“If that was a minion,” he said, pushing himself into a sitting position, “then I definitely don’t want to see her.”
“She’s disgusting. She drinks mermaid blood. It’s what keeps her young and beautiful and powerful. It’s why …” I trailed off, because some things a father didn’t need to know.
But my dad was nobody’s dummy. “It’s why she wants you. Because you have your own power and she wants to take it.”
“Yes. She thinks my blood will make her immortal.”
“Will it?”
“I have no idea. But I know things are getting worse, that she’s rallied all kinds of creatures to help her and that we’re gearing up for the biggest, most deadly war the Pacific has ever seen.”
As soon as the truth was out, I wanted to take it back. In most things, I’ve made it a policy not to lie to my dad because that’s been the policy he’s followed with me. No matter how painful, he’s told me the truth and I’ve always appreciated it.
But this, this was different. I’d just admitted to him that I was throwing myself into a war that I’m sure he felt I was ill equipped for. Hell, I was the first to admit that I was terrified, ill equipped, and unprepared for it. But it was coming all the same—tonight’s events paid proof to that—so I had better get ready. Too bad I wasn’t sure exactly how to do that.
My dad didn’t say anything for a while, just stared up at the rose-and red-streaked sky above us. I had just about given up on him responding when he said, “That’s why you have to go back? To fight in this war?”
“Yes.” I had to be one of the leaders of the war, but I figured I’d been honest enough tonight. No need to rub his nose in the horror of it all.
“What if I asked you to stay?”
My stomach sank. “Dad—”
“I’ve never asked you for anything, Tempest. I’ve always told you that, mermaid or human, it was your decision. And it has been. And I’ve supported you all along—”
“I know you have—”
He held up a hand. “Let me finish.” He looked out at the ocean that he had loved his entire life, and I could see the tension in him. I could see the fear, new and all-encompassing. “After what I saw out there tonight, after what I know is waiting for you … I don’t want you to go.”
“I have to.” The words felt like broken glass scratching against my throat.
“No, you don’t. It’s not your fight!”
“It is! It was Mom’s fight and now it’s mine.”
“Why? Just give me one good reason why you have to go out there.”
“Because people will die if I don’t.”
He shook his head. “People will die anyway. You may die.”
“I know. But people have already died. Thousands of them. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try to end this thing.”
“Even if it kills you?”
It was my turn to look away, my turn to gaze out over the water that I both craved and despised. “Yes. Even if I have to die. If I somehow manage to stop Tiamat, then it will be worth it.”
My dad grabbed my shoulders, shook me. He was weaker than usual, thanks to his near-drowning experience, but he still made an impact. “To whom? To whom will it be worth it? Not me. Not Moku or Rio or Mark or even Kona, I bet. I saw him when he was here, saw how he looked at you. He can’t want you to sacrifice yourself any more than I do.”
My heart collapsed in my chest, as much from the torment on his face as from the painful truth in his words. “Daddy, please. Don’t do this.” Tears leaked down my face, but I dashed them away as quickly as they fell.
He saw them anyway and pulled me into a huge hug. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, baby. I had no right to ask that of you.”
But he did. Of course he did. I knew how much my mother’s leaving had devastated him and Rio, knew what a huge impact it had had on our family. It was one of the main reasons I’d had such a hard time committing to being one hundred percent mermaid, one hundred percent of the time. What would happen to my family if I did disappear just like Mom had? What if I died out there in the middle of the ocean and they never knew about it? What if Moku spent days, months, years waiting for me to come back, as I’d waited for my mother, only to realize that it was never going to happen?
All my fear, all my guilt, all my anger welled up inside of me—along with a million other emotions that weren’t as easy to identify—and I told him, “If there were any other way, don’t you think I would take it? I never wanted to be mermaid, never wanted any of this. But there’s no one else, and whining about how being mermaid interfered with my ‘plans’ isn’t going to work very well after Tiamat destroys everyone I’ve ever cared about. I would stay if I could, Daddy, but I can’t. Not when there’s a chance I can help.”
“Why you? Why not somebody else?”
“This isn’t an either-or situation. Why not me and anyone else who can help? You saw that thing. That’s just a little bit of what Kona and I and the rest of the Pacific are up against.”
My dad opened his mouth, looked like he wanted to argue, but something over my shoulder had the words freezing on his lips. I turned, half expecting another one of Tiamat’s monsters to be on the attack, but all I saw was the beginning of the dawn patrol at the end of the street. I was about to ask my dad what had him so spooked, but then it hit me. Who knew if that thing was still lurking around out there? Or if something worse was—I thought of the hammerhead that had come straight at me.
“There’s no way we can let them get in the water!” I said.
My dad had obviously reached that conclusion already. He was up before I was finished speaking and dashing for the lifeguard hut at the edge of the beach. It wasn’t manned much anymore—budget cuts from a broke California government had taken care of that—but there was still a phone there that direct-dialed 911. There was also a bunch of BEACH CLOSED, UNSAFE signs locked behind a fence.
By the time I got to the hut, my dad was scaling the fence. I waited on the other side, catching the signs as he tossed them over. As soon as the last one had cleared the fence, my dad yelled, “Go, go, go!”
I took off. “Shouldn’t we call 911 so they can patrol the beach, make sure it stays closed?” I demanded.
“After we get the signs up.” He was already over the fence and gathering signs in his arms.
And then we ran, me heading up the beach while he headed down it. Wanting to make them last, I put a sign every three hundred yards or so. When I’d finally run out, I jogged the mile or so back down the beach to find my dad deep in conversation with my friends and some other guys I’d never seen before. He was telling them about the giant great white shark we’d just seen and how we’d narrowly escaped. While they might have argued with me or some other guy who tried to keep them out of the water, there was never any doubt that they would listen to my dad. Bobby Maguire, surf god and local hero.
By the time I called 911 to alert them to the situation and returned to my dad and the others, the group of them was swapping stories of near misses with sharks and other creatures, each a little more fantastical than the one that came before it. Which was more than fine with me.