Chapter 19

NINETEEN

MONROE

It hadn't even been two full days since the accident, and I was miserable.

I was considering going back to my house and just lying in my pool instead. We had a whole set up on my patio. I could lay in the pool and watch TV. Or read my books. Dawson could keep me company. I could probably even work. And I could definitely get food delivered, like fresh hot food, not seaweed and whatever the hell they'd been feeding me. I hadn't asked. It was better to not know.

Anything had to be better than lying in this bed made out of seashell torturing myself with my own thoughts. Being down here brought back too many memories, and I wasn't ready to face those yet. I'd kept them locked up nice and tight for almost twenty years.

"Monroe?"

I flinched at the sudden sound of her voice. Ever since I'd said I hated her, she'd barely spoken to me, even after I apologized. Not that I blamed her, I had been pretty awful. So for the last nearly two days, I'd given her space, figuratively since I couldn't actually move. When she came by to check on me and change my bandages, I'd remained silent, letting her have the option to talk to me or not. Every time she chose not to speak, I felt worse and worse. More and more, I found myself wanting her to speak to me. I wasn't sure what was happening to me, but evidently being ignored by Chip even while she was right in front of me was a form of torture I couldn't handle.

I cleared my throat and sat up. "Yes?" Then I realized she was back too soon. She'd already been by to check on me like an hour ago, so I wasn't sure why she was back now.

"For a second, I thought you were sleeping," she said softly as she swam through the window toward me.

I might be since you're actually talking to me. I scratched my jaw. "My body doesn't do that very well or very often, so . . ."

She frowned. "That's not good."

I shrugged.

"Like right now specifically or in general?"

"Both?"

She grimaced, then softly said, "That might be because you haven't returned to the sea in too long. Father warns us all the time."

I opened my mouth, then shut it. Well shit. If it's not the consequences of my actions . . .

"But now you know. I'll get Brownie to give you some of her sleeping stuff—I don't know what it is, but it always helps me and my sisters sleep when our minds refuse." She gave me a small smile. "If you want?"

"Oh." I blinked and gave her a smile back. "Uh, yeah, that . . . um . . . that would be great."

"No problem." She cocked her head to the side. "What were you thinking about? Right before I said your name."

I hung my head. "I was considering lying in my pool so I could watch TV and eat a burger, or maybe a pizza, or a pizza with hamburger on it."

To my surprise, she giggled.

I bit my cheek to stop myself from smiling more.

"So, um . . . we're gonna get you out of this bed for a bit?—"

"What? Really? Am I allowed? I thought Nash said?—"

"To remain underwater and not to swim so your tail can heal." She checked my bandages. "We're staying underwater, and you won't need to swim, but we gotta get you outta here."

I frowned. "Why?"

"You'll see." She swam behind me. "I'm going to lift you now, okay?"

I nodded and braced myself for pain. Moving at all had been crazy painful.

Her hands slid under my arms and onto my chest, her skin warm against mine. My pulse quickened. Her breath was hot against my ear as she counted down from three. Except when she lifted me, there was no rush of pain. I let out the breath I'd been holding. My tail was sore and stiff, definitely not strong enough to swim, but at least straightening out didn't hurt. I'd been lying flat or sitting up for two days. It felt good to be upright.

I glanced over my shoulder and found her face inches from mine. "Um, now what?"

She dropped her arms, then moved to my side and wrapped one arm around my waist. Her thin fingers dug into the skin over my ribs. "Just let me do the driving, ‘k?"

"O-okay."

She slowly and carefully swam toward the far end of the room where there was an actual doorway for us to go through instead of a window. She didn't say anything else as we moved through the water, so I let myself look around. I'd been in so much pain when I first got here that I hadn't taken much time to actually look. But now that I did, the sight took my breath away.

Yeah, Tirian's castle was the showstopper, but I couldn't believe how much life was down here. It almost looked like we were on land. The dark water was the night sky. The rays of light streaking through the surface were all the stars and the light off the moon. It must not have been too late yet because above us the surface looked like it was on fire, which meant it was probably sunset. Fish of every shape and color swam in every direction, reminding me a lot of rush hour in Manhattan. Just a bunch of fish with places to go. I saw dolphins, stingrays, and even a horseshoe crab which I hadn't seen since I was a kid. But the real surprise for me was the village. It reminded me of something out of Lord of the Rings where small stone walls and homes surrounded the big castle. Granted, it wasn't stone down here. It was coral and compacted sand mixed with shells and other things.

The sirens had a whole community down here. It was like their own little city center. I searched my memory of my life before, when I lived in the ocean, for recollection of this . . . but came up empty.

"It's all new," Chip said softly, reading my mind.

I frowned and gestured to the windows in the homes where sirens could be seen living out their lives. "This village wasn't here before?"

She shook her head. "Not like this. Dad's been doing a lot of work since Mom died to make us all feel like a big family, to feel less isolated and alone."

"Oh." I looked around again with new light. "That's . . . incredible."

"Yeah, he is. Mom would be proud."

It amazed me how well I could see down here.

She swam us around a corner to what could only be described as a park. It reminded me exactly of the park up on land off Main Street. There were sirens everywhere. There had to be at least fifty of them sitting on rocks and coral reefs. They seemed to be waiting for something.

I cleared my throat. "Um, what's going on? What are they waiting for?"

"Us." She looked up at me and smirked. "You'll see."

That terrified me. I'd been hiding from my true identity most of my life, having abandoned the ocean as a child, and now I was about to face a good portion of our community at the same time. I couldn't even swim on my own. I hadn't been in my tail in far too long, despite Dawson's attempts to get me to shift by putting that damn pool in while I was on a trip last year. Suddenly I was regretting many of my life choices. Part of me wondered if this was a trap, a trick to retaliate, a way to embarrass me in front of all these sirens with more probably watching from their windows.

The other part of me chastised myself for thinking that way.

I was too cynical. Too angry at the world.

But my nerves were shot.

Chip's grip on my side was warm and tight as she swam us down to stop in front of everyone. My pulse skipped, and my stomach tightened into knots. I swallowed the rush of nerves and prayed my fear wasn't showing on my face.

"Hey, everyone! We ready?"

Everyone nodded and grinned.

I frowned. "What is happening, Chip?"

She carefully sat me down on the rock closest to us, then she backed away, turning to face me. She bit her bottom lip and rubbed her hands together. "Okay, so, I know you're in a bit of a dark place right now with this injury and returning to the sea for the first time . . ."

"Okay . . ." I scowled and glanced over her shoulder to all the expectant eyes. "Where are you going with this?"

"I wanted to cheer you up, and I know spooky season is your favorite and you're going to miss some events while you're healing . . . so I went up and talked to Queen Vauntero, and she explained how to play sardines."

I gasped. "What did you say?" I couldn't have heard that right.

Chip blushed. Like actually blushed. "Vampire Night is tomorrow, and the whole Island is playing the game called Sardines—which is funny since sardines are a fish, but I digress."

The sirens all chuckled.

"I can't say if you'll be able to go up tomorrow night and play with the Island, but I can say that we can play down here right now." She grinned and held her head high.

My jaw dropped. "You . . . wait . . . you went and asked how to play? You didn't know?"

"We've never played before. But I explained the rules to them and we're very excited to play." She shrugged one shoulder. "Do you wanna play with us? A little spooky season under the sea?"

I swallowed through a hot lump of emotion. My heart was downright pounding. My eyes burned like I was going to cry. This infuriating woman had been mostly ignoring me since I was mean to her, and yet she went out of her way to cheer me up by teaching the sirens how to play my favorite game.

All I could do was nod and smile, but it was probably a wobbly smile.

She clapped excitedly. "Okay. Perfect. So, Hershey and Jelly are already hiding?—"

"Wait, really?"

"Hey, I don't mess around." She winked. Then she turned to the others. "Okay! The game is ON! Last people to find my sisters Hershey and Jelly in their secret hiding spot is it! AND GO!"

They took off, leaving sand billowing around us like dust.

Chip giggled. "Well, I think they're excited—what?"

I hadn't realized I was making a face. I shook myself and cleared my throat. "I just . . . thank you. This is . . . very kind of you."

"You're welcome." Her face flushed dark-pink. She swam over and hooked her arm around my waist again. "You should know I'm rather competitive?—"

"You? Never would've guessed."

We both laughed.

"All right. Let's go hunt for my sisters." She pushed off the rock and we started coasting through the water. "They were a little too eager to be the hiders, so this may be hard."

"Hey, um, what do Hershey and Jelly look like?"

She chuckled deep in her throat. "Hershey has strawberry blonde hair and a pink tail. She always wears her gold cuffs on her wrists. They match Dad's. Jelly is a platinum blonde with a bright-green tail and matching green eyes. She usually wears a bunch of pearls strung around her neck."

"Right. Cool. So, you told them the hiding spot has to be real sneaky, right?"

"Oh yeah. They were very interested in that part."

I grinned. "Well, where should we look?"

"Those two love to hang out in the reefs, so my guess is there."

"The reefs?" I asked as she pushed us through the water.

"The coral reefs. There's like a whole row of reefs down at the south end."

It was a little difficult to swim like this. In order for a siren to swim, it had to be at an angle that was nearly horizontal where you flipped your tail—or so I remembered. But I couldn't move my tail at all, so I was either totally vertical or totally horizontal. She tried to hang on to me and push me forward while she swam beside me, but I was a big dude, and she was a tiny little thing.

"Chip, stop, hold on," I said trying not to laugh as I tugged her to stop swimming. "You're gonna hurt yourself like this. Why don't we?—"

"I got it!" She wrapped her arms around my shoulders, pulling my chest flush against hers.

I looked down into her eyes, but they were too close. The red speckles in them were mesmerizing. She rolled her body and flicked her tail to start us swimming, but the motion kept her body tight against mine. I didn't have a shirt on or gloves, and neither did she. The only material between us was the little purple bikini top she had on, but the heat of her skin burned right through it. My pulse was flying. With every roll of her body, my stupid male brain went to very inappropriate thoughts. Chip had barely spoken to me for two days. I needed to behave myself.

But this close, face-to-face with our bodies pressed together . . . was too much.

I gripped her waist with both hands and she gasped. I licked my lips and tried to ignore the way her eyes watched my mouth. "Why don't we both lie on our backs? Side to side?"

Her eyes widened.

"Might be easier to swim, ya know?"

Her face turned bright-red. She nodded and dropped her arms from my shoulders, and I was instantly missing the heat of her skin. But I kept that to myself. This attraction to Chip was uncharted territory for me. Instead, I slowly rolled so I was facing the surface of the water and held my left arm out for her. She slid up to my side and wrapped her right arm around my waist. I gripped her waist with my left hand.

She flipped her tail and we pushed through the water with ease. She giggled. "Good call."

I snickered. By the time we made it to the coral reef, I was a hot, bothered mess. I was feeling confused about Chip, or more specifically how I felt about her, but the gesture of getting everyone to play sardines with me had done something to me. I just wasn't sure what yet.

"Okay, Jelly likes the little cavern where the?—"

Silver light flashed through the water.

"WHAT?" Chip gasped and looked toward the castle in the distance. "How? That fast?"

"What was that?"

She groaned. "That's the signal that everyone else has found them."

"As in . . . we lost?" I scowled. "That was stupid fast."

"Dammit. Yeah, we lost. We're the last to find them?—"

A bubble of water appeared in front of us. Chip sighed and popped it with a grumble, then I heard a woman's voice speak through the bubble, " Sorry, Chip and Monroe! YOU LOSE!"

"It's a bubble message. I forgot about bubble messages," I said mostly to myself.

The woman giggled, which made Chip curse violently.

" Hershey and I are passing the torch. You and Monroe are IT. Since we know Monroe can't swim on his own, we're giving you the chance to pick your hiding spot from wherever you are."

My eyes widened.

Chip narrowed her dark eyes at the bubble with her sister's voice.

" Okay . . . you've got sixty seconds to find a hiding spot, then the sardines are coming for you! Byeeeee!" The bubble vanished.

"We need to hide. We need a really good spot." I cursed. "Should we just hide here ? I mean, I don't see any sirens anywhere?—"

"No, my sisters would know I thought they'd be here. It was a trick, and I fell for it." She frowned, mashing her lips into a thin line. Then her eyes lit up. "I know! C'mon!"

She flipped onto her back and wrapped her arm around me. We shot like rockets through the water. I meant to look around and watch where we were going, but about thirty seconds into it, I spotted a shark in the distance and my heart stopped. It was far away but close enough that I could plainly see it. And Chip was flipping her tail like crazy. That shark would be alerted to us any second. Wait, I'm wounded. There is blood. Am I still bleeding? Do these bandages block the scent of blood from sharks nearby?

Then we dove backwards, slipping through a huge hole in a coral reef. My breath left me in a rush. There were colors I'd never seen before all around me. Everything was so neon and bright. My jaw dropped.

"There! That's our hiding spot."

I peeled my gaze off the colorful reef just as she slowed us to a stop and flipped me back over. My eyes widened. "Is that . . . a train car?"

She grinned and dragged me through the open doorway. "Yes! Apparently they had an incident with the first version of the Neverland Express train and this fell here. Mom loved it, said it was a piece of land in the sea. It's been a growing reef for decades. Mom took us here all the time."

Inside looked almost exactly like the actual train car still being used today to get to and from Megelle Island. We didn't sit on the designated chairs, since most of them were rusted out or covered in coral and sea plants. Instead, she pulled me to the back of the car and down to the ground. We nestled into the shadow behind the last row of seats. Someone would have to come all the way inside the train car to even see us.

"Very well done." I smiled and peeked around the chair. "Do other sirens know about this place?"

"Oh . . . yeah." She tucked her black hair behind her ears.

Her cheeks flushed red, but I didn't understand why that would make her blush. But I decided not to ask. We were having a good time. I ran my fingers over my blue scales. My blue tail looked pretty next to her purple tail. I smiled.

"Shit, our tails!" She bent over and buried our tails in the sand so we were even more hidden. "Yeah, find us now!"

I chuckled. "You really are competitive."

She grimaced. "When you have nine sisters, it happens to be a side effect."

"That makes sense actually." I leaned back against the train car and looked down at her. "Which number in the ten are you?"

"Lucky number seven," she said with a wide grin.

"Ah, sister seven. Like the Seven Seas?—"

"Hey! That's what my dad always says. Well, he used to call me Sneaky Seven Seas because I was always sneaking off by myself." She chuckled. "He's always telling everyone about the Seven Seas."

"Have you seen them? All seven?"

" Araqiel's name! No! I want to though." She peeked up at me through dark eyelashes. "Have you?"

"I've seen parts of the North and South Atlantic, the North Pacific, and a few slivers of the Indian ocean." I frowned. "I want to see more of them though. They cover so much area."

"The farthest I've been is Key West. And that just happened for the first time last month."

"You've never explored the oceans?"

She shook her head and looked down to run her fingers through the sand. "No, we've always been afraid. But I've been dreaming about it my whole life. That's why I am determined to help set the sirens free, which I guess now includes you?"

That was definitely a subtle way of asking me about the elephant in the room, but I wasn't quite ready to open those emotional wounds just yet. However, she deserved an honest answer. I cleared my throat and started tracing lines in the sand with my fingers. "It includes me, yeah. I just . . . I played a part for so long that I couldn't stop. It was . . . easier to let everyone think I was a mage like Dawson and my grandfather. The only reason I never helped sirens with Starlight Tours is because I was scared."

"Of what?" she asked softly.

I stared at my blue scales poking out from the sand. "A lot of things."

" You don't have to talk about it, " she whispered.

I looked down at her. "Maybe one day, okay?"

She looked up at me and smirked. "Okay."

We stared into each other's eyes for a long moment before she looked away at a clownfish swimming by. Then we fell into silence.

"I thought you were going to ignore me the whole time I was down here," I heard myself say suddenly.

She looked back up at me with eyes that saw too much. "I thought about it. In fact, I planned on it."

"What made you change your mind?"

"I realized you apologized." She smiled and looked down at the sand again. "You've never apologized for anything to me. I figured that was a big deal."

That made my heart feel heavy. "I'm not usually such an asshole."

"I'm not usually such a pain in the ass."

There was a beat of silence, then we both burst into laughter.

Then she sighed and looked up at the ceiling of the train car where an octopus was crawling across. "My sister Pickles is my best friend. I may have nine sisters, but she's my favorite. Reese is my second favorite."

"I only have Dawson, but I like to think he'd be my favorite even if I had a dozen family members."

"I can't believe they're soulmates."

I cursed. "Me either. Like, where the hell did that come from?"

" Right? So random." She pursed her lips and cocked her head to the side. "Although, they are a lot alike."

"And by that you mean they are patient with the two of us and put up with our shit for a long time before finally calling us out on it?"

She giggled and nodded. "Exactly that."

"I am happy for Dawson. It's been just us for a few years. It'll be nice to see him have someone that's his. " I ran my hand through my hair. "I mean, not like in a possessive way?—"

"I know what you mean. It's somehow the same for us despite having nine siblings. Because nothing is really ours down here. We don't even have our own bedrooms in the castle." She huffed. "All nine of us share one huge room. We each have one little trunk for our stuff."

"No wonder Reese went looking for a husband."

"Thank God for Reese. Without her ballsy ass determination, we might not have had the courage to come on land like we are now. I miss her. She's so busy with Holden and the pack and her new life on land, but I wouldn't trade it." She ran her fingers over the necklace Peggy made her, the one to control her shifting. Her eyes seemed distant and heavy. "I just hope I don't lose Pickles now that she also has a soulmate."

I nodded. "My grandfather left the house to me when he died because Dawson's parents had their own place and he did too?—"

"Are his parents still alive?"

"Yeah, but we never see them. When Dawson and I went to college in Manhattan, his parents sold their house and went traveling the world. They don't come home often. He technically has his own apartment, but he's always at my house—although . . ." I scowled and rubbed my chest that suddenly felt tight, ". . . I guess that'll change now with Pickles."

"I think we need to call a truce, Monroe," she said suddenly with a firm voice, then she sighed. "Let's put all that bullshit behind us and try to be friends because otherwise . . . otherwise we're going to lose our favorite people, and I don't think either of us want that."

"I already lost Kristie."

She snort-laughed so hard bubbles spilled out of her. "Shut up," she got out between giggles.

"What? Is it too soon?"

She swatted at me playfully. "It's your failed engagement. You get to decide how soon you can make jokes about it."

"Hey, it's my failed accidental engagement. There's a difference."

She frowned and looked up at me like a confused puppy. "Accidental?"

I grimaced and shrugged one shoulder. "I was cleaning out a box of stuff my grandfather had left for me and found a ring in a box. I sat it on the foot of the bed so I would remember to show Dawson, since it's our family heirloom, but I had crawled over from the closet to the bed on my knees?—"

"Oh my God." She covered her mouth with her hand. "Don't say what I think you're going to. Stop it?—"

"Kristie walked in and found me on one knee holding a ring box."

"Noooo." She buried her face in her hands and laughed. "That's horrible. So you just let her think it was real?"

"Look, what's the right thing to do in that situation? She was so happy. I didn't even get a chance to speak. She just grabbed the box, screamed yes, then put the ring on. She was back out the door calling her family on FaceTime to tell them the good news. I would've had to chase her down and tell her in front of her entire family . . . I don't know. Maybe I made the wrong decision. It just felt cruel and crushing to do that to her."

"That's fair, I guess. What was your plan though?"

"Holden asked me the same thing." I laughed even though it wasn't funny. "We'd been dating for a while, but I'm not very good at dating and relationships since I'm a workaholic with lots of unpacked trauma baggage and a secret siren tail, so I thought maybe fate was trying to step in and help me out. I figured I'd give it a try, see if I could marry her. If not, I'd break it off and let her think of me as an asshole so she could get over me faster."

She opened her mouth, then shut it. "That's . . . oddly sweet. Like, it shouldn't be, and yet it is."

"Thank you?"

"You're not quite the asshole I thought you were, are you?"

I bumped my shoulder into hers. "And you're not the pain in the ass I thought you were."

"Look at us." She shook her head, but she was smiling.

"So . . ." I held my hand out to her. "Truce?"

She smiled and put her hand in mine. "Truce."

"AHA! I KNEW IT!"

We gasped and jumped apart like teenagers caught smooching.

"What, Almond?" someone yelled from behind us and outside the train. "You see them?"

A siren with brown hair and big green eyes poked her head through the window at the end of the train. She grinned and pointed at us. "THEY'RE IN HERE, MANGO!"

Another siren with hair as dark as Chip's dove through the window over our heads. She flipped over and landed on the floor of the car, then instantly began burying her bright-orange tail beneath the sand like we did. She grinned up at us. "We're two for two for winning."

"That's not how the game works, Mango." Almond rolled her eyes and slid into place beside Mango. "But she is right. We found Hershey and Jelly first too."

Mango tapped her fingers on her lap and looked back and forth between me and Chip with a curious, inquisitive expression. "So, what are we talking about in here?"

Chip rolled her eyes.

I pursed my lips. "I was just asking Chip if any of you actually like the food you were named after."

Chip hung her head and laughed.

Mango leaned forward and whispered, " I've never even seen a mango. I have no proof they're a real food. Mom could've been high on seafoam. "

"I mean, almonds are easy, and so am I—wait, that sounded bad. Actually, no, that's still fair." Almond pursed her lips. Then she leaned forward and whispered just like her sister had, " Little secret . . . you can get Brownie to do anything if you bring her freshly baked brownies ."

I laughed. "Plain or the ones with almonds in them?"

Her jaw dropped. "There are brownies with almonds in them?"

Chip buried her face in her hands. "Now look what you've done."