Warm water lapped against Reid's bare chest as she soaked in her claw foot tub. Her emerald green tail hung over the white porcelain edge with her vertical fin just grazing the floor. Suds littered the top of the water and she used loofa coated in apple-scented body wash to clean the salt off her body from her morning swim. Her brilliant red hair was tied up into a messy bun on the top of her head, a few strands falling down and framing her face. She had her favorite band playing from the speaker by the sink and she hummed along with the words.
She was trying to scrub the salt off just as much as she was trying to wash away the flash of Xavier's angry unrelenting eyes. After Reid had downed the whole cooler of blood, she found herself looking like a madman in the middle of that damned parking lot. She had gotten blood all over herself, the pavement and the cooler. It seemed that there was a trick to getting the blood bags open and Reid had not figured it out.
She ditched the cooler in the bottom of a dumpster in a back alley since it wouldn't quite fit on her bike. She couldn't get Xavier's disgusted face out of her head. He was so angry with her. Reid had no doubt that if Rebekah and Daniel hadn't been involved with her, Xavier would have killed her on that dance floor in front of everyone. Or tied at least. She probably looked like the most pathetic excuse for a vampire he had ever seen. Maybe she could find other ways to convince the Richard's that she was just as much vampire as they were.
Crash.
Reid sat up at the noise and instantly pulled the plug out of the base of the tub. She switched off the speaker with her remote as she waited for the water to drain. She listened carefully for any other sounds. Nothing. Her heart rate accelerated and she thought it might beat right out of her chest. Grabbing a towel she vigorously drying the water off the best she could. She tried to tell herself that it was just Rebekah coming by to talk to her. It didn't ease her heart rate.
Once her legs came back into view, she leaped out of the tub and wrapped her black silky robe around herself. She moved as quickly and as quietly as she could, slinking down the stairs her canines out and ready. She peered around the corner of the hall and into the kitchen. Nothing. There was nothing out of place, nothing that set off any red flags.
But she did here something. Someone or something was definitely here.
She moved into the kitchen and quickly grabbed her sleek black handgun from the slit she had cut into the back of the toaster. It felt cool in her hands, like a corpse. Reid never liked to kill with her body along. A corpse dead from being torn apart by some kind of rabid animal was more suspicious than a gunshot wound to the head. Most of the time they seemed to put it up to a drug deal gone bad.
Raising it in front of her she continued to peer around the corners of her house - gun first, canines second. She stopped at the corner of the living room just before the hallway. Reid could hear bare feet patting on the hardwood.
She jumped into the hall gun raised to the center of the intruder's forehead.
Reid's glare quickly faded and her finger loosened on the trigger. The face at the end of the barrel was one Reid recognized.
"I almost shot you!" Reid snarled annoyed.
Natalia just laughed, "no kidding". Natalia reached up and tossed the gun away from her face then opened her arms wide waiting for an embrace. Her blonde hair was cut shoulder length and her big brown eyes sparkled in the light of the hallway. Her heart-shaped face and a small nose that only improved her cute innocent appearance. Reid hadn't seen her for at least 30 years.
Reid threw herself into her arms, hugging her tightly and loving the familiarity of the sea that washed over her. Natalia squeezed her back and smiled into Reid's blazing hair.
Natalia was not a Siren. Her voice had no magic no matter how soft she tried to sing. Any creature of the sea could tell Natalia was not a Siren. The creatures under the water learned the signs really quickly. One way to tell was the voice. Another was the fact that Natalia's tail flipped in an up and down motion like a whale and not like Reid's verticle shark fin.
Stepping back Reid admired how much Natalia had matured. Her legs seemed to stretch for miles and her pink lips looked amazing against her tan skin. Reid was puzzled.
"What are you doing here?" Reid asked shaking her head still stunned at the familiar face. Why would she risk being here?
"Well," she sighed, "If you must know!" Natalia jumped around Reid and landed on the sofa of the living room. She patted the seat beside her, smiling. Reid made her way to the couch and sat down next to her. Reid eyed her warily.
"I took my title!" she squealed with a bright smile, all her brilliant white teeth exposed.
Natalia was next in line for the throne after her mother the queen of the mermaids. Reid could remember Natalia's excitement when they were just fingerlings about one day ruling the sea along with the other two queens. "Really?" Reid asked curious, "When?"
"Yesterday," Nat said examining her nails. They glittered under pink sparkles.
Reid raised an eyebrow, "seriously?"
"Yeah," she said smiling, "and since I claimed it early the jury let me leave for a few days to 'prepare' myself" she put air quotes around the word 'prepare' with her thin fingers.
"So you came to see me?" Reid asked. What a stupid thing to do.
"Yeah, I missed you, Reid," Nat looked at her and smiled sheepishly.
"I missed you too," Reid said pulling her into a hug, "but what if they catch you here? You know, with me?"
"I'm Queen now remember? I can do whatever I want," she grinned ear to ear.
"Not everything," Reid said looking at her expectedly. "Haning out with a fugitive is something very frowned upon." Nat knew what Reid was referring to. The sentence on Reid's head was too great a deal for even the mermaid queen to remove. The bounty was too great and Reid's status too high.
"I know," she said, "but I am on the Jury now." Nat smiled, "my opinion counts."
The Jury was a group of sea folk that consisted of the leaders of each race. A siren, a mermaid, and a cecaelia make up the three most horrid parts of the ocean. All three members of the jury need to agree when deciding what happens to the sea. The cecaelia alone decides the punishment of the convicted. That is the only thing a queen can't do. Reid fled before they could hold her trial.
"Still," Reid said knowing her chances of ever being welcomed back were slim to none.
"Well you have two votes on your side now," Natalia said smiling and Reid knew this was true. All she could do though was hope she wasn't caught by the cecaelia.
Cecaelia were the enforcers of the sea. Terrifying to look at and notorious killers, they were feared by the entire ocean. Sharks cowered in their presence, and Mermaids fled with one look. Queens were the only thing they couldn't terrify. They worked along the royals. The Queen's of the ocean were under the constant protection of the cecaelia because of the power they held. All three are needed in order for the ocean to survive. However, if the cecaelia believed you to be bad or harmful to the sea they would hunt you down to the ends of the earth. They might as well have been cursed by Poseidon himself.
Reid shook her head. She would never be able to go back. She had faced that fate a long time ago; doomed she was, to a life of seclusion. Alone. Completely without her people. A convict cursed of committing the greatest crime in the ocean.
Natalia was ready to change the gloomy topic. "Your mother wishes you her best," she smiled trying to lighten the mood.
"Yeah?" Reid asked, hopeful then paused. "Why is the deep hell would you tell my mother, of all people, where you were going?" Reid couldn't believe had stupid she had been.
"I didn't," Natalia stated flatly. "But she has been a completely different siren without you. She missed you dearly. It's only common sense that she would with you the best."
Reid looked at the gun in her lap. She was a completely different person without her mother as well. At least her mother still had the company of her people and the sea. That was more then Reid could even ask for.
"So what have you been doing Topside?" Natalia said leaning back into the sofa. "Anything exciting happen yet?" Natalia gazed around the room taking in all the strange things of the human world. Natalia had only been topside once or twice in her entire life and never this close to human things.
"Actually yes," Reid grinned.
"Like what?" Natalia asked, "Another war?" She sat up looking at Reid expectantly.
"No," Reid said rolling her eyes. Humans were always fighting over everything. They ran at everything guns blazing and nuclear weapons at the ready, not accepting the consequences in the slightest.
"Then what?" Natalia shrugged deeming the subject unimportant if no one was going to get blown to smithereens.
"Vampires."
"Vampires?" Nat repeated immediately interested again. Her brown eyes were ablaze with the news.
"Uh huh," Reid nodded. "Three of them, just down the road."
"No way. Can we see them?" Natalia asked her curiosity getting the better of her. Natalia knew the gist of vampires - they drank blood.
"If you come with me to school you can," Reid kind of hoped Nat would join her tomorrow. It would make it easier to avoid Rebekah and Daniel. Maybe even keep her occupied.
"A topside school," she mused. "And vampires. Oh yes! Count me in!" she laughed. Reid laughed with her. "What are they like?" Nat asked leaning into Reid.
Reid thought about this for a moment. "Well," she started, "a lot like me..." Reid trailed off thinking about Xavier's blazing eyes. "They are beautiful creatures but I don't know much. They think I am one of them - a vampire. I am trying to keep up the act but I have no idea what vampire do you know?"
Natalia nodded, staring into the distance. "I can see how that would be difficult. You aren't planning on telling them what you really are right?"
"Gods no!" Reid half yelled. She Didn't need another crime to be added to her sentence.
Natalia only looked at her for a long moment. "Well, what are you going to do?"
"Keep up the hoax I guess. Until then they get too suspicious, then I'll have to leave again." Reid sighed heavily. She did like it here.
"I wish you could just move home," Natalia said suddenly.
Reid studied her. "Yes, but you know that's never going to be possible." Reid either remained on the run or face sentencing by the cecaelia which would most likely result in a never ending stay chained to the bottom of the deepest trench in the Ocean only to suffocate over and over and over again.
Natalia knew this. It was cruel to tease Reid with the prospect of going home.
She would never know home. Not ever again.