RIPPLE

{Twenty Four} WEEK THREE

WEEK THREE

Fourteen days left.

       Wedding plans have come to a halt. My dress sits and mocks me in the closet. I can't even look at it. I can't smell another flower or sign another invitation. Everything is,blue again. A wondrous sea of blue that plays the echoing tune of death.

       Merrick tried to run today.

        I can feel pride swelling in my chest that I have inspired him to fight. We have sixteen days left until the wedding, yet further wedding plans are halted until Poseidon feels his son his ‘well enough’ to be released from Quarantine, claiming Lola messed with his perfect mindset.

         Without Merrick, that meant no more beach trips and staying trapped in a blue world. I bothered the guards enough to catch a glimpse of him in his Quarantined little bubble.

        He was bad. His face is red and his eyes are bloodshot. Merrick's fists are bloody. He's being kept in a glass room with hardly any furniture save for a hard looking cot, and a toilet. I can tell this glass room has a drain floor they could fill with water, and fear trickles slowly into my veins. Merrick is pounding his fists against the glass, screaming at the guards behind a soundproof glass until his face turns red.

        When Merrick catches a glimpse of me, he pounds against the glass separating us with my name on his lips.

        Poseidon said that he just wanted to teach his son a lesson, to show him how “good he had it here”, to show his son what he's been missing out on, “how the real world will make him feel”. But I knew the truth because I saw it happen.

         It was an afternoon Merrick decided to go to the beach without me. He sat on the sand for awhile staring at the water, casting occasional glances at the guard and I hung back near the trees, trying to distract our guard from the inevitable.

        But we both heard the loud splash. We both saw his tail clear the surface, and in the next moment the guards were swimming after him only to drag him back kicking, screaming and in tears. Merrick is broken, and there is nothing I can do to fix this. I'm dragged away from this Quarantined cell, fighting just to talk him down; just to see him.

        Poseidon has a very strict no visitors policy.

         And it was then that I realized how right Merrick really is: I'm surrounded by a roomful of people, yet I have never felt more alone. Despite the fact that my sisters know this is wrong, none of them but me spoke up or even tried to see him. My sisters and I are much too different.

       Blue.

        Everything is blue.

         I pass time on day nineteen by staring at the fish as they swim by, reading more poetry books from the library and thinking about Lachlan on the Island of Monsters. My sisters try to visit, but I don't want to talk to any of them except Glimmer.

        She lounges on my bed late that night, day five of Merrick's imprisonment and braids my hair, listening to yet another poem I've been repeating for the last half hour. But Glimmer listens intently, her hazel eyes focused as though its the first time she's heard it, listening to my pain soak through the words.

        My tears hit the pages, and every painful memory of the past few weeks comes crashing down.

        Mikhail's blood on the green grass and our fingers laced together, ready to tell the truth just moments before he thought death might claim him; memories of him in the infirmary still fresh in my mind. Waverly's bite mark, the eyes of pain and betrayal as she watched — as we all watched — her lover murdering King Ronan, his blood dripping between the floorboards as the wolves flee from the palace. Lachlan drowning, and the two of us being impaled by the broken glass. Lola being sent away and Merrick imprisoned . . . it all comes crashing down.

         Glimmer doesn't ask what's wrong because she already knows. She stayed the night with me like she used to: telling secrets and playing games, trying to make me feel better, feel numb, trying to make me forget the pain of the surface world.

* * *

        Merrick was released from his prison cell on day twenty-one. His fists are bloody and sore, and his eyes are red and dark. He walks around like a ghost and refuses to come out of his room. He doesn't respond to any of his mother's attempts to talk, and won't talk to me anymore either.

        There are ten days left until Lachlan's return, eleven days until the wedding if my Prince does indeed fail.

         I find Merrick on the top of the island one afternoon, guards so heavy that there's no chance of an escape a second time. Poseidon limited our time up here now to half an hour.

        Coming to sit behind Merrick, he barely looks at me and chances a very small smile. He served one week's punishment for attempting to run; I can see the pain on his face as he brings his knees up to his chest. “I'm going to the Underworld one way or another.” He says sadly, “you will make a great Queen, Nerissa.” there was finality in his words that scare me. Goosebumps rise on my arms, and the wind blows my hair back.

        I knew what he was going to do, but nothing after this would bring him and Lola back to us. The Gods would do anything to keep them separated, and without Merrick, without Lachlan, would I rule Atlantis alone?

        “You don't have to do this, Merrick. There are other ways. There's no bringing Lola back.”

        He snaps: “I know that. But there's never any escape from my father's control otherwise. I just wanted to see the sun one last time.” Merrick gazes around the beach like this is the last time he'll see it, and I feel like I'm invading a private moment. “My father won't let you marry Lachlan, even if he does miraculously return in ten days. My dad wanted to teach me a lesson, but seven days gave me a lot of time to think . . . and I just want the rest of the world to be happy. You deserve happiness, Nerissa.”

         “So do you, Merrick.”

         “And I will be very happy with Lola in the Underworld. It's my turn to prove myself. Who knows? My dad might be insane enough to try and bring me back.” Together, we gaze sadly out at the setting sun until we're called back and I embrace Merrick, because I know there's nothing I can say to stop him. “Just be with who makes you happy, and never live another day wishing. I want you to remember me like this. I don't want to die in vain.”