The Twice Lost Read Online Free PDF Page B

Straight at the camera. She hesitated for a moment, almost as if she wanted to say something but felt too shy. And then Dorian saw something dark on the right side of her shining face, and his chest tightened as he realized that it was almost certainly dried blood.
    Was she swimming so slowly because she was injured? That still wouldn’t explain why she’d done something so utterly perverse, though, coming so close to a human town and swimming right where people could see her.
    Just as Dorian finished wondering that, Luce dived. Only a quick green smear showed under the low waves, then she vanished from the image. The camera went on staring blankly at the water for a minute. The people on the dock were absolutely silent, and Dorian realized he was crying. He hoped Steve wouldn’t turn around and see.
    “It’s totally fake,” Steve muttered huskily. “Right?”
    Dorian realized that he didn’t have to worry about his friend looking around at him. Steve was crying too, just as if
he
was the one who’d loved her.
    The video was titled “Mermaid sighting? May 28th.” Just one day ago, Dorian realized shakily. Where
was
she?
    It had already been viewed nearly a million times, and there was Steve’s hand snaking helplessly to hit
Play
again.
Luce,
Dorian thought,
Luce, how could you?
She’d always been so worried that humans would find out mermaids existed, and there she was blowing their cover herself. What conceivable reason could she have for doing that? The seals lounged, people laughed, the little girl in the red windbreaker looked at
something
with terrible longing on her face . . . Then the flash of sun and she was on the screen again.
Luce.
    It was her, it was her; there was no way it
wasn’t
her. Rippling, rising, glancing. Hesitating and then turning away again. She was too small for him to quite make it out, but it looked like something had happened to her ear. This time Dorian thought her movements definitely seemed like she was very tired. Maybe even sick.
    “Where . . .” Dorian said. Steve didn’t seem to hear him, and Dorian rapped on his shoulder. “Steve? Does it say
where
she is?”
    “Oh . . .” His voice was even more distorted by crying now. Dorian heard him gulping. “In the comments. They say it was outside Grayshore, Washington.”
    Washington.
Dorian was hit by a nauseating surge of disappointment. She didn’t care about him at all anymore or she never would have gone so far away. Unless . . . It seemed crazy to think it, but maybe she’d let those people video her because she’d hoped that
he
would see it? When she glanced back over her shoulder that way, was she looking through the camera’s lens in an effort to meet his eyes?
    She was about to say something, Dorian felt sure. Was it his name?
    The picture on the screen showed empty, sun-blinking water and a line of wooded coast to the left. Then it went black.
Replay.
He was starting to feel precarious, and he wished he was sitting down, but Steve had the only chair.
    Of course, the FBI already knew mermaids were out there. Dorian had told Luce that himself several months ago. But he was pretty sure Luce’s worst fears hadn’t come to pass. FBI agent Ben Ellison had told him that the authorities “were still reviewing the options.” As long as the feds weren’t actually trying to exterminate the mermaids, why would Luce risk provoking them?
    There she was again, looking back as if she could see him watching her. Dorian leaned closer to the screen, trying to make out the look on her face. He was desperate for any sign that would tell him what she’d been thinking in those moments, but she was too small, too distant. All he could tell was that she was hurt and unsmiling. If he could get to Anchorage, get on a plane, somehow drive from Seattle to the coast . . .
    She’d be long gone, of course. She already was.
    The screen showed nothing but water dropping into sudden blackness.
    “It has to be fake,” Steve said