“Let’s go,” Gemma said, and Alex smiled widely at her. He pulled her close to him again, kissing her quickly. “But we really do need to hurry.”
Alex pulled her toward the shore, but when the water got shallow enough that her tail began to tingle, she stopped him.
“You need to go ahead and turn around,” Gemma said.
“What? Why?” Alex asked, alarmed.
“Because my tail doesn’t change into bikini bottoms when it turns back into legs,” Gemma told him.
“Oh.” Alex blushed slightly when he realized what she meant and quickly turned around.
“What’s going on?” Harper asked. She was standing just far enough away that she hadn’t heard Gemma’s explanation.
“Turn around,” Alex said, walking over to where Harper and Daniel were standing. “Gemma’s naked and needs to put on bottoms.”
“Oh, crap,” Daniel said, and immediately turned around.
Harper turned away from Gemma more slowly, as if she didn’t trust Gemma not to disappear in the waves while they had their backs turned. But Gemma had no plans to do that.
She pulled herself out of the water, willing her legs to speed up. The transformation from tail to legs had never seemed so slow. Since she’d decided to leave, she wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible.
Gemma actually stood up before her legs had completely shifted back. One of her feet was still more fin than foot, and she almost tumbled in the sand, but she caught herself. She rushed over to her bikini bottoms, and by the time she’d slipped into them, her legs were normal.
“Okay,” Gemma said, and ran over to where Alex was waiting. “We need to get out of here.”
Alex took Gemma’s hand, and the four of them ran through the sand. They had to go a ways down the beach to get around the boulders. The house was sandwiched right between the rocky outcroppings, so the quickest way to the front road was through the house, but they weren’t about to take that path.
Daniel had parked in the grass about a quarter mile from the house. When they finally reached the car, Harper popped open the trunk and pulled out an old hoodie for Gemma to toss on so she wasn’t running around in a bikini.
Gemma was standing behind the car as she slipped it over her head, and Harper stood beside her. As soon as she had it on, Harper grabbed Gemma and hugged her.
“I’m so glad you’re safe,” Harper said, hugging her so tightly it actually hurt.
“Thank you,” Gemma said, her voice strained because of the intensity of Harper’s hug.
Then Harper released her, and her eyes were grave as she stared at her. “If you ever run away like that again, you won’t need to worry about the sirens. Because I’ll be the one to kill you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Gemma nodded meekly. “But in my defense, I did it to protect you.”
“I don’t care why you did it,” Harper said. “Don’t do it again.”
Harper went around the car and got in the driver’s seat, while Gemma hopped in back with Alex. She sat as close to him as she could, and he put his arm around her. As Harper sped off, Gemma settled back next to him, and she honestly couldn’t tell if she’d made the right decision by leaving with them or not.
“How did you find me?” Gemma asked.
“It was in the paper,” Daniel said.
“The paper?” Gemma arched an eyebrow.
Daniel handed the newspaper back to her and pointed to the article about the murdered boys. Gemma read it quickly, and when she got to the part about Jason Way, her heart pounded so hard she thought she might have a heart attack. She was afraid she might throw up or pass out.
Did they know that she’d done this? She tried to slow her breath and couldn’t even look at them. They couldn’t know. They wouldn’t have rescued her if they realized what a monster she was.
“We knew the way the body was torn open was the sirens’ trademark,” Alex explained when Gemma didn’t say anything. “And we thought if they were here, you were probably close by.”
“That was a good guess,” Gemma said. She forced a smile at him and tried to slow her earlier panic.
The one consolation she did have was that Thea had been right about attracting rapists. According to the paper, Jason Way had been a rapist. Gemma had actually theorized that before. If she hadn’t been able to turn into a man-eating beast, there was a good chance that Jason would’ve actually raped her.
That still didn’t make it okay, though. It wasn’t up to her to exact punishment on people, and killing him had been a bit more than self-defense.
But she didn’t want to think about that right now. She was with Alex and Harper after thinking she’d never be with them again, and she wanted to enjoy it while she had the chance.
“How did you know where I was?” Gemma asked, folding up the newspaper and shoving it aside. “At that exact house on that beach?”
“That was all Harper.” Alex motioned to her.
“How did you know?” Gemma asked her sister.
“I just knew,” Harper said, trying not to elaborate further. “I don’t know how to explain it more than that. I just knew you were there.”
The car ride went smooth and rather fast. Or maybe it just seemed that way to Gemma. Admittedly, she did spend a bit of time making out in the backseat with Alex, until Harper threatened to hose them both off.
Most of Gemma’s attention was focused on Alex, but while she was curled up next to him in the backseat, she watched Harper and Daniel interact. Daniel was trying to get Harper to relax and cheer up, and Harper tried to resist, but she ended up laughing with him more times than she’d have wanted to.