Blueisland (Watermagic Series, #4) by Brighton Hill Page A

terrified. It was like swimming up to a school of sharks and fearing you would be dead in seconds.
    It was too late to help Lisa. The blood poured forth perfuming the ocean. I could feel the rhythms of her dying cells. Her body was in shreds. A sickened mood consumed me. But now some of the fish people were swimming toward Jessica. I got the feeling these mers thought killing was a fun game. Apparently, even with all their beauty and grace, they had no human empathy.
    Jessica was swimming fast now. My heart slammed against my chest. Maybe she would get away. She and Lisa were stupid to swim so far out, especially after everything we had experienced on the yacht with the gigantic octopus. I wanted to swim after her to help her. Oh, God. But my intuition warned me against it. How could I save her from so many ferocious creatures? Any attempt would be a suicide mission. But more than that, I felt like it would be wrong. What was with that?
    And then , as I balled my hands into fists, I realized the entire time that all of this was happening I hadn’t surfaced for air. Damn, damn, damn. How did I do that? It wasn’t possible. Was I dead or just dreaming this? I bit down hard on my tongue. That hurt. No, I was certainly awake. But I wasn’t breathing. Even weirder—I didn’t feel like I needed to breathe.
    All of a sudden, I saw Savannah dive into the ocean. Bubbles streamed over her body. She was probably looking for me. Most likely she was worried because I hadn’t surfaced. But when she saw all the fish people circling Jessica, she stopped swimming. Her face grew instantly pale. One of the mermaids with white blond long hair bit into Jessica’s leg as she kicked to get away. Blood released into the water. All the mers went wild and started tearing into Jessica’s body. And to my utter shock, Savannah joined in too.
    Suddenly, Marcel Paradis grabbed my hand, a wicked grin on his gorgeous face. His body shimmered. He held out his other hand and the ocean lit up in beautiful light. Whoa. I felt myself grow unbelievably dizzy and then everything went black.
    Chapter Six
    Boy was I a wreck. I must have fainted again at that point because the next thing I remember, I woke up in a tree house in the jungle. If everything wasn’t so shocking, I would have been concerned about this repetitive fainting I was experiencing. But compared to all the strange transformations I had undergone, fainting spells didn’t seem so out there.
    It was evening by now. A small oil lamp was burning on the floor and m y body was nestled a little too snuggly in a small bed made of bamboo with white sewn fabric stuffed with feathers that I supposed served as a mattress of sorts. Apparently, I was in some kind of tiny bamboo room attached to the rest of the dwelling place.
    Through the open doorway, I heard arguing. It sounded like Emily Monroe and Marcel Paradis who caused my blood to boil whenever I was near him. But there were other voices that I didn’t recognize that piped in here and there. I got out of the makeshift bed carefully, trying not to make any noise. Whatever was going on had picked my interest and I wanted to eavesdrop. I felt that with all the wacko stuff that had been happening I had the right to break some rules.
    I tiptoed into a very short hall, maybe only a few feet, and looked through the separations in the bamboo that served as a wall to the next room. Feelings of déjà vu rushed through me, like I had been there before. It was an attractive space lit with oil lamps and decorated with beautiful shell ensembles and other impressive nautical memorabilia on the walls with blue sheer curtains made of fine embroidered fabrics that had a kind of foreign look to them.
    What surprised me the most was the pool in the center of the room. It was made of some sort of gigantic shell turned upside down and filled with water. Large rocks were stacked up at the back edge in a mesmerizing manner with water trickling down into the pool. There