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An audible gasp escaped my lips as she stepped forward. Bellamy scrambled to his feet and chased after her. Milo leapt up to follow, but they were both met with a force as Bastian shielded her with a sheet of shadow water that they could not break through. “It’s clear that this is what must be done.” She stopped to look at Bellamy, only for a moment. “I’m sorry, my love.”
“No it’s not!” I cried. “What about all that stuff you told me about aligning the stars to form your own destiny? What about that?”
She kept walking, her eyes locked with Bastian’s. “Serena!” I screamed. “If you do this, he’ll have power over the seas and everything in it! He’ll have power over me!”
“What else am I supposed to do, little mermaid?” She paused to look at me. “He’s already won. I can’t let him hurt you all, too. This is what is meant to happen. It’s marked in stone.”
“What?” I wanted her to explain. Where was this foretold? Why was she so willing to give up suddenly when all this time she’d been so stubborn?
Suddenly, Russell burst in, running after her as a defeated Noah stood behind him as the man tore from his grip. “No! Serena, no! I won’t lose you again!”
“Grandpa, don’t! You can’t stop him! He can’t be killed!” Noah called after him. I was relieved my mom was nowhere to be seen, assuming Noah had taken her somewhere safe for the time being.
Serena continued her walk to Bastian, trodding up the stairs to him like a princess about to be crowned. Only, she was heading to a chopping block.
Bastian snatched McKenzie by the arms and tossed her to the side, sending her tumbling down the old stone steps. Noah rushed to her as I called her name. I expected her reflection disguise to fade, but it didn’t, and she remained in her form as Serena. I’d figure out how to undo that later, but right now it didn’t matter. As Noah tended to her, I gritted my teeth in anger. I summoned my water once again, and sent it twisting and raging to Bastian, who deflected it with his black water with ease. “Nice try,” he grinned. “But you don’t possess half the power you need to fight me.”
Serena was almost to the top of the steps, and Bastian was waiting with a literal open hand. She placed her hand in his. Russell ran up behind her screaming her name, arms grasping frantically as he reached for her. But Bastian sent a black wave to knock him back, pummeling him into the floor as Serena escaped his grasp.
The scene was set. The six of us watched in horror as Bastian took Serena’s hand, guiding her to the altar on which he planned to kill her. “By the moon and sea you were created, and by the same you must end.” A stream of moonlight poured down into the chamber from the opening in the ceiling above. As the white light encircled the stone like a spotlight, I remembered how Cordelia once said we draw our power from the moon. This was how Bastian intended to send it back. And I couldn’t help but wonder, if the Mother of Sirens or her power didn’t exist, would I?
Serena didn’t struggle at all as she daintily sat herself on the table and leaned back. “All this because I would not love you.”
“No, Atargatis. All this because the gods favored you and gave you the sea—something that should have been rightfully mine.”
I looked around, frantic as the moonlight poured in. I strained to hear Serena and Bastian’s exchange of words as Bastian pulled out an ancient-looking dagger with a skull mounted on the hilt. He touched the tip of the knife to his finger and twirled the hilt in his hand back and forth.
“At least let me see it,” Serena begged. “One last time. Let me see what I’ve lost.”
Bastian laughed, holding his knife to lift her chin. “I think I could honor that pitiful request. For a price.”
“For a kiss, then?” Serena’s words sung heavy and clear as she made the offer, hardly a question.
“Fair enough, lovely. Looks like we’ll both be getting a taste of what we could’ve had.” I felt a small gag tickle the back of my throat. Bastian wasn’t only evil and manipulative…he had way too much fun with it. And it ignited a fury in my bones. But maybe Serena was onto something. If she could just get him to reveal where the Crown was…
Bastian snickered, his sharp eyes piercing right through her as he lowered his face to hers. “A kiss for a crown.” He placed his lips on hers, forcing her head to him as he gripped the back of her neck. When he pulled away, Serena appeared struck by lightning, her body stiffening and jolting upright. With her head tilted back, she stared straight up, as if watching something above her intently. When the force holding her in place released her, her head fell forward and she gasped as though she’d been holding her breath. “Or rather, a glimpse of it. It’s as close as you’ll ever get.” Bastian sneered.
A vision. Bastian had only shown her a vision of the Crown. Of course she should’ve known there was no way he would produce the actual crown in front of her. His deals always had a catch. This one was no different. What did that gain her? It was too late now.
So I was left with my jaw on the floor and my body charged, ready to react, but then Serena, up at the stone altar beside Bastian, frantically started yelling to McKenzie below. But the way she moved, screamed, and elbowed Bastian away to buy her just one extra second…it didn’t seem like Serena. In fact, the more I watched her, the more clear it became that maybe it wasn’t Serena at all.
“The Crown is in the West tunnel! In the floor beneath a half-heart shaped stone!” She cried.
The Serena beside Noah stood to her feet and shoved past him. She whipped past like a blur as she took off running back toward the way we came, disappearing into the stone tunnels that led back to Bastian’s lair beneath the club.
It was so much to process that my mind was spinning trying to keep up. I glanced at Bellamy and Milo, who looked just as confused as I felt, but their eyes were fixated back on Bastian and the Serena he was about to sacrifice. Only this Serena was now transforming as a watery sheen ran down her body, peeling away into a puddle that revealed a pale, ginger-haired girl instead of the dark-skinned goddess that she had been just seconds before. It was McKenzie, and a heavy sensation dropped in my gut when I realized it’d been her up there all along.
47
Black Water
Katrina
“Conniving bitch!” Bastian struck McKenzie hard enough to send her toppling down the altar steps, where she rolled lifelessly past me. Noah and I ran to her, kneeling down and cupping her face in my hands. Noah shook her and I begged her to open her eyes.
“McKenzie!” Noah repeated, hovering over her body just as closely as I was, if not more. When she quickly came to, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Milo rushed to hold off Bastian before he could follow after the real Serena, while Bellamy ran after her as he called her name. One glance was all it took to see the disaster unfolding before us. The cave was beginning to groan and echo, tiny sandy bits of ceiling sprinkling us below. Something was beginning to crumble.
