Chapter 47

Finally, the skiff bumped onto the gravel of the beach and Gunnar and I climbed in. ‘The kushtaka?’ Stan asked urgently as he looked us over for injuries.

‘Bunny roasted it,’ Gunnar said with a proud smile that made my heart burst.

Stan frowned. ‘How?’

‘With the fire on the beach,’ I lied hastily. ‘A lucky throw with a burning branch. It turns out its fur is highly flammable. A real design flaw.’ Gunnar trusted Stan, and I did too, but the fewer people who knew about my oddities the better. Gunnar squeezed my hand and I knew my secrets were safe with him.

I watched as we moved away and the island got smaller and smaller. I swore nothing would ever get me onto it ever again.

When we were close to the boat, I searched anxiously for Connor. I saw his head drop to his chest as he let out a breath of relief. Finally I felt safe – although we still had to get back to civilisation and get Sidnee to hospital as quickly as possible. We climbed on board and Stan stowed the skiff in record time.

‘Bunny!’ Connor wrapped me in his arms. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come back,’ he said, looking at me to see if I was angry. ‘I didn’t want to take up a space on the skiff. It could have meant that someone else died.’

‘It was the right call.’ I leaned against his shoulder. ‘That was scary.’ His arms tightened around me. ‘I hit the kushtaka with fire and it went down. I don’t know if it’s dead or not, but I vote we never return to the island just to be sure.’

I felt him smile. ‘Deal. Come on, let’s get you warm.’

The warmth in Stan’s heated cabin felt heavenly. Thomas had wrapped Sidnee in blankets and was holding her tightly under the bow. Sweat was dripping down his forehead; at least he had warmed up so that was one less person to worry about. ‘Soapy?’ I asked Connor.

‘He’s on the deck outside, spitting nails. The drugs were gone and the siren members that were left to guard it are gone too.’

‘Dead?’

‘Almost certainly.’

I blew out a breath. That wasn’t good. The creepy government agency that had been experimenting on Portlock hadn’t left after all, and now they had retrieved a shit tonne of their deadly drugs. It was the worst outcome we could have feared. ‘We’ll need to warn the other towns,’ I said grimly.

‘Gunnar’s already done that. Everyone knows fisheye is deadly. They’re on high alert, and for now that’s all we can do.’

‘We need to find those black-ops twats and shut them down.’

Connor kissed my forehead. ‘It’s a problem for another day, Bunny.’ He wasn’t wrong: we still had our fair share of problems without borrowing more. Sidnee needed medical treatment and we had to find the missing gems.

The rain, which had stopped, came down even harder and the wind whipped around us so we all took refuge in the house. The boat dipped and rose and rocked from side to side. I considered being sick, but it was from fear rather than motion sickness so I gritted my teeth through the nausea.

When Stan finally pulled onto his slip, I was genuinely tempted to kiss the ground. We left him to deal with the boat while the rest of us piled into the Nomo’s SUV and rushed the still-unconscious Sidnee to the hospital. When we arrived, Thomas carried her in and explained what had happened to the medical staff. He laid her on a bed and she was wheeled out of sight.

Gunnar called Sigrid, and soon the waiting room was full. Stan, Gunnar, Thomas, Sig, Connor and I waited anxiously to find out if my friend would be all right. I looked at the people waiting for her and realised that if I were lying in that bed in Sidnee’s place, the same people would be here for me as well. I had people that cared for me, and that was everything.

I had no idea how long we waited but it was several cups of nasty hospital coffee later when a nurse called, ‘Sidnee Fletcher’s family?’

‘That’s us!’ Sigrid stood up.

The nurse gave a reassuring smile. ‘She’s responding well to treatment and we’re confident she’ll make a full recovery.’

Sigrid burst into tears and collapsed into Gunnar’s arms. Her wailing stopped my tears in their tracks; it was a little too close to the kushtaka’s. Over Sigrid’s head, Gunnar and I exchanged grimaces. Connor wrapped me in his arms and his steadying presence helped me hold myself together.

‘You can come and see her now,’ the nurse continued. ‘We’ve got her in a private room in 18C.’

Sidnee looked tiny in the hospital bed and her warm skin was still pale, but she was awake and she smiled at me. Her arm was in a brace and laid across her chest. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Bunny, you saved me.’ She started to cry.

‘It was very much a group effort,’ I muttered, feeling uncomfortable. All I’d done was rally the troops; Thomas had done most of the heavy lifting, both in tracking and in the actual heavy lifting. He’d carried Sidnee the whole time without complaint – and he was human, too.

Sig wrapped an arm around Sidnee and comforted her until she stopped crying. Gunnar was holding Sidnee’s uninjured hand, stroking it gently. ‘There now. You’re safe, our Sidnee,’ he murmured. I stood back a little and let the family comfort each other because, blood or not, that’s what they were.

After a few moments of quiet whispering, Sigrid turned to me. ‘She wants to talk to you alone, dear. Everyone, scoot.’ She shooed out the men. I noticed that Thomas went without a word; he’d been so obviously concerned for Sidnee, but once she was conscious he’d pasted on a look of casual ease. It was so at odds with his frantic behaviour only hours before. Something to think about another day.

Sig placed another kiss on Sidnee’s forehead then leaned down to murmur, ‘We’ll be in the waiting room.’ She left, shutting the door behind her.

I pulled the chair closer to the bed and took Sidnee’s undamaged hand. ‘It’s going to be all right. It’s over.’

She shook her head; it was a while before she could answer. ‘No, it’s not. He was there, Bunny. Chris was really there.’ She started crying again with the deep sadness of a broken heart. If I ever saw that sea-lion shifter, he’d wish a killer whale had got hold of him instead.

I held her until she pulled herself together enough to talk. ‘What happened? Start at the beginning.’

She looked so tired and broken, but she had to get it out or it would continue to eat her up from the inside. ‘I–I’ve been taking all the hotline calls because they were mostly to me.’

‘What do you mean to you? Weren’t they about fisheye?’

‘Some. But the fisheye tips have really died down.’ She looked at me a while, and then made a decision and it all poured out. ‘I’m only half mer, Bunny.’

‘Yeah, I know. So?’

‘This town can be hard if you aren’t the same as the others.’

‘You’re a siren in the siren group. There are tonnes of different shifters in it.’

‘Yes, but they are pure bred. Remember Chris’s family was upset he was dating a mermaid? Well, they hated it even more because I was only half mermaid.’

I clenched my jaw. People could be so cruel.

‘I’ve been getting hotline calls, people trying to mess with me, calling me a half-breed, or accusing me of being in on the drug dealing with Chris. Then the calls about sightings started. I checked a few and most were people sending me on wild-goose chases. When I showed up, someone would be there to make fun of me.’

‘Fuck that! Why didn’t you tell me?’

She shrugged and winced as the movement jarred her sore arm. ‘I was embarrassed. Besides, I could handle it – this shit has been going on since I moved here. It didn’t help that Gunnar and Sigrid took me in and they weren’t sirens. That made the teasing and bullying worse.’ Her eyes grew fierce. ‘Gunnar and Sig saved me and I’ll always be grateful to them. That’s why I work in the Nomo’s office. It’s my way of giving back.’

‘How old were you?’ I asked. ‘When they took you in, I mean?’

‘Seventeen. They wanted to adopt me, but I’d have been eighteen and an adult by the time the paperwork was done so there was no point.’

‘What happened to your parents?’

She looked away. ‘They were killed in a car accident in the Philippines. They lived in the only supernatural town there. When they died, no one would take me because I was a half-breed. My case was sent out to other towns and the only responders were Gunnar and Sig. They treated me like their own child from the beginning.’

‘So why did you go to the island if you knew people were messing with you?’

‘Because,’ she said reluctantly, ‘one of the last calls was from Chris himself.’