“Anything,” he agrees.
I turn my face away and think about it for a minute before I give him my answer. “The exact same thing I wanted before.” Except this time I say it with the conviction I lacked the first time.
He takes a moment to answer. “I swear you were going to say something else.” He coughs.
“Are you okay?” I ask, keeping one eye on the vague mass of his lower half as he shifts around across from me, not sure if I should be more wary…or less. “Are you actually going to die?”
I don’t know what’s worse, him alive and here, or a corpse needing to be disposed of.
“I need water, and I will eventually perish in this realm without it.” His voice is weak and raw. It’s deeper than any man’s voice I’ve heard before, though underneath the roughness there seems to be a teasing tone. “Give me water, please, before that happens. My kind needs constant access to water. It hurts,” he whines. “I am useless to you without it.”
“I can’t get out, as you know.” I turn to squint toward the bathroom, considering. “I could try a running start?—”
“Your tears, your wet shirt, they will be enough. Quick! Before I waste away.”
I’m about to tear my shirt off and throw the damp material in the direction of his annoying blobby face just to shut him up but catch myself. I’m smarter than that. “What are you really? A mermaid?” If I’m making sense of his tail correctly, it’s long, much longer than I’d expect for a mermaid.
And black. It’s very black.
“You ask me this now? Right before I am about to die? Insensitive.”
“You don’t seem like a mermaid to me.”
“That’s because I am not a mermaid. My sister does not like competition. Alas, neither do I, and would be willing todienot to see her again…”
I frown at him. “Sooo this circle is a real demonic summoning circle, isn’t it?” I pause as it dawns on me that saying it out loud has given the question an edge of… hope.
Hope.
What kind of hope could a demon bring? Otherworldly? Am I seriously considering this?
God damn it.My parents would be proud.
“It does not matterwhatI am if I am dead.”
I rest my head on my knees, sick of the water draining from me. It’s so much. I can feel myself growing weaker and more tired by the minute. “You don’t sound like you’re dying.”
“Oh? You’ve heard dying before? Pray tell, what does dying sound like?”
“I’ll get you water,” I grouse, indicating me and the unnatural amount of it my eyes are gushing, “Once I know what it is I’m talking to, and don’t say merman, because what the hell?”
“What do you mean by that?” he asks, his voice back to being deep, snarky. “You have not yet been able to look at me, yet you make insulting assumptions. You should be more careful how you speak to one of my kind. Most of us have no patience for morals—I mean, mortals.”
I climb to my feet dizzily as I notice him shift a little closer to me. “One of your kind?” I echo.
He slides the length of his tail behind him and lifts his upper body higher off the ground. “You ask a lot of questions, even for a human.”
“Of course I have a lot of questions.” I stand a little straighter to make it harder for him to meet my gaze head on. He can’t seem to rise to my height, which gives me a surge of confidence. “There’s a strange being in my parents’ house and he’s tellingme he’s dying. Well, it seems like I’m the one with all the power here. If you need me to save you because you can’t even stand?—”
I’m yanked forward, quickly surrounded by his tail rounding the back of my hips. It fans out into a shapely but dark serpentine mass of fins above me and to my left as he pulls me close. Caught tight against his chest—his firm chest—his hands—which happen to be wet and big—grip me and he drags me down, turning us both over until my back is flat on the ground. With his tail sliding behind him, there is nothing left between the wet carpet and my back, and I shiver at the cold that spreads across my skin as my clothes absorb the water from the steam cleaner.
“What are you doing?” I gasp, heart hammering with sudden fear.
Ignoring me, he presses closer, leaning his face above mine and skimming the back of his fingers down my wet cheek, taking the tears away.
I can barely see him, but I can make things out in blinks. Still, I’m too afraid to move as he closes the short distance between our faces and pries open my eyes.
I jerk back instinctively, and when my eyes next close, he opens his mouth and licks the water flooding out of them. Stunned, my insides curl, my toes clench hard, as my entire body locks on to the feel of his tongue on my face and the almost overpowering humid sensation of his body. He’s big. Much bigger than me. Smashed between him and the floor, it feels like I could drown. As hard as it’s to see clearly right now, it’s becoming just as hard to breathe without a gasp taking over every inhalation.
