Blood Waters 1 : The Boy From The Sea by Eve Hathaway
Authors: Eve Hathaway
Tags: ya fantasy, YA romance, YA Urban Fantasy Romance, ya mystery, ya action adventure romance, ya romance fantasy, ya mythology, ya action adventure, ya love and romance, ya teen supernatural, ya gods, ya coming of age, ya paranormal action books, ya thriller romance, ya romance paranormal
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Chapter One
"IT'S A GOOD thing the tourist season begins after the school year," said Mila's mother, Gloria, as she barged into Mila's room with a full laundry basket balanced on her hip.
Mila opened her eyes, keeping her expression neutral. The clock on the wall said it was six in the morning, but the halo around the curtains meant that the sun was high and hot already.
"These need to be ironed and folded," Gloria said, dropping the basket next to Mila's bed. The sheets inside sighed softly, as though relieved. Gloria Alvarez, standing an even five feet tall and weighing barely more than a hundred pounds after a full meal, was not someone to be argued with. "Remember, we have guests tonight."
"Yeah," Mila said. Poor suckers , she added silently. The bed-and-breakfast the Alvarezes ran would have been pretty cool had they been anywhere near a decent town. But it was halfway between Tulum, which few people had heard of, and Cancun, which nobody ever left. Their visitors came expecting a deserted beach, not realizing that along with a deserted beach was a semi-deserted, dying village which couldn't even be bothered to give itself a name. Ten fishing families, a plantain farmer, and a restaurant didn't even warrant a dot on the maps of the region.
Mila made no move to get out of bed, a small rebellion against the tyranny of having to wake up at all. Yesterday was her last day of school-she took intro-level online courses at the Universidad Quintana Roo, since there were no schools here-and that warranted some kind of break. Thankfully, Gloria left with only a small humph of disapproval, and did not launch into yet another tirade about how hard they were working and why couldn't her daughter bring herself to work a little rather than daydream about boys. These arguments had been going on between them over the two years since they'd moved to Mexico. The Yucatan , more specifically: some of the people here were a bit touchy about being called "Mexicans."
Mila counted to ten before she threw the blanket off herself and swung her feet from the bed to touch the cool stone floor with her toes. Theirs was a large house, even by American standards. It was once the small manor home of a local official, the realtor had told them, and then launched into a long spiel detailing the history of the place and the artful mosaics that had been laid into the floor. Not that she paid any attention to those details. Two years ago, she was just too angry: at her grandparents for being so ill, at her parents for dropping everything in the US and not giving a damn about her, at the economies of both Mexico and the US that made it more worthwhile to stay, at the crazy language the locals spoke that made it impossible to make friends-not that there were people her age to befriend. The people here were old and bitter, and their children had more sense than her father did because they left and never returned.
She was still angry, but, during the winter, her father had at least installed air conditioning in the bedrooms, so now it was merely a resentful simmer instead of a full-on rage.
The house was a sprawling single-floor structure, built in the shape of a rectangle around an open courtyard. It was once beautiful, even Mila had to admit that. But size and beauty didn't matter so much when they discovered that the roof leaked in a thousand places and the house had to be rewired in order to handle the electrical load of a refrigerator.
Since the moment they'd bought it, it seemed like they'd done nothing but repair things; and even though the exchange rate greatly favored the dollar over the peso, George still blanched a little whenever he sat down to calculate how much he'd spent on repairs. Mila could see the conflict between her father's pride and the stark financial reality whenever she mentioned moving to the city-when he'd sunk this much money into building them a new life, he wasn't just going to give up,
"IT'S A GOOD thing the tourist season begins after the school year," said Mila's mother, Gloria, as she barged into Mila's room with a full laundry basket balanced on her hip.
Mila opened her eyes, keeping her expression neutral. The clock on the wall said it was six in the morning, but the halo around the curtains meant that the sun was high and hot already.
"These need to be ironed and folded," Gloria said, dropping the basket next to Mila's bed. The sheets inside sighed softly, as though relieved. Gloria Alvarez, standing an even five feet tall and weighing barely more than a hundred pounds after a full meal, was not someone to be argued with. "Remember, we have guests tonight."
"Yeah," Mila said. Poor suckers , she added silently. The bed-and-breakfast the Alvarezes ran would have been pretty cool had they been anywhere near a decent town. But it was halfway between Tulum, which few people had heard of, and Cancun, which nobody ever left. Their visitors came expecting a deserted beach, not realizing that along with a deserted beach was a semi-deserted, dying village which couldn't even be bothered to give itself a name. Ten fishing families, a plantain farmer, and a restaurant didn't even warrant a dot on the maps of the region.
Mila made no move to get out of bed, a small rebellion against the tyranny of having to wake up at all. Yesterday was her last day of school-she took intro-level online courses at the Universidad Quintana Roo, since there were no schools here-and that warranted some kind of break. Thankfully, Gloria left with only a small humph of disapproval, and did not launch into yet another tirade about how hard they were working and why couldn't her daughter bring herself to work a little rather than daydream about boys. These arguments had been going on between them over the two years since they'd moved to Mexico. The Yucatan , more specifically: some of the people here were a bit touchy about being called "Mexicans."
Mila counted to ten before she threw the blanket off herself and swung her feet from the bed to touch the cool stone floor with her toes. Theirs was a large house, even by American standards. It was once the small manor home of a local official, the realtor had told them, and then launched into a long spiel detailing the history of the place and the artful mosaics that had been laid into the floor. Not that she paid any attention to those details. Two years ago, she was just too angry: at her grandparents for being so ill, at her parents for dropping everything in the US and not giving a damn about her, at the economies of both Mexico and the US that made it more worthwhile to stay, at the crazy language the locals spoke that made it impossible to make friends-not that there were people her age to befriend. The people here were old and bitter, and their children had more sense than her father did because they left and never returned.
She was still angry, but, during the winter, her father had at least installed air conditioning in the bedrooms, so now it was merely a resentful simmer instead of a full-on rage.
The house was a sprawling single-floor structure, built in the shape of a rectangle around an open courtyard. It was once beautiful, even Mila had to admit that. But size and beauty didn't matter so much when they discovered that the roof leaked in a thousand places and the house had to be rewired in order to handle the electrical load of a refrigerator.
Since the moment they'd bought it, it seemed like they'd done nothing but repair things; and even though the exchange rate greatly favored the dollar over the peso, George still blanched a little whenever he sat down to calculate how much he'd spent on repairs. Mila could see the conflict between her father's pride and the stark financial reality whenever she mentioned moving to the city-when he'd sunk this much money into building them a new life, he wasn't just going to give up,
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