The Marked Ones (7 page)

Adele. Of course-they were roommates after all. But it was odd that Ivyanne knew so much about him-like she’d been studying him or something. ‘We were engaged,’ he said, choosing his words carefully. ‘But we’re not now.’

‘So you’re doing this for yourself?’

He nodded. ‘One day you’re just going to wake up and feel old. I’m really not, you know, I’m only twenty eight. But the resort, mums’ death...life took it’s toll on me, and I forgot how to act young. Now I neither feel it, or look it.’ He backed into a deeper section, treading water. ‘Hold on to your youth for as long as you can, okay?’

Ivyanne smiled. ‘That’s kind of my philosophy.’

‘You’re eighteen and have a philosophy?’

She smiled. ‘You may say that I have an old soul. As far as I’m concerned, age is all relative. A number doesn’t define a person anymore than eye color does, does it?’

‘Maybe….’

‘No, for
sure.’ Ivyanne’s voice was flinty, and she had a strange way of rounding out certain vowels. ‘Some people keep telling me that I need to chill and stop taking myself so seriously, but others keep pushing me to grow up faster than I ought to. It’s confusing-but I figure that if I’ve been such a good girl until now-what’s the harm in acting out for awhile? I mean, there’s no rule that says I have to be any one way by this age-so why try to adhere to one?’

To his utter delight, Ivyanne whipped her top off over her head and eased into the pool. She was still wearing the short black skirt she had worked in, pared with a white cotton bra. Lincoln felt like all of his Christmases had come at once.

‘There!’ she looked proud of herself. That’s a young thing to do, isn’t it?’

He gaped at her magnificent figure. ‘Well...ummm.’

‘Don’t worry boss, I’m not trying to get a lawsuit going....’ Ivyanne teased, stroking away from him as though to prove a point. ‘But why run back to my room to grab a bikini when you’ve already seen me without one though, huh? It’s hot. Hot enough to even tolerate the chlorine.’

He hoped his excited reaction was concealable-both on his face and in his swim trunks. ‘Suit yourself,’ he finally managed. ‘But just know that if my fiancee comes walking up that path, you never saw me, got it?’

She ducked underwater and re-emerged, wiping her honey-thick hair out of her eyes. She smiled, and her sweet green iris’s shimmered with the reflected water, making her ethereal. ‘Got it.’

Lincoln really liked this girl. And god-damn was she
hot. Her breasts were large and slightly out of proportion to her tapered waist, and the shadows near her hips made him want to lick his lips. He’d never seen someone with so much curve and length. She called to mind, visions of pin-up girls twisted teasingly on the hood of some 50’s convertible. All except the hair. The water had weighted it, smoothing her tangle of spiraling curls, but the color remained every color of sunlight. It was goddess hair.

‘So...’ Ivyanne was slowly swimming a circle around him. ‘You’re trying to re-claim your youth? What set it off?’

Lincoln snapped out of his stupor. ‘The girl at the coffee shop,’ he said without thinking.

Ivyanne blinked. The movement exaggerated by her thick, treacle- colored lashes. ‘You lost me.’

‘I know,’ he pivoted slowly to face her, cheeks heating up. ‘There’s a girl who works at a cafe down the road. When I was a lifeguard here, she used to throw herself at me all the time-back before either of us had hit twenty. I never took her up on it. Anyway, a few months ago, I went down to try the new coffee shop-and she was the owner! Must have been a local girl all along. I thought we’d have a laugh about the ‘ol days, but she was a real bitch to me. In fact-’ Lincoln cringed-there was a reason why he’d never told anybody this story. ‘She told me that when I’d first walked in, I reminded her of the father of the lifeguard she used to have a crush on.’

Ivyanne’s mouth fell open. ‘What a shrew! You do know that she was just messing with you, right?’

Lincoln nodded, as he did know that. ‘But she wasn’t far off Ivyanne. I do look closer to forty than thirty. What she said really hit me. I go down there for a coffee every Monday morning and she always smirks at me, you know? I won’t even take Adele there-god knows how many cradle robbing jokes she’ll make.’

‘So why do you still go there?’

Lincoln grinned. ‘It’s good coffee.’

Ivyanne shrugged. ‘I don’t drink the stuff. You people seem to have an addictive relationship with coffee.’

‘You people?’ he parroted.

She blushed. ‘Uh, hospitality workers.’

‘So long as you didn’t mean pensioners.’

Ivyanne sent a spray of water in his direction, giggling. Oh, what a delightful sound! He was seven feet now, and climbing.

‘No. And I must say-you shed off a few years just by offing that facial hair and getting a tan. Everyone’s talking about it, you know, about the weight you’re melting off.’

Lincoln didn’t know what meant more-that she’d noticed, or that everyone had. A warm glow spread through his body. ‘Well...’

Ivyanne finished the lap around him. ‘You know Aubrielle, in the spa?’

She was their main draw for business, so he nodded. ‘She’s the one who recommended you to dad, right?’ He’d quizzed his father about the new bartender the day before, and he said he’d hired her by word of mouth through Aubrielle and Remi without setting eyes on her. Lincoln had asked his father if he thought Ivyanne had looked familiar, but Chase had merely shrugged and said that after 13 years-they
all did.

Ivyanne nodded. ‘You should go see her some time. She’s got these masks and treatments that will make you look and feel great. You should go, get a massage...treat yourself. You’d be surprised how young you’ll feel after.’

He laughed. ‘Aren’t I supposed to be the one selling people on the spa?’ he joked. ‘How do you even know?’

‘She’s a friend of my mothers...they go way back....that’s how I heard about this job.’

‘Oh. Well maybe I will. I’ve been meaning to do it for years.’ Lincoln studied Ivyanne curiously. He’d decided against asking her about Ivanna for awhile, but when would he ever get a better opening? ‘And speaking of things I’ve been meaning to do…. there’s been something I’ve wanted to talk to you about for a few days now...’

A swift change came over the girl. She vaulted herself out of the pool to sit on the edge again, eyeing him warily. ‘Yeah…?’ She asked, raising one perfectly arched brow that was threaded with gold.

Lincoln’s face heated up as he took a deep breath and wondered how exactly to ask a girl if she had a twin somewhere who was missing a former lifeguard/bartender.

7.

‘Good God Lincoln...what is it?’ Ivyanne asked, looking frightened. ‘If you’re going to fire me, can I at least put my shirt on first?’

‘No-it’s nothing like
that.’ A nervous laugh escaped Lincoln.

‘Oh.’ She cocked her head. ‘Then what then…?’

He cleared his throat. ‘From the moment I saw you, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I knew you from somewhere...’ he glanced up at her, and to his amazement, the color had drained from her face. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not doing criminal history checks or anything....but you see, you just look so much like this girl I used to know, back in the nineties. So much, that you could be her. And I’m not talking about a slight resemblance-I’m talking about Travolta in Face-Off, okay?’

‘Um, okay…’ Ivyanne was scratching at her arm, not meeting his eyes. Clearly, she thought he was nuts. ‘Wow that’s-’

‘It’s freaking me out,’ Lincoln finished for her.

‘I was going to say it sounds like sci-fi, but go on,’ Ivyanne crossed her arms across her chest, waiting expectantly. ‘Must be... weird for you.’

‘That’s an understatement.’ Lincoln chuckled. ‘I was completely in love with her-every summer, and in-between, for my entire teenage existence. She would come here with her family every year, and then go. I never had a phone number or an address-we just always took it for granted that we’d see each other again the next year. But then...she just didn’t come back.’ Lincoln paused. ‘So if you’ve caught me looking at you funny, I just want you to know that’s why. The resemblance between you and Ivanna is uncanny.’

Ivyanne stared at him, her expression crossed between bewilderment and anxiety, and that made his heartbeat quicken.

‘Oh my god,’ Ivyanne’s hands went to her mouth, eyes larger than saucers, ‘did you just say Ivanna?’

Lincoln felt like his heart as going to burst out of his chest. This was
it-she knew something-any fool could see. ‘You know her?!’

Ivyanne turned her face away, obviously taking calculated breaths in and out. After a few tense moments, she managed to mumble: ‘My sister.’

Lincoln felt the universe tilt, like he was thirteen again, in his own personal vortex. ‘My god. Your sister....? That was your family she travelled with?!’ he didn’t know whether to laugh or whoop. ‘Oh my god....no wonder you look so similar! Where is she?’ His heart exploded into a million tiny stars at the idea of seeing her again. ‘I mean-she just took off! Can you contact her and tell her I’m here?’

‘I’m sorry. But no…..’ Ivyanne turned back to face him, and to Lincoln surprise, a track of tears was glistening on each of her cheeks. ‘Ivanna’s gone, Link.’

Lincoln didn’t understand. ‘Gone?’

‘She died.....when she was sixteen.’

For a moment, Lincoln didn’t think he’d heard her right. He stood there, absorbing the news, his blood turning to ice in his veins as he calculated her hoarse whisper, her tears…. This was real to her. He wasn’t having a nightmare. ‘No,’ he finally rasped, shaking his head. ‘No way.’

But Ivyanne nodded unhappily. ‘I was young when it happened....she caught some virus, while we were traveling and she just couldn’t fight it off.’ Ivyanne looked away again, wiping tears from her eyes.

‘I don’t...’ Lincoln began, flailing for words, his shock turning into unfounded rage. No one had been as alive as Ivanna-how could that light have gone out? What was the point of being so protected by her family if they’d allowed her to never wake up? If they’d left her with him she would have been fine!

Unable to speak on the subject of his glorious Ivanna’s demise, he turned his utter devastation onto her sister. ‘Then where have you guys been all this time? Why are you here now? Why don’t I remember
you?’

Ivyanne shrugged, her expression one of misery. ‘Like I said, I was young-six or so. We used to come here every summer, but shortly after her sixteenth, Ivyanne died, and my mother didn’t want to come back....so we didn’t. But this year I was looking for a summer job before I started university, and mum still had some contacts working here so...’

Lincoln gaped at her, trying to place her in his memory. But all he remembered was Ivanna in a ball of light, and a few shadows off some little kids-some years half a dozen, keeping her parents occupied. But he’d always assumed they were foster kids or something-there were so many sets of parents and brats that he hadn’t ever matched them up....and all along, Ivyanne had a little sister-a carbon copy of herself, who would come back and haunt him ten years after her death. A death he hadn’t even known about.

And now that he did know, part of him was dying, something deep inside. He’d postponed his entire life, for a
ghost. He’d never see Ivanna again. It hit him like a cannon ball in the chest. His head dropped into his hands, and to his horror, he began to sob.

‘Link, oh no...please don’t cry!’ Ivyanne implored him.

Ivanna! He could remember her so clearly now! Those vibrant green eyes, the way she had gasped at his touch, the smell of salt-spray in her hair, the little rub marks from the surfboard on her upper abdominals that he’d once kissed with his hesitant, sixteen year old lips as he’d dreamed of more...the look in her eyes when she’d offered himself up to him-the hurt when he’d turned her down so she’d have one more reason to return to him...

‘You’re making me feel so awful...but I had to say it, I had to-’ Ivyanne’s voice broke off. ‘Oh god this is such a mess, and I know I can’t fix it...’

He shook his head in mute agreement. He’d lost her forever. Nothing could ever fix that. The mystery had been solved, and now Lincoln wished it hadn’t been. Once or twice he’d entertained the theory that maybe something had happened to her, but he’d always brushed it off as paranoia. But she was gone-stripped form the planet by cruel fate. He felt like his chest was going to cave in.

For a moment, they both stood there in the quiet-his shoulder shaking with noiseless sobs, her muttering curses in a soothing tone under her breath. At least two minutes passed. When Lincoln felt like he was giving himself a headache, he fought to get a hold of himself. He wiped at his eyes, and looked up at the miserable girl, who was still sitting precariously on the edge of the pool.

‘Are you going to be okay?’ she asked, still looking horrified in the muted blue glow of the pool water.

After a moment, he nodded. ‘I have to, right? I mean...I hadn’t seen her in twelve years, so what was I expecting?’ His tone was bitter, his chest felt hollow. ‘I knew there was something up with the way she vanished like that....’ he took another step closer to Ivyanne. He had so many questions to ask! ‘
Where did she die? Did she ever mention me?’ Judging by the confused and horrified look in Ivyanne’s eyes, he knew he’d gone too far. After all-he’d been a summer fling, but this girl was Ivanna’s little sister. ‘I’m sorry...’ he said quickly. ‘That was insensitive of me....’

Ivyanne scrambled to her feet, water still rolling down her skin. ‘I can’t-I’m sorry she broke your heart-’ Ivyanne sniffled. ‘God I can’t talk about his, Link. It’s too hard.’ She began to gather up her things. ‘I have to go.’

Lincoln knew he’d blown it big time. He was her pain. ‘Ivyanne-wait.’

But she shook her head, pulling her shirt back on. ‘No, Adele will be back soon, and if she busts us here together crying over your long lost young love who looks just like me-we’re
both dead.’

Lincoln shut his mouth. Boy, this girl was switched on.

Ivyanne smiled thinly at him. ‘Exactly. I’ll see you round, okay? And Link, I truly am sorry. If I had a better story to tell you, I would have made one up, okay?’ she pulled her hair out of the collar of her shirt. ‘Hopefully, you can find some peace and move on.....like I had to.’

‘Ivyanne-’ he called imploringly, but to no avail. As fluidly as water, she darted behind one of the gardens and disappeared on the path for the second time since they’d met, melting into the shadows and leaving him cold, broken, and more alone then he’d ever felt before.

⁓

Ivyanne stalked through the shadowy path again, holding herself together with her arms as more tears threatened to spill over. She’d done her fair share of deceiving in her life without thinking twice about it, but
this was too much.

Usually the lies she told and the secrets she kept were to protect her race. It came with the deal and those lies had become second nature to her. Of course the lies she’d just dumped on Lincoln were also a necessity-she could hardly have blurted out : “Oh I look familiar to you because Ivanna and I are the same person-I just haven’t aged since I was sixteen and probably won’t for another ten years yet..!” Pfft. He’d call the people in white coats on her in a second. And she’d risk
everything in the process.

But the necessity of the lie didn’t make what she’d done to Lincoln over the years right. If she’d never broken the rules to begin with and dated Lincoln behind her parents back, or if she’d been able to just choose a husband without bolting, or even if she’d taken the time to dye her hair and get some contacts before returning-none of it would have happened. It was all her fault, and
her place to make things right.

Ivyanne weaved between two villas, more upset than she had been a week before. She couldn’t get Lincoln’s devastated expression out of her mind. It was like she had shoved a blade into his heart then twisted it. There was no way she could take the lie back and think of a better one-even
she couldn’t Siren ten years of memories out of someone’s head-but she would try and think of a way to make things easier for him.

‘But how?’ she whispered, to herself.

She wouldn’t mind making things on herself easier either. The tears she’d shed had been for him, and his description of the way he loved her-not fictional tears for a dead sister who never existed. Lincoln still had a large part of her heart- prematurely aged and joyless as he was, he was still her Link, and he’d never forgotten about her.

Ivyanne came to a fork in the road and veered to the right. Her room was on the fence line between the resort and the national park beside it-and it was late at night so the entire row of units lay in darkness, except for the one she shared with Adele. Ivyanne didn’t recall leaving the porch light on and she frowned, hoping Adele wasn’t already back. What if she’d witnessed that scene? Ivyanne’s life wouldn’t be worth living.

The physical frustration thing was taking it’s toll on her as well. Half-stripping and sliding into the pool with Lincoln hadn’t been part of her plan at all-it had been her natural instincts taking over, instincts which had been reigned in for so long that she’d forgotten they were there. Being around Lincoln set her skin on fire and coaxed out her inner minx so intensely that it breeched her control. The base desires of a mermaid were to protect their environment, preserve their life, and breed-at any cost. Ivyanne had always wondered if the fact that they could bear and love children was the only thing separating them from behaving like predatory and territorial animals. They often mocked the humans for their ridiculous ways-but deep down, Ivyanne knew that empathy for other beings was the line between good and evil. 

And boy, was Ivyanne suffering from a case of the ‘devil on her shoulder.’ She wanted to go back, hypnotize Lincoln, and then have her way with him to take the edge off her turmoil. She needed that hot, skin to skin contact, wanted to flex her power over him and be, for a few minutes, in control. It would sustain his pain and suffering, but part of Ivyanne didn’t care. She
needed release. Even the way droplets of water had run down the slight grooves between Lincoln’s biceps had been enticing. She remembered one of their last nights’ together in the treehouse. It had been New Years, and he’d wanted to progress the relationship….and for the first time he’d touched her in ways he’d restrained himself from until then. Ivyanne’s shock and horror had dissolved almost instantly into toe curling need as he’d breached her boundaries and would have succeeded if she hadn’t refused to be his girlfriend afterward. His stipulation of that rule still confounded her.

Ivyanne’s footstep halted as the memory of Lincoln’s hands running up her thigh damn near knocked the wind over her. No man had touched her before or since. She paused and looked back the way she had come, breathing heavily, her mind clouding.

Could I? She thought, biting her lower lip and fiddling with her long damp hair. She could go back, he was probably still there. She could lure him into the darkness, offering sympathetic hugs, kissing his tears away...and tomorrow it could be that taboo thing they shouldn’t have down and would never have to speak of. It’s not the full moon yet, I should be safe...no one has to know….

Her good conscience beseeched her to run to the ocean before she ruined her life. She’d been saving herself for decades-to fall prey to a moment of weakness now would be stupid. Regardless of how alluring the idea was, of finishing what she’d started with Link twelve years before. She owed her people more than she owed him. And she always would.

‘Excuse me miss.’ A young mans’ voice called softly. ‘I was wondering if you could tell me where room forty six is?’

Ivyanne looked up, caught off guard. The voice, affected with a soft American accent, had come from a manly silhouette under her porch light. How had he ended up in the staff quarters?

‘You need to head back to the pool, sir, then follow the path to the right,’ Ivyanne had to force the cheerful tone of voice, even though her voice still wobbled tellingly. ‘There are signs indicating which bungalows are down which path-’ Ivyanne’s voice died in her throat when she stepped under the light, and saw the face of the man who had addressed her.