Eventually she fell back to sleep while debating what she should do about Daniel. Alex woke her up when they finally reached the town. The sky was just beginning to lighten with very early morning sun, and Harper stretched in the backseat.

“Stay close to the beach,” she directed Daniel. She let him continue driving, preferring to look around and scope out the area. “They’re probably staying in a house by the ocean.”

“How will we know when we find it?” Daniel asked.

“I don’t know.” Harper shook her head. “We’ll have to keep a lookout for the girls themselves. We probably won’t be able to find their house, but we’ll be able to see them on the beach or in the water.”

“They have that song, too,” Alex pointed out. “We should listen for that.”

They drove around for a long time, with all three of them growing frustrated the longer the search went on. They ended up driving out of town, hugging the coast as the sun rose higher in the sky.

“Stop!” Harper shouted abruptly, and Daniel put on the brakes.

“Do you see them?” Alex asked, craning in his seat.

“No, but that’s the house,” Harper said, pointing to a massive white mansion. It was surrounded by huge rocks, so they couldn’t even see the ocean from the road. The house was set back at the end of a long driveway, partially hidden by trees that filled the yard.

“What house?” Daniel asked, confused.

“The house from my dream,” Harper said, and she didn’t even know how she knew it. In her dream, all she’d been able to see was the room where she and Daniel had been lying together. It didn’t make any sense, but somehow, deep inside, she knew it. “That’s the house that Gemma is in.”

21. New Hope

TWENTY-ONE

New Hope

Gemma had probably woken up a thousand times that night. She tossed and turned horribly before finally giving up on sleep. It was still dark out, and based on the silence in the house, everybody else was still asleep.

It was a feeling inside her chest that she couldn’t shake. Like something was happening or something was coming. It reminded her of how she felt before going to bed on Christmas Eve, only mixed with nausea and a touch of dread.

To calm herself, she decided to go out for a swim. In reality, Gemma had been using night swims to self-medicate for years. It was the way she dealt with any kind of anxiety or unpleasant feelings. She’d tried to give it up when she became a siren, but that’d only made things worse.

Discarding her bikini bottoms on the shore, Gemma dove into the cold water, swimming out under the stars.

She tried to explain the feelings away. It was probably residual guilt from feeding the other day.