And he couldn’t hold her, couldn’t comfort her, couldn’t do anything to help . . .
“Hey,” Theo said. There was a sudden note of seriousness in his voice, maybe even of concern. “General Luce will probably hear about the march, since it was on TV? And then she’ll know there are people who want to help, and we’re not all rabid mer-bashing jerks, right? And that might make her feel a little better?”
“Maybe,” Dorian muttered. But the march he’d helped organize suddenly seemed pathetic, overshadowed by this outburst of violence. How could the support of a few distant humans make up for seeing one of her followers murdered that way?
“Hey, you want to text those girls we met? The hot one—wearing all the gothy shit?—said something about a party tonight. Want to go?” Theo nudged Dorian’s arm, trying to make him look up again.
“I can’t deal with a party.” For Dorian that image of Luce’s screaming face veiled the shadows. He needed to get home to his own computer, find out everything he could about the day’s events in San Francisco. “You go, okay?”
“I got the distinct impression they really wanted you to come, though. They were just talking to me because you seemed all like brooding and romantically unapproachable. You seriously need to give me lessons in that, dude. And they were all really into your T-shirt.” Theo eyed Dorian’s black shirt covetously. “Would you make another one for me?”
Privately Dorian thought that Theo was about as un-lost as they came. But whatever. “Oh—sure. Just get me the shirt you want and I’ll do the screen print.” He considered the idea for a second. “Maybe that’s what we should call the whole movement? Twice Lost Humans?”
“Oh!” Theo stared. “Yeah! That’s way better than whatever those other names were, like ‘Human-Mermaid Solidarity Front.’ Too freaking long.”
“Right.” Dorian shook himself and stood. “You go on to that party. I’m going back to the house. I want to do some work on the blog.”
“If I drive you it’s going to be way out of the way. She said they live way over in—”
“I’ll take the bus.” He wanted to be alone with his thoughts anyway.
“But we could just go to the party for, like, a couple hours? And you could work afterward?” Theo pleaded.
Dorian just shook his head and lifted one hand in a perfunctory goodbye before he stalked out of the café. The city was glazed in the moist heat of a midsummer evening. Slabs of deep blue air rested between the elegant brick row houses and vintage boutiques. Dorian caught himself staring into one window at the mannequins in their cowboy boots and quirky veiled hats, wondering how Luce would look—as a human, of course—wearing that midnight blue dress with the pearl embroidery around the neckline.
The tall narrow house where Dorian now lived with Theo and his mother was dark when he reached it. He was relieved by the opportunity for solitude. Maybe he could find out more about what Luce and all those other mermaids had been doing, hanging around so close to the humans onshore; maybe he could find videos that would reveal more of her reactions, more of her feelings. In that squeezing, jostling crowd there must have been several cameras pointed Luce’s way. Dorian sat on the bed and curled around his laptop, clicking eagerly.
At first he found mostly dross: a sappy tribute song for the Twice Lost that had gotten inexplicably popular, another song that made fun of the first song, some clips of various senators denouncing the mermaids at press conferences. But then he noticed “Twice Lost Mermaids Watch the News” in the sidebar. His hand shook a little as he started it.
It was a strange video. Whoever had shot it seemed fixated on Luce and the mermaids who were pressed around her. The camera never swerved from their faces or showed what it was they were looking at with such intensity. There was one corner of a laptop screen visible but it was facing away, toward the water. By turning up the volume as far as it would go Dorian could barely distinguish their voices, interspersed with the louder voices of the humans onshore and the babble of a news program. Someone was being interviewed, and after listening for just a few moments Dorian made out enough of what was being said to understand why the mermaids all looked so upset.
But—whoever that man was who kept droning on—what he was saying was plainly ridiculous. Luce had never been human, even though plenty of people remembered her as a regular schoolgirl? She’d murdered herself, stolen her own face? Nobody would believe that, would they? Then the stuff about Kathleen Lambert: old news as far as Dorian was concerned, though clearly it wasn’t old to Luce. He watched her raw dismay and craned to hear the faint notes of her voice. He could catch only a few blurry words.
Dorian couldn’t sit still any longer. He started pacing, his stomach tight, watching the screen from the corner of his vision. He was doing everything he could think of, but it wasn’t enough. Luce could still die any day. He stopped to stare out the window at the dark street, the trees like masses of congealed night, the lonely glowing rounds under the streetlamps.
Then—wait, what were they showing now? Dorian wheeled around. The mermaids sounded excited, and then Luce was speaking again, her voice raised in anger so that Dorian could suddenly hear every word: “He’s got no right to call himself that! Cala, it’s not sweet at all! It’s like he’s stealing our name!”
It took him an instant to understand what they were talking about. It became clearer with every sentence that followed, even with the mermaids’ voices coming through fragmented and murky.
Luce had seen him. She’d watched him marching on her behalf, fighting for her . . .
Furious or not, she had seen him.
Dorian’s nails were digging into his palms. His knees trembled, and he felt sick and wild and exhilarated. Even thousands of miles away he’d found a way to make her understand how much he missed her—whether she wanted to know that or not. It was as if he’d sent her the strangest love letter imaginable, a message cast out wildly into space, and against the most phenomenal odds she’d received it. With a sudden flash of vanity, Dorian remembered everything Theo said about how noble and determined he’d looked in that march. Good.
“You see now, Luce?” Dorian hissed out loud. “You see? You can be a general or whatever, but I’m with you, and I’m not going anywhere!”
He had no right to call himself Twice Lost? Dorian imagined arguing with Luce, pointing out that he’d been lost the first time when the mermaids killed his family—and the second time when he’d broken up with her. But he could only communicate with her in such awkward, indirect ways.
Well, then, he’d organize more protests, blog like crazy, put up a Twice Lost Humans page on every site he could—
His cell phone started ringing. Dorian’s first reaction was annoyance at the interruption—but what if it was something important? What if it was news about her?
“Hello?” His heart was pounding, and his tone came out strained and breathless.
“Is this, um, Dorian Hurst?” A shrill-sounding girl. Dorian was fairly sure the voice was new to him. Maybe it was one of those girls Theo said wanted to meet him so much? He half expected to catch the clamor of a party in the background: Theo calling out and music blaring and people giggling.