Waveborn

26

It was a long swim back to shore, giving Cass too much time to worry what Selena wanted with Jason. Stalking him, luring him into dangerous water, trying to drown him...but she claimed she didn't try to drown him and she didn't seem evil, just angry and desperate. She definitely didn't seem like a murderer. But as Maggie had said, people weren't always what they seemed.

Somewhere along the way, Cass lost her orca escort. She felt a pang when she realized he was gone. It seemed like she should have noticed him leaving; it bothered her that she didn't.

By the time she reached shore, she was exhausted and ready to collapse on a sunny stretch of rock for the next four hours. She floundered through the shallows, scanning for her clothes; it took her ten minutes to figure out that they were gone.

She turned in a slow circle, certain she must be mistaken. She'd left them far enough from the waterline to be safe from waves and it hadn't been windy enough for them to blow anywhere.

An icy knot settled in her stomach. Selena. Selena must have taken them—after convincing Cass to trust her, however briefly. With Cass's clothes, she could almost pass for her. Not to Jen, not to Jason, but to anyone who didn't look too closely. And Cass had swallowed her ruse, hook, line, and sinker.

She couldn't march into town in underwear and a pair of sandals, but she might be able to reach the Andiamo if she kept to the water. Grimly, she set out for the harbor.

Anger powered her strokes as she settled in for yet another long swim. Selena had stolen her freaking clothes, made her wonder about Jen, convinced her that she was some kind of half-human monster, and given her nothing.

She was a half-human monster, she thought. She was freaking swimming in 45° water, had been for hours. She shouldn't be able to swim this far and she shouldn't be able to swim in water this cold. She didn't want to be some freaking Serra sea-person. She wanted everything to go back to the way it was....

And then she remembered Amak and knew she wouldn't go back even if she could.

An hour later, she ducked under the dock's shadow, wondering how to board the Andiamo without being seen. The boat was docked nose in, putting the ladder in clear view at the rear. Hopefully she was far enough from shore that no one would notice.

If she was going to keep stripping and jumping into the ocean, she needed to start wearing a suit under her clothes.

"Here goes nothing," she muttered. She hauled herself up the ladder, sheeting water. Arms wrapped across her ribs, she ducked low, crossed to the open hatch in three quick steps, and froze in the opening.

Jason. Jason was coming up the ladder.

She stumbled back a step and grabbed the hatch cover, holding it in front of her like a square wooden shield.

"Cass?" He squinted against the sun a moment before taking the ladder in two giant steps. "You're all wet. What happened? Are you okay?"

She clutched the wooden panel to her chest in sudden panic. She couldn't tell him what had happened. What would he think, if he learned that she had some weird mutation that let her survive the cold water, as if she were part orca? She already looked too much like Selena. He'd hate her. "I...I don't know," she stammered. A gust of wind hit her back and she shuddered with the chill of it. "I had to swim back to the boat, and my clothes were dragging at me, so I kicked them off."

He reached toward her then seemed to think better of it. "Swim back to the boat? Where were you?"

Cass shook her head. She didn't know what she could say.