Elegy (A Watersong Novel) (29 page)

“Unless the police or the FBI catch you first,” Gemma said. “I’m sure they’d love to have you. Lock you up, cut you open, see what makes you tick.”

“Gemma, I will kill them
all,
” Liv told her emphatically. “I will kill everyone on this whole fucking planet if I want to.”

“At first, I thought you were just a little power hungry,” Gemma said. “You were having a hard time adjusting, and this was all going to your head. But now I realize that you’re just insane. Totally and completely insane.”

Liv narrowed her dark brown eyes, and the wide-eyed innocence instantly evaporated, changing into pure evil. Penn was cruel, but empty. Liv was full, but with darkness, and Gemma felt a chill run down her spine.

The brush beside them rustled, but Gemma didn’t look away until Liv did. She didn’t want to take her eyes off her, not when Liv was looking at her like that.

“This is bullshit, Thea, and you know it,” Penn grumbled, and within seconds, she appeared, pushing her through the trees.

“Tell that to Liv,” Thea replied, following at her heels. She had a duffel bag slung over her shoulder, and Gemma could see a blue tarp poking out through the top.

When they emerged from the trees, there was still someone coming up behind them, and Gemma tensed up even more, fearing that a stranger had stumbled on them. Instead, it was Daniel, with his shirt unbuttoned almost all the way down to his navel. As soon as he saw her, he froze.

“What are you doing?” Gemma asked, but he just shook his head.

“Oh, this is ridiculous, Thea,” Penn snapped as she surveyed the mess around her. “You could’ve handled this.”

“Maybe, but I’m not doing it anymore,” Thea said, and tossed the duffel bag down on the ground. “You think Liv is so great, then you take care of her. She’s your problem now. I’m done.”

“Thea, this isn’t so bad,” Liv tried as sweetly as she could. “I just don’t know how to get rid of a body.”

“You’ve done it enough times, you should be a goddamn expert,” Thea told her.

“I can’t get rid of a body in this crowd without being spotted. And I’m fine with that, but you told me—” Liv started the same spiel she’d given Gemma when she got there.

“Liv!” Penn shouted in frustration. “You need to stop making a mess and provoking the humans. Just calm down. We have eternity. You don’t need to get all your killing done in one day.”

Liv suggested that they leave the mess and let the animals and the rain take care of it, which immediately resulted in a squabble between Penn, Thea, and Liv about how best to deal with this, with each of them shirking the responsibility.

With the sirens otherwise occupied, Gemma edged back to where Daniel was standing. He stared down at the body lying a few feet in front of him, and she wasn’t sure how much of the carnage he was really able to take in thanks to his weaker human sight.

“Was that human?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Gemma nodded. “It was Aiden Crawford.”

“Aiden? Holy shit.”

Daniel wheeled around just in time to dry heave into the bushes. It sounded more like he was coughing than actually throwing up, but the reality of it had obviously hit him hard. When he’d finished, he wiped his mouth on the back of his arm and mumbled an apology.

“It’s a lot of blood to take in,” Gemma said when he turned back around.

“I didn’t know there was that much blood in one human body,” he admitted. “That looks like it should be five or six people. At least.”

“I think Liv was making a point of splattering him around.” Gemma kept her voice low, so the sirens would be less likely to notice her, but they were so busy arguing among themselves that she could shout their names, and they wouldn’t look.

Daniel exhaled sharply. “Dammit. He was a dick, but … He was my older brother’s best friend for years before John died. Aiden wasn’t a good guy, but he deserved better than this.”

No, Aiden probably didn’t deserve this, but it hadn’t been that long ago that she’d been about ready to do the same to him when he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Saying he wasn’t a good guy was a massive understatement.

“I know,” Gemma said anyway. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Gemma tilted her head. “Maybe it is. I brought the sirens back to Capri. The reason they’re here is—”

“Don’t do that.” Daniel was quick to cut her off, and since he obviously wasn’t in the mood to argue, she didn’t push it.

“On the subject of why people are here…” Gemma began after a pregnant pause. “Why are you here?”

He stared straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the ground, and she could see the muscles in his jaw tense. “Don’t ask me about that. Please.”

Daniel had arrived late at night with Penn, and the buttons were ripped off the front of his shirt. There was only one conclusion Gemma could draw, especially after seeing Penn fawning over him so much.

She knew why he would do it, the only reason Daniel would do something like this was to protect Harper or her. That made her heart ache, like it was being torn in two, and her stomach twist in knots. Knowing that Daniel would resort to prostituting himself because of her, and how much it would kill Harper when she found out.

“Daniel. You have to tell Harper.”

He sighed and just kept staring at the ground. “We all do what we need to do.”

“No, Daniel,” Gemma said firmly, hating that she had to do this. “If you don’t tell her, I will.”

“Fine!” Penn threw her hands up in the air, and turned her attention back toward Gemma and Daniel. “We’ll wrap him up, then Daniel can dump his body off his boat.”

“What? Why can’t you guys take him out there?” Daniel asked.

“Because they’ll be busy cleaning up this bloodbath.” Penn pointed to Thea and Liv. “And it will look less suspicious if you take a tarp on a boat than if a girl drags a tarp into the ocean.”

“Fine.” Daniel shrugged, like he really didn’t care what he got dragged into anymore. “I’ll do it. As long as I don’t have to touch the body.”

“Great.” Penn smiled at him. “You all can wrap up the body, then Daniel takes it out to sea, and Thea and Liv clean up all this blood.”

“No, Penn. I’m not kidding. I’m not doing this.” Thea smacked her hands together and rubbed them, gesturing that she was washing her hands of all this. “This is your problem now.”

Penn rolled her eyes, then looked to Daniel. “See? I told you she’s bossy and obnoxious.”

“But Thea’s not the reason you’re in this mess,” he said reasonably, then nodded to Liv. “
She
is.”

Liv smiled at him, and in her sweetest, silkiest voice, she said, “One day, Penn is gonna get tired of you. And when she does, she’s gonna tear you apart, and I’ll be there to watch.”

“I’m out of here,” Thea said, and started heading back toward the trees to make her escape. “Sorry, guys. Best of luck.”

With Penn overseeing, Gemma and Liv broke up Aiden’s body so it would be easier to transfer. Daniel had edged closer to the side of the band shell, keeping a lookout, but it also kept him from having to witness their dismembering a guy he’d known most of his life.

When they were finished, the tarps containing Aiden’s body fit neatly inside the duffel bag. It would still be too heavy for Daniel to carry comfortably, so Gemma offered to carry it down to his boat for him.

Penn wanted to take that job for herself, but Gemma had no idea how to get the blood out of the trees. She wiped the blood off herself as best she could, using one of the towels that Thea had tucked in the duffel bag, then she and Daniel headed down to the trail to his boat.

“I got it from here,” Daniel said when they’d stopped on the docks in front of
The Dirty Gull.

“You sure? I can help you get rid of it,” Gemma offered.

“No. I got it.” He took the bag from her and gave it a swing so he could throw it up over the railing and onto his boat. “I just wanna take a nice, long boat ride out past the island, then go home and take the longest shower of my life.”

Some blood had gotten on his hands and arms, and he even had a few droplets on his bare chest, which had probably dripped down from the branches. But by the way he avoided looking Gemma in the eyes, she had a feeling that wasn’t the only reason he felt so dirty.

“What happened between you and Penn—” Gemma began carefully, but Daniel held up his hand, stopping her.

“I know that you mean well, and I know that you think you understand, but…” He trailed off. “I can’t talk about this with you.” He swallowed. “And Harper will know what she needs to know soon enough.”

“I know that whatever you’ve done or will do, you’ve done it to protect Harper and me.”

He chewed the inside of his cheek and stared out at the ocean. Impulsively, Gemma threw her arms around Daniel and hugged him tightly, pressing her face against his chest. Tears stung her eyes, and she barely held them back.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” she said, her words muffled against his chest. “For everything you’ve done and everything you’ve given up.”

He put his hand on her head, stroking her hair for a moment and letting her hug him. Then, abruptly, he pushed her away.

“I gotta go,” he said thickly. Daniel turned and got on his boat, without looking back at her.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Devastation

The clock above the fireplace said it was after eleven o’clock, but Harper assumed that Daniel had gone out with his friends. After all, he was twenty-one, so hitting a few bars would seem logical, especially since he had no idea that she was coming down to surprise him.

Several times throughout the evening, as she’d been waiting for him, she had considered texting or calling to find out where he was or when he might be home. But that would ruin the surprise.

It had already been weeks in the planning. When she arrived at college, she’d gone down to the campus clinic and gotten herself birth control. At the time, she didn’t know it was for tonight, but she knew that things were getting serious, so she thought it wouldn’t hurt to be on it.

The little blue number she was wearing, that was for tonight. In between trying to break ancient curses and cramming for school, Harper had snuck off to a small lingerie boutique in Sundham. She’d gotten the cute matching bra and lace panties for a birthday surprise.

She hadn’t decided for sure that tonight would be the night until Sunday, when they’d gotten close to taking their relationship farther. Daniel said he’d wanted to wait until the moment was perfect, but Harper had realized that she didn’t know when there ever would be a “perfect” moment.

All the troubles with Gemma and the sirens might never end. More and more, she feared that might be the case, and even when or if it ever did end, it might not be for a very long time.

And right now, Harper knew that she loved Daniel more than she’d ever loved anyone, and she wanted to be with him. Not just for today but for the rest of her life. She’d thought about it, she’d talked about it with him, and she was ready.

It would’ve been nice if Daniel had come home sooner, but she’d actually needed the time. After the visit with her mom earlier today, Harper needed a break to decompress. She parked her car away from the docks so Daniel wouldn’t see it, and she took Bernie’s old speedboat out to the island in hopes of getting there first to surprise him.

But now she’d had plenty of time to get ready, reapply her makeup, and change her pose on the couch fifty times. She didn’t want Daniel to know she was here, so she’d only left one lamp on in the corner, leaving her in near darkness.

To make the house seem less creepy, she’d hooked her iPod up to the stereo and put it on shuffle, so her music played softly in the room.

When she finally heard the door handle, her stomach flipped. Harper hurriedly paused the music, so he’d see her before he heard anything, and then posed in the most seductive way possible. She didn’t really know what that meant, so she ended up kind of leaning back, with her long, dark hair falling around her.

Daniel came inside the house, but he didn’t notice her until after he’d turned on the kitchen light. Then he froze and stared at her with a look that could only be described as abject horror.

That was the first chance for Harper to get a really good look at him, and he looked like hell. Droplets of blood were on his chest, and he had dried blood on his hands and smeared across his forehead. His flannel shirt appeared to have been torn since it hung open haphazardly. He had his usual facial scruff, but his face appeared even more ragged. And his hazel eyes had a bleak emptiness in them, something Harper had never seen there before.

“Daniel. Oh, my god.” She got up and hurried over to him. “What happened to you?”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he said flatly. “This is one of the worst days of my entire life, and now this.”

“Now this?” Harper took a step back, but she tried to smile and play it off as a joke. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize seeing me would make your day worse.”

“No, it doesn’t. Not normally, but…” He trailed off and lowered his eyes.

“Daniel. What’s going on?” She reached out, touching his arm gently. “You’re scaring me.”

He rubbed his temple. “I just want to take a shower, but this can’t wait, can it?”

“What can’t? We can do whatever you want to do.”

“Just give me one second.”

Without looking at her, he slid by and went to the bathroom. As she listened to the sound of running water, Harper rubbed her hands on her bare arms and sat down on the couch. In an attempt to ease her anxiety, she turned the music back on, and “Landfill” by Daughter came softly out of the speakers.

A few minutes later, Daniel came back out. He was shirtless, and with all the blood washed off, she couldn’t see any obvious wounds. Other than the scars from his previous battles with the sirens and the black branches of his tattoo stretching down his shoulder.

He had a different flannel shirt in his hand, and he held it out to Harper. “Here. Put this on. It’s clean.”

Her cheeks flushed as she slid the shirt on, but she left it unbuttoned. “I’m sorry if I did something wrong coming here tonight. I just wanted to surprise you.”