Page 125 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
“Pippi?”Alistair continued to call for me.
The sea salt air caressed my face as I clambered back up the steps, soothing the raw, throbbing ache in my jaw.
Jackson followed me up but said nothing.
“Feeling a bit better?” the attendant asked.
I nodded again. A lie. But I didn’t care.
A few people looked at me as I shuffled back over to the railing.
I snapped the goggles back onto my face—a process thathurtthis time—and smiled at them.
Or, well,triedto smile.
The slight muscle contraction around my jaw drilled a deep, molten pain into my bone. My eyes watered. When I gingerly pressed my fingers to the area, the skin there felt red hot. It would bruise. Badly. But it likely wasn’t discolored yet.
I leaned back on the railing.
“Pippi.” Alistair blew out in relief as he shimmied back to our side of the ship. “I was scared. I…Who is that? The man? Your b-b-boyfriend? Why did he drag you like that?”
Alistair turned in an elegant, looping dance beneath the water. But he never took his eye off me.
“You’re not alright. Are you?” he asked.
All I could do was shake my head.
“What’s wrong?”
I closed my eyes.
Jackson shimmied up to my left side and draped an arm over my back. “I am sorry, Pippi,” he grumbled.
“Would you tell me?” Alistair pressed. “Later?”
I tucked my chin down.
Jackson tugged me against his side.
I opened my eyes to find Alistair frozen in the waters, staring at me and Jackson.
“He was rough with you,” Alistair said. “It s-scared me. Seeing that. Not being able to…Did hehurtyou?”
I should’ve shaken my head.
But I couldn’t.
A low growl went through Alistair, one that had people cackling in mock horror.
And two things happened simultaneously.
Onyx stood on her bench again and fixed me with a stare intense enough to sear my skin. I looked at her—I had to, withthat intense gaze scalding me—and Isworeshe knew. Swore she’d heard Alistair’s one-sided conversation with me. Her beautiful face contorted into a smug sneer.
But then Alistair exploded from the surface, twining his neck up, up, and up, along the side of the ship, looking for all the world like the insidious sea beast painted on the side of the building.
People shrieked.
Alistair shot a stream of water out through his mouth, blasting everyone standing to my left side, making sure to get the bulk of it on Jackson.
