Girls Day Out: A Syrena Legacy Story Read Online Free Page A

the table.
    “We were taking a break,” I say. Oh, geez. Here we go. I can tell Rayna is seconds from a temper tantrum. She’s got that look in her eyes, the feral one where sense and reason flee like the riptide. Thankfully this time, she doesn’t have a harpoon handy.
    “That’s a fine thanks we get for bringing—what is her ridiculous name again, Lily? Ugh!—for bringing Lily back to you. You’re the one who let her fall overboard.”
    Caroline’s mom sneers. “What? And you expect us to believe you jumped overboard to save a doll? Clearly, you took it.”
    “Why would we take it?” I say diplomatically, steering the conversation away from anyone jumping overboard. “We’re a bit old to be playing with dolls.”
    Mother-of-the-Year shrugs. “Who knows? With that kind of story, it looks like you’re wanting to come out as a couple of heroes.”
    Rayna hugs Lily to her chest, shaking her head. “You’re not getting this doll back. You don’t deserve it.”
    “Gimme gimme gimme!” Caroline’s red ringlets bounce with her fury. Even her freckles look angry.
    “I wouldn’t give this back to you if Triton himself ordered me to.” There’s a finality to Rayna’s tone. Which is why I shouldn’t be surprised when that lunatic tosses the doll over the railing. But I am. In fact, I gasp with mother and daughter as we watch Lily’s arms and legs flail briefly before disappearing from sight.
    Fan-flipping-tastic.
    Mommy makes the first move. “Security!” Her voice is shrill, like someone’s limb has been chopped off or something. “Thief!” This gets lots of attention.
    Several cruise ship employees, along with a few passengers, gather around us, making a tight circle. Out of nowhere, Rayna uses her elbow to jab a man’s nose behind her. Then she runs past him, hops up and straddles the railing, and gives me a pointed look. “You coming?” And then she jumps.
    Holy. Crap.
    For a split second, I size up the group moving in to surround me. I can’t believe I’m thinking about plowing down two old ladies to get to the side of the ship, but I don’t have any other options.
    So I sprint forward and, in a Red Rover kind of way, push between the two proper elderly women who had come to ogle the situation. “Oh, my!” one of them says as her sun hat flings off. I have to jump over two sun chairs to get to the railing—which is no small feat for a klutz like me. My foot catches on the last one and I fall to the deck. Someone is close enough to grab my arm and all I can think is prison prison prison , but I shake free and pull myself up with the railing.
    I don’t look back. I don’t look down, either. I just jump.
    The water is shallow enough that my velocity takes me all the way to the bottom of the port. Even when my rear scrapes against the sand, I don’t feel safe enough to stop moving. Without surfacing, I swim toward the back of The Enchantment . My movements feel erratic, like an octopus trying to break-dance. Out of my peripheral vision, I notice that my performing fish are still performing. “Stop now, and scatter,” I call to them. All at once, they disperse, and I wonder what the audience on the ship is thinking.
    But more than that, I wonder where the heck Rayna went. “Rayna!” I can sense her; she’s just ahead of me. Then I see her. She has Lily in her hands.
    I’m so furious, I almost forget that I can’t breathe in the water like she can. Instead, I swallow half the ocean when I open my mouth to yell at her. Sputtering up the salt water, I make my way to Rayna. She doesn’t bother to help close the distance between us, but instead deigns to wait for me to reach her. What I can’t say in words at the moment, I try to express with an indignant glare.
    She looks at the doll, then at me. Waving in dismissal, she says, “Might as well get something out of this trip.” Then she grabs my hand and pulls me out to sea.
    *   *   *
     
    It’s been about two hours since we