Surfacing - Book One in the Swans Landing Series

Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

The water was too cold. He would drown. Go into shock, slip below the surface, and be gone forever when I’d only just found him.

It took me a moment to remember that I could save him. That breathing underwater was no longer a problem. I kicked off my shoes and peeled off everything but my shirt and bra before diving into the crashing waves behind him.

A sharp pain ripped through my lower body once I was fully immersed. I squeezed my eyes shut and screamed. My skin shredded as the scales emerged, pushing themselves into place, and my toes spread, the web of skin between them stretching into a tail fin.

Once the change was done, I could pull myself from the tight ball I had curled into and stop drifting uncontrollably. I broke the surface, blowing water and hair out of my eyes.

Josh had disappeared. I wasn’t as confident in the water as Dylan had been, so my movements were slower and my dive wasn’t as fluid. Swimming was difficult, my legs not getting the hang of working together as one instead of two separate entities. My panic only made it harder.

The water was murky and the current strong under the surface. I couldn’t see Josh anywhere. Could I speak underwater? Would anyone be able to hear me?

“Josh!” I called. Or tried to. A thousand bubbles erupted from my mouth instead. I spun around in a circle, searching the dark water around me for signs of life. I wasn’t sure which direction I now faced, but there was no time to waste. Josh could be drowning this very moment.

I dove deep, pushing through the current that fought back against me. I felt as if I wasn’t making any progress floundering there in the riptide. Just as I thought I had moved forward, the current pushed me back again, farther away from where I’d started.

Exhaustion crept over me. I couldn’t keep fighting like this.

“Josh,” I tried to say again. But even I couldn’t hear my voice over the sound of the water in my ears. The only thing still keeping me alive was the fact that I could breathe underwater.

A strong arm slipped around my waist and slick scales brushed against my own. A warm body pressed close, pulling me up toward the surface. I turned, wrapping my arms around his neck and burying my face in his shoulder. How had Dylan found me? And had he found Josh in time?

But when we broke the surface and the murky water cleared from my eyes, it wasn’t Dylan I found swimming next to me.

“Josh,” I gasped. I hugged him tight, running my hands over his slick back and shoulders to make sure it was him.

Then I pulled back, my mouth hanging open as I looked into his dark eyes. “You’re...?”

He nodded.

“But how?” I asked.

“I’m less finfolk than you are,” he told me. “My great-grandmother was finfolk. My grandfather could change, though he rarely did. My father couldn’t change at all. I only accidentally learned that I could as a child, after I fell into the water playing on that old pier. If I hadn’t been finfolk, I would have drowned.”

His tail brushed against mine in a light, delicate touch, sending shivers erupting up my body, all the way from tail fin to scalp. His arms still gripped me tight, holding me close to him as we bobbed along on the surface.

I reached up to smooth away the droplets of water from his hair. “No one knows?” I asked.

He shook his head. “My mother...She’s afraid of the finfolk. It would kill her if people knew.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

He didn’t answer. He pulled me so close that our bodies were pressed together, only my wet shirt serving as a thin curtain between us. He kissed me again like he had on the beach a few moments earlier, deep and hungry for more.

We slipped below the surface together, our tails tangled, our hands moving across wet skin and slippery scales. I leaned my head back, letting out a stream of bubbles from my mouth as Josh’s lips moved down my neck and over my collarbone. His hands traced trails along my back, at the edge of where my skin met the scales of my tail.

The ocean’s current pushed us farther out into the water, far from any prying eyes that may have been on shore. I tickled Josh’s tail with the tip of my fin, enjoying the delicate sensations that traveled through me at the slightest touch. My hair swirled around us as we twisted together in the water, the salty liquid moving between our mouths as we couldn’t stop kissing.

Later, when we had returned to the shore and lay breathless on the wet sand as the foam washed around us, our tails now legs again, I pressed my ear against Josh’s chest, listening to the steady sound of his heartbeat. I didn’t feel afraid with him. I didn’t feel as if being finfolk was the end of the life I’d always known. It felt natural, that we should be here, two people who never really fit anywhere except with each other.

I lifted my head and looked up at him. He gazed back at me, a contented smile on his face.

“Leave with me,” I told him.

Josh’s eyes snapped open. “Leave? Where are you going?”

“I can’t stay here,” I said. “I don’t belong on this island. I can’t live with Lake, not after all the lies.”

Josh’s fingers had been trailing up and down my arm, but they paused as I spoke. His smile had faded and he gazed up at the sky with a blank expression.

“Josh?” I prompted. “Come with me. I don’t know where we’ll go, but we’ll find some place together.”

“I can’t,” he said.

Now I pulled all the way from him, sitting up to stare down at him. “Why not?” I asked, fighting back the sob in my throat.

“I belong here,” he said. “I have to take care of my mom.”

His words shouldn’t have hurt the way they did. I turned away from him to face the water, crossing my arms tight over my chest. So that was it then. No one here had ever really cared about me. Not Lake, not Josh. In the end, the only person I could ever count on was myself.

Josh sat up, placing a hand on my shoulder. “You don’t understand,” he said softly. “My mom is sick. She’s not able to take care of herself. She needs me.”

“Don’t you think that maybe I need you?” I asked in a whisper.

At first, I wasn’t sure that he had even heard me. But after a moment, he moved forward, wrapping his arms around me and pressing my back into his chest.

“Stay,” he whispered in my ear. “Stay with me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting off a wave of tears. I couldn’t stay. I knew that I would never be happy here.

But I could delay my leaving a few days, until I could convince Josh to go with me.