Page 36 of Midnight Serenade
“There are a few nice places to swim east of Apia. They’re freshwater pools that formed from a spring dripping water from a lava tube cave. I thought you might be interested?”
“That sounds nice.” I tilted my head back to see his face. “Just us two?”
“I think I can take care of you and protect you for the evening.”
I took a big breath in, then out, then nodded my head determinedly. “Let’s do it.”
The lava tubecaves had been spectacular and refreshing, and spending the day floating in the little pools with Sebastian had been both magical and romantic.
We’d even taken a few hours to work on my sonic ability, as the crowds had thinned to nothing by the end of the day. I’d gotten to where I could feel a tingly buzzing sensation in my hand, but maybe because I hadn’t been terrified out of my head, I’d been unable to produce anything even remotely close to a sonic blast.
And the icing on the already perfect-day cake? No one had tried to kill me. I didn’t know whether the woman had given up, backed off, or was just terrified of Sebastian, but I called it a win when I didn’t almost die. I didn’t care why I’d been left alone all day, just that I had.
Looking back, I think maybe I called it a win too early.
Micaela held up a fuzzy onesie from my closet that I sometimes wore when I needed extra comfort and warmth. “Pink, really?”
I snatched it from her hands and put it back. “What do you have against pink? It’s a lovely color.”
Micaela made a face. “It’s so girly.”
“I’m a girl,” I said in a deadpan voice that Mama snickered at from the open bathroom door.
“Blue is so much better. It’s soothing,” Micaela declared, uncoiling the whip hidden under her shirt from around her waist and hanging it next to the wardrobe on a hook.
“I don’t know why you have a whip,” I said. “You’re not Indiana Jones.”
Micaela smirked but remained silent, choosing to keep her weird weapons collection secrets to herself.
Later, when everyone had gone to bed, I couldn’t stop tossing and turning, my mind playing back again and again my perfect day with Sebastian. He’d brought a picnic for us today, and we’d sat by the freshwater pools, laughing and talking for hours, dipping now and then into the water to cool off. It had been such a great date that neither one of us had wanted it to end. But we’d had to come back because he’d had responsibilities on the ship that he said he couldn’t foist off on Rafe because Rafe was super busy with his own stuff.
Finally, still unable to sleep, I sighed in exasperation and got up, wrapping a warm, fluffy robe over my short shorts and tank top so I didn’t freeze when I went out to the balcony. I also added the fuzzy slippers that I’d bought at the gift shop. They cracked me up because they were little Kazi’s. Apparently, everyone loved Kazi so much that they had Kazi themed merchandise on all the Solace ships, only the humans didn’t know it. They just thought Solace Cruise Lines was mountain lion crazy.
Kazi, for the first time since I’d joined the ship, was sleeping with Sebastian. I think he’d missed him.
I tried to slide open the door quietly so I didn’t disturb Micaela and Mama, but I was under no illusions that I hadn’t woken Micaela up; her senses were really sharp. I hoped she’d forgive me for disturbing her sleep. I slid the door closed inch by quiet inch, then leaned against the balcony, gazing out at the vast, dark sea.
We’d left Samoa behind and would spend three days cruising to Bora Bora. I was really looking forward to seeing the island. I’d seen pictures, and it was stunning. There was supposed to be a really great restaurant called Le Corail that I was dying to try as well.
I heard a quick scuffle behind me. I was just turning to see who had come out to join me when I was picked up from behind, and with a mightyheave,I was tossed overboard.
I screamed as I plummeted over two hundred feet toward the ocean below me. Statistics on falling from great heights flashed in my mind in rapid succession. Determined not to be one of those that didn’t make it, I flailed a bit until I aligned my body in a rough diver’s pose just before I hit the water.
By some miracle, I didn’t break every bone in my body.
I quickly shed my robe and slippers as I weakly fought my way back up to the surface, hurting, bruised, and moving sluggishly. I drifted there, too stunned to move or process anything for a few seconds, trying to catch my breath and think coherently. My wrists and fingers hurt the most—probably because they’d hit the water first—and every other part of me felt deeply bruised and abused, but I was miraculously alive, and couldn’t account for why.
Were sirens physically stronger than the average human? Did water listen to us and obey us? Because I could have sworn the water reached up to envelop me before I’d even hit the surface. I stared hard at the surrounding water, trying to see if it would do something supernatural-ly, but it just looked and behaved like normal ocean water. There didn’t seem to be anything unusual about it.
When I could think straight again, I yelped to see my ship continuing on without me. I had to catch up! Had no one seen me go overboard? I thought they had people that watched out for this sort of thing?! Surely up on the Bridge someone had seen something!
I yelled at the top of my lungs and started swimming for all I was worth. I wasn’t an Olympic speed swimmer, but I considered myself pretty fast. Only, I wasn’t fast enough.No onecould swim that fast. I knew from my tour of the Bridge thatthe average cruise ship traveled at twenty to twenty-five mph, and the fastest swimmers in the world could only go between five and eight mph. So, unless I suddenly unlocked some sort of siren superpowers, there was no way I was going to catch up to my ship. It got further and further in the distance, until I could barely see it as a tiny speck, and then it was gone.
I stopped swimming instantly, knowing I needed to conserve my energy for the battle ahead. I craned my neck around, looking for landforms rising out of the water; anything that I could take shelter on for the night until someone realized I wasn’t on the ship.
But there were no landforms.
There was nothing.
