Tidal (25 page)

“
Aiden
.” Gemma pushed him back, and he finally let go.

“Sorry.” He smiled at her, his sandy hair falling across her forehead. “I was just having some fun, but I know where the line is now.”

“Okay. Just don’t cross it again,” she warned him, and with a cocky smirk, he promised her that he wouldn’t.

When he started kissing her again, it was more gentle. Which was good, because it gave her a chance to get back in control.

But within a few moments he was back to where he had been before: kissing her deeply, his hand knotted in her hair. His other hand knew better than to go after her chest, so it gripped her side.

Gemma wrapped her arms around him. Her eyes were closed, and she concentrated on the way her body was feeling—not just the pleasure but the intensity of the fluttering of her skin, the monster inside trying to break free. Pushing it back, holding herself in check, that was the real joy Gemma got out of this.

But then Aiden’s hand slid in between her thighs, and her eyes flashed open.

“Aiden,” she said, but he didn’t listen. He only slid his hand up farther, threatening to touch parts of her that she’d never let a guy touch before. “
Aiden
.”

“Stop being a prude, Gemma,” Aiden said, his voice a low growl in her ear as he kissed her neck. “Let’s just have some fun.”

“I’m not having fun,” she said and tried to push him off. But he was strong, and he held fast.

“Just relax and go with it,” Aiden said, and she tried kneeing him in his crotch, but he deftly avoided it. He was completely in the passenger seat on top of her, pinning her there.

Her mouth began to tremble, and her fingers itched as they lengthened. As bad as this was, as much as she didn’t want anything to happen with Aiden, she didn’t want to kill him, either.

That was when Gemma realized too late that this was nothing like how things had been with Kirby. She wasn’t in control of Aiden. She wasn’t in control of the monster. She wasn’t even in control of herself.

“Aiden, get off me!” Gemma screamed now and pushed against him with all her might.

He slammed against the roof of the car, and he stayed that way for a few seconds. Gemma was taking deep breaths, trying desperately to keep herself from transforming, and she let go of him, wrapping her hands together as her fingers slowly began to return to their normal form.

“You bitch,” Aiden snarled, his eyes wide in a mixture of confusion and rage.

“Aiden,
no
,” she managed to cry out before he wrapped his hand around her throat, but by then Gemma knew that she’d have to hurt him if she wanted to escape this.

Then the passenger door flew open, and before Gemma had a chance to understand what was going on, someone had reached in and grabbed Aiden, yanking him off her.

She sat up, gasping for breath, and she saw that Alex had thrown Aiden onto the ground. He stood over him, holding Aiden by the collar of his shirt, and he punched him twice, hard enough that she heard his fist smashing into Aiden’s face.

“Don’t you ever touch Gemma again,” Alex growled, his arm still cocked. Aiden tried to say something, but he just ended up sputtering out blood from his lip. “Do you hear me? Never touch her again.”

“I hear you,” Aiden mumbled.

“Good,” Alex said, and then he punched Aiden once more.

“Alex!” Gemma scrambled out of the car. “Don’t kill him.”

Alex let go of his shirt, and Aiden fell back on the ground. Alex stood up straight and slammed the car door shut. Aiden got to his feet as quickly as he could, and as he got in the car, he swore at Alex and Gemma under his breath.

They both watched as Aiden sped out of the driveway, his tires squealing. Despite the heat, Gemma wrapped her arms around herself. Alex shook out his hand, which must have ached from how hard he’d hit Aiden.

“Thank you,” Gemma said quietly after a few seconds.

“What the hell is going on, Gemma?” Alex asked, and she was surprised by the anger in his voice. “What were you doing with that guy? He was a dick!”

“I didn’t realize he was such a dick when I agreed to go out with him,” Gemma said.

“This doesn’t make any sense.” He shook his head and growled. “I’m so pissed off.”

“It’s over now, and you should go home,” Gemma said.

“You don’t get it.” He turned back to face her and ran both his hands through his hair. “I wanted to kill him because he was hurting you. But I
hate
you.”

She lowered her eyes and nodded to keep from crying. “I’m sorry.”

“Why do I want to know you’re safe if I hate you?” Alex demanded. “Why do I worry about you? Why am I scared that you’re going to die without knowing how I really feel about you, when what I feel is contempt?”

Gemma struggled to keep her composure, and when she spoke, her words were barely audible. “I don’t know.”

“You’re
lying
, and I know you’re lying.” He stood a few inches in front of her, practically yelling in her face. “Don’t lie to me, Gemma. Please. Don’t fucking lie about this.”

“Alex, you’re better off just going home,” Gemma said, still refusing to look up at him. “Forget you ever met me.”

“I can’t forget!” Alex shouted, making her flinch. “I dream of you
every night
. Do you know what that’s like? In my dreams, we’re still together and I still love you. And then I wake up every morning, and I hate you, and I hate me, and I hate everything.”

“Of course I know what that’s like!” Gemma lifted her head and looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “I do the same thing, every day! Except I don’t hate you.”

“Why not?” Alex asked, almost plaintively. “Why don’t you hate me? Why did we break up?”

She looked away again. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Why not? If I dumped you, why wouldn’t I understand my own reasoning? What the hell happened, Gemma?”

The front light switched on, and Gemma took a step back from Alex. She heard the screen door creak open as her dad came outside.

“Gemma?” Brian asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, Dad.” She sniffled and wiped at her eyes. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“I’ll wait,” Brian said. She hadn’t turned around to look at him yet, but he couldn’t be standing more than a few feet behind her.

“Dad, I’m okay,” she insisted, but Alex was already backing away.

“You need to keep her on a short leash, Mr. Fisher,” Alex said as he took steps backward. “Your daughter is hanging around with some very bad guys.”

“What does that mean?” Brian asked. “Gemma? What does that mean?” He walked over so that he was standing next to her once Alex had gone into his own house.

Gemma shook her head. “It’s been a long night, Dad.”

“Why is there blood on my driveway?” Brian pointed to the small puddle of blood that Aiden had left behind.

Gemma sighed. “Aiden got too frisky, and Alex beat the shit out of him, okay? I had a bad, bad night, after a bad, bad weekend, and this is turning out to be the worst summer of my entire life. So if I could just please go inside and go to bed, I would really like that.”

Brian stared at her with bleary eyes. His hair was disheveled from sleep, and he wore his old football T-shirt with matching sweatpants. He was not prepared for this conversation.

“Okay,” he said finally.

“Great, thank you.” She turned around and stormed into the house.

She raced up to her bedroom looking for solace, but it seemed like everything in it was taunting her. It was all remnants of her former life, of things she’d loved that she could never love again, of someone she could never be.

The Michael Phelps poster on her wall she ripped down, actually tearing it in half in the process. There was a picture of her mother on her bedside table and she picked it up and flung it against the wall, shattering glass everywhere. On the ceiling were fading glow-in-the-dark stars that Alex had helped her put up years ago.

Gemma jumped up onto her bed, trying to pull them down, but she couldn’t reach them. She kept jumping and failing, and by then she was sobbing in frustration and anger and sadness.

“Gemma?” Brian asked, opening her bedroom door.

“Everything is ruined, Dad,” she cried and fell back onto her bed. “I’ve lost everything that matters to me.”

“That’s not true.” Brian came into her room and sat down next to her. “I’m still here, and I’m never going anywhere.”

That only made Gemma sob harder. Brian wrapped his arms around his daughter and held her to him. As she cried into his shoulder, he stroked her hair and kept promising her that everything would be all right.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Engagements

Daniel’s biggest problem with the island was that he had no cable TV. In reality, he knew he shouldn’t complain, because it wasn’t like he’d had cable out on the boat, either. At least now he had room to get his full-sized television out of storage and put it up.

Harper had come out to his house to escape the heat, and he was more than happy to comply. But once she’d gone home, he was left on the island alone, and he felt restless. He put in a movie, deciding that watching
Jaws
again for the fiftieth time would be better than staring at the walls.

The window air conditioner he’d put in the cabin when he moved out kept the place rather cool, but not enough. Harper had a rule that both of them kept all their clothes on when they were together, so he actually didn’t mind as much that she’d left tonight, because it meant that he could shed some layers.

He stood in front of his TV, watching an unsuspecting woman swim alone in the ocean as the great white stalked her, and he unbuttoned his shirt.

“Dun dun, dun dun.” Daniel was singing along with the growing intensity of the music when he heard a bang on his roof. “What the heck was that?”

He looked up at the ceiling, before realizing that was dumb and he couldn’t see through it. Then he heard another bang, this one sounding like it came from the ground. He paused the movie, then went to the front door to see if he could find out what was going on.

“Of course I’m going to the front door like a stupid chick in a horror movie,” he muttered. On his way to the door, he doubled back and grabbed a baseball bat from the closet. “Now I just have to remember not to go outside and ask if anyone is there.”

He opened the door, fully expecting to see a raccoon, Harper, or Jason Vorhees. Instead it was just Penn, smiling in that suggestive way that she always did.

“Hey, handsome,” Penn purred.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Daniel asked, but instead of answering him, she slid past him and walked into his house. “Sure, come on in. That’s what I meant.”

“I love what you’ve done with the place,” Penn said as she admired the cabin. “Much nicer than the last time I was out here.”

Daniel sighed and closed the door. He set the bat on the butcher’s block in the kitchen. Right now it didn’t look like he needed it, but things could always take a turn for the worse with Penn.

“How did you get here?” he asked. “You’re not all wet, so you didn’t swim.”

“I flew.”

Her halter dress was open all the way in the back, allowing room for her massive black wings to spread out. They were away now, so her smooth flesh appeared normal, but Daniel had seen the monster that lurked underneath.

“Oh, right,” Daniel said. “You’re that bird-monster thing, too. I almost forgot how friggin’ hideous you really are. Thanks for reminding me.”

Penn appeared unfazed by his comments. She hopped up on the kitchen counter, crossing her legs languidly and deliberately, and Daniel averted his eyes.

“Your girlfriend was out here forever. I thought she’d never leave. I was about ready to swoop down and pick her up and drop her off a cliff.”

His heart stopped beating momentarily. “You didn’t, though, right? Harper’s alive and safe?”

“I didn’t touch a hair on her pretty head,” she assured him. “I knew it would put a damper on the mood if I hurt her, so I didn’t.”

“Mood? What mood?” Daniel asked. “And did you just admit to spying on me all night? Are you stalking me?”

She shook her head. “‘Stalking’ is such a strong word.”

“It’s also an accurate one, apparently.” He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I was just thinking about what you said yesterday, and I wanted to talk to you about it.” Penn spoke cheerily, like they were old friends catching up over Sunday brunch.

“What did I say? I don’t remember anything that would imply I wanted you to stalk me.”

“I wanted to talk to you alone, and I knew I couldn’t kill your girlfriend, so I waited until she left. That’s all that happened, okay?” Penn sounded annoyed, and Daniel decided not to push it. Things went better when she wasn’t pissed off or homicidal.

“Sure. Okay,” he said. “Now, what did I say that prompted this visit?”

“I’m lonely,” she said, but without the vulnerability he’d seen in her before.

“I thought you had your sisters to keep you company,” Daniel reminded her.

“I kinda hate them.” She thought about it, then wagged her head. “Well, I don’t hate Thea. I don’t know if I hate Gemma yet. She’s a pain in my ass, though. But I do hate Lexi. She’s awful.”

“Yeah, families are tough.”

“But I’m lonely in a different way.” She slid off the counter, her dress briefly pulling up very high on her thighs. “It’s been so long since I had a real man in my life.”

He held up his hands. “I have a sense of where this conversation is going, and I can head it off right here. I am not that man in your life. I never will be. Ever.”

“We got off on the wrong foot, and you just need a chance to get to know me,” Penn said, but she hadn’t taken any steps closer to him, so that was probably a good sign.

“Well … Penn, I mean this nicely, but I think you’re evil. So I can’t see us being compatible—
ever
—because I don’t think I’m evil. Or at least anywhere near as evil as you are.”

“This is ridiculous. I could have anyone I want.”

“Then have them. Go.” He moved his hands in a shooing gesture. “I encourage you to do this. Or them, as it were.”