Chapter 5: Premonition

Zac checked over his shoulder one last time and then darted across the alleyway toward the bungalow house. He slipped inside the back door and paused, leaning heavily against the doorframe.

Safe.

He let out a long breath. The adrenaline rush had subsided now, and he balled his right hand into a fist to stop it from shaking. He didn't think he'd been followed back here, but you could never be too sure. He made his way around the shabby beach house living room, locking doors and closing blinds. He didn't want to take any chance of being spotted from outside. He needed to lay low, at least until after tonight.

It was a miracle he'd gotten away unscathed. Just the thought of it made him tremble. After weeks of careful preparation, Zac had almost blown the whole operation. He thought for sure he was dead. Those two Counter-Disruption goons had him completely cornered. It was only because of the girl that he managed to escape.

He winced now as he thought of her. He couldn't shake the disturbing image from his mind: her limp body drifting upward from behind a pile of rocks. He wasn't sure what had happened to her, but he felt responsible in some way.

Which made no sense, of course.

Zac sank down onto the faded cushions of a white wicker sofa, and tried to force his mind down a different train of thought. He didn't even know that girl. What happened to her was an accident. It had nothing to do with him. And it wasn't like he'd left her there for dead. There were plenty of other people around to help her. He needed to help himself.

Still, he couldn't shake the thought that she'd somehow done it on purpose. Like she'd sacrificed herself for him. For a total stranger. That couldn't be true, could it?

That whole incident at the aquarium couldn't have lasted more than 30 seconds, but it had to be one of the most intense half-minutes of his life. He'd been in a mindless panic to get away from the men pursuing him, but then he'd made eye contact with that girl... and the sensation was unlike anything he'd ever experienced.

Mesmerizing.

That was the only word he could think of that came close to explaining how it felt. It wasn't lust. Certainly not love at first sight, or some such nonexistent bullshit. Not even attraction really. He must have flirted with half a dozen girls today who were objectively hotter, and their faces all blurred together in his head. But that girl in the mermaid costume had held him transfixed—staring like an idiot—completely oblivious to the danger closing in on him.

What was it about her? There was something...something about her eyes. Maybe it was the way she stared back at him so intently. Like she recognized him from somewhere. And the thing was, he had the strangest sense that he recognized her too, even though he was sure he'd never seen her before that moment.

Zac squeezed his eyes shut and covered them with the crook of his elbow, trying desperately to drown out the image of her face.

What had happened to her? It wasn't really his fault, was it?

He'd forgotten all about the men as he stood there watching her, but then he saw the look of alarm that registered on her face, and the crushing panic had returned to him all at once. He'd known that he was trapped. He'd mouthed a message—words meant for himself, or possibly for his maker. Not for her. Did she think those words were meant for her?

Help me.

She'd spun away, her fishtail cutting through the water in a flash of silvery-green. He couldn't quite remember the sequence of events after that. It all happened so fast. One of the agents had clapped a hand on his shoulder. He'd stood, frozen with fear. And then the noise had hit him like a bomb going off.

Maybe it really was a bomb, for all he knew. It sounded like some kind of explosion. He'd looked up in surprise and saw the foaming water, churning toward the surface like the angry slipstream of a powerboat.

And what then? It was all a jumble in his memory. Shouting... A little girl's scream... And then the sight of the mermaid's lifeless body, eyes closed, face perfectly serene, drifting upward with her head surrounded by a crimson veil.

That was just her hair, right? All that red?

Zac hadn't stuck around to find out. The hand holding him by the shoulder had fallen away amid the chaos, and Zac's survival instinct had kicked in with a vengeance.

He'd spun on his heel and fled.

Now he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd done the wrong thing. He'd abandoned her. Should he have stayed and tried to help? He scrubbed his forearm down the length of his face, trying to still the churning feeling in his stomach.

No, he thought. He did what he had to do. There was far too much at stake to risk it all for one lone girl.

Zac heard the click of a key in the front door, and his head shot up. He sucked in one last deep breath to soothe his nerves. Grandfather and Cyrus were back, lugging last-minute supplies for tonight's party. A couple of the sound engineers trailed into the house behind them. One of them carried an old pink plastic children's toy with what looked like a singing octopus on the front.

"That's it?" Zac's eyes widened at the sight. "That hunk of plastic? That's the lynchpin for our big master plan for tonight?"

The woman carrying it set the toy down carefully on the coffee table. "We were lucky to find this one," she said over her shoulder. "We've been scouring antique shops all up and down the coast. First karaoke machine I've come across that's still in working order."

Zac's grandfather set down the bags of ice he'd been dragging across the living room floor, and sank down heavily into a chair. He wiped the back of his hand across his graying hairline, and his voice came out in a breathless croak.

"You just worry about your own mission, Zac. What are you doing back here so soon?"

Zac shrugged, fiddling with the empty left cuff of his shirt. "Done," he muttered without looking up. No need to go into details, right? He didn't want his grandfather to know how close he'd come to getting busted this afternoon. He could feel his face growing warmer under his grandfather's watchful gaze.

"Did you run into any trouble, Zac?"

"Nothing I couldn't handle."

The older man leaned forward in his chair, and Zac kept his eyes averted. He knew he'd have to tell Grandfather about the two Counter-Disruption agents eventually, but he'd do it later. Not with all these other people in the room. For now, Zac played for time. Thankfully, his cousin Cyrus butted in before Grandfather could question any further.

"Zacky, did you check out that pier I asked about? Pier 18?"

Cyrus leaned against a counter at the other end of the room. He removed a black plastic cylinder the size of a pen from the back pocket of his jeans and carefully unrolled it. With a firm snap of his wrist, he locked the paper-thin iScroll into open position and began tapping at the screen.

Always the tech whiz, Zac thought with a trace of irritation. The rest of them were still making due with aging smart-phones, already two years' obsolete, because they couldn't afford to upgrade. But Cy had insisted he needed the faster operating speed of an iScroll for the algorithm he'd designed.

Maybe it wasn't complete BS. Cy had picked up the strongest reading yet this morning. They were close enough now to isolate the precise GPS coordinates of their mystery singer. At first, Cyrus thought the signal was coming from a point just offshore in the open ocean. It was only after he zoomed in on the satellite image that they saw the nearby pier.

Pier 18. It was the first place Zac had headed when he went out on his reconnaissance mission this morning.

"I checked it out," Zac said. "It's just an old abandoned pier. Nothing there but bird shit from all the gulls. The boardwalk doesn't really get going for another half-mile north."

Grandfather scowled and stood up from his chair, pacing the room. "How certain are you of that location, Cy?"

Cyrus gave a grunt. "I told you, Grandpa. It's a best guess. LRVI has its limitations."

"That's why we're having the party tonight!" Zac added. "Isn't that why we got this ridiculous hunk of crap over here?" He waved his hand in the direction of the karaoke machine. The sound tech kneeled in front of it, tapping on one of the pink plastic microphones with her fingernail.

Not that they really needed those mics to work for their purposes tonight. The karaoke machine was mostly intended as a prop. They already had this house wired top-to-bottom for video and sound. It was supposed to be a TV casting party, after all. The idea was simply to get all the girls in town here, in this house. Loosen them up with promises of fame and reality-TV glory. Then invite them all to do a little solo on the karaoke machine for their big audition.

Now, they just needed the owner of the mystery voice to put in an appearance.

"Did you see anyone promising out there?" Grandfather turned his dark gray eyes back on Zac again. Zac squirmed, uncomfortable beneath the scrutiny.

"Promising? Like how?"

"I don't know, Zac. Did anyone make an impression?"

Did anyone make an impression...

Yes, he couldn't help thinking to himself. He couldn't stop picturing that swath of crimson hair, swirling through the water like liquid silk. Zac shook his head to clear away the image. He looked down to cover up his momentary discomfiture. "Nope, sorry, didn't see any beautiful maidens singing arias as they tiptoed through the breaking waves, if that's what you mean."

Grandfather didn't look amused.

"Sorry," Zac continued, sitting up straighter and adopting a more businesslike tone. "I made a canvass of the area. Most of the kids in town hang out at an ice cream parlor in the center of the boardwalk, so I concentrated my efforts there. I chatted up the girl behind the counter—"

Cyrus broke in, rolling his eyes. "That's it? You talked to one girl?"

"I'm telling you, I got it done!" Zac protested. "If the girl we're looking for lives in Seabreeze Point, she'll be here."

"You know this how?"

"Because the girl behind the counter said she was going, and then every guy in the place started glaring at me. Which means they're all crushing on her. So I guarantee they're all coming too. And all the girls who like one of those guys will be here, chasing them. And so on and so forth." Zac broke into a broad grin, encompassing his cousin and grandfather, along with all the other co-conspirators in the room. Unlike the rest of them, he didn't bring an ounce of technical expertise to the table, but he did know one thing better than the rest. "Trust me. I know how to throw a rager. Every teenager in this town is going to be here in this house tonight."

Every teenager but one, he silently amended, and his smile faded slightly at the edges. His mind went back again to the girl's blank face as she drifted toward the surface of the water. He had a feeling she wouldn't be in any condition for a party.

And for some reason he couldn't shake the one irrepressible thought, in spite of all his overconfident bluster to the others. He knew deep down why he couldn't stop thinking about her. He had the strangest feeling—almost like a premonition—that the one girl they were looking for was her.