“Love?” West cocks a brow. “Should sound insane, you know, but it doesn’t. I don’t know how to explain it, except when I was in her presence, I felt like I had no control over myself. Like, I would do anything for her. Forfeit my life for her. I swear, it’s supernatural. The pull she has on me.” He runs a hand through his wavy hair. “That’s fucking nuts, right?”
Kai raises his eyebrows. “Except it doesn’t sound crazy to me.”
Crew nods slowly. “Not to me either.”
We face one another, brows furrowed, faces written with something fierce. Harlow is gone.
And we must find her.
“Where to?” Crew asks. “Because I swear, I fucking need her.”
“Down, boy, easy now,” West jokes. Then he clears his throat, smirks and says, “But yeah, we need her here. Now.”
“She’s from Oahu,” Kai says with a scowl. “Let’s go to Waikiki and ask around. Not exactly fond of that city--a little too touristy for my taste--but it’s somewhere to start.”
Crew rolls his eyes. “Do you always have to be so fucking full of shit?”
“Now’s not the time, guys,” I say, urgency in my voice. “We need to focus. Try to remember anything you can about her that will help us when we dock.”
“Fuck,” West says, running a hand over his jaw. “I remember she was pretty much perfection, that help?”
I swallow. Hell, I’m blinking back tears. “How could we have lost her?”
“The thing is,” Kai says with the practicality only a former law student could possess, “she wanted to go. I don’t think you can hold back that kind of force.”
“What if she’s lost in the ocean, not on dry land?” Crew asks.
I press my hand to my forehead, gathering my thoughts. “Then we’re gonna be looking for our mermaid for a long ass time.”
9
Harlow
At first, I use a sidestroke against the waves, but then my head ducks below the water and I slice through the ocean. My legs move quickly, in unison.
I open my eyes, seeing the seal in the distance, stopping every so often, looking back at me, before moving again.
It wants me to follow.
I do.
I open my mouth and breathe in deeply, the salt water filling my lungs and expanding my chest; hinting at a past I never knew.
This is where I belong.
If my legs didn’t seem to propel me forward at the speed of freaking light, I don’t think I would have kept swimming. My body seems to think this is the only option.
As I move through the turquoise sea, my eyes opening, and my lungs filling with seawater, I start to question my sanity. What the actual hell is going on?
I woke up sweaty and sex-crazed, my arms and legs entwined with four men I just met. Then I dove headlong into the ocean following a mammal.
I’m in one of the guy’s t-shirts, so I don’t feel totally exposed as I pass brightly colored fish, turtles, and oh my fucking god, a shark.
Right. A shark. I mean. I’ve grown up on Oahu and swum most days of my life, but this is something else. This is deep and dangerous and yet … exhilarating.
A pod of dolphins swims past me, making noises that I seem to understand.
Not possible.
I don’t speak freaking dolphin.
Their calls are sweet and soothing. They seem to be asking me to breathe, in and out, to trust the water and my place in this vast sea.
I lose sight of my seal as I take in the dolphins who are welcoming me into their home.
There is a dozen of them, circling me, shimmering grey and white bodies, singing a song that penetrates my heart.
I spin in the water, my hair caught in the current, I move easily and without effort--my real-life horrible dance moves are long gone. In the water, it’s like I move with grace. With power.
My face aches, I’m smiling so much--but how could I not be? All colors of fish surround the dolphins as we move to a melody only we can hear.
And then the seal comes toward us, and the music fades, the creatures-- great and small--disperse, and the seal’s eyes meet mine.
Follow me, they seem to say.
I go where he leads.
I don’t know why, except that his eyes are on mine and I know it is more than coincidence.
The seal is here for me.
I need him to be.
With my eyes fixed on him, we swim toward shallow water. Eventually, I can touch the sandy sea floor with my hands and feel the heat of the mid-morning sun penetrating the water.
Up ahead, I suddenly lose sight of the seal.
No, that doesn’t make sense.
I followed him here.
He has the answers to the questions. At least, that is what my insane brain keeps telling me but maybe my mind is just playing tricks.
The water is so shallow now, that I’m standing, walking out of the water, unsure of where I am. I’ve been swimming, and before that, I spent the night on a boat, and now I have no idea where I am.