Ocean's Surrender Read Online Free PDF Page B

time in a very long time, River had no words.
    “If you are, then come to me tonight, alone, to your beach. I’ll explain everything then. But only if it’s what you want.”
    And with that, Fen vanished.
    River and Jason stood in silence. But while Jason’s face glowed with happiness, the emotions tracing over River’s features were far more difficult to read.
    Finally, the sister turned to her brother.
    “What the hell just happened, Jason? And start at the beginning.”
    Eagerly, Jason obliged.

Chapter Five
    “You’re not going to need that,” Jason said, obviously mortified by his sister’s behavior. She loaded the other shotgun shell, anyway. There was no way she was meeting any man, let alone one who claimed to be magical, without a weapon.
    River wasn’t ever going to be vulnerable again.
    She snapped closed her father’s old break-action shotgun, then got ready to argue with her brother.
    “You’re not going with me, Jason.” Her voice was firm, to let him know she wasn’t budging on this issue.
    “Duh. Of course I’m not. He said he wants to see you alone.”
    It took River’s brain a second to catch up with Jason’s words.
    “Really? You don’t want to come?”
    “Why would I?”
    “Well, um, normally when I do something you want to come too. Make sure I’m okay.”
    “You’re just meeting Fen. He’s awesome. So don’t shoot him.”
    “Jason, you just met this guy, and he’s claiming some pretty crazy stuff. I don’t know how you can trust him like this, especially after…”
    “He’s nothing like that guy,” Jason said, giving River a look of total incredulity like she was trying to convince him a gerbil was as fierce as a T-Rex, his favorite dinosaur. “You can trust Fen.”
    “No, we can’t, Jason. We can’t trust him.”
    “You mean you can’t trust anybody,” Jason said, sadly.
    That note of melancholy gave River pause. What had Jason meant when he said he was sad, and sad because she was sad? She didn’t want him feeling like that. The whole point of all of this was to make Jason happy. But being safe was important too…
    “I don’t mean that at all, Jase. We can trust each other.”
    “And we can trust other people too.”
    “Well, yes. But it’s not the same…”
    “We can trust Mrs. McGee. She takes me to the daycare every time I go, and we trust her.”
    “Yes, but…”
    “And we can trust Stan who drives the bus.”
    “I know, Jason. But I’m talking about a different kind of trust…”
    “We can trust Leo too.”
    That shut River up. The fact was, she wanted to trust Leo, and she wanted to trust him the way she meant the word, “trust”. The paramedic had come into the store only a few hours after their encounter with Fen, to take Jason to the barber, and she’d desperately wanted to tell him what happened. She was scared to meet Fen alone, and she was scared to tell anyone else what happened, for fear of sounding crazy.
    After all, the story involved a man who claimed to be a sea-prince changing his features and then disappearing as if by magic.
    Hours of thinking about the events had led her to believe that it had to be a trick—mirrors, or some sort of mind-altering drug. But that wouldn’t make it sound any less crazy. Or any less scary.
    So she’d wanted to ask Leo to come with her that night. He was so capable, so brave and so strong.
    Which was why she couldn’t ever beg him for favors.
    To do so would be to rely on him. It would mean bringing a stranger into the little bubble that was her and Jason’s world. And that would once more make that bubble vulnerable.
    River wasn’t ever going to let that happen again.
    So she’d let Jason and Leo leave without a word, and spent her own short lunch hour back at home cleaning and checking their old gun.
    “I know we can trust Leo,” she said, her voice strangely quiet.
    But that didn’t mean she ever would.
    “Well, you can trust Fen too. You know you can, you just don’t want to