Emory let out a low shriek of frustration. His claws dug into the brittle rock of the seafloor below her cove. The microscopic life that had called it and the sand tucked between stones home fled in response to the erratic pulses of electricity that coursed through his hands.
“Soon,” he promised her in his melodic, whistling tongue.
Soon,he silently promised again as he forced himself away, into the familiar depths just beyond the island.But first, a different sort of hunt.
ChapterFive
Clementine understoodthat she could live in denial. She had, after all, been more than happy to ignore the dysfunction in her family if it meant that she got to exist in her happy little bubble. Processing the shock and hurt of Nelly’s declaration that she wished to live separate lives had forced her to admit that she’d known about it for a long time but ignored it. She was, if nothing else, good at pretending like things weren’t a problem.
Never been on a date? I don’t like small talk anyway!
Don’t know who I am without my sister? It’s called loving your family, thanks.
Am I so lonely it’s like I can feel the ache in my molars? Maybe I just need to go to the dentist!
But even her finely honed skills were no match for her situation.
Clementine wasn’t just being hunted. She was being stalked. Which was bad, probably. Except that every time she wondered if she should be afraid, she somehow managed to talk herself down into being pretty okay with it.
Okay might be stretching it.
She was handling it. She viewed it as an opportunity to connect with her neighbors, one she might not get again. And if a small part of her was a little flattered by all the attention and gifts? Well, she could ignore that, too.
Her fingers skimmed over the submersible’s control panel as she deftly programmed in her coordinates: the Protectorate Oceanic Territory station, or justthe office. It was the closest place to dock her vehicle and the one she’d trained at extensively, so she was familiar with the staff and docking procedures.
As much as she didn’t want to leave her little cocoon of silence, she needed to pick up her first large grocery order since the big move.
And go to the shop next door.
Which was ridiculous. Sheknewit was. What she should have done was make an immediate call to Mr. Hauf to report her intruder and get someone to fix whatever it was that was broken in the moon pool locking mechanism. She shouldnothave made a plan to visit the shop beside the office, where she could do something even more outrageous like, say, pick out a gift for her stalker.
But that was exactly what she was going to do.
Clementine wasn’t stupid. She knew that her predator had crossed an important boundary and had displayed very clearly how easily they could harm her if they chose. Over and over again.
They’d had weeks and weeks of hanging around the island. They’d been in her home several times. They obviously knew how to circumvent the security on the moon pool door when it pleased them. If they were waiting for an opportunity to hurt her, they’d had dozens. Probably more.
They hadn’t.
Her predator had left her gifts instead.
The massive, fossilized shark tooth. The abalone shell. A wind chime made of sea glass. A comb skillfully carved from a twisted branch of driftwood.
Clementine didn’t want to live in denial anymore. She was trying to be a new, better version of herself. Independent. Brave. Maybe even a little reckless. The old version of Clementine leaned on ignorance to make her life a little more bearable, but she didn’twantonlybearable anymore.
She wanted a real life. More than that, she wanted a friend.
Maybe it was stupid and it was certainly inviting trouble into her life, but she was confident the person leaving her gifts had no intention to harm her. If anything,theyseemed intent on avoidingher.After all, would a person who wished to hurt her only ever drop off gifts when she wasn’t in the house? Doubtful.
The only thing that worried her was that those gifts seemed to come less regularly as the weeks passed. She’d begun to seriously consider sleeping in the moon pool room before the shell showed up two weeks after the last gift. A panicked part of her dismayed over the idea that her predator might be losing interest, or might be growing impatient with her.
Clementine couldn’t seem to catch them no matter how hard she tried, so she couldn’t ask what she was supposed to do with the gifts, how she was supposed to respond. She had no damn idea if she was doing the right thing or not, and the more she obsessed over it, the more distressed she became.
What if they don’t come back this time?
There’d been no sign of the predator since the shell appeared. She’d been ready the following morning, even going so far as to pretend to leave the house only to quietly return and stake out the moon pool.
Unfortunately, she either wasn’t as sneaky as she thought —probable —or they had lost interest, because they hadn’t returned. Going by how long it took for the shell to appear, she might not have panicked if she hadn’t also felt the hum of their mind fade. In all the weeks she’d lived on the island, she’d never felt the predator move so far away.
