Page 29 of Midnight Serenade
“Well played, Sebastian,” she whispered. “Well played.”
I couldn’t help my wolfish grin.
Chapter 11
Grace
Micaela had come back by the time I’d entered our suite last night. She’d spent all day with that creepy guy from breakfast, and then came back for the night shift to protect me. And of course there was Kazi.
Kazi, who was on my deck staring at the sea like some kind of emo lion again. I leaned down to run my fingers through the fur on the back of his neck. “Are you in love with a mermaid or something?”
He snuffed, and I could swear he rolled his eyes at me. “A giant fish?” He snuffed again. “Okay, are you just dreaming about seafood, then?”
He sighed and sat down, then lay with his head on his paws. I sat in my lounge chair next to him to keep him company. I wasn’t sure why he kept staring out at the sea, but... maybe he just missed other lions? While many lions were part of a pride, mountain lions were very solitary creatures.
The problem was that Kazi didn’t seem to follow most mountain lion social traits. Instead of shying from others and preferring to spend his days in isolation, he was the world’s biggest cat-extrovert. I knew Sebastian was often busy, and he wasn’t making the rounds of the ship like he used to because hewas busy protecting me, so it was very possible that Kazi was lonely.
I sat up, determined to help him. “Kazi, let’s go visit people.” Kazi immediately jumped up and waited for me by the door, looking excited, if I was any judge of cat expressions, which I was quickly becoming.
What followed can only be described as a nauseating (for me) extrovert extravaganza. Micaela, Kazi and I went deck by deck so that Kazi could visit all of his friends on the ship; from down deep on the Orlop Deck, all the way up to the Captain on the Bridge. Everyone’s face lit up when they saw him. They all interacted with him for a few minutes, giving him lots of love, before they went back to their duties. It genuinely seemed like he knew every person on the ship.
When we got back to the room, it was close to lunchtime, and I was ready to take a nap. I was sure my sneakers had holes in them from how much we’d walked. No wonder Kazi was in such wonderful condition. He walked everywhere! And that didn’t even touch how much swimming he did in his pool on the top deck.
As we rested and got ready to eat lunch before going on an excursion that Mama had picked out, I thought about what had happened the day before. It could have been a random event. But I was getting a bad feeling it wasn’t, and I could tell Sebastian had been skeptical about the diver’s aim. I didn’t need him to say it. He thought they’d been aiming for me and not the dolphins. And the power that had burst out of me! It had shocked me senseless. So much so that I’d been struck dumb for a few moments, just bleeding in the water like a shark’s favorite dream, staring stupidly at where the scuba diver had been just moments before. It had only been the dolphins and Rafe that had brought me back to myself and my injury.
I frowned at the bandage on my hand. It hurt, but I hadn’t taken my pain pills yet for today. I’d held off, hoping I wouldn’t need them. They were Tylenol with codeine, and I always reacted funny to codeine. It made me loopy and the slightest bit itchy. It looked like I might need to take at least a half-dose, though.
Rafe had said it was too bad we didn’t have any elves on board, because they could brew potions that healed injuries and illnesses much quicker than conventional means. I needed to use that in my next book about elves. It was a cool fact, and one that should be fictionally exploited.
After lunch, Mama, Rafe, and I all loaded up in the ferry boat and made it to shore by late afternoon. We were trying to catch an excursion that Mama promised involved no ocean and tons of fun. I was a little hesitant, though. I was trying not to borrow trouble, but I had no desire to lose the use of my other hand. Right now I could henpeck my keyboard, so I could still write. But if I lost the use of my left hand, I would be reduced to typing with my nose. And no one wanted to see that, not to mention the abuse to my poor nose.
We got out of the Jeep and stood in front of a building deep in the trees. A sign out front boasted that it had eight ziplines. I looked at the three hundred or so stairs to get to the first platform and groaned aloud. I was not impressed.
“Mama, are you trying to kill me?”
Mama shook her head, and Rafe elbowed me in a friendly way. “I can carry you,” he offered, giving me a goofy, lecherous grin, which got a laugh out of me.
I sighed. “Ask me in about two hundred stairs.”
Mama impressively made it to the top without complaining even once, though she walked gingerly and I could tell her knees were smarting.
Rafe breezed up the steps double-time while chatting the whole while with the slowpokes behind him, never missing a beat.
I trudged, huffing and puffing miserably all the way to the top.
When I reached the summit, I hunched over with my good hand on my knee, trying to get enough air into my lungs before they collapsed in well-deserved defeat and I died. As I continued to gasp, I considered that death might be a real possibility. Did sirens have asthma? I’d have to ask Sebastian.
Mama rubbed my back while she and Rafe listened to the employee on the platform explain the course we would take through the trees, some safety concerns and tips, and the different configurations of harnesses they had, depending on how you wanted to be positioned as you ziplined.
The guide looked at my hand and the bandage. “You’re going to have to go Superman style. Basically horizontal, with your stomach facing downward.”
I nodded. That actually sounded more secure to me, and more fun. “Sounds good.” I looked at Rafe and Mama. “Who goes first?”
Rafe and Mama looked at each other, and then Mama held out a fist to Rafe to play rock, paper, scissors. She cackled like a villain when she won, and Rafe came back to stand next to me. I could tell he was trying not to pout.
We were all wearing sunglasses because Mama had warned us to grab a pair before we’d left the ship. I was glad she did, because the sun was not only super-hot today, but really bright, especially up here in the treetops.
“Are you afraid of heights?” Rafe asked as the employee got Mama into her harness.
