Page 29

Sam stopped along the wharf, surveying the light posts above him. An upgrade years ago had replaced the wires with solar-powered lights, but the upgrade had never reached the security cameras. They were old, battery-powered, and the entire camera facing Sam’s pier had been taken for evidence during Connor’s kidnapping case and, for whatever reason, no replacement had made it back up.

Sam used to think that it was better that way, less chance for Adonis or Goldilocks to be spotted, but now it was a glaring problem that there was no camera when there was someone out there saying he had tampered with Fionn’s boat.

Sam turned from the post, marching toward his car. He reassured himself that it would be okay. It was guilty until proven innocent, and what proof could there be of Sam committing a crime he had nothing to do with? An eyewitness account, for one. Sam cursed under his breath as he clicked open his car and climbed into the driver’s seat.

Did he need to get a lawyer?

His passenger door abruptly opened, and a silver-haired, pouty-lipped, slim guy climbed into the seat, plonking himself into the seat with a look of disgust.

“I need a lift,” Austin said.

Austin wore a plain shirt, cargo pants and boots, his hair uncharacteristically unkempt. Windswept. He smelled of brine and ocean air.

“Where to?” Sam asked.

“The old lab,” Austin said. He put on the seatbelt and leaned back, staring straight ahead as if Sam didn’t exist. As if Sam was his chauffeur, and he didn’t need a please or a thank you . Sam could have pointed out that Austin had been nothing but a dick to him since they’d met, so he didn’t owe him any lifts. Mary would want him to do that, and Sam probably should. But all he really thought about was how all the mermen were total assholes to Austin already, and his dad had been a total psycho who made an experiment of him his entire life.

“Alright,” Sam agreed. He clicked on his own belt and turned the key. The engine started with a choke, coughing like it might splutter out but catching nonetheless.

Austin frowned. “You need to bring this to the garage. Or just get a new one. This thing’s a rust bucket.” He reached out to fiddle with the AC settings, ineffectually trying to change the heat with a dial that didn’t work.

“It’s getting on in years. It was old back when my mom had it, and that was years ago,” Sam agreed with him. “Do you drive?”

“Was never allowed to,” Austin replied, a chill in his voice. “Connor tell you that?”

“Connor doesn’t go around spilling your secrets,” Sam spoke mildly, and as soothing as he knew how. “He told me about what happened to him, and you came up in his story. That’s all.” Sam had told Austin this already, but he repeated it again, since Austin was clearly anxious.

“Why did he tell you?” Austin asked, his voice still stretched thin with unhappiness. “I get why he told his family, but why his ex? So what if you spoke up for him? Half the fucking world did that in the end.”

Why had Connor told him? Sam wasn’t sure if there had been any pressing reason. Perhaps it had been more functional than any reason to do with Sam personally? Or, maybe, Connor considered Sam a friend in the same way Sam did him. “Even if he hadn’t, I have mermen surrounding the boat every time I’m out on the water. After meeting them, I’d only need to look at Adonis once to realise something was up.”

Austin’s brow scrunched up. “Even if you knew about them, that didn’t mean he had to tell you about him . He could have just mentioned Adonis.”

Sam shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him that.”

“But why do you think?”

“I think he trusted me not to tell anyone,” Sam said. “Maybe since we’re friends he didn’t want to keep secrets? Or maybe he was just talking at me because he was working through it all?”

“You seem annoying to talk at ,” Austin muttered.

“Thanks.”

Sam flipped the indicator up, taking a turn off the main road onto the gravel-filled path that led toward the destroyed lab of Richard Cessair. Sam had seen the place from a distance many times. The chain-link fence remained a high and impassable barrier. Concertina wire coiled around the top to prevent anyone from climbing over, and every few feet, a keep out sign was stuck to the metal posts. Cameras lined the site.

A black and imposing SUV with dark-tinted windows waited at the closed gate. As they approached, a man emerged from the car, leaned against the bonnet and folded his arms across his chest.

Sam recognised the man even at a distance. The American guards that worked at the facility had been all over the news, so at some point this man’s silhouette – even with his face hidden beneath a baseball cap and aviators – became instinctively familiar.

“He’s a friend of yours, right?” Sam double-checked.

“Liam. He’s not my friend,” Austin said. “He’s—” He cut off. “He’s whatever.”

Sam pulled up before they reached the car. “I don’t need to drop you off here if you don’t want to meet with him.” Sam tried to read Austin, but that felt so impossible that he almost shook himself for trying. The only thing he could read from Austin was that the guy was a live-wire of hurt and anger, and the whole world was going to get it from him.

“Why are you interested in Goldilocks?” Sam asked.

He fully expected to be snapped at and for Austin to storm off, but Austin didn’t. He remained sitting, staring at Liam, who was watching them, his pose relaxed. Austin wasn’t relaxed. “I’m not interested in him,” Austin said. “I don’t care about any of them.”

Despite Austin’s previous actions counteracting that fact, the words somehow rang true to Sam. Austin spoke with mean conviction.

“So, why did you want him to be interested in you?” Sam asked instead.

Austin’s jaw clenched, the muscle so tight that Sam could hear bone on bone as his teeth ground together. Whatever the answer, it wasn’t simple.

“I don’t think they have any concept of genetic manipulation,” Sam spoke when Austin didn’t. “Or anything advanced like that. But they called you a siren.”

Austin’s face jerked toward Sam. “What?”

“When Goldilocks was an asshole to you.” Sam winced. “It wasn’t because of what Cessair did. He said it was normal behaviour for his kind. Me and him are together, so he was just being a dick to you because he thought it would make me happy. And Adonis doesn’t like you because you’re Connor’s ex-boyfriend.”

“And what about those other two?”

“I’m sure you were a dick to them first.”

There was a flash of something in Austin’s eyes, anger and embarrassment, and his cheeks turned from their pale ivory to a reddish hue. “So what if I was?”

“So don’t go blaming everything on your blood. They recognise you as their kind, sure, but that doesn’t mean they hate you. But you can’t expect them to be nice to you just because of that either. It’s not as if they all get along with each other either. Has anyone told you about over there yet?”

Austin stared at Sam as if he were going to try to tear out his eyes. Instead, he nodded, chin jutting down in a small jerk. “Connor,” he admitted. “Some. And Liam took pictures to show me of the sky.”

“I’ve been through with Goldilocks. He has a villa on the coast. It has its own personal pier for ships, and in the distance, you can see a city.”

“City?” For the first time, a flash of something other than unrestrained anger filled Austin’s eyes.

“I haven’t been there yet, but from the people I’ve seen, there’s just as many ‘other’ things as there are plain old humans.”

“What other things?” Austin leaned forward, and the seatbelt caught his shoulder. He unclicked it with an impatient grunt, all his attention on Sam.

Sam listed the names he’d heard, nymph, goblin, fae, and then described some of the people he’d seen himself. The strange and the wonderful. “The city is ruled by a pair of mermen brothers,” Sam said. “One governs, and the other likes to fight, I guess?”

Austin prompted Sam for more information. More descriptions. More everything. In the end, he sat back, and Sam recognised a brewing plan when he saw one.

“I can bring you,” Sam offered. If Austin was so petrified of being other over here, then maybe being over there, where other was the norm, might help him relax for a change.

Austin blinked several times as if pulling his mind from a daze. “Why do you keep approaching me? Trying to be all…nice.” Austin said the word nice as if it was the worst thing in the world a person could ever be.

Sam huffed, amused rather than stung. “According to my cousin, I’m secretly a masochist who likes to be yelled at and insulted.”

Those lines formed again between Austin’s eyebrows. “Give me an actual answer.”

Sam bet if he said he felt bad for Austin, always seeing him alone, that he would be pissed. Or if he said that seeing those slim shoulders alone on the dock set his feet moving even as his mind told him he was about to get himself into trouble. “You just keep entering my field of view.” Sam shrugged. But he could see in Austin’s face that the answer wasn’t good enough either. So he stopped himself from giving the answer he wanted to, stopped himself from brushing it aside. “I’ve been lonely,” Sam said. “And you looked lonely too.”

Austin stared hard at him, as if deciding whether that was a lie. Whether he was going to get angry about it or not.

“Then” – he sounded hesitant – “it isn’t an ego thing?”

Sam laughed. “Trust me, your company doesn’t do much for my ego.”

Austin frowned as if he’d been insulted, and Sam raised a hand to stop any misunderstanding.

“You’re the guy I got dumped for,” Sam pointed out. “That’s not going to be an ego boost.”

As the distrust sank from Austin’s expression, he jutted out his chin again, this time the movement less sharp. “I can make people want me,” he said.

Sam rolled his eyes. “I bet you can.”

“In an other kind of way,” Austin said. “I’ve always had that, even if I never understood it all that well. Still don’t. I guess because I’m a – siren?” It was a question. An insecurity.

He didn’t understand himself, Sam could see. Even now.

“Connor breaking up with you…” Austin looked at his own fingers, knitting them together in a nervous gesture. “It wasn’t because there was anything wrong with you. You shouldn’t feel bad about that.”

Sam was genuinely touched that someone with such anger in them was taking the time to ease past hurts. “Thank you. I’ve moved on now, but thank you.”

Austin nodded, eyes still on his own fingers. “Do you know Gary?”

“I’m aware of him.”

“He’s dangerous.”

“Did he try to do something to you?” Sam frowned. Had Gary been hassling him?

“No. He wants to do something for me, though. I think he’s the one who did that to Fionn’s boat. And I’m sure he did that to try and frame you.”

It took Sam a minute to understand his words. “What are you talking about?”

“Because I don’t like you,” Austin continued. “And he wanted to make me happy. I mean, he thought I didn’t like you. I don’t actually mind you that much.” Austin frowned. “I can’t find him. I’ve tried to get a hold of him to make him stop, but he’s not anywhere.”

Since he’d first met Gary, the guy had clearly not liked Sam, so did that mean even before they’d first met, Gary had been aware of him and targeting him? That was before he’d even tried to talk to Austin, wasn’t it?

“When I was fifteen” – Austin opened the glove box, digging through the contents until he had an old envelope and a pen in hand – “I tried to burn down your boat. I hated you so much, and I hated that Connor was going out on the water with you all alone.”

“What the hell, Austin?” Sam did the quick math in his head. “You two weren’t even dating yet.”

Austin gritted his teeth and set pen to paper, scribbling on the back of the envelope. “I had issues, alright? I could never control my emotions, and anyone being near Connor drove me nuts. I didn’t burn it in the end.”

Sam stared at Austin, half in shock, half in disbelief. “Well, I’m glad you decided not to,” he finally said, aghast. Sam didn’t even know Austin existed, and he was debating burning down his boat ?

“What? No. I tried to, but Liam caught me.” Austin handed Sam the letter. “He took the gasoline off me and dragged me back to the lab. I didn’t even tell him not to, just begged him to let me throw the match first.”

“Jesus.”

Sam needed to listen to Mary when she told him not to approach someone.

“It’s my number there. I don’t have Fionn’s info, so you tell him about Gary. Pretty sure he only approached Fionn in the first place because of you.” Austin opened the door and climbed out. He didn’t meet Sam’s eyes but stared hard at the letter he’d handed Sam. “I broke into your house that same summer. You had brought your dad to the doctor’s, so I thought your house was empty. I almost got caught by your brother. I didn’t realise he was creeping around in the attic. When I ran off, I bumped into Gary. It was just by chance on the road, and he was being…He was going to call the guards, and I didn’t want to get dragged back to the lab again. I used my thing on him to stop him except…” There was a haunted look in Austin’s eye. “With Connor, I planted a seed of interest in his head, and then I pursued him from there as myself. I thought I could just keep Gary’s attention on me long enough to slip away, but we’re so close to the sea here and it just happened .”

Shell-shocked, Sam stared at Austin. “What happened?” He was thinking about Gary’s black, flat eyes. How they fixed on Sam anytime they crossed paths.

Austin was silent for so long that Sam thought he wouldn’t talk. But he finally did, his voice was brittle. “I don’t know. He’s obsessed. He thinks he’s helping me, but he’s not, and he’s not listening to me anymore when I tell him to stop.”

Sam couldn’t even voice the reassurance that came automatically to the tip of his tongue. The ‘It’s not your responsibility’ . Because he didn’t know if that was true. Unintentional or not, Austin had done something to Gary. Something that held him under sway five years later. They’d been fifteen. Austin had been a kid locked up in a lab. He had nobody.

Austin looked up to meet his eyes. He jutted out his chin, cheeks red, eyes fierce. “Can we be friends?”

What mental torture was this? Hey, I tried to burn down your livelihood, and I hate you. Let’s be friends . But Jesus was Sam was a sucker, because Austin’s lip had a tremble in it, fear and hope both in his eyes, and Sam couldn’t have crushed that hope with all the willpower in the world.

“If you promise not to burn down my boat.”

That hope flared, his entire expression changing. Brightening. His lips curled up. A smile. An honest-to-God smile .

“Promise,” Austin said.