Page 64 of Goldilocks
Goldilocks drew in a sharp breath, clearly stung by the remark. “You find me lacking?”
Sam stopped by the door, the handle clenched in his fist. ‘Lacking’ was not the right word. “I hate the way people can treat each other. I hate the casual cruelty that is just part of people’s lives. And just because, this once, I wasn’t the one being subjected to it doesn’t mean I like it any better. I have no interest in being with a partner who goes out of their way to cut someone down like that for no good reason. And donotsay it was to show me favour. I refuse to be used as an excuse for that bullshit.”
Sam left Goldilocks behind, storming outside onto the docks. He stopped long enough to look around, but there was no sign of Austin’s silver hair anywhere. He sighed and picked a direction at random, intent on finding the spurned teenager to try and gentle the words that had just been cruelly thrown at him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sam spent the rest of the day walking around local hotspots in a fruitless search. Mary called to give out, and he picked up the phone long enough to tell her he’d had a fight with Goldilocks and apologised for storming off. Apparently Goldilocks had returned to the table, gathered up Sam’s things and left, and his expression had been too scary for either of them to question him on it.
It was late when Sam returned to the boat, his entire evening eaten up by frustrating searching. His schoolbag leaned up against the door.
Sam eyed up the bulging, overstuffed bag. He unzipped the top, and neatly folded inside were Goldilocks’s clothes. The merman must have returned to the water. Sam sat on the trunk next to his door and pulled out his phone. He easily clicked his way to the phone call menu using the icons, but after that things became difficult. He couldn’t find Connor’s number. He scrolled and squinted, but with a growing ball of frustration deep in the pit of his stomach, Sam realised it was impossible. The moon was high in the night sky, so bright that the ocean was well lit, but it wasn’t enough to turn the screen into less of a glare. An overwhelming feeling of anger charged the muscles in his arm; Sam wanted to hurtle the damn thing into the ocean. Actually, no. He wanted to smash it into the boards between his feet. He’d get more satisfaction seeing the technology shatter rather than letting it peacefully disappear beneath the waves. Sam stormed into his cabin and dropped the stupid thing onto the table.
He started the engine, untied quickly, and set out. He would do something productive. Pull pots. Catch fish.Somethingto stop seeing Austin’s hurt expression in his mind. Austin wasn’t nice. Sam knew that. But no matter how much he thought about it, Austin was young. He was like Connor, without a family that loved him. He was vulnerable. And to have Goldilocks talk to him like that?
Sam ran his fingers through his hair roughly, upset the more he thought about it. Why did he have to do that? Why did people have to talk to other people like that? It wasn’t about being nice: it was about being decent. Mary’s lectures started echoing in his head, telling him that he mistook ‘pushover’ for ‘nice’. That people weren’t like that.
Sam lined up with the first of his buoys and pulled in the pot.
Mary was wrong. People could be good. People could be nice and not be taken advantage of. Sam forced himself to think of Laurence. Laurence and Trevor, who were both nice and decent, and got on fine in life. Sam wouldn’t describe either as a pushover. He’d heard Laurence speaking up to defend Connor, and he knew he would go to war for him too. And Trevor? Trevor had grit in him. Sam didn’t know the exact details of what happened between Trevor and Connor’s mom, Edith, but he knew that Trevor had stood up for Connor. Ifnicemeantpushover,then that wouldn’t have happened.
Sam wrenched open his pot, finding one enormous lobster nestled inside. He picked it up and stopped in surprise to see something white and long wriggling on it. Sam turned over the lobster, frowning as he found a worm wrapped around it. Part of the worm disappeared into a crack of the lobster’s shell. Sam scrunched his nose.
He turned to the cabin, but stopped mid-step as he heard a splash to his side.
He was on the ocean. There were always splashes as the waves lapped against the hull. But Sam knew exactly what Goldilocks’s splashes sounded like.
Sam scowled. “I’m not in any form to talk.”
“There is a vessel,” Goldilocks said. “Sinking.”
Sam’s gaze jerked up from the infected lobster. He turned to Goldilocks as he lifted himself onto his favourite perch. “Where?”
“I will show you,” Goldilocks said.
“Al –ow!” Sam’s eyes flashed to his arm. One end of the worm was at his skin, digging into the soft underside of his wrist. He dropped the lobster, and the worm detached from its body, staying lodged on Sam’s wrist. “What the hell!” He seized its body to tear it off, and pain bloomed in his palm as if he’d grabbed a handful of blades.
Goldilocks snarled. He grabbed Sam’s elbow. Yanked him.
Sam tripped over his own feet and fell against the merman. Goldilocks grasped the worm and ripped it from Sam’s arm. He held the wiggling creature at arm’s length, squeezing it into a fist. It shrieked, and Sam covered his ears with an alarmed cry.
How was it even making that noise? Sam stared, aghast, but could see no mouth. It writhed in Goldilocks’s grip, thrashing with manic enthusiasm. The muscles in Goldilocks’s arm bulged as he flexed. The worm trembled, shook, and slowly went slack in Goldilocks’s fist. Goldilocks turned the creature over, his top lip peeled back.
The worm fell to the deck in two halves, the middle mere goo, pulverised by Goldilocks.
Sam stared at the thing in shock, belatedly lowering his hands from his ears. The screeching had ended.
“Do not touch it,” Goldilocks warned. His arm wrapped protectively around Sam’s waist, holding him flush to his body. Sam felt the tension in him; he was taut, coiled. Ready to fight. Goldilocks tilted his head down, eyes fixing on Sam’s hands. “Show me.”
Still dazed, Sam lifted his arms. There was a round incision that oozed blood on his wrist. But far more alarming was the hand he’d grabbed the worm with; cuts crisscrossed the skin of his palm, bleeding heavily. It was only when he looked at it that Sam felt the sting.
“We need to disinfect these,” Goldilocks said urgently. “Ghouls are deadly.”
“Ghouls?” Sam repeated. He looked at the worm again. “That’s a thing from your world?”
Christ, if they had worms this aggressive, Sam wasn’t sure he wanted to see any more of their world.
“They are diseased creatures,” Goldilocks said. “Dangerous to even my kind.”