“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 te
en. 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.
CHAPTER 2
Sam watched from his locker as Whitney made her way down the hallway. He tried to hide his stare as his friends talked around him, but he was still worried. She had been close to death just over twenty-four hours ago, and yet she seemed fine. Seemed was the part that bothered him. Whitney was great at “seeming to be” a lot of things. No one saw the tears or the sad eyes she had when she watched the ocean at his favorite surf spot.
The first time Sam had seen Whitney was before he knew who she was or that she would be going to his school. The pier was usually busy, and he hated to be around so many day humans. He had been on land for years, but at times it still got to him. They always smelled delicious. There was a better spot down a ways from the pier, but still within view of it. That was his spot, right after the bend that kept him away from all the non-stop chattering of a world he was never going to be part of, a world on the land and not the sea.
Sam was alone when he spotted her. At first, he thought she was an illusion from the sun shining just right on the sand, but as he got closer, he realized she was real. She never noticed him as he snuck into the water to get closer.
From beneath the waves, he was able to circle around her spot on the rocks of the bend. She was staring in the direction of the pier, and thus he was hidden as he surfaced. Luckily she didn’t see him, but there was more than one occasion since that he wished she would have.
“What do you think?” someone asked from beside Sam.
Shaking from his thoughts of Whitney, he realized he was calmer now that he saw her walking into the school and not suffering any lasting effects from his blood. He needn’t have worried; she was just as graceful as ever and completely alive.
Sam turned to the voice beside him.
Amber batted her eyes lashes at him. Sam was growing sick of all her advances. They had grown up together, but he had m
ade it very clear that he wasn’t choosing a mate until he was forced to. Amber seemed to take that at a challenge, and as his eighteenth birthday approached, she was trying harder to get him to notice her. And he did notice her, but that didn’t change anything. She was like a sister to him. They had swum their first times together, learned how to catch fish, climb a tree, and sneak away from the island altogether. He never once saw her as anything but family.
“About?” Sam asked vaguely. He hadn’t heard a bit of the conversation as he watched Whitney. He tried to act as if he was just spacing out and not watching the day human none of them ever saw instead.
“Whether we should skip the party also,” Amber replied, latching her arm on to his. “I’m voting for staying here with you in protest.”
Sam wanted to pull away since Whitney was coming closer, but that would make Amber suspicious. She already was watching each of the people he taught swim lessons to. She constantly told him that the only way he could really tell her no on being together was if he found someone else. He almost said he had, but stopped himself before he did.
“I say we should all stay back on land,” Leo stated from the other side of Amber.
“I agree,” Amber added, fluffing her blond curls with the arm that wasn’t hooked on to him.
Amber had the same blond hair and blue eyes, but she still didn’t compare to Whitney. Her arm holding him in place couldn’t make his heart beat faster like Whitney could do with just a glance. Sam had no idea how else he could get through to Amber that he was never going to choose her. She was either too dense to understand or didn’t want to. It was more than likely the latter.
“No. You guys will all get in trouble. My father called everyone back. You can’t defy him without getting him upset. Heck, if you all stayed, he might be upset enough to exile you guys,” Sam repeated what he had explained the week before and the week before that. It was great that they all wanted to have his back with him defying his father, but he couldn’t let them do it. He would get in enough trouble as it was.