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Everyone knows mermaids and vampires can't date. But when a mermaid ends up at a boarding school with a smoking hot vampire for a roommate, will love take a bite?
...
I finally make it through. The swirling colors inside the cavern, which is about the size of my cabin, are intense and disorienting. I can't breathe. It's like oxygen cannot exist in this place.
"Where are you?" I am not panicking. I am not panicking.
"In the cave!"
"I know that already." Okay, I'm panicking a little bit.
I catch a glimpse of a coral seahorse thrashing as if he's been struck by lightning. His tail is pinned under a boulder that must have dislodged and trapped him. I lunge toward him. I lift the boulder and throw it to the side. I try to grab the seahorse so we can get out of here, but he keeps wiggling out of my grasp.
"Can you settle down?"
"Nope," he says.
I finally manage to scoop him into my hand and cover him with my other hand. I jet outside the cave, scraping myself again. I don't slow down until I'm beyond the eelgrass, in clean oxygen-rich water, and the seahorse stops struggling and relaxes his cries into a tiny whimper.
I stop next to a healthy kelp bed to examine the damage to the seahorse and me. He seems fine, but I'm bleeding all over, and my hair is a disaster. Right then, a gang of great white sharks charges at us.
"Come on, guys, not again." I don't have time for this. These are the dumbest sharks ever. "Don't you remember me? It was only a week ago, for Poseidon's sake!"
They look stupidly at one another, and I can see it finally registering that I'm the one who flung them halfway to San Diego. They glance kind of longingly at the seahorse. "No way," I say. "You can't have him either. You do not understand what I've gone through to save him. Shoo!"
They turn around and swim off, allowing me to bleed in peace.
"Thank you," says the seahorse.
"You're welcome," I say. "Sorry about yelling at you before."
"I deserved it. But why did you come after me when I warned you to stay away?" He's floating above my palm now, looking a little stronger, but he's trying to look over my shoulders. I turn my head to see what's so interesting, but all I can see is kelp and more kelp.
"It sounded like you were hurt."
He looks at me with sad, tiny black eyes. "Few creatures would have come into that cave to save a seahorse."
"Stop looking around. The sharks aren't coming back." I hope.
"I'm not worried about sharks."
"Then what is it?"
"Nothing," he says, looking defensive.
"Right. Can you tell me why you ended up in that cave?"
"It seemed like a good idea at the time."
"The burning water wasn't a tip-off that maybe you were wrong?"
"Better to die in that cave than have Olga find me." He winces.
"Who's Olga?"
"My wife." He looks super anxious now.
"You were hiding from your wife?"
He stops acting like a wanted criminal and looks at me intently. "She wants more fry! I still haven't gotten my body back from the last brood. Females just don't understand what it's like to be pregnant. The distended abdomen! The weird cravings! The white pasty skin! If females had to carry the young, there would be a lot fewer seahorses. I can tell you that."
"Maybe, um, tell her how you feel? I'm sure she'll understand." I can't believe I'm down here dispensing marital advice to a seahorse. I've got my own problems.
"No, she won't. She's been acting crazy lately. A lot of folks down here aren't acting right. The sharks are even stupider than normal, as you just saw. Some of the jellyfish have started getting tangled in their own tentacles."
"What's wrong with the water?" I don't have time for this, but if something is wrong with the water, it could affect my entire family.
"Don't know."
"How long has it been like this?"
"I'm a seahorse," he says. "No sense of time. Look, I gotta find a new hiding place. If you swim across Olga, remember, you never saw me. And I guess I owe you for saving my life."
"It's okay; you don't owe me anything."
"If I live long enough, I promise to repay you. You're the nicest merperson I've ever met. What's your name?"
"Waverly."
"Thank you, Waverly." He bows. "I'm Beau, but if you see Olga, you never heard that name."
"Good luck." I wave goodbye. I'm pretty tired now, but nothing is going to stop me from getting to that party! I know I need to talk to my dad about what's going on in that cave, but it can wait a few more hours. I launch into turboswim.
The music is getting louder, and the yacht is slapping against the waves. I'm bobbing next to the stern, trying to figure out how to get aboard, when I realize I have bigger problems than scaling a giant yacht. I left my backpack with my dress next to that awful cave. There's no way I'm going back there, but I can't confront Shelly Sharkweather in front of the whole school naked. Plus, I'm bleeding, which is a very, very bad idea when you're going to a party with a sexy vampire, who may or may not have stood you up. Wait, did I just use the word sexy to describe Pierce?
"I think you did," comes a sexy—I mean not sexy—voice from somewhere on deck. So much for the promise not to read my mind!
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