Three Rings (The Fairytail Saga) (16 page)

‘No you don’t,’ she scoffed. ‘You would have trimmed the fat off the roster at the end of this month anyway when the weather cools down.’

Lincoln was beginning to actually panic. No more working with Ivyanne? No more fantasies about sneaking into her bungalow and making love to her? He could have cried from disappointment. ‘You
know
that’s not why I need you here!’ he said, shaking her arm. ‘And that’s not why you still work here. Ivyanne-’

‘Ivyanne! Link!’

All three of them turned to see Ilsa jogging up the path from reception, tugging her tight knee length skirt down over her knees as she did, waving a piece of paper. ‘Ivyanne you have an important message!’

Lincoln made one last attempt of grabbing Ivyanne’s hand, but she stepped away at that moment, towards Ilsa, her pretty face creased lightly in a frown. Lincoln’s hand swiped at the air before falling back at his side.

‘What?’ Ivyanne asked, her hand going to her pocket, fingers curled, like a gunslinger poised to do a quick-draw.

‘Someone named Bane called,’ Ilsa said quickly, panting, her fringe clinging to her cheeks with sweat the way Lincoln’s hair never would again. ‘He said to tell you: He’s been calling for the last hour, and you need to answer your god damn phone...that it’s a matter of life and death.’ She held out the piece of paper to Ivyanne. ‘That’s his number, but he said it should be on your phone anyway, so redial the number on the missed calls.’ Ilsa’s face was flushed. ‘And Ivyanne, I have to say, the dude sounded like he was freaking out.’

Lincoln felt his stomach fill with nervous air as Ivyanne reached into her pocket and whipped out her phone, eyes focused and hard as she examined the flat screen. ‘
Twenty seven
missed calls?’ she gasped, going white. ‘What on earth....?’

Lincoln stepped up to Ivyanne, taking her free hand, and squeezing it. ‘I hope nothing’s happened with his family,’ Lincoln said softly. He’d only known Bane for a few days, after the Ardhi fiasco, but he’d liked him. ‘I’m here if you need me.’

Ivyanne nodded, hitting redial with her thumb, the hand that held the phone trembling like a leaf in a cyclone. ‘I hope so too. But whatever it is, it can’t be
good
.’

Lincoln was inclined to agree. But he was holding Ivyanne’s hand. For now, that was enough.

⁓

Adele’s face was pale and frightened looking when Ardhi eventually arrived at their meeting place in a secluded bay and hauled himself into onto the sand.

‘That was the most terrifying thing I’ve seen in my life,’ Adele stammered, shrinking back from him. ‘I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that you were able to do it, or the fact that I assisted.’

Ardhi shook himself off, motioning for her to hand him the towel she had clutched in her hands. He was still finding it hard to breathe, or talk. And he certainly didn’t want to have to think about what he had done. ‘It’s not the time for a lecture,’ he said harshly. ‘Besides, I managed to save three of the people drowning. So I’m not an out and out monster.’

‘Won’t they turn?’ Adele asked, looking worried as she passed him the towel.

Ardhi shook his head. ‘They didn’t need breath-they just needed help out of the water.’ He rubbed his face dry, trying to wipe out the terrible things he’d seen. Especially when he’d investigated inside the flipped wreck. There had been blood everywhere, enough to taint the water. Sharks would be circling by now, so it was a small mercy that most people had been evacuated onto lifeboats provided by the rescuers who had arrived minutes before his departure.

‘And Tristan?’ Adele whispered the question.

Ardhi pulled away the towel and smiled. ‘Gone.’ 

Adele frowned. ‘What? Gone as in
missing
, or as in...?’

‘He’s dead, I’m sure of it,’ Ardhi rubbed himself all over with the crisp beach towel. ‘He wasn’t amongst the survivors. He wasn’t one of the dead bodies-’ his voice caught on those two awful words, ‘-either, but considering that it was a water crash-there wouldn’t be. There was no sign of his essence.’

Adele frowned. ‘Ardhi you’re certain that was the right plane, yes?’ She asked, looking grief-stricken.

‘Of course I am!’ He snapped. ‘The airline is written on the side of it, and the blood on the window next to the seat that was
his
.’

‘How can you know that?’

Ardhi wasn’t in the mood to explain the biochemistry of mermaids to her, but he saw no other way. ‘We all have the same blood type,’ he said quickly. ‘We all smell the same. Tristan was the only mer on board, and the seat with the blood was the one you booked him into-in first class.’

Adele looked sickened, but then relieved. He could see her struggling with the same thing he was-the guilt going toe to toe with relief that they’d gotten away with it. ‘Then where
is
he?’

‘Transitioned. When I first got there, there was a dolphin shooting through the water so fast that I just
know
it was him. He must have been mortally wounded during the crash-I got there within three minutes after all. He had no time to swim free and he wouldn’t have-Golden boy would have stuck around to help if he’d survived.’

Adele bit her lip, tossing him a bottle of water. ‘I guess if you’re convinced, I’m happy. But still....’

‘It would be nice to have a dead body as proof, or to have killed him myself,’ Ardhi agreed. ‘Which is
exactly
why I’ll have to lie low for a week or so. On the off chance that he survived.’ He took a sip of the cool liquid, happy to wash the metallic taste of blood out of his mouth.‘That will suck, but I’ll have other opportunities to get rid of him. At least now I
know
what I’m capable of.’ He put down the water bottle and stared at his scorched and numb fingertips, awestruck. His emotions didn’t know where to land-on glee? Triumph? Regret?

‘I suppose so,’ Adele said, squinting into the sunlight, back in the direction Ardhi had just come from. They were twenty kilometers from ground zero, but it still felt too close to Ardhi. There were way too many mers living in Hawaii, and they would have been drawn to the scene of the accident. ‘And it’s not like he knows that you caused the crash anyway.’

‘Exactly,’ Ardhi said, digging a hole deep enough to bury the towel in. Adele was wearing a bikini, which she was already beginning to adjust into a swimming position, and aside from that, they didn’t have any other earthly possessions on them. ‘But I’m telling you Adele-he’s dead.’

Adele smiled tentatively. ‘So this is over? We can go back home and start our lives again?’

‘A fresh start,’ he said with a smile. ‘In a world without Tristan Loveridge.’

‘And my parents?’

Ardhi glanced up at her. Her blue eyes were fretful. ‘I’m not monitoring them anymore Adele,’ he said softly. ‘Or at least I won’t be by the time you join me up north. But just know that if anyone ever hears about my involvement in this-’

‘They won’t.’ Adele said quickly. ‘I wouldn’t risk them like that. Besides, you’ve got me knee deep in this shit with you. I can hardly give the game away without giving away
myself
.’

Ardhi beamed. ‘Good Girl. So long as you keep your mouth shut, they’re safe. And I know you don’t believe me, but I am sorry I had to hold that over your head. But from my perspective, two human lives are insignificant compared to the future of my kingdom.’

Adele averted her eyes and motioned to the water, reluctant to talk about it and obviously impatient for the big swim to L.A. ‘So we can get out of here now?’

‘Yes.’ Ardhi said. They were swimming to L.A, and then flying from there to Norfolk. ‘Then I go home. With any luck, I’ll be able to send for you within two weeks.’

‘After you, future king Ardhi.’ Adele said, bowing graciously.

Ardhi grinned. He liked the sound of that.

⁓

It seemed to take Bane forever to answer his phone. Each ring, so cold, so orchestrated, was like fingernails on a chalkboard for her. She closed her eyes, holding her breath, ‘Come on, c’mon...’

There was a clunk noise. ‘Ivyanne?’ Bane answered, sounding breathless.

‘Bane?’ she asked, swallowing hard. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Ivyanne.....oh god......’

Ivyanne had never heard a voice sound so dispirited or heartsick. ‘You’re scaring me! What is it?’

‘Oh baby girl...it’s Tristan’s flight. I don’t know how to say this but-’

‘His
flight
?!’ There was only one way Ivyanne could take that sort of statement given the note of hysteria in Bane’s usually composed, jovial tone, and she began to sink almost immediately. ‘What about it?!’

‘Wahine...I’ve been trying to call...it’s bad Ivyanne,
very
bad.’ Bane seemed to draw in a deep, shaky breath. ‘Sweetheart, I think Tristan’s plane just crashed off the coast of Molokai!’

Ivyanne’s scream was muffled as she slapped it back in with her own hand, dropping the phone with the other. It clattered to the ground beside her as her backside slammed into the pebbled ground. It felt like she was freezing to death despite the sun bearing down on her, and like the blood in her body had rushed to her ears, blocking out the sound of everything else but her heartbeat. She pressed the heels of her hands to her lowered temples and moaned, letting the agony inside her manifest physically, trying to free herself of it. Tristan’s plane had crashed. Why could she still feel the sun?

‘Ohmigosh Ivyanne what is it?!’ Pintang’s voice sounded far away.

Her phone was pushed back into her hands and Ivyanne took it, hands shaking as though she suffered from Parkinson’s, struggling to grip the little white device. Numbly, aware that voices were lifting and swirling around her, Ivyanne put the phone back up to her ear.

‘Is he dead?’ she asked numbly.

‘I don’t know baby,
I don’t know
!’ Bane practically wailed. ‘I got a message from him telling me that his flight was about to crash on the water near Hawaii, and to get ready! I assumed he wanted me to wrangle the troops and get survivors. He must have gotten enough reception, and had been scared enough, to warrant turning his phone on, to warn me. He also asked me to tell you that he loves you...’

Ivyanne broke into what she supposed was the mer equivalent of a hot sweat. ‘Are there survivors?’

Suddenly, Lincoln’s face came into focus, looking more upset than she’d ever seen him before. It was odd to see such a tall body folded to a kneel.

‘What happened?
His plane crashed
? Is he
okay
?!’

Lincoln could have been an actor on a screen. She almost reached out and touched his face, to make sure he was real. That
any
of it was real.

‘Yes!’ Bane said quickly. ‘Most of them! Everyone would have been fine if the plane hadn’t cracked in
two
after hitting the water. I’m down at the site now, a few of us have been here for an hour, getting people out of the water, while I manned the boat and phone, but it’s all so chaotic! At the moment they think there are three dead and seven missing-that’s a pretty good number out of over one hundred and fifty people.’

A tear slipped down Ivyanne’s face. She hadn’t even felt it form. ‘But you haven’t seen him, have you?’

There was a ragged sigh on the other end. ‘No Wahine, I haven’t, and that bothers me-
a lot
. He texted me to come and help beforehand-and I did. So why hasn’t he found me yet? Where
is
he?’

‘Three dead?’ Ivyanne asked, softly. ‘Do they know who the dead are?’

‘Tristan no!’ Pintang suddenly shrieked, her fingernails digging into the fleshy part of Ivyanne’s upper arm. ‘No no no no
NO
!’

‘Not officially-they’re going off a head count. But they know one of the dead was a flight attendant who was killed on impact, and the other two were pretty messed up when the plane split where they were sitting. But I do know he’s not one of
them
-he was sitting in first class, and the split happened further back than that.’ There was a pause. It was long enough for Ivyanne to hear Pintang sobbing beside her. ‘What scares me is the fact that the front half of the plane flipped-
his
half. Quite a few people got near fatal blows to the head. But Tristan wasn’t one of the ones being made a priority for treatment either.’

‘But if the plane crushed on water....’ Ivyanne’s voice trailed off.

‘There wouldn’t be a body,’ Bane finished for her, ‘just a dolphin.’

‘No no no...not another!’ Pintang wailed. ‘Not happening! Tell Bane he’s
wrong
!’

Ivyanne’s face dropped into her knees and she began to sob. She felt the phone being taken from her hand, and she let it go easily, unable to bear another second of the conversation that was ripping her to shreds. Tristan could have survived, she knew that-he would have been the most likely to survive of all the passengers on board. One, he was tough, two, he could swim.

But where were the missing seven? Where did bodies go during a plane crash? If he’d been knocked unconscious and flung from the plane, he could have been drowning without knowing it. Her chest seemed to cave in on itself.