Waterborn (The Emerald Series Book 1) (11 page)

“Did you just cut me?” Disbelief colored my voice.

His laugh came from far away, swirling in my head as he circled back around me. Rough hands grabbed my hips, forcing me backward. I had no choice but to hold on to him. He was all tense hard planes under my hands.

“What are you doing?”

He leaned over me, lips close to my ear. “What Noah won’t.”

Noah. Noah. Noah.
The name sang around in my head as Sol’s face swam in and out of focus, looming large then floating in a dizzying circle. Erin’s mouth was open and I thought she was yelling, but I couldn’t hear her. All I could hear was him. This monster with the black eyes.

I stumbled, the back of my heels ramming against something hard behind me. I teetered, on the verge of losing my balance. The monster came at me, teeth jagged like a shark, eyes empty black holes. I wanted to scream, but my throat burned. I felt myself falling. My hands grasped at the metal railing. My feet hit something warm and wet.

No, not that.

Jax appeared over me and his hand clutched around my forearm.

“Let her go, Jax.” Sol’s voice boomed like a shot of a cannon. Or no, that had been a cannon. Maybe it was Billy Bowlegs, the pirate.

I fell and the water consumed me. I sank on a rush, everything shrouded in blue, my watery grave. My dad’s face flashed in the distance. The image of my mother, her smiling eyes just out of reach. An image I didn’t know of a man with silver hair and eyes. I opened my mouth to call out to them. Water filled my throat. Dark spots danced in front of my eyes. My mind screamed one name.

Noah.

“
M
rs. Jacobs
, that was amazing.” Jeb scooted from the table and carried his plate to the sink, rubbing his stomach in the process. “Best crawfish étouffée on the coast.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it. And when are you going to stop calling me Mrs. Jacobs and start calling me Lara?”

“Probably never,” he said, stuffing a brownie in his mouth from the plate my mom had left sitting on the counter.

“She never makes brownies when it’s just me for dinner.” I held up my hands and Jeb chucked me a square across the kitchen.

Homemade brownies and étouffée, combined with the darting glances they’d shared throughout dinner left a suspicious prickle under my skin. These two had been talking about me behind my back. I could well imagine them questioning my stability, and whether I'd be a flight risk if they pushed me too hard. I wondered why they hadn’t recruited Maggie in their little whip-Noah’s-ass-into-gear pep talk. I was pretty sure that’s what I was about to get.

I picked my beer off the table. Beer was allowed in our house after we turned eighteen. My mom’s philosophy was if you had the right to fight and die for your country, then you should have the right to enjoy a beer. We weren’t likely to drink and drive. Add to that we weren’t heavy drinkers by nature, especially the strong stuff as it tended to dehydrate us faster than a normal human. Water was our life source. We needed to breathe it. We needed to drink it. Lots of it.

“Y’all are really bad at this,” I said around a mouthful of chocolate brownie. I propped my feet on the chair beside me and opened myself up like a target. “What’s up?”

I loved my mom, but I was tired of her looking at me like I was a blue marlin caught on the end of her fishing line. She’d been fighting to reel me in for years, and when Jamie had disappeared, that line had snapped and I'd swum away with the hook still in my mouth. Jamie had always known exactly what he wanted and I had been nothing but a barnacle on the underbelly of his dreams. I guess she was waiting for me to come up with some dreams of my own. I hated to disappoint her, but dreams were a waste of time.

“We were just wondering what your plans are now.” She arched an eyebrow over one pale green eye. Eyes just like my brothers. Just like his pearl I wore on my wrist, the one she had given me the day I came back. I hadn’t felt worthy of it then, and honestly I still didn’t. I was still chewing on that irritating hook and somehow wearing Jamie’s bracelet dulled the sharp prick.

“Plans? Do I need plans?” I motioned for Jeb to bring the plate of brownies to the table. He complied, with his shoulders slumped almost apologetically, as if he were here against his will or only for the food.

“It might help you focus to have one. You seem distracted lately. Restless. You should think about finishing school.” She eyed me over the rim of her wine glass, mentally reeling me in. Her dark hair, tied up in some kind of messy bun, left the leather cord around her neck visible. The three pearls on the end of it were tucked under her shirt, just out of view. I couldn’t see them, but I knew they were there. More reminders of what we’d lost.

“Mom, quit worrying about me. I’m okay. I won’t be taking off again, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Caris would make sure of that, at least for the foreseeable future. I didn’t feel the need to look beyond that.

“I’m not worried. But maybe going back to school will give you some sense of direction.” She made it sound like I was a floundering sail in a dying wind.

“I don’t see the point.” I had wanted to finish school at one time— that was the only way I could have joined Jamie—but that gig was definitely up. I would just as soon spit on Marshall. I certainly wasn’t going to go to work for him. Not now.

“Maybe not right now, but you need to be thinking about the future. What happens next?”

As if having a plan could prepare me for what happened next. Having a plan for the future didn’t keep my dad and my brother from dying. I didn’t think life cared about our plans, so what was the point in having them? Shit happened one way or another. And it sure wouldn't make a whole lot of difference whether or not I finished school. Which I wouldn’t do.

“She’s right,” Jeb deemed to speak up. “Ugly and dumb is not an attractive combination.” Jeb huddled around the plate of brownies, confirming my suspicions that my mom had bribed him into this intervention. He stuffed another brownie in his mouth.

“Thanks, Jeb. I’ll keep that in mind. Maybe you could even tutor me,” I said, flipping him the bird.

Jeb was not only pretty, he was smart. The “I’m gonna be a doctor and save our species from the horrors of human diseases” kind of smart. Jamie, the savior of the world on one side, and Jeb, the savior of our species on the other, and me, the high school dropout stuck in the middle in all my unambitious mediocrity.

The doorbell chimed through the house. The three of us looked at each other like we didn’t know what to do. Not many people came to our door. Not the front one anyway.

“Right now my plan is to answer the door.” I snagged my beer off the table and headed out of the kitchen. Yeah, who was the smart one now?

Patrick Harper stood on my front porch, hands deep in the pockets of his shorts. He looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him. My first thought was that something had happened to Caris. But that wouldn’t have led him here. Besides, I was certain I would know if she were in trouble. She probably had a Song for that too. How the hell had he even found me?

“Mr. Harper.” I held out my hand. He took a tentative hold, slowly bobbed it up and down, eyes studying me as though puzzle pieces were falling into place.

“Noah Jacobs,” he recited, seemingly pulling my name from memory. “I didn’t put it together when we met the other day. I should have. The Bronco was a dead giveaway. The last time I saw you, you were still in diapers.”

“Noah, who is it?” My mom came up behind me, taking the door out of my grasp to open it wider. “Patrick? Oh my God, Patrick.” She rushed past me, throwing her arms around Caris’s dad. His corresponding smile looked pained, congealing into a moment of reprieve when he briefly closed his eyes.

“It’s good to see you, Lara.”

I hadn’t seen another man touch my mom since my dad was alive. Not even Marshall when he’d come to tell us about Jamie. I didn’t much like it. It was too familiar, which was curious and disturbing since I also never remembered hearing about a Patrick while growing up.

“What a surprise. It’s been…” She stepped back but kept hold of one of his hands.

“Seventeen years,” he said.

They had been long years by the sound of his voice.

Well, this was just great. My mom and Caris’s dad, long lost friends. This didn’t look and feel like a mere friendship, though. It took more than friendship to create the lost, almost desperate look clouding Mr. Harper’s eyes. His was the look of shared secrets that had been kept for too long.

My mom’s haunted gaze found mine. “Noah, this is…”

“We met the other day,” Mr. Harper cut in. “He brought my daughter home. Apparently they’ve become friends.”

“She said that?” I didn’t know why it should surprise me she would call us friends. I mean, I wanted to be her friend. Friends worked for me.

“She’s here?”

I turned toward my mom at the breathless awe in her voice. She had her hand splayed over her chest and her eyes were suddenly misty. A sinking feeling developed in my stomach.

“Yes,” he answered, a singular cry for help if I had ever heard one.

I knew my mom, and I knew what her sigh meant. Nothing good.

“Well, in that case, Noah, you should probably hear this.” She pushed the door open, inviting Mr. Harper inside.

See? Why think about the future when it was just as likely to punch you in the gut. I had the feeling I was about to get punched. Hard.

I
stood
by the back door watching the waves turn over in the distance. My mom and Mr. Harper were sitting on the couch behind me. Talking. Endless talking about a woman named Rena that my mom had at one point referred to as a sister. My hands pressed against the glass, close to the point of breaking it, until Mr. Harper’s words penetrated my roaring thoughts: foster sister. They had fostered this girl who’d had nowhere else to go. More words about the thing that had been done to her, and the baby she’d carried. I didn’t want to hear another word they said. I hated their words, but I listened to every one, letting them settle like blocks of ice in my stomach.

I couldn’t keep these words from Caris. I wouldn’t keep these words from her.

Then I heard the fevered pitch of her Song. A Song that was my name. An urgent Song. A dying Song.

The next thing I knew the glass door shattered, pricking my skin in a thousand places. I ran right through it. My legs pumped feverishly over the sand, then hurled me into a crashing wave. I bulleted toward her, toward the sound of her waning Song. A minute passed then another, and still, I swam. How was she even out here? Why was she out here? My eyes and ears searched through the hazy, green Deep until something flashed and caught my attention. Her feet were planted in the sandy bottom, hair floating in a halo around her head, and her arms were spread wide at her sides. Red and gold beads floated garishly next to her pale skin. Her eyes were wide and unblinking.

I surged toward her, mouth crashing into hers, forcing air between her lips. I breathed into her again and still she didn’t respond. I wrapped her arms around my neck and we burst through the surface of the water.

“Caris.” I turned her over and breathed into her again. Relief flooded my arms and legs when I heard her sputtered breath. I held her while she coughed and spat.

“Noah?” She turned, flailing in my arms, fighting the hold I had on her.

“I’ve got you,” I said, as much to reassure myself as her. “I’ve got you.”

Her fingers grasped the tops of my shoulders. My hands clutched her waist as my legs worked to keep us afloat. Whatever held her didn’t want to let go. Shore was a good five hundred yards away, and the dark water chopped around our shoulders.

Slowly, she became aware of where we were. Her eyes darted around, wide and unfocused. Her fingers bit into my shoulders, breaking the skin.

“Oh my God.” She hung on the verge of hyperventilating, each word uttered on a shallow breath of panic.

“Caris, look at me.” I willed calm into my voice, waiting for her to focus on my face. It took a few seconds, but finally her eyes drifted to mine. “I’ve got you. I’m not going to let anything bad happen. Do you hear me?”

She nodded her head, her bottom lip quivering. “Yes. But why are we here? How…”

“I don’t know, but it will be okay. I’m just going to swim us back to shore. It’s that simple.”

She pulled herself closer to me as her eyes scoured the water. “What about sharks?”

Despite my still pounding heart and her mask of abject terror at finding herself in such an impossible place, I wanted to kiss her. Maybe it was because she looked so scared that I wanted to kiss her. Wanted to pull her against me and press my face into her neck, even knowing now who she was.

I smiled. “There are no sharks.”

“How do you know?” Her whole body trembled as she forced the words past quaking lips.

“Because I do. Now are you ready, or do you want to stay out here until it gets dark?”

She shot a crazed look at the setting sun. It was almost flat to the horizon, on the verge of being swallowed.

“Noah?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I don’t know how I got here.”

I didn’t understand the glazed unfocused look in her eyes until I saw the cut on her neck.

“I do.” Fury colored my words. “But it’s okay now. I’m going to take you home.”

I
t was
dark by the time I carried her onto the beach behind her house. The swim had been awkward at first with me unable to dive when that would have been so much faster. As it was, it took over an hour and it had grown fully dark. Thankfully, she dozed most of the time. I knew Sol’s handy work. If it was him who had cut her, she had a good dose of dreamweed in her system. I should thank him, but I would rather kill him.

I set her down on the sand. A round moon, almost full, rose in the sky. I gritted my teeth when I saw what she was wearing. One of the strings on her bottoms was about to come untied. She’d worn this on the boat? My fingers shook, but I managed to tie it back.

“Are you going to say I told you so?” Her face tilted up, round eyes reflecting the silver moon.

“No.” I peeled a strip of wet hair off her cheek. Her skin felt cold under my fingers. I hoped she wasn’t in shock. “Are you okay?”

Her lips trembled as she searched for an answer. The bottom one had a small cut and was swollen from where my mouth had hit hers too hard.

“I don’t know how to answer that.” Her eyes lifted to the Gulf where waves crashed in quick succession. “I don’t think I am.”

Her Song matched the confusion swimming in her eyes. She kept sending the Gulf imploring looks, greedy and hungry, as though she wanted nothing but to go back out there. I pushed to my feet, standing over her, dripping water. The flick of a light from her house caught my eye. Good. Her dad was home.

Her eyes raked up my legs and skimmed my torso before settling on my face. Her breath came heavy and her mouth fell open as she looked at me as though she didn’t know who I was. She looked afraid of me, which was so damn ironic I wanted to laugh, but I was pretty sure that would have made it worse.

“You found me. How did you do that?” She rubbed her arms, eyes darting around like she still wasn’t sure how she'd gotten here. “What’s happening to me?”

Saving her today had been the easy part.

“Caris, you should go talk to your dad.” I had thought I could tell her, but she needed her dad, someone she loved and trusted. And Maggie was right. I was a coward.

She struggled to get to her feet and I watched, afraid to reach out and touch her. Afraid I wouldn’t be able to let her go if I did.

“What’s wrong with me?”