fear?"

"I…" He stood on trembling legs, dimly aware that he'd unceremoniously dumped her off his lap.

Reid remembered that case. He was the rescue swimmer onboard the plane dispatched from the air station down in Cape Cod. The detachment in Haven Cove hadn't existed yet. They'd gotten the call in the middle of the night and booked it up the coast, racing against time and grim odds. They arrived on scene early in the morning, but by then it had been too late. The crew was gone, more than thirty people lost at sea.

All that was left of any of them was a bloody immersion suit and some debris.

Except his sister. Lorelei Roth's name had been plastered all over national news, the maritime mystery of the year, because she was the tragedy's sole survivor.

And now he knew why.

The storm couldn't kill her, and merfolk didn't eat their own kind.

"Did you eat my sister's crewmates?"

Nireed looked away from him then, hunching in on herself. She looked so small and lost sitting at the edge of the diving platform. It made her less threatening, but these dark truths, one after another after another, hung over them like a shroud.

And yet, none of it stopped him from wanting to reach out and hold her.

Like all those people's deaths didn't matter.

"I have to go." Reid stumbled onto the pier, his vision going blurry at the edges. "I'm sorry."

"Please don't run." She turned toward him, eyes panicked and pleading. But he couldn't stay.

He needed space. Some time to think.

Reid ran. Peeled off on his motorcycle, gravel shooting behind him. Out on the coastal highway he went heavy on the throttle, barreling down the blacktop with a ferocious mechanical roar.

He couldn't see them now, sitting astride, but beneath his legs were the dents Nireed made, a permanent reminder of how she trembled and quaked across his bike. Vulnerable, but entirely trusting herself to his care. Even while running from her, he missed her, wanted her, but he'd just been mentally and emotionally bulldozed.

Knowing that Nireed had eaten people? That was nothing new. The practice started somewhere. Whether it was The Merry Mariner , the sinking of The Osprey , or an earlier event didn't really make a difference.

Context mattered. He knew that. And yet, he passed the turnoff to his favorite seaside picnic grove, driving on and on, his motorcycle's roaring engine fueling his Pandora's Box of feelings and resolving none of them.

A more stable version of himself would've called his therapist, but he was too afraid to admit that maybe Perez and Hatcher were right to ask him if he could handle Nireed's past.

No matter how much he cared about her or admired her protective instincts or the sacrifices she made to atone for her people's gravest sins, her history horrified him. And yet, there was nothing more terrifying than the things he still felt for her despite it all.

Teeth and claws were wicked sharp, and yet none cut as deep as the truth.

Nireed watched helplessly as Reid raced away on his motorcycle, her stomach queasy from the smell of his fear. Of all the things that came to light during their conversation, she hadn't expected The Osprey's demise to be the part that drove him away. Or maybe it was simply one truth too many.

There was a Surface Dweller saying about it, something about straws and camels, but she couldn't for the life of her remember how it went. Not that it mattered. Reid was gone.

She waited an hour, then two, waiting to hear the motorcycle's horrendously loud engine once again. Never would've thought she'd long for such an ear-splitting sound, but it was preferable to the agony building in her chest.

The sun dipped below the horizon, leaving her in darkness. The truth sank with it.

Reid was not coming back.

Eyes burning, she withdrew the waterproof journal from the pouch Reid kept it in, staring at the last entry.

Lorelei's my sister.

Tears dripped onto the page.

It should've been happy news, a cause for celebration. Two people she cared about deeply were related, and had both gained a sibling in each other, but there was just so much ugliness wrapped up in it. Maybe if Reid hadn't run from her, she could've told him more about his sister and focused on the joy.

Or maybe she wasn't meant to have those things, and had been deluding herself all along, ensnared by her own desire to be loved.

Nireed began to write.

I'm sorry. For your mom. For the other people that were hurt and killed. For Lorelei's crewmates. I'm sorry for everything.

I've only ever wanted to protect you, but I've made you fearful instead. You deserve to feel safe, including from me.

There was more she wanted to say. Namely, that she wanted a future with him, but she didn't know if that was possible now, not while he feared her. Closing the journal, Nireed dropped it back inside its pouch. Maybe he'd read her message, maybe he wouldn't, but it still needed to be said.

With a hard slap of her tail, Nireed shot away from the houseboat, furiously eating up the distance between land and home. As tears burned her eyes, heartbreak anchored heavy in her chest. No one person made up her entire world, but she had wanted Reid to be a part of it.

What a fool she'd been to ever think he'd see her as more than a monster.