“Emma, run!” Mom yells.
Toraf disappears again, followed by a symphony of scraping and knocking and thumping and cussing.
Rayna rolls her eyes at me, grumbling to herself as she stomps into the kitchen. She adjusts the harpoon to a more deadly position, scraping the popcorn ceiling and sending rust and Sheetrock and tetanus flaking onto the floor like dirty snow. Aiming it at the mound of struggling limbs, she says, “One of you is about to die, and right now I don’t really care who it is.”
Thank God for Rayna. People like Rayna get things done. People like me watch people like Rayna get things done. Then people like me round the corner of the counter as if they helped, as if they didn’t stand there and let everyone they love beat the shizzle out of one another.
I peer down at the three of them all tangled up. Crossing my arms, I try to mimic Rayna’s impressive rage, but I’m pretty sure my face is only capable of what-the-crap-was-that.
Mom looks up at me, nostrils flaring like moth wings. “Emma, I told you to run,” she grinds out before elbowing Toraf in the mouth so hard I think he might swallow a tooth. Then she kicks Galen in the ribs.
He groans, but catches her foot before she can re-up. Toraf spits blood on the linoleum beside him and grabs Mom’s arms. She writhes and wriggles, bristling like a trapped badger and cussing like a sailor on crack.
Mom has never been girlie.
Finally she stops, her arms and legs slumping to the floor in defeat. Tears puddle in her eyes. “Let her go,” she sobs. “She’s got nothing to do with this. She doesn’t even know about us. Take me and leave her out of this. I’ll do anything.”
Which reinforces, right here and now, that my mom is Nalia. Nalia is my mom. Also, holy crap.
“Emma, you can’t ignore me forever. Look at me.”
This startles me. I pull my gaze from the decrepit ceiling and settle it on my fruitcake mother. “I’m not ignoring you,” I tell her, which is the truth. I’m aware of every infinitesimal move she makes. Since I woke up, she’s crossed and uncrossed her legs six times while sitting at the mini-table by the door. She’s tightened her ponytail eight times. And she’s peeked out the window twelve times. I figure it’s my duty as a captive to keep tabs on my kidnapper.
Mom crosses her legs again, and leans forward on her forearms, resting her chin on one hand. She looks tired when she says, “We need to talk about all this.”
At first, I snort. Then the absurdity of the statement—the understatement—really takes hold, and I start to laugh. In fact, I laugh so hard that the headboard taps the wall with each out-of-breath giggle. She lets me go on for a long time, clutching my own stomach, filling and emptying my lungs until I reach a natural pause in my amusement. I wipe away the tears of unjoy before they stain the hideous, stiff bedspread.
Mom starts to shake her leg, which is her sitting-down version of foot tapping. “Are you finished?”
I sit up, rippling the bedspread around me like a flash-frozen lake. The room spins, which is on my top-ten list of unpleasant scenarios. “With what, exactly?”
“I need you to be serious right now.”
“Probably you shouldn’t have drugged me, then.”
She rolls her eyes and waves in dismissal. “It was chloroform. You’ll be fine.”
“And Rayna?”
She knows what I’m asking, and she nods. “She should be waking up right about now.” Mom sits back in her chair. “That girl has the personality of a mako shark.”
“Says the nut job who chloroformed her own daughter.”
She sighs. “One day you’ll understand why I did that. Today is obviously not that day.”
“No, no, no,” I say, palming the air with the universal “don’t even” sign. “You don’t get to play the responsible parent card. Let’s not forget the little matter of the last eighteen-freaking-years, Nalia.” There. I said it. This conversation is finally going to happen. I can tell by the expression on her face, by the way her mouth puckers in guilt.
Nalia, the Poseidon princess, folds her hands in her lap with irritating calm. “And it would appear that you’ve been keeping a few secrets yourself. I’m ready to show and tell, if you are.”
I lean back on my elbows. “My secrets are your secrets, remember?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I’m not talking about what you are. I’m talking about who you’ve been with. And what they’ve been telling you.”
“Galen told you everything before he left to get Grom. You know as much as I do.”
“Oh, Emma,” she says, her tone saturated with pity. “They’re lying. Grom is dead.”
This is unexpected. “Why would you think that?”
“Because I killed him.”
I feel my eyes get wide. “Um. What?”
“It was an accident, and it was a long time ago. But I’m sure your new friends don’t believe that. Galen and Toraf didn’t leave to get Grom, Emma. I’m positive they were bringing a Syrena party back to arrest me. Why else would they leave Rayna behind to guard me?”
“Because you were acting like a psycho?”
“If only it were that.”
It takes a few minutes to process this and Mom gives me some space from the conversation to do it. Over and over, I repeat to myself that Mom thinks Grom is dead. Like, really and truly believes that he is. Which forces me to reconsider a few things.