Underwater by Brooke Moss

Author:Brooke Moss
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: young adult
Publisher: Etopia Press
Published: 2013-08-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Hayden had pinched his blond eyebrows together. It made my heart clunk around in my chest like a crumpled pop can when I looked at him.

He’d spent the last five afternoons with Evey, citing that our house was the only place he could go where his parents didn’t worry about him. Evey was thrilled. I could tell by the way she’d started wearing her hair down instead of pulling it into its usual ponytail, and she’d even traded her telltale T-shirts for actual shirts. With buttons and everything.

But she hid her enthusiasm for Hayden’s sake. Circles shadowed under his eyes from lost sleep, and his pale cheeks had taken on the same color as his white-blond hair. Evey said that he’d only slept a total of eight or ten hours since the afternoon it happened, and he’d taken to texting her all night because he couldn’t sleep.

“I just wish they’d accept that Ian is gone and plan the damn funeral.” Hayden rubbed his face as we all sat on the dock.

I glanced at Saxon, who’d fixed his gaze on a long crack in the wood. Posture stiff, his mouth locked into a frown as he listened to Hayden lament his brother. He’d been feeding me small updates about Ian’s progress below the surface every day. According to Saxon, some days were worse than others, and physically Ian was making the change successfully. But emotionally…not so much.

Ian was fighting his new life with a vengeance. Saxon said most altered humans would fight it for a few days, but eventually accept their existence as a Mer, especially after the connection between mates was established. Usually finding the one other being you were going to long for eternally was enough to prompt the human to succumb, but Ian was different. He’d refused to let Isolde touch him and tried—repeatedly—to escape.

“He’s gone.” Hayden hurtled a rock out at the water, creating rings that slowly scrolled back the dock. “They’ve searched the woods within a hundred mile radius; searched every town from here to Butte, Montana, and back. They’ve even drug the bottom of the lake twice now. Well, what they can reach, that is. We’ll never see his body again, much less find him alive.”

Evey put her hand over his. “It would be hard to have a funeral without a…” She gulped before continuing. “A body.”

Hayden’s eyes filled and his nose started to redden. Instead of moving to hide his emotion, he just glowered down at the water. He’d shed enough tears in front of Evey over the past week that he no longer cared if she saw. “I know, but the lake is over twelve hundred feet deep! They test submarines in it for hell’s sake! They’ll never find his body!”

I cleared my throat, trying to choke down the guilt that strangled me every time Hayden came over. “How are your parents doing? You said your mom was pretty bad yesterday.”

He shook his head. It looked as if he were trying to rid himself of an image in his mind.

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