Sam didn’t look up from his phone as his student swam her laps. He’d been teaching Whitney for over a year now, and she had picked up swimming like she’d been born in the water. He didn’t need to watch her; she would be doing the strokes perfectly, as usual. By now she had to be on at least her tenth lap. He doubted she would tire before she got to twenty. For such a scrawny girl, she sure had some muscle.
Whitney made it to the far edge of the pool before Sam snuck at a glance at her. She was far enough away to be safe from his desire to bite into her. No other human had been even half as enticing as she was to him. He had to use all his willpower not to drain her dry each time she had a lesson. Whitney slid through the water effortlessly and was coming closer to where he was seated. Sam had to look down again.
Water splashed a little as Whitney made it to the wall and turned around to go the other direction. Sam pretended there was something on his phone more important than watching her. He didn’t need to make any mistakes, like getting obsessed about a girl he could never be with. He was only a senior, but he had been hoping to stay around at least another five or ten years on the mainland. It was expected he would return home to his family eventually, but he wasn’t in a hurry to get back to the pressure of all that.
It was taking all his self-control to sit on the side and not jump into the water. His kind wasn’t especially known for self-control, either. Sam pressed the buttons on his phone aimlessly.
There was no one calling him, nor would there be. Sirens preferred the island, and not many stayed shoreside for long. Everyone used the excuse that they needed to head back for something every chance they got. His only other friends were busy with their after-school jobs or getting ready for their next gig. It cost a lot to live on your own. While they pretended to have parents with them, Sam and his friends were really alone, fending for themselves. His second job was at night, and since he didn’t need much sleep, it was a good fit.
Sam thought of home to distract himself. It had been over two weeks since he had been back, and he was going to have to make a trip there in the next week or so. They would never let him go too long without checking in. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the island—it was really pretty perfect—he just wanted to get away. That wasn’t possible there. Everyone knew everyone and was in their business. Eventually, he’d have to live there. At some point, the day humans around him were bound to notice he wasn’t aging once he turned eighteen in a couple weeks. But until then, he planned to stay on shore as long as he could. It might take moving around a bit, but he was positive he could pull it off until he was at least twenty-five, maybe even thirty.
Whitney splashed again as she turned around and began going the opposite way, her body just breaking the surface as she moved forward and away from Sam again. Sam gripped his phone a little tighter, willing himself to sit still on the bleachers. He couldn’t put his finger on why he wasn’t able to stay away from this one day human. She was beautiful, but then again so was everyone where he came from. Sirens tended to be as beautiful as the most popular movie stars. It helped when you pretended to save someone in the ocean. Boaters were always much more likely to trust a beautiful face over an ugly one.
His phone beeped as he got a message, and he could concentrate on something other than the human swimming before him. It wasn’t much to keep his attention, but he’d read it over a dozen times just to be sure. It outlined the time and place of their gig Friday night. Maybe he could look up where it was. Not that he needed to know; their bus driver would get them there in time. But it would keep him busy for at least another lap. Sam typed the address into his phone and zeroed in on the place. It wasn’t too far, only a few hours north. They would be home before sunrise. An easy night. Then again, their manager would want them in the studio if they weren’t pulling a late night to record their next album.
Tipping his head back, Sam stared at the clouds. Life would have been much easier if the other night humans knew about the sirens. They would be free to stay on land as much as they wanted, and he would have access to blood banks and not have to trick day humans into swimming lessons to feed himself. And his job of keeping the land sirens safe would be so much easier if they weren’t running around hungry all the time. He hated the way everything had turned out. He understood it, but that didn’t mean he had to agree.
The splashing in the pool had stopped. Sam looked down to see whether his student was taking a break or she was done for the day. She wasn’t at her twentieth lap yet. By his calculations, she was only at fourteen.
Jumping up from his seat, Sam dove effortlessly into the pool and across the width of the lanes without surfacing for breath. Yes, some wandering day human too close to the pool could have seen, but it was an emergency. Whitney was floating face down in the pool, and she wasn’t just holding her breath.
In one swift motion, Sam lifted Whitney’s lifeless body out of the water as he emerged from below her. He immediately jumped out beside her. Without hesitating, Sam began to breathe into her mouth. Her heartbeat was slowing. He didn’t need to feel for a pulse; his senses told him that much. Sam blew into her mouth again, trying to get air to her body.
With her blonde hair matted to her, Whitney lay there limp and unresponsive. Sam stared at her. Even on the verge of death, he was pulled to her, but now his siren instincts were taking over. He had seen his share of people dying from drowning, and they all looked as appetizing as she did when she swam. Now as she was dying Sam realized he didn’t want to feed on her, he wanted to keep her alive.
He didn’t stop to think about what he was doing as he bit down on his wrist. Blood began to drip down his arm. Placing his wrist over her open mouth, he let only a few drops fall into it. Night human blood was powerful and held healing capabilities for day humans; his would be enough to keep her from dying. At least he hoped so. He had only known of two people ever that used their blood to heal a day human. It had been successful in both getting the human healed and the siren exiled from the island. Sam knew there could be a price if anyone ever found out, but that didn’t matter to him. For some reason, keeping the fragile day human in his arms alive was worth it.
Whitney began to cough, and he quickly turned her to her side as she puked out the water stuck in her lungs. Sam licked away the blood on his arm and was thankful for his quick healing abilities as there wasn’t a mark left on him.
Wiping her hair out of her face and into something a little more stylish, Whitney pushed herself up to sitting.
“I thought I was taking these lessons so I wouldn’t almost drown,” she complained.
Sam shook his head. “Then how about next time you come up for a breath instead of trying to make it all the way down the pool like some sort of fish?” Sam replied, easily bantering with her as his own heartbeat slowed down from the excitement. Relief flushed over him, but he pretended like everything was normal.
That was what had happened the last time she almost drowned, except this time technically she did drown. However, Sam wasn’t about to correct her. The less she knew, the better.
Whitney ran her hands through her hair again and gave it an easy, perfect twist.
“Fine. I guess I’m not a fish, but wouldn’t swimming be much easier if you didn’t have to breathe while doing it?”
Sam smiled as she stood up. How true that was.
“Done for today?” he asked as she made her way over to her towel on the sideline.
“Yeah, only one ‘almost drowning’ per day for me. I’m up to what, four dinners now?”
That was their deal. Since Whitney didn’t pay Sam for the lessons, the school did. The first time she had almost drowned, Sam was in the water with her and just had to push her to the edge. That was the first week of class when she thought she was ready to jump in the deep end. She promised to buy him dinner to make up for his saving her. That was five times ago. She was getting better. In fact, it had been months since the last ‘almost drowning.'
Whitney wiped the water off her thighs and then her legs. Sam was disappointed. He blamed his siren side, which seemed to be more attracted to women drenched like wet cats than the ones made up with perfect hair and makeup like he had seen on the girls he’d taken on the few land dates he had gone on.
“I think that was six,” Sam corrected.
Whitney wrapped her towel around her, completely hiding her body from his view. Sam kept his expression in the normal smile that hid all his thoughts. It was an especially good trick for dealing with her. He focused on her eyes, which were blue, just like the sky. It was harder to keep his gaze from roaming, but everything seemed harder when dealing with Whitney.
“Fine. Six dinners. But you’re going to have to wait. I just started my new job, so I won’t get paid for two weeks.”
“Guess you’ll have to stop trying to drown.” Okay, he couldn’t help that one. It was like Whitney was there to give him a challenge, either in the water or just in a conversation.
“Well, maybe I need a teacher who can show me how to swim without needing air,” she kidded back. She was never going to get a new teacher. Only four students at the school taught lessons; he had made sure none of them would agree to teach her so that she had to come to him instead. He would never admit it to another night human that he had a crush on a day human, but by being her teacher, he could spend at least a little time alone with her without any suspicion from anyone.
“Or maybe you’ll finally realize you aren’t a fish and learn to breathe like everyone else when they swim.”
Whitney smiled at him, and Sam would swear it sparkled in the sun.
“You just wait. One of these days I will swim the length of the pool in one breath. You just wait, buddy.” Whitney tapped a finger on his chest as she challenged him before turning on her heels and walking away. She gave him a wave as she walked back toward the gate that led into the school locker rooms. She didn’t even turn around.
Sam watched her hips sway as she walked. If any other human made that statement, he would have laughed, but Whitney… she was different. It was very possible she would do just that.
The door to the locker room shut, and she was finally out of his view. Sometimes he wished he was a djinn instead of a siren. Then he would grant his own wish and turn Whitney into a night human and he could keep her to himself forever.
Whitney hit the snooze button on her alarm for the tenth time or so. She was beyond tired. Her new job started, and she wasn’t yet talented enough to multitask as a waitress. She was going to have to stop dropping stuff and stop talking so much with customers. At least it had been her first week of work, and people were forgiving. Next week might not go as well if she didn’t step up and do better. It stunk that her inheritance was locked in a bank account she couldn’t access until she was twenty-one. She had to work for any spending money for the next three years.
The alarm beeped again. Swatting at it, Whitney managed to turn it off. She was having a good dream, and the noise was completely ruining it.
Whitney waited for the slumber to come back. She was warm and cozy; it wouldn’t take long.
“Leaving in five,” Ben, Whitney’s younger cousin and ride to school, called from the other side of her shut door.
Her eyes shot open, and she looked across the room at her second clock, which was supposed to have gone off an hour ago, forcing her to get out of bed. It was blinking midnight. They had lost power again, and she still didn’t have batteries in it.
Quick mode was going to have to work. Whitney jumped out of bed and slipped into the closest polo shirt she could find in her closet and the khaki skirt from yesterday. One nice thing about a dress code was picking out her clothes was easy when it needed to be. Her hair was a mess from sleeping on it wet after swimming the night before, but that would have to wait. She didn’t have time to shower and blow-dry her hair. She barely had time to put on lip gloss as she heard her cousin march by her room and jump down the steps outside her door two at a time. She grabbed her backpack and her shoes to chase after him. He had been threatening for weeks to leave without her, but she didn’t want the day she woke up late to include showing up in a thrown-together outfit that was all sweaty from having to jog to school.
Ben walked through the kitchen to the garage and Whitney followed, grabbing an apple on the way. She would rather have time to sit down, eat and maybe even drink some coffee to wake up, but an apple was going to have to do for now.
Out the door and hopping in his car, Ben didn’t look back to see if she was there. Whitney kept up with her younger cousin and jumped in the passenger side as the car purred to life.
“I swear you sleep more than a cat,” Ben muttered as she sat beside him.
Whitney grinned. She was kind of fond of cats, but that was back when she lived with her family. Her grin faded as it always did when she thought of the home she no longer had.
“Rough swim lesson or rough day at Bingos?” Ben asked.
Whitney had returned home from swimming to get dressed and head right to work. If she had to pick, they were equal in difficultness since she had almost drowned in her lesson right before heading to work.
“Both,” she replied, biting into the apple and holding it in her teeth while she reached back and pulled her hair into a sloppy—but would work until she could find a mirror— braid.
“You do know if you’d just go on a date with Mark, I’m sure he’d be easier at Bingos,” Ben suggested.
Mark was a senior in their school. He’d been working at Bingos for almost four years and was now an assistant to the manager that ran the place. He had let Whitney know that he was more than willing to date her, but she just couldn’t bring herself to say yes. It wasn’t his fault. He was cute, with blond, wavy hair that was sun-streaked from hours of surfing, and crystal blue eyes. They would’ve made a cute matching couple, what with Whitney’s own blond hair and blue eyes, but she still couldn’t do it. She just didn’t see him as boyfriend material.
“Mark isn’t the problem,” Whitney replied to her cousin. I am, she thought.
Ben shrugged. “Either way, it wouldn’t hurt anything to just try.”
Whitney glowered at her cousin as he drove. He was on Team Mark since he practically idolized the senior who was the captain of the swim team Ben desperately wanted to be on. Ben spent almost all his free time following Mark around like a puppy, and Mark didn’t seem to mind at all. At least Mark was nice enough to put up with Ben, but that didn’t make her want to date him either.
“I’m not dating Mark to make him like you better.”
Now it was Ben pouting. Whitney turned away from him. From this angle Ben looked so much like her little brother, it made her sad. Her brother was still back home where Whitney wanted to be, but she would never fit in again since their parents died. She had been rightfully shipped off to her aunt to start over when his best friend took him in. She missed him greatly. Starting over would have been so much more fun if her brother was there, but she understood. She only had a year left of school before she would be off to college, and then she would be gone. He had three years of high school left and wanted to be with his friends back home. Knowing that didn’t make her miss him any less.
“Hey, don’t blame me. I’m only trying to help,” Ben said, misunderstanding her sadness.
Whitney turned back to him, shaking her head to get rid of the sad memories and to say no to Ben at the same time.
“I’m still not dating him.”
Ben let out a frustrated sigh as he pulled into the school parking lot and drove through to the sophomore lot. Whitney hopped out before he turned off the car.
“Thanks for the lift, cuz,” she yelled as she walked quickly to the school. If she got to her locker with enough time, she could stop by the bathroom and make sure she looked okay before class.
Whitney ducked and bobbed through the full hallway to her locker. It had been more than a year ago that her life had changed with the loss of her mother and father, but she was finally getting used to Florida.
“Overslept?” her next door locker mate, Tina, asked.
“Can you tell?” Whitney threw her bag in her locker.
“Only because you’re wearing your ‘I didn’t have time to fix my hair’ braid.”
Whitney’s hands went to her head to pat down the braid and make sure it felt okay. She was never like that at home. She was always on time and styled perfectly, but something with the move threw everything off. At least she kept her room clean still, and that helped with her endless ‘not waking in time for school’ moments. Whitney blamed it on the heat. Her old home in Washington State was nothing like Florida regarding heat, and she missed it. It was the middle of winter, and she was sweating. There was also the difference in time zones. That had to be it, too.
The bell rang once for a warning. She didn’t have time to go check herself. It would have to wait until later.
“Meet you at lunch?” Tina asked.
“Always,” Whitney replied.
The school she transferred to was much larger than the one back home where everyone knew everyone since most started kindergarten together. She had moved into that school in eighth grade and started over as the only new person in years. Here, no one seemed to notice or care that there was a new person as it seemed like every month there was someone new.
Whitney made it through her first four classes without finding a single moment to get to the bathroom to check her hair and put on some makeup. It didn’t matter too much. Tons of people at school went without any since half of them spent their free time at the beach or in the hot sun. They all looked perfect as it was. Whitney enjoyed the no-fuss vibe of the people around her, and that might have been the reason she was sleeping in more and more.
The crowd all headed toward the lunchroom, and Whitney moved with the flow of bodies. It didn’t take long to spot Tina waiting at the end of the hallway near the lunch line. Her dark hair and thick glasses hid the beauty of the girl behind them, making her very distinctive-looking. Whitney had asked more than once why not get contacts, but Tina had no reason other than that she liked her glasses.
“Hot lunch or salad?” Trudy asked as she slid next to Whitney, appearing out of nowhere. She was Whitney’s other best friend at her new school.
“Smells good. What is it today?” Whitney asked as she took a whiff of the food coming from the open doorway.
Trudy placed her hand on Whitney’s forehead. “Are you feeling okay?”
Scrunching her eyes, Whitney looked at her red-headed friend in confusion. “Um, yeah?”
“It’s fish,” Tina explained, swatting her friend’s hand from Whitney who was still confused.
“Nah, can’t be,” Whitney replied, walking inside the door and near enough to see the sign posted. “I hate fish and the smell of it.”
Sure enough, the sign said fish. Whitney was more confused than before. It really did smell good.
“Did you hit your head at swimming yesterday?” Trudy asked, still searching for a reason for the change.
She linked her arm in Whitney’s and pulled her to the salad line. Really, fish wasn’t an option for Whitney, and they all knew it. Whitney was tempted to protest. Her friends actually liked fish but refrained from eating it in front of her ever since the first week of school when she puked from the sight of it. They seemed to make fish at least twice a week here. Living by the ocean had some problems. The guys they sat with—Noah and James—actually found her dislike of fish hilarious and liked to use it to tease her. Thankfully, she was in line with the girls who had sympathy with her instead.
“I did almost drown again,” Whitney commented. Her friends knew about all the other times, too, and it made them laugh. “This time, Sam actually had to get in the water and not just pull me to the side.”
Trudy covered her mouth in a fake gasp, making her deep red curls bounce.
“Prince Sam got in the water to save you? As in, he got wet? That has to be a first.”
Whitney giggled. Her friends all called Sam and his friends royalty, and Sam was the prince of them. It actually fit really well. Everyone in his group always looked to him before answering anything. She caught on quickly when she moved there that there were two distinct groups of kids at school—her friends and those that fit in with Sam’s royalty group.
“He wasn’t even mad,” Whitney replied. “But now I owe him six dinners. At this rate, I’ll be buying him dinner all summer long.”
Pouring dressing over her salad, Whitney made it to the end of the line.
“Uh-oh,” Tina said as she poked Whitney in the back. “I think he must have heard us talking about him.”
Whitney handed her card to the teacher swiping meals, and pretended to look at her while really looking over the lady’s shoulder. Sure enough, Sam was watching her. Even the blonde next to him couldn’t get his attention. Whitney stepped a little to the side to be hidden from his view. It made her heart pound to catch him staring like that. Sam was just as gorgeous as the rest of the royalty group that also included her Cousin Ben’s favorite person, Mark, but there was something more about the dark-haired leader of the group. Something Whitney couldn’t put her finger on.
“Hide me,” Whitney pleaded with her friends. She had never once been shy around guys, and when she was alone with Sam, Whitney had no problems talking with him. But when he was with his friends, it was different for some reason.
“Like we could do that,” Trudy replied. That much was true. Both Trudy and Tine were more than five inches shorter than Whitney’s five foot nine inches.
“Fine. But let’s change the subject before he really does hear us.” Whitney kept her gaze on her friend and not the set of eyes she felt still watching her.
“That I can do,” Trudy replied, knowing how nervous Sam made Whitney. “Just promise me to look at the floor as you walk; we don’t want a repeat of last year.”
Whitney glanced up at her friend and made a sour pout. They were never going to let her live it down, her dislike of fish. That’s what friends were for.
Whitney was thrilled to be back home. She had almost an hour before her shift started at work, and that was enough time to finally get a shower in, after she picked up her room that she’d nearly finished cleaning last night and meant to that morning before she had left in a rush that morning.
Turning on the radio in her room, Whitney hung her bag behind the door, homework and all, and glanced around. It wasn’t that messy, especially for a teen. She had seen her friends’ rooms over the years, and she was embarrassed when people came to hers and found her room spotless. At least her old best friend understood and never complained at her need for order.
The bed was first on the list. Whitney pulled the sheets up and then the pale pink comforter, which she didn’t really need in the heat, and tucked them both in. Without thinking, she leaned over and fluffed the pillows also. The floor was next. She had a few shirts that missed the laundry basket. Her hamper was getting close to half full, so she’d have to do laundry over the weekend.
The radio blasted as she walked around putting everything back in place. Her favorite song began to play, and Whitney couldn’t fight the urge to sing along. She was sure her aunt was working, and only her cousin was home. He already, on more than one occasion, had heard her terrible singing. Therefore she didn’t care as she began to belt out the song. Whitney danced along as she sang and picked up. Her room was going to be spotless before the song was done, so she moved to her attached bathroom. She could still hear the music.
Whitney continued to sing as she stripped off her school shirt and leaned back into her room to toss it in her dirty laundry hamper.
Shrieking, Whitney ran over to her now open bedroom door.
“Get out of here, Ben,” she yelled at her cousin, who was standing with his back to her. Ben didn’t move or turn around.
Whitney grabbed a clean towel from the bar inside the bathroom and wrapped it around her top half before marching into her room, hitting the music off on the way. She pulled on her cousin’s shoulder to yell at him again; Ben didn’t budge.
In the silence of the room, an eerie feeling came over Whitney. She carefully walked around her cousin to see him staring straight ahead with a dazed expression on his face. His eyes focused on nothing, and his mouth hung slightly open. He looked like a statue, and if it wasn’t for the small movements of his chest, she wouldn’t even know if he was alive.
“Ben?” Whitney asked, all anger gone. Something beyond weird was going on. Whitney reached up and gently touched his face. “Ben. Are you in there?”
Still, there was no movement from him, or any kind of recognition.
Reaching for her phone, Whitney never took her eyes off Ben. Something wasn’t right, and she had no idea what it meant. The only thing she could think to do was call her friends back home. They dealt a lot with weirdness, and she had to hope they could tell her what to do.
As she pressed the first digit of her best friend’s phone number, Ben snapped out of his daze.
“What the heck, cuz? You know I don’t need to see you walking around in a towel,” Ben complained in true brotherly fashion as he came to.
“Um, then don’t come in my room …”
Whitney was still unsure about what had just happened, but she stopped dialing since he seemed to be better now and she wanted to believe everything was perfectly fine. It had to be her imagination. She had been away from the night human world and all the weirdness that went with it for over a year. She was just a normal day human, and odd things didn’t happen to day humans. She had to believe that.
Ben glanced around the room and then reached up to scratch the back of his head. He didn’t seem to understand what he was doing either, but at least he was back mentally and not just a statue.
“Um yeah,” he said as he turned to leave, just as confused as Whitney was.
Whitney set her phone down and closed her bedroom door, turning the lock as she did so. She wasn’t having a repeat since she needed to get a shower. She would have yelled more at him, but it was just too strange, and he didn’t seem to have done it on purpose. Whitney could write off all the weird things in her life easily, as there were hundreds of reasons behind them, all pointing back to the world she left behind, but Ben had never been part of the night human world. He was just a human through and through.
Spending most of her life in a world filled with people that needed to drink blood would normally sound crazy, but that had been her life. She had once been one and even felt the urge to bite someone for the warm, red liquid. Night humans were everywhere. She understood there was so much in the world connected to them, even if most day humans never knew they existed.
Making her way back to the bathroom, Whitney hung her towel up and stripped off the rest of her school clothes. She turned the water on and didn’t check to see if it was the right temperature. Even if she wanted a hot shower, it would do no good. The water heater barely got above warm, and if she did take a hot shower, she would get out and begin sweating more. Whitney really didn’t like Florida’s hot and humid weather, but she only had to make it through a few more months, and she’d be free to leave.
The white curtain blocked the spray of water as Whitney climbed in and held her breath, ready for the lukewarm water to hit her as the curtain folded back in place. She wasn’t prepared for the tingling that started at her toes. Whitney glanced down to see that her legs were fusing together, beginning to form what appeared to be a fin.
Shoot, shoot shoot, Whitney thought as she felt it move further up her legs.
She reached down quickly and plugged the drain. It wasn’t her first time transforming into an animal. Before her life had changed, she used to change into a beautiful tawny cat on the full moon. That was the life she missed, but for the past fourteen months, she had been change-free. And she had never turned into a fish before. She had to hope she’d be a big fish and if not the drain would catch her from going in the sewer.
The tingling crept up her body. It felt like a snail’s pace as she worried about what it all meant, but in reality it probably only took seconds. Whitney couldn’t really tell what was going on as it continued down her arms. Weirdly, she felt tingles, but nothing was happening to her upper body.
They finally stopped, and she stared at where her legs used to be. Reaching to touch the beautiful pink fin with her human hands, Whitney felt the slick scales beneath her fingers. She wasn’t changing into a fish. She had a fish tail but that was it… she was a mermaid. Yep, life had just moved past beyond weird, directly to super confusing.