She sobs once and shuts her eyes like she’s still trying to shut
me out.
“Or this is just going to keep happening.”
She puts her shut palm over mine and opens it slowly, a flower
blooming in the dark. The Venus pearl is in her hand, glowing pink in
the blinking light above us. We’re both so still that the automatic
motion detector light goes out.
When I take it from her, the lights come back on. I pocket it
before she changes her mind.
I slink her arm around my shoulder. I press my lips on her cheek
and she pulls away.
“You stink,” she says.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Behind us, those who notice the quiet come out of their hiding
places. There is so much confusion, but it’s mostly a lot of screaming
poolside. My insides churn when I recognize the clothes. Thalia’s
small, shaking frame is draped over his still body. The lights of the
house come back on. The floor is littered with glass, and the stone
ground is stained forever.
None of that matters. I have the pearl in my pocket, but it
doesn’t matter, because I let this happen. I did nothing, and now Ryan
is dead. His gaping blue eyes stare at nothing. Thalia takes his hand
and presses it against her wet face. She smooths his hair back. She
brings her fist down on his chest. Between all the cries the only one
I hear is hers.
“Stay,” she says in a whisper so small, I’m not sure she even says
it at all.
Get up,” she says in my ear. “Get up right now.”
Gwen grabs my hand and pulls on it. I can’t move. I can’t close my
eyes. For what seems like forever, I sit in the shadows of the
backyard watching as the others mourn Ryan’s body. I watched it
happen. I didn’t know it was him. I could’ve done something. I
should’ve kept my worlds separate like Kurt said. How can I protect
everyone I care about? I can’t. I have to go through with this. I
can’t keep losing.
Gwen’s hand slaps across my face.
“That hurt.”
“It was supposed to.”
She stands above me, holding her hand out. I take it and don’t let
go as we run along the narrow path around the house and into the front
yard.
“What are you doing?” She hesitates as I pick out one of the bikes
parked out front. I pull out my dagger and cut the chains off.
“Just put your feet on those little metal bars and hold on to me.”
“Tristan.” She says my name nervously.
“Don’t worry, hold on to me. You won’t fall.”
I can hear the police cars once we’ve put distance between us and
the music. Gwen’s arms are cool against my sweaty, stinky skin. She
wraps them around my neck without strangling me. I pedal. We wobble at
first, but I put all of my leg muscles into it, and we glide fast,
past the rows of houses with families clutching each other on their
lawns because something terrible has happened in their perfect
neighborhood. I pedal with the wind in my face, zooming down the Coney
Island summer street.
•••
At the entrance to the subway station, the “e” in Coney Island
flickers super fast until it just goes off completely. People stare
and take pictures like it’s the most wondrous thing they’ve ever
witnessed.
A police officer with his back against the wall stands up when he
sees me. I hold the bike over my shoulder so maybe he’ll think I’m
covered in mud. He sniffs the air, and even though I’m not standing
directly in front of him, he makes a face like he wants to gag.
“Everyone is looking,” Gwen says. I would think she were used to
it.
“Well, I’m covered in merrow goo and you’re half naked. Of course
they’re looking.”
“Was that a compliment?”
“No.” I stop at the MetroCard station and feed it money.
It pops out the yellow MetroCard, and I love that Gwen, with all
her smoke-bending magic, stares at it with her eyes wide open and
says, “How did you do that?”
I wiggle my dirty fingers near her face and snap them to make her
jump back. “Magic.”
She purses her lips.
We use the big entrance. Four lines leave from here, and I don’t
know where to go. I dangle the pearl in front of Gwen. “If I were an
oracle, where would I be?”
Her gray eyes follow it. I wonder if I could hypnotize her by
doing this long enough. She taps her chin with her index finger,
completely oblivious to me. “I don’t know about oracles, but if I were
a magical object with an owner, I could find her anywhere.”
I push the bike to the map on the wall. “We’re here.” I glance
around to where people walk in and out of the train station. Ryan is
dead and the world continues like it didn’t even happen. I shake my
head to focus. “What do I do?”
“Just hold it near but not against. It should guide you to her.”
A bald man walks past with his children in hand. “Daddy, that man
stinks so bad!” The man gives me a nasty look but smiles at Gwen, the
mermaid princess.
“Stand over there, will you?” I ask her.
“Why?” Hands on hips.
“Because if you’re standing there smiling, no one will pay
attention to me.”
“Oh.” She leans against the bike, reminding me strangely of the
posters on Angelo’s bedroom walls.
I feel so stupid holding a pink pearl against a grimy subway map
while a mermaid queen in a bikini stands against a bicycle. Nothing
happens at first, but just when I’m going to pull away and blame it on
Gwen, the chain pulls against my hand. Like a magnet, the pearl runs
along the map, past Brooklyn, past the Verazzano Bridge, and I curse
at the thought that we might have to go to Staten Island. But it
rights itself and shoots straight up to Manhattan, past the Empire
State Building and Times Square, right to Turtle Pond in Central Park.
“Got it.”
“Good, because that man just gave me this.” She holds a twenty in
her hands.
“I should keep you around more often.”
We make it through the doors just as the conductor announces them
closing. I grab a seat in the middle by the maps. We’re alone.
“May I?” She holds her hand out to me, and I place the pearl in
the center of her palm. It’s funny how the lines in her palm are so
different from mine, thinner and shorter. I don’t know what I’m
expecting her to do-make it bigger, make it dance. She makes a sweet,
pensive sound, then hands it back to me. The train lurches and she
falls on top of me. The bike falls to the floor. For a second all I
can think about is crochet and sequins.
She pushes herself up and gets comfortable across the three seats
with her feet on my lap. She wiggles her toes, which I guess is a
mermaid thing. The newness of feet.
“Stop thinking about it,” she says.
“How can I stop thinking about it? I see his face when I shut my
eyes.”
“There’s nothing you could’ve done.”
“I hate when people say that. Because it’s not true. I could’ve
been faster. I don’t expect you to get it.”
She regards me coolly. “Just because I’ve seen a lot of death does
not mean I’m immune to it, Tristan. This isn’t a game. It’s a war of
few, but still a war. You have to decide that you’re going to come out
of it alive or not at all.”
“You know, Gwen,” I say, “I’m glad that you’re on my team.”
“I’m not on your team. I’m on my team. You just happen to be on it
as well.”
“I’ll be sure to remember that.”
We get off at Sixty-Third and Lexington Avenue, a train station so
far underground that I lose count of the flights of stairs we have to
climb before we’re actually out.
“It’s like trying to ascend the circles of hell,” Gwen gasps.