She’d come awfully close to succeeding.
With that realization came forgiveness—or at least the beginnings of forgiveness, which was as close as I could get for my mother, the woman who had forsaken her humanity and in doing so had bound me inescapably to the path I was now on. But how could I blame her for leaving when every instinct I had told me she’d done it to ensure the safety of her family? Of those she loved?
Oh, yes, she’d planned, all along, on my turning mermaid. But in leaving, she’d given me the chance to make a choice without her interference. And even more importantly, she’d given me the room to grow, to make my own decisions unhampered by what she wanted or what the Pacific needed. At least until she sent Kona to me right before my seventeenth birthday.
As I thought about what she’d done, about what she’d sacrificed to keep us safe, I realized that the answer to my own questions—my own problems—was right there for the taking. If I wanted to keep my family safe—and I did. Oh, God, I did—then I needed to walk away, swim away, now. As long as Tiamat imagined that they were important to me, that I cared about them, she would see them as a weakness to be exploited. Something she could use as a bargaining chip. Or worse, something she could spare or destroy at her own deadly whim.
As long as I kept a foot in both worlds, as long as I kept my ties to Moku and Mark, Rio and my dad, they would be fair game for her and her minions. More, destroying them would be an added treat, because so much of who I was was wrapped up in the people I cared about most.
So if I wanted Tiamat to leave them alone, I would have to do what my mother did. I would have to convince her that I didn’t care about them anymore. I would have to leave them, at least until I’d defeated the sea witch and her band of evil followers.
And I had to defeat them. The idea of Rio turning seventeen in a few years and facing the same peril, the same horrors, that I had faced was unthinkable. And sweet little Moku? I couldn’t go there. I might die at Tiamat’s hands, but not before I took her with me. I wanted, so much, to be with my brothers when they turned seventeen—to explain to them the things I hadn’t known—but if it came to a choice between that and making sure Tiamat was dead, I would choose the latter every time. No matter what it cost me.
Still, just the thought of leaving was crippling.
Never see Moku again? Never ruffle his hair or read him a book or bask in the sweet innocence of his smile?
Never surf with my father again? Never squeeze him back when he gave me the world’s largest bear hug?
Never make up with Rio? Never find a way to reach him through the anger?
My hands went to the belly chain around my waist, the one I hadn’t taken off since Mark had given it to me the night before. And Mark—was I just supposed to say good-bye to him? To walk away like we didn’t have years of shared history? Like I wasn’t totally, completely, head over heels in love with him? It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t possible.
Except that it was. If I had any hope of keeping them safe from Tiamat, I needed to do exactly that. She had spies everywhere—if I faltered, if I returned even once, she would know about it. And she would know that they mattered.
Of course, even if I did walk away, it might not work. I was here now, wasn’t I? And it wasn’t like this was the first time I’d been home in the last year. I’d come running when she’d injured Moku, had just fought Octopus Man like a woman possessed to keep my father safe. Not to mention what I’d done to save Mark last summer. None of those things exactly screamed cool and unaffected.
But what other choice did I have? I wondered, my fingers stroking over each of the beads on the belly chain in turn. My favorite was the center one, made from the La Jolla sand, and I stood there for long seconds rubbing my fingers over it. As I held it, Mark’s face rose up behind my closed eyes and I wanted nothing more than to run to him. To dive into him, wrap my arms around him, and swear that I would never leave.
I couldn’t do that, though, any more than I could go into Moku’s room and challenge him to the world’s longest Super Mario Wii marathon. I had to cut them off, and I had to do it so convincingly that Tiamat believed I cared nothing for them. Otherwise, they were as good as dead. I wouldn’t be here to guard them forever, and no matter how strong or smart my father and Mark were, they were human. What could they really do against Tiamat if she came gunning for them with everything in her arsenal?
Still, I could barely wrap my head around what I was thinking. Was I really going to do this? To try to find a way to just walk out and never come back?
I was. As soon as I figured out how.
The thought was so depressing that it nearly brought me to tears all over again. Instead, I crawled under my covers and pulled my pillow over my head, willing the world to just disappear as I tried to block out the horror of what I was about to do. Part of me wanted to seize these last moments with my family, to wrap myself around Moku and breathe in every ounce of his wild, sweet little boy scent. But the other part was already wounded, already bleeding out at the thought of leaving him, and it wanted nothing more than to shove him away. To spare itself, to spare me, any more pain than I absolutely had to experience.
In the end, I let Moku into my room. Held tight to him and murmured prayer after prayer, plea after plea as I tried to find a way to let him go. Eventually, he did it for me. Prying himself out of my arms, he ran for my bedroom door with a giggle and a wave. I might have been content to lie in bed all day, but he wasn’t.
After he left, I glanced at the clock listlessly. It was five, past time when I should have begun getting ready for the homecoming dance. Bree and Mickey had started hours ago, with nail and hair and facial appointments, but I had begged off. That wasn’t really my scene anymore. Besides, it had felt silly to waste my precious time at home getting painted and sprayed and arranged into something untouchable.
I snorted. So instead I’d spent it locked in my room in the middle of an existential crisis. Or at least as close as I’d ever come to one.
I forced myself to get up, to take a shower. I had one last night with Mark and I wasn’t going to waste a second of it. Especially since by the end, I was going to have to break his heart. And my own.
Chapter 10
“Tempest! Mark’s here!” My dad’s voice floated up the stairs.
“I’ll be down in a minute.” I slipped into my shoes—a pair of killer black stilettos that would murder my feet before the night was over—and took one last look in the mirror. I was wearing a dress from my sophomore year in high school, from the one dance Mark hadn’t taken me to. It was short and black and hugged me in all the right places. I wore fishnet stockings to cover the burns on my ankles and gloves to do the same for my fingers. The result was a slightly goth look that wasn’t quite me, but one that I found myself liking anyway. At least I’d look good when I destroyed my life.
I started down the hall, paused outside of Rio’s door. Loud music was playing—System of a Down’s “Chop Suey!”—and I almost kept walking. But I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving without trying one more time to patch things up with my brother. If nothing else, I wanted to let him know that he wouldn’t be alone when he turned seventeen. If I wasn’t there to help him, I would make sure Mahina was.