The Saturday of the Relay Competitions came around faster than I expected. It began with hazy, gray skies, but the sun finally made an appearance. Now, it shone almost too brightly for me—the clouds had suited my mood because, I wasn’t ready for this event. The Guard and the Surf Lifeguarding Commission were still arguing over new regulations for the Surf Carnival events, given the two deaths in the Ocean Swim. They moved the relay up, because it didn’t require any long distance swimming and people worked on teams, so they felt the danger was mitigated a bit. For many, these events were the most fun in the Surf Carnival. They moved fast, had many winners, and awarded multiple certifications, depending on how may competitions you did.
I’d originally planned to take part in only two. The Dash & Swim should have been an easy competition for me, one I’d won frequently as a Junior. But, this time, I came in third.
“The difference between first and third was four seconds,” Blake said to me after I’d finished my heat. “And you missed over a week of training, so don’t be too hard on yourself.” Pep talks from Blake at competitions weren’t new to me. He’d been captain of the Junior Guard team, and the role of cheerleader came naturally to him. But this was the first competition where I wanted him around on a different level. While I wasn’t about to start a full-on PDA at the event, I couldn’t stop the tiny touches, that meant almost as much as the PDAs, to me.
The Canoe Relay was always fun because, we got to compete as a team of seven, going backwards in the waves. While it required an iron stomach and quick hands, it was one event that we trained for extensively all together. We were down Shay and Darwen, who we had practiced with, so Billy and Stella were in the canoe with us. I still hated Stella, because of the way she’d flirted with Blake at the pool right after we got together. As the most experienced of the group, they sat in the two seats facing us.
It was bad form to turn around and look at the waves, so we took cues from their expressions. When their eyes got big, we knew there was a big wave coming from behind. Using all my senses, I felt and heard where it came from in order to steer my portion of the boat in the most advantageous way. There were twelve boats in the water, besides ours. Three capsized in the big waves, and we ended up coming in second. It wasn’t too bad, considering we’d only practiced with Stella once.
But the Rescue Relay competition was not my strong suit. It required knee boarding, lassoing an object with a buoy, and dragging it back in. It was the middle part that caused me so much trouble. And I’d had all day to worry about it. Last-minute instructions from Mica crowded my brain. For extreme rescuing, we needed to know how to lasso like a cowboy, and my brother was an expert. His dude ranch was the entire ocean. He caught fish by tossing nets, while I struggled just to wrap the silly rope around a pole.
I stood off to the side, waiting for my heat to begin. A combination of nerves and the newly bright sun brought tears to my eyes. I held them in, seeing prisms on the sea as the sun picked just that moment to dip into the afternoon sky. Thousands of points of light dispersed, bounced off the water and burned. I kicked the sand, angry with myself for forgetting the shaded goggles I usually wore on days like this.
It hadn’t mattered in the earlier events, but now, when I had my hardest challenge, the bright light made me that much more nervous. When Blake bopped up to me, I no longer had to pretend my tears were caused by the sun, because they were. I couldn’t see a thing over the water, and I felt my chances for lassoing the buoy and reeling it in, were nil. It was going to make me lose the whole thing.
Blake moved to the beat in his head that always seemed loudest before a meet. It was one of the things that used to drive Kaleb crazy, because he had to hear it, too, every time Blake got ready for a competition. They both had drummer’s disease: always using whatever surface was around as a drum. He took off his shaded goggles after I explained the reason for my tears.
“They’re my lucky pair,” he said, placing them over my eyes. He secured the seal and then carefully drew the band down over my hair—trying not to grab any loose strands in the process—and pulled my ponytail through.
His hands were quick and firm as he adjusted the fit and I forgot all about why they were there on my temples and focused only on the gorgeous guy in front of me who suddenly looked silver. The borrowed goggles were exactly the color my dolphin’s eyes had been. I wondered if this was how we looked to her. I thanked him with a quick kiss on the cheek that stuck to my single-second-of-touching rule.
“That’s all I get for my lucky goggles?” he asked.
“For now,” I said with a wink that didn’t quite work and that he didn’t see, considering my eye was surrounded by plastic.
“Okay,” he smirked. “I wouldn’t want to distract you.”
“Jerk!” I punched him, but I was laughing, which was light years away from my freak-out just minutes earlier.
With the light shaded from my eyes, I could focus on the competition. I recognized most of the other swimmers in my heat. The Guard had two members competing in the female race. Both were much older, closer to my mom’s age, and just in it to have fun. I felt confident that I had the knee-boarding part locked. Hopefully that could buy me any extra time I’d need if I couldn’t lasso the buoy the first or second time.
Just take it slow, Mica sent, reminding me of the frustration I felt before. His well-intentioned thoughts had the opposite effect. I had calmed myself down—with Blake’s help—but now I could feel myself begin to freak out again. Unfortunately, there were not too many places I could get away from a person who could come into my brain. Instead, I focused on absorbing as much of his knowledge as I could. His confidence calmed me down, in a way his advice could not.
With my brother in my brain, and my boyfriend’s goggles on my face, I was ready when the gun went off. I took off on my knees, paddling as quickly as possible in the water, getting out in front of most of the pack right away. I ignored the sun, the crowds, and the other competitors to spot the target one hundred yards away. The ring strapped on the front of my board became my focus as I approached the target. I got close enough and tossed the ring, missing by a couple feet. I pulled it back to me and tossed it again. This time, a wave interrupted and I missed by just inches.
Pulling the ring back, I looked around. There were others approaching their buoys, and one person was already headed back. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes this time, remembering what my previous throws had felt like. This time, when I threw, I knew instinctively that I had it even before the ring hit. I pulled back with enough force to capture the buoy but not lose it again, secured the lasso to the ring, and turned my board back to the shore. With every ounce of strength in my arms, I pulled the board, the buoy, and myself to shore, and came in third. Not first place, as I would have liked, but much better than I’d feared.
At day's end, they handed out the certs for each event and tallied up all the various scores for ranking in the Surf Carnival as a whole, so far. I placed seventh for the day, twentieth overall. Which was ok, considering I had a big fat zero for the first event. Mica took third place for the day, and second overall, so far. Mica had killed it with the buoy, snagging it from thirty feet out, saving a ton of time and placing first in that event. Blake had missed his buoy completely, coming in twelfth for that event, which brought him down to fifth overall for the day, and fifth for all of the events in the Surf Carnival, so far.
Blake gave Mica a fist bump and silently walked down the beach with just a tiny wave to me. I started off after him, but Mica stopped me with a thought and a grab to my elbow.
Don’t follow him. He needs to get his mad out, Mica insisted, silently. “Let him walk off the loss.”
You have no idea what he needs from me! I insisted to him, shaking my head in silence.
Maybe not. But I do know what he needs after a race—let him be by himself. Twelfth is tough to take when you’re used to winning. Mica emphasized his silent communication with a warning look.
But one of you is always losing to each other, so why is he so pissed right now?
“Blake and I don’t lose to each other. We’re partners. Our competition makes us each work harder, get better,” he said, out loud.
“Like me and Shay,” I said softly, fully understanding what he was saying.
Three weeks into this thing with Blake and me, and this was the first time Mica had attempted any interference. He’d been remarkably tight lipped, to the point that it seemed like he was almost censoring his thoughts on the relationship. He knew both of us better than he knew almost anything else in the world.
Mica reminded me of quite a few times when Blake lost and was forced too quickly to interact with people. It inevitably ended with a fight of some kind. Blake wasn’t a loose cannon, running around beating people up, but he was too emotional and amped after a loss to do anything but lash out physically. A year, or so, ago, he’d had a rough racing season, and he had gotten in enough fist fights with opposing team members that he was actually suspended. It had been the first time he’d gotten in trouble since Kaleb left.
I hadn’t considered that there was a trigger there, but Mica clearly knew. Looking back though memories now, I realized how Mica had sequestered Blake after a loss. I’d always thought it was a post-race strategy session and annoyingly obsessive on Mica’s part. But now, I understood. I gathered up my things and headed over to my grandfather and his friends, letting Mica take care of my boyfriend as only he knew how.
A few nights later, Blake and I decided to go get some information from a different authority. We found Gramps in The Guard’s main house by the Pavilion, drinking scotch with Stoney and two of their buddies. We asked to speak to our grandfathers alone—not wanting the others to hear, especially if my idea was just plain nutty. Instead of clearing my head, the walk over had me backtracking with my new theory. It was only Blake’s support, and the comfort of his hand on my back, that kept us moving in the right direction.
Gramps took one look at my face, all shaky and pale from being in the hospital, and asked that the others leave us for a few moments. Stoney nodded, agreeing silently with the request. Like Blake, he did not need to talk to demonstrate authority. Like the old-fashioned gentlemen they were, the other men deferred to my wishes with no questions asked.
“Gramps, the secret swirl the other day, does it mean anything else?” I asked hestitantly.
“It means everything, child. I told you; look and you’ll find it everywhere,” he said.
I nodded as he was speaking, “I found it, alright.” I took a breath to steady myself, trying to find the words, “Did you know . . . ” I stuttered, “I mean…” I stumbled, not sure what to ask. Blake looked at me and nodded, lending his strength silently. I began again. “Did you know that me and all the other twins born our year . . . did you know that we all have the same ears?”
Gramps’ eyes opened in examination, but not surprise. He glanced casually at the side of my head, then at Blake’s, and then at Stoney and nodded. With a gentle hand under my chin, he directed my eyes to his head as well. His were like mine.
“You have them, too?” I whispered in awe, looking over at Blake, whose face showed similar shock.
“Why the surprise, child? You know we’re related, you and me.”
“I thought . . . I mean, we thought that it meant something—something that could help Shay. Like something was wrong with our ears? Or something.” Saying it out loud made me feel stupid.
I had felt so sure that we were on to something important. But over the two weeks, Billy hadn’t been able to connect it to anything that could help.
“It does mean something. You and I aren’t the only ones related,” Gramps said.
“Many of the old bloodlines have been combined and shared. That’s what happens when people live in the same location for so many generations,” Stoney explained.
I nodded, understanding, as did Blake, who got a slightly sick look on his face.
“Don’t worry, young one,” Stoney said to Blake with a wink. “There’s not blood between you close enough to stop you two from being together.” Um, Ew. And, phew. “There are many physical traits that we share on-Island. Our ears are only one similarity. It’s one of the things that makes us such good swimmers,” Gramps added.
“How is that, sir?” Blake asked.
“Well, I don’t know exactly, but it seems Mainlanders don’t have such an easy time of going between air and water; they get earaches. Rufus out there can explain it better than I can. If you’d care to let him and Eli come back in here, we can ask them.”
As the red in my face diminished, I nodded. It seemed nothing we had to discuss was that groundbreaking. I guess we didn't need privacy. I’d known Rufus and Eli my whole life, after all. Despite the initial disappointment, I still felt that new information was good information.
My grandfather gave a familiar whistle. Eli and Rufus whistled back about thirty seconds before they walked back in the door. They sat down again as if they had never left. Considering how fast they got back, I wondered if they had ever been far enough away to matter, anyway.
“Rufus, these children here just noticed that our ears are a bit unusual. Got anything to say about that?” Stoney asked.
Rufus looked at Eli and back at Gramps, almost as if he was seeking the other elder’s permission before he started to talk.
“They help us care for the ocean, along with our skin and eyes. They make it possible to live in between the land and sea,” Rufus said. “Weren’t you paying attention in Nippers?”
I thought back, remembering Kaleb’s snarky commentary more than the actual lesson. “They’ll tell us anything to keep us here, but these old stories don’t mean anything,” Kaleb had said. I could picture him so clearly in my head. We all still looked like children then. I compared my memory of Kaleb and Blake at that age, with Blake standing in front of me now. Back then, they wore mostly the same kind of clothes, though Kaleb veered towards darker colors, with rips everywhere. Blake had always looked like he’d walked off of a poster for sailing. He still did, but I really liked that now. Blake’s ears hadn’t seemed to change in size at all.
“Sorry,” I answered. “I didn’t get it then—we were small and they were just legends. I didn’t think there was any truth in there.” I trailed off. How could I explain how much of those lessons I’d ignored?
“If you’re only focused on what you can see, you’ll never learn anything,” Stoney said.
I nodded. That lesson became more obvious every day. Nothing we’d seen so far had done anything to help the current situation.
I looked down at my hand, wrapped in Blake’s. There was nothing similar there. My skin was intensely tan like that of many, but not all, of our people. Blake’s was a softer gold and covered with the freckles of his very Irish-looking Dad. Both of our families had been on-Island for many years. Still, we did have a variety of different ethnicities somewhere in our DNA, like many families did.
“It’s not the color,” Stoney continued, his voice so low, I felt the need to lean forward to hear him. “But the texture. Notice how smooth—like the skin of a pearl—how hairless it is? With nearly invisible pores?”
While noticing Blake’s skin had certainly become a recent favorite pastime of mine, these were details I considered important and awesome on him. I never thought to compare them to myself. Hearing Stoney talk, I realized that the similarity was certainly there.
“And our eyes, although it’s not true about mine,” Rufus interjected, blinking his own brown ones for what felt like the first time since he’d come back in the room. “Those with the silvery-gray eyes, like yours Cami, or yours, Blake, have the ability to see easily and clearly underwater. They resist the sting of saltwater that forces many others, myself included, to use goggles or close our eyes.”
“But, I wear goggles all the time,” I said, immediately wondering why I said that.
“Because you need them, or because you just do?” asked Gramps.
Blake and I looked at each other, both considering what Gramps asked.
“I need them in the pool,” I started.
“But not in the ocean,” Blake finished. “When you found Shay you didn’t have them on, did you?
I nodded and blinked a few times, trying to remember. “The water must have been very clear that day,” I said slowly, trying to recall everything I felt that day. I remembered that buzzing in my blood that I’d heard when I realized Shay had a problem, before I’d really known it for sure. I hadn’t known how I’d known it, but I had. And I had that same sense now.
“Either the water has been much clearer these past few days, or you are seeing underwater better all the time."
“Is that possible?” I wondered aloud.
Blake nodded. “Yes, it’s actually my normal. I never considered it anything special. Come to think of it, it does seem to be improving."
“If you get in The Guard, we help you develop it even more,” Stoney said with a pointed look at Gramps. "It helps for rescuing."
I shuffled my feet uncomfortably. These were things we weren’t supposed to know yet. But given the circumstances, it seemed like we needed to if the information could help Darwen and Shay. Stoney’s eyes were deep silver like my own, even though his ears were not in the sacred swirl.
“These common traits are just like anything else you see in a family, among cousins and generations. They appear in some people, and not others, and they are more developed in some people than others,” Stoney said.
“I could always see underwater,” Gramps said, “but when I started diving, I got better.”
“Me, too,” Eli agreed. “And, not just with that. The Mainlanders had to regulate, remember? But, we never did.”
“Of course. It got to where I could go deeper, for longer, than any of the other guys we dove with,” Gramps bragged.
“It’s true,” admitted Eli. “No matter how much I practiced, I could never beat your grandfather. And, no matter how much they practiced, the Mainlanders couldn’t come close to us; not with holding their breath, sheer speed, or simply diving down deep.”
Gramps nodded. “We’re built to not get the bends. It seems to be hereditary.”
Blake and I looked at each other.
“And dolphins are the same, right?” I asked, directing the question to Gramps.
“Well, legends say we do share this gift with our brothers and sisters of the ocean,” Gramps answered.
“What about the science of all this?” I pressed.
Gramps raised an eyebrow at me. “I study dolphins in the water, not in a lab. Why do you ask?”
I took a deep breath, feeling a slight link between what I had come here thinking and what I had heard.
“We read that dolphins can be affected by sonar. It can mess up the part of their ears that helps them calculate depth,” I said, tripping over my words in an effort to link them together in a way that made sense. I felt a squeeze on my hand, and I took a breath, grateful that Blake was there.
“We were wondering if maybe the same thing happened to Shay?” Blake questioned.
“And, if we all have the same ears as her,” I continued, “we’re worried the same thing could happen to all of us.”
“Well, sonar’s been used all over for lots of years, so it’s really unlikely that’s what hurt your Shay,” Stoney said, “but I think you’re sweet trying to help her out.”
He patted Blake on the back in that strange half-hug guys exchanged. It felt like they were dismissing us like little kids who wanted to build a boat out of popsicle sticks.
I looked at my grandfather, sure he would understand that it wasn’t just the sonar I was getting at here. But instead, he stood, kissed my cheek, shook Blake’s hand, and shuffled us out the door without even a ‘thanks for stopping by’.
Blake and I walked hand-in-hand along the water’s edge. It was the pebbly part of the beach, and we were barefoot, but it didn’t bother us.
“Guess they forgot to mention the super feet, huh?” Blake said, seeming for just the moment to read my thoughts.
“Remember the boat Kaleb wanted to build out of the connecting blocks?” I asked. “I didn’t believe it would work.”
“Yeah, I didn’t either,” Blake said. “But Kaleb knew, and he was right.”
“We’re onto something, too. I feel it. I’m just not sure what exactly the connection is.”
“Kaleb would help if he was here. This is the kind of thing he’s really good at. I’m sorry I’m not, but I’ll help you in any way I can. I think you’re amazing.”
And then he kissed me. Not just a regular smooch, as if any of the ones with him ever were, but a bone-melting, wave-crashing, birds-singing type of kiss that left me breathless and desperate to do it again.
Seconds, minutes, hours later, my lips stung and my heart pounded.
Perhaps we were no closer to figuring out what was going on with our friends, but I felt better. My thoughts, which had been scrambled before, suddenly crystallized.
“If all these genes skip around—like with Rufus and Stoney and Gramps and Eli—how come in our generation it’s all the same?”
Before Blake could answer, a call came from the ocean. Happy sounds, an invitation.
The beach had been open for two days, and I really wanted to go in. I couldn’t resist the chance to swim with them again, this time with Blake. I couldn’t resist the chatter. Grabbing Blake’s hand, I dragged him into the sea.
Diving through waves lit only by moonlight, we rushed through the water to beyond the swells where I could see the dolphins hanging out. When we came up for air, on the other side of the wave break, we paused to get our bearings. Then, we treaded water with our heads above the sea. A sudden bump on my hip made me jump a bit.
I laughed and shot water at Blake, sure it was him. And then, I saw his hands above the water. He splashed me back when I felt the bump again.
Looking down, I saw moonlight glinting off of unusually white dolphin skin. She’d come to find me, along with the dolphin Blake had played with that night by the dock at my house. They both raised their heads above water, chattering happily, then dipping down below the surface. After three repeat performances we followed them below.
It only took a few tries to get used to doing the free dives that took us ten feet, or so, below the surface where the dolphins played. Each time I went down, it seemed like I could hold my breath longer. My eyes had adjusted to the depth of the water and the dark of the night. The dolphins made bubbles big enough for us to swim through. They nudged us together to get us to kiss, and kept coming to the surface with us every time we needed air. Soon more of the pod joined us, and then headed out to sea. We got nudged along until we got the hint and began to swim with them.
Underwater, the differences between various dolphins looked more obvious to me: their slight distinctions in color and shape, their swimming styles, distinct personalities. A particularly agile and fast dolphin of very light blue loved to race. She kept my girl and me on the move in a friendly competition until we had gone miles out to sea. In the beginning, I had held on to her fins to cover the long distances. Then I caught her slipstream, like I had on First Night, remembering to come up more frequently for air than she did.
I’d felt safe in the water, which may have been a bit reckless, considering Darwen and Shay. But when we got so far that I couldn’t see the lights on land, I began to worry. As if she knew how I was feeling, she made some noises, slipped underwater, and started swimming back toward land. Blake and the dolphin he’d been swimming with, did the same thing.
Fifty feet from land, she stopped suddenly, and I came up to breathe. Blake did the same thing. We weren’t actually close to Pinhold proper, but by the old lighthouse. Built on a rocky ledge, it had been part of the Island until an earthquake had pulled it away.
“I’ve never been over here,” I said, almost reverently, surprised that breathing came easy even after such a fast swim.
“Me, either,” Blake said, shaking his head. “And, I have tried,” he admitted. Adamantly off limits, the riptides surrounding it were the worst around Pinhold. Until this summer, the last two drowning deaths had happened right here.
My dolphin nudged me deeper into the water and led me closer to the structure, stopping in front of what looked like a door. Blake caught my eye and motioned that he saw it, too. He pointed to a small porthole window and we swam over that way. We surfaced, took huge breaths and dunked under the water. The space inside was filled with small, blinking lights. Nothing moved, which came as a bit of a relief. Blake swam back toward the door and gave a tug on the handle.
Magnified under water, the creaky squeak of unused door joints made a huge noise that the dolphins didn’t like. Much to their obvious consternation, Blake tried again. Though the knob turned, the door didn’t budge. It did, however, sound an alarm that was so loud it made the creak of the door sound like a whisper. Immediately, the water flooded with light.
The sound burned my eardrums; so loud I could see it in my brain. My dolphin shook her head, as if trying to shut the noise out. Even with the visible discomfort, she did not immediately swim away. She pushed in between Blake and me and rubbed her fins against us until we got the hint. When we each grabbed one, she took off at a terrifying speed.
In a furious flash of fins and waves, Blake and I landed by my dock, out of breath, standing in water waist deep. My entire body shook with fear and exhaustion. Blake and the dolphin both appeared affected as well. It felt like we’d just escaped from a crime scene. My dolphin had saved me again. Overwhelmed with gratitude, I wished for the ability to communicate how I felt with words, either hers or mine, but none came. It would have been easier if she was like Mica, and able to glimpse thoughts and feelings from pictures inside my brain.
I did feel that our connection had increased a thousand fold as I watched her swim away. Similarly, my feelings for Blake had expanded exponentially.
“If I had gone through that alone, I’d be doubting my sanity right now,” I said, looking over at him.
“I’m still a little scared. It looked like some sort of lab to me,” Blake said.
I nodded in agreement. “It could be a headquarters of some sort, but there wasn’t enough room for a lot of people to be,” I said, giggling a little bit. I knew we needed to sort out what we had seen, but at the moment my brain couldn’t handle it.
On emotional and physical overload, I needed something to ground me. I moved towards Blake, desperate to touch him. Right now, only he made sense to me. It seemed he felt the same way. Endorphins raced through both of us, pulsing my way, drawing me with that same magnetic current that had linked us since First Night. With every heave of his chest, each hitch of breath, my thoughts moved from everything we had seen to only what was right in front of me. Soaking wet, his black tee clung to every muscle in his arms and chest. My own tank and shorts had made it easy to swim, but now clung like dolphin skin. Every nerve in my body felt exposed under the tight fabric and Blake’s gaze.
Fear and flight had turned into something equally intense that had my heart beating even faster. I needed to share these feelings with him, and unlike my dolphin, I knew exactly how to do it. Suddenly, the two feet between us seemed like way too many. In the exact same instant, we flew at each other. Power and energy met in the middle, forcing the water that had been between us into a big wave that crashed around us as my lips finally met his.
The next day passed in a flurry of training sessions and beach patrol. At sunset I finally caught up to Mica and gave him the down-low.
“Sounds like you found the Doc’s secret lair,” Mica said in a voice like a mustached villain from some old movie, making me laugh. “I knew he had one. Now, we just need to find out what he’s hiding.”
“There’s something hidden there; otherwise, we’d have known, at the very least, that the place existed.”
“I can ask Gram about it,” I insisted, sure that the person I’d counted on for truth my entire life couldn’t possibly be hiding a secret that was hurting our friends.
“You already told me that Gramps and company sent you away as soon as you stopped the commentary and started with the questions. Why would Gram be different? They all know something. We just have to get in there to see what they are hiding.”
The smooth swoosh of the patio doors announced our mom’s arrival. Like a movie soundtrack, we had warning to stop talking. I was grateful that Mica was too interested in what I had to tell him to pick a fight that would keep her out there any longer than necessary.
“I’m glad you guys are home. We’re having Gram, Doc, and Helix over for dinner tonight. Doc’s worried that Helix has been especially alone this summer. I expect you to be friendly,” she insisted, staring right at Mica.
Have fun! I have dinner plans with Blake, I told him silently.
Like a date? He questioned. Not any more, you don’t.
“Helix is fine, Mom,” Mica said, managing to keep the belligerence off his face.
“Really?” she asked, looking my way for confirmation.
“We hung out with him last week,” I said, wondering what she’d think if we told her we’d been getting illegal access to Doc’s files.
"Besides, we’re grabbing dinner with Blake, so we’re going out in twenty,” Mica added, with a pointed look in my direction.
Jerk, I sent, shouting in silence, careful to keep the matching reaction from my face.
His sneaky two-pronged attack, meant to foil my plans and get himself out of dinner alone, only worked a little.
“So, have Blake come over here,” said my Mom in a tone that broached no argument. “But, I expect you to include Helix in your activities. If you want to go out afterwards, then Helix will go, too.”
Mica and I both cringed. My plans for Blake definitely did not include Helix or Mica. And Mica got a glimpse of what I had planned for Blake.
“Maybe they should be a little less worried about Helix and a little more worried about Shay,” said Mica, out loud, unfortunately.
“Mica!” Mom said. “Doc is under enough pressure here with things you couldn’t possibly understand. I expect you to treat him respectfully, because of who he is and also, simply, because he is a visitor in our home. Nothing else will be tolerated. Is this clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mica said in a conciliatory voice that hid the sneak attack he’d already plotted in his head.
“This is delicious, Lydia,” Doc said when we were all seated at the dining table, inhaling food from a fork stuffed with a disgusting combination of salmon and peas and potatoes. For such a skinny guy, he’d put away an amazing amount of food in the sixty seconds since we’d said grace.
“Guess you don’t have much time for good meals with all those extra hours at the hospital lately,” I said, trying to find a way to make the most of the forced socialization.
“Or at the lab,” Mica said.
So much for delicately drawing him out. Slowly, I clicked. My twin, as usual, had popped in with a hammer.
Doc’s brown eyes, noticeably not silver like my Mom’s, Mica’s, or my own, squinted slightly at Mica before looking my way.
“Yes, well,” my mom said with a big smile meant to smooth over the sarcasm, not at all hidden in Mica’s tone, “it’s been a busy summer for us all. I don’t know how these kids manage to put in so many hours of practice fueled on French fries.”
She and Gram shared a laugh that did little to break up the tension.
“I keep telling them French fries won’t do it,” Gram said, “but at least they have fish and vegetables tonight.” Gram had always modeled healthy eating to support her athletic requirements. I’d never even seen her eat dessert. She was encouraging though, not judgmental. I respected her for it, even if I didn’t always do what she said.
“Yes, indeed," Doc continued. "How have you been faring, Cami? Gotten all caught up on your training?” Doc asked.
Sensing my nervousness, Blake put his hand on my thigh under the table. The gesture, which usually got my blood pressure going up, succeeded in calming me down.
“Yes, sir,” Blake answered for me, in his quiet deep voice that was so low it forced everyone to listen. “Cami and I have started to train together a bit more this summer. We’ve even managed to catch some dolphin swims, which makes a really intense workout.”
My mouth dropped open, as did almost everyone’s at the table. That wasn’t something I’d planned to share. It appeared to shock everyone—except Doc, who nodded in a way that seemed like he was confirming information he already suspected.
How did I not know this? Why the hell haven’t you brought me along? Mica screamed into my head.
How did he not know it? That was a good question, one I’d never pondered before about the what, where, and when of the information we shared via our private link.
Like you share everything with me lately? I tossed back at him.
“Doesn’t everyone swim with dolphins?” Helix asked in a bored voice. “They’re pretty much always around.”
“Yes, but training with them is something very different,” Doc said with a pointed look at his son. “Something few are able to do.”
Helix rolled his eyes defensively, but quickly lowered them to his plate as if his peas held the answers to all the questions in the universe. I felt bad for him, and wondered how it would be if I were the one not swimming, not doing what everyone obsessed over around here.
“That’s not safe, Cami!” Mom said, worry drawing the color from her usually tan cheeks.
“The dolphins have often trained our very best, Lydia,” Doc said to my mom, earning a touch of my gratitude. “It’s always a good thing.”
“But things are different now!” my mom stuttered, arguing with Doc, something I’d never seen her do.
This time, she got the evil eye from him and Gram and stayed silent for the rest of dinner. Mica, of course did not, and peppered Doc with questions about what kind of comas the kids were in, if he had found any similar cases elsewhere in the world, and what kinds of medications they were using to treat them.
Doc answered, patiently, making me wonder if our suspicions were completely unfounded. He gave information where he could and cited medical privacy laws where he couldn’t. I couldn’t tell whom he was trying to make feel better: Mica, my mom, or himself. It was obvious from the conversation, that he was actually concerned and working on this, no longer considering this a coincidence or no big deal.
See? I sent Mica. He’s doing everything he can.
Maybe he is now, he conceded silently. But I still say he is hiding something. We need to get into that old lab.