Fathom by Merrie Destefano Page B

laughter from the party, all the way down here.
    “Come on, this way,” Riley beckoned as she swam farther away from the light. Rocks now littered the beach like large monuments, some of them almost as big as cars. Her friends, Mare and Sorcha, followed her, the moon shining on the water, forging a path of silver light. The rocks opened up ahead, forming a cave or a grotto, the water pooling shallow over the sand. Once inside, we all stood up, the water lapping at our waists. Moon at our backs, we were all silver silhouettes, faceless—
    Until one of them—Riley, I think—turned toward me.
    Her eyes were glowing.
    The water surged in, a slow gentle tide, and the water lapped just below my breasts. I must have been drunk or high. I had to be hallucinating. Then they all looked at me, all of them with eyes that glowed, pale blue, and they laughed, moving closer.
    “Something wrong, Townie Princess?” Riley asked, a low giggle following her words.
    “Yeah, your eyes—”
    “Pretty, huh?” Mare said.
    “Don’t you wish you had eyes like ours?” Sorcha asked.
    Then they surrounded me and the water rose again, slowly, steadily. It was up to my shoulders. For the first time I realized that the ceiling in here wasn’t very high, not much taller than I was. If the water kept rising—
    “We need to get out of here,” I said. I pushed one of them aside, couldn’t tell which one it was, and I tried to swim back out into open water. As soon as I passed her, I caught a glimpse of her skin—pale green and covered with tiny opalescent scales.
    Just then, fast as lightning, her arm reached out, fingers wrapped around my hair and she yanked me back toward her. “Not so fast, sweetness.” It was Riley.
    The other girls surrounded me, each of them latching onto one of my arms, close enough for me to see their faces. Either I was seriously freaking out or they weren’t human.
    “Let me go!” I yelled.
    “Honey, our party’s just getting started.”
    They grabbed me and pushed me underwater. I screamed at just the wrong moment. Water flowed into my mouth, my arms flailed and I think I must have pulled one of them down with me, but she didn’t seem to care. Together we went under, hair swirling around us, her eyes glowing while I coughed and struggled. If I could have stood up, I would have been able to breathe, the water wasn’t that deep yet. I bit one of the hands that held me and whoever it was let me go. Then I pushed with my legs, struck the bottom and shoved. We were all going toward the surface together.
    I broke the water, my mouth opened and I gasped, sucking in a lungful of oxygen. Then another. I screamed.
    “Help!”
    “It sucks doesn’t it,” Riley said. With her hand on the top of my head, she shoved my face back underwater. In a minute, I pushed my way up again. She acted like we were having a normal conversation.
    “Yeah, it took me three days to turn,” she said, a vicious sneer on her face. Why could I see her so clearly now, despite the darkness in this cave? “I thought I was in hell. But we’re gonna give you a crash course, sweetness.”
    My head was underwater again and I wasn’t scared anymore. I was mad.
    I bobbed to the surface.
    “Turn or die,” Riley said, no emotion in her eyes this time. “Either one is fine with me.”
    Then all three of them were on top of me. The water was up to my chin now. It didn’t take much for them to pull me down, to hold me there. I could see them in the blue black water, laughing; it was like hell with dark Paper Dolls. Their skin glowed a soft pale green and they had gills on their necks, their hair flowed around us like strands of seaweed.
    What the heck were they and why were they doing this?
    And then, just like the other day at school, something inside me suddenly snapped. I grabbed Mare by the wrist, twisted her arm until it almost broke. Even underwater I could hear her yelp of pain. She dropped me and swam away, clutching the wounded arm to