Undertow Page 9

  “He’s waiting inside,” Terrance says softly. I’ve wounded him.

  Mr. Doyle gestures to the door. “We’ll be right here.”

  “I’m going in alone?”

  “These soldiers are here if you need anything, and Mr. Lir will stand by to help with any communication issues. You’ll be fine.”

  Terrance opens the door. I take a big breath and let Mr. Doyle’s promise play on a loop in my head. You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. It’s just an hour . . . alone . . . with a boy who has arms that turn into machetes. I step inside and Terrance closes the door behind me with a click.

  Fathom is crazed. He’s tearing the brown paper off the windows and growling like a rabid dog. He’s completely different from the arrogant kid who hovered over me in my last class.

  “Please don’t do that,” I beg. “They put that up so the lunatics can’t see us.”

  He ignores me and continues pulling the paper down until we’re exposed. Then he stands in front of one of the windows, hands on hips, defiant and grinning.

  “There are people out there with guns who will shoot us.”

  He looks at me and throws his head back as if what I’m saying is ridiculous. Then he bends down, opens the window wide, and sticks his head out into the sunshine.

  I charge back through the door, slamming it behind me.

  “What’s wrong?” Terrance asks, clearly concerned.

  “He took the paper off the windows,” I say.

  “Why?” one of the soldiers asks.

  “I don’t know why. I’m not trying to be difficult, okay?” I look around, wanting Doyle to see my panic, but he’s gone. Of course he is! He wound the key in my back and set me down to run about. If Fathom stomps on me, it’s none of his concern.

  Terrance reaches for the door. “I’ll talk to him, Lyric.”

  I flash him a pleading look. Don’t use my name, Mr. Lir. Don’t be familiar!

  “No,” one of the soldiers says as they file into the room. “We’ll handle this.”

  Now I’m alone with Terrance Lir.

  “How is your mother?” he says softly.

  I point to the camera mounted on the ceiling. Terrance looks up at it and frowns.

  Through the door I hear shouting, something falls over, and then there is more shouting. I hear the window slam shut, and then the door opens and one of the soldiers pokes his head out. “He would like to speak with you,” he says.

  Terrance again tries to enter, but the soldier stops him.

  “I’m talking to her,” he says, pointing to me. “Give us a second. We’re putting the paper back up.”

  The door closes, and Terrance and I are alone again.

  He turns to the wall, his face hidden from the camera. “Your father doesn’t want you to talk to me, right?” he whispers.

  I don’t say anything.

  “Lyric, I’m still your friend.”

  “We’re ready,” the soldier says when the door opens.

  Back in the room I see a couple of desks have been overturned and the contents of a trash can have spilled all over the floor, but the brown paper is back on the windows. Fathom, however, is still feverishly pacing back and forth.

  “Why are we here?” he says.

  “I’m being forced. What about you?”

  “The same, but for what purpose?”

  I stifle a laugh. His speech is so dignified, like he’s a Shakespearean hero. It’s also dripping with an accent that’s hard to place—something between British and Irish. I realize Ghost and Luna speak with it too, and that I’ve heard hints of it in my mother’s speech.

  “They think if you and I spend time together, you will want to be more like me,” I say. Maybe Doyle didn’t want me to share his master plan, but honesty feels right.

  “Are they not worried that you might want to be more like me?”

  “I guess not,” I say. I’m already too much like you, pal.

  I sit down at a desk closest to the door and realize I’ve been in here before. This is an English classroom, and it has its own modest library of dog-eared books—The Hobbit, The Turn of the Screw, Fahrenheit 451, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, some Kurt Vonnegut, some Mark Twain. There’s also a handmade wall display with the heading the most common grammatical mistakes. The first one reads, “If you really want to do something, you are ‘eager.’ If you are intimidated or fearful of doing something, you are ‘anxious.’” I got a C-minus in this class when I was in the tenth grade, but I get the difference now. I am eager to leave and anxious he will kill me before I get a chance.

  Fathom crosses the room and sits down next to me. His feet tap, and his hands fidget. He looks to the windows and then up at the dusty bulbs that hang from the ceiling. He squints at them then looks back at me, slightly pained.

  “Very well, get on with it,” he says.

  “Get on with what?”

  “Making me want to be more like you.”

  I laugh, until I realize he’s not making a joke. “Okay, well, is there anything you would like to know about me?”

  “No. I would like to be addressed as Your Majesty, or My Prince,” he grumbles.

  I laugh but stop when he scowls at me. “You’re serious. Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Humans, at least Americans, don’t call anyone ‘Your Majesty.’ We’re sort of proud of it too.”

  “I will be treated with respect!” he shouts, then slams his fist down on the top of the desk. It rattles me, and I leap to my feet.

  “Calm down!” I cry.

  He’s on his feet so suddenly, I throw my hands up in front of my face, certain he’s going to attack me, but instead he springs to the windows and rips the paper down again.

  “Stop it!”

  When he doesn’t, I scamper toward the door, desperate to get away.

  “Where are you going, human?” he shouts. “I did not give you permission to leave!”

  I snatch a marker from the dry-erase board tray by the door. “Here’s what I think of your permission, prince,” I shout, then scrawl the words “Screw You,” large and in charge. I slam the door on the way out.

  “I think we can call that day one,” Terrance says to the soldiers.

  “Agreed,” one of them, a woman, replies. She has a serious face, but she’s smiling, and I can tell that she’s trying to help.

  “Tell Doyle I’m trying,” I cry, worried he’ll blame me for Fathom’s freak-out.

  “I’ll explain to him what happened,” she says.

  “This will be a slow process. It isn’t going to happen overnight, and this won’t be the first bump in the road,” Terrance adds.

  “Can I use the bathroom?” I beg, and without waiting for permission, I dart down the hall to the ladies’ room. I blast past the toilet cop and into a stall. I lock myself inside and try not to hyperventilate.

  The day drags. I drift from class to class, unable to concentrate. People speak to me, but I can’t hang on to their words. A teacher asks me if I’m on drugs, and I’m too despondent to deny it. When school lets out, I’m so relieved, I almost cry. I grab my stuff and run down the halls, darting around people to get outside. Bex and Shadow meet me on the stoop. They know something is wrong, but I make up some story about too much homework. I haven’t told them about Fathom. I just don’t want to talk about it. I want to put it in its own little compartment and lock the lid. If no one knows what I have to do, I might be able to pretend it’s not happening.

  My father is waiting just beyond the barricades for us. He brought a squad car and a nervous expression.

  “Any trouble?”

  “Handcuff free,” I say, and hold up my hands.

  I can tell he’s got a million questions, but he doesn’t press. He reaches into his pocket and hands Shadow and Bex their phones, then offers them a police escort home. They don’t hesitate, leaping into the squad car and cranking up the air conditioning.

  “Can we turn on the siren?” Bex begs.

  �
�Like you need any more attention in that dress,” Shadow says.

  Her whole face lights up. He made her wait all day for that compliment. The boy’s got game. I just wish I had the energy to enjoy it.

  After we drop off Shadow, I have a ten-minute uphill argument with Bex about her staying at our place. Tammy wants her home and swears Russell won’t be there, so she’s going. I think she’s nuts, because Russell has a way of showing up when he’s supposed to be gone forever. But I eventually let it go. Having her with me is purely selfish. Bex makes a great shield to the interrogation I’m going to have to sit through when I get home.

  Dad drops off the squad car at the precinct, and we walk the rest of the way home in silence. I guess his questions can wait. Even Mom cuts me a break when she sees my face. I guess it says it all.

  “I’ll run you a bath,” she says.

  Minutes later I’m sobbing in the cold water while she holds my hand.

  Chapter Ten

  An F3 greets me in the morning. Hello, Lyric, let me punch you behind your eye socket. Did that hurt? Well, get used to it, because I’ll be doing it again any second now. The pain makes me nauseous and I see flashes in my vision. According to the weatherman on TV, it’s going to hit 102 degrees today. By noon I’ll be struggling with an F4.

  I get dressed and head into the living room. Dad’s head is in the freezer. My mother is pressing a glass of ice water against her forehead.

  “Please!”

  They know what I want. We have the same argument every day.

  “We can’t use the money, Lyric. We might need it,” my dad says.

  I fall to my knees with my hands intertwined. “For the love of God!”

  “At least you can go outside,” my mother grumbles. “I’m on house arrest until the mob goes away.”

  My dad throws up his hands, then reaches into his wallet. He slaps a fifty on the counter.

  “Summer, go down to the dollar store and pick up a couple of window fans,” he growls as he gives us both the stink eye.

  “Yay!” my mother cries, seemingly more excited to have the freedom than any comfort a crappy window fan could provide.

  “Window fans? They’re just going to move the heat around,” I grumble.

  “Window fans,” my father repeats sternly. He plops a bag of frozen peas on top of his head, then turns back to me. “Get ready. I want to get an early start.”

  I feel even less inclined to wear something nice than I did yesterday, so I snatch whatever my hand finds, run a comb through my hair, and send a handful of aspirins swimming down my throat. Minutes later we’re walking to school in ninety-nine-degree Fahrenheit sun. I daydream of strapping a window fan to my head.

  You would think it would be too warm for a protest, but when we turn the corner, we find even more lunatics than yesterday, and this time they have gotten crafty, bringing huge fish puppets and effigies of mermaids to burn. Some of these creations are easily ten feet tall and grotesque, with exaggerated features and tails. All of them look like devils, sporting fangs and holding tridents. Ah, papier-mâché! With a little flour and water, there’s no limit to the hate you can make. Now I’m glad it’s hot. I look up at the sun and dare it to do its worst. Let these jerks roast out here. Maybe the sun will set the puppets on fire and take everyone out in the blaze.

  Shadow is in the middle of it all, taping everything on his phone, talking into the lens, and musing on every moment. Bex is nearby, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved gray T-shirt. It’s more clothing than she wears in the winter. I give her outfit a once-over and then shoot her a questioning look.

  “Laundry day.” It’s a lie. I don’t care if she’s worn everything she owns both inside and out, she wouldn’t wear what she has on. If it were true, she would have been pounding on my door at the crack of dawn to raid my drawers. There’s something under those long sleeves that she doesn’t want anyone to see, especially me.

  “You’re staying with me tonight,” I whisper to her.

  She nods. No argument. She knows better.

  When Irish Tommy gives us the go-ahead, we rush inside. Unfortunately, trouble is waiting: fifteen of my classmates in Niner colors. They stand defiant with arms crossed, a small army of red shirts, wanting to be seen, waiting and watching the door. It causes a bottleneck in the doorway that Ervin has to push his way through.

  Ervin is speechless.

  The Niners don’t have to wait long. Fathom, Luna, and Ghost enter with Terrance and the soldiers. Everyone sees the shirts. Everyone is frozen in place.

  Jorge chuckles silently.

  The Niners’ message is in every hallway, classroom, and stairwell. One kid has a locker full of T-shirts he hands out for free to anyone who asks, and there are a lot of people asking. The tension is so thick, it feels like a physical object, a membrane of hate that slows your every step. I look up at a camera in the hall and wonder when Doyle is going to do something. I want to shout at him, Hey, wake up! This place is going to explode!

  By the time I have to meet with Fathom, I’m almost happy to get away from it all—almost.

  “Just breathe,” the female soldier says when I arrive for my meeting with Fathom. “We’re right outside the door, Lyric. By the way, I’m Bonnie.”

  I nod, but I’m not convinced she and her team could stop him. Aside from his arm swords, he’s incredibly strong. All the Alpha are. My mother can lift our couch over her head with one hand, and she doesn’t have nearly the muscle that the prince has. No, I don’t think Bonnie would be able to put up much of a fight against him.

  Fathom is lying on the floor beneath one of the windows. He has ripped a tiny hole in the brown paper just big enough for him to peek out at the sky but too small for anyone to see through from the other side. Light tumbles through it and paints his face in yellow and white. He waves his hand around the beam, caressing it, letting it dance across his bruised knuckles.

  “How do you creatures stand this?” he says.

  “Let’s make some rules. First, let’s stop with the insults. I am not a creature. I am a person,” I say.

  He looks at me for a long time, as if he’s considering whether or not he agrees.

  “How do you persons do this?”

  “Do what?”

  “Live in these little boxes. My people put criminals in prisons like this to punish them. It’s considered torture.”

  “It beats sitting in the rain,” I say. I slide into the desk nearest to the door, far from where he is lying. He looks up, frowns, then crawls over to sit nearby. That’s when I see the blood on his other hand and the huge purple welt on his right arm. There’s a rash poking out of his collar too. “What happened to you?”

  He waves his hands dismissively. I’m too concerned to let it make me angry.

  “Let’s go to the nurse’s office. I think there are some bandages there, maybe some peroxide.”

  “An Alpha does not tend to his wounds.”

  “What? You could get infected.”

  He shakes his head. “It is dishonorable. It implies weakness.”

  “Says who?”

  “All of my people.”

  “Who did this to you? Was it one of the Niners?”

  He rolls his eyes like I have told a ridiculous joke. “I responded to challenges.”

  “Challenges?”

  “Yes, one from two Sons of Sirena, one from a Son of Triton, and a Son of Selkie with a very hard face.” He looks down at his knuckles. They are rubbed raw and bloody.

  “You were in three fistfights last night?”

  “Two of them did not involve fists.”

  “How often does this happen?” I ask as I eye a wound on his forehead that looks like it needs stitches.

  “As often as necessary. I am the prince of the Alpha, and my responsibility is to fight in defense of my father’s decisions.”

  “You fight his battles? That’s crazy.”

  He scowls. “Humans do many things I think are crazy.”

 
“Humans don’t handle their problems with fights to the death.”

  “No, they wear brightly colored shirts and throw fish,” he snarls. “You are quite a noble race.”

  “Your dad’s decisions must not be very popular if you’re getting your butt kicked three times a day,” I say.

  “The prime cannot concern himself with what is popular. His duty is to lead. He must be free of distractions to make wise decisions.” It sounds rehearsed to me, something he’s repeated to himself until it feels true.

  “What if you get killed defending him?”

  “My father would be overthrown by challengers to his rule. He would most likely be killed and his body tossed into the Great Abyss. The Alpha will not follow a prime who has no heir. The path to the throne must be secure or it will be seized by another with stronger family lines.”

  “So killing you would topple your government.”

  He nods. “My father’s name would be ruined as well. His rule would be condemned for generations, and children would sing songs of his foolishness a hundred years from now.”

  “I guess it would suck for you, too,” I say. “Being dead and all.”

  “I would be labeled the son of a fool. My people would sing songs about me as well. So, yes, there is a powerful motivation to stay alive, even if it would solve a number of problems for you. I’m told you do not want to meet with me.”

  “You were a little unhinged yesterday.”

  “Unhinged?” he asks.

  “Crazy.”

  “And you would prefer to not be around someone who is unhinged?”

  “Oh, I’m around crazy people all day. I don’t know if you noticed the big crowd of screaming people outside. But none of them have swords that come out of their arms.”

  “They are not swords.”

  There’s a shtickt, and the blades on his arms extend. I let out a little scream. I can’t help it.

  “They are bones, blessings from the Great Abyss. Sons and Daughters of Triton sharpen them as soon as we can hold a sanding stone.”

  “The Great Abyss?”

  “The birthplace of all life, the mouth of the hunt, the giver and the taker.”