applications that the nearby bionic and psychic research branches did—and inadequately supervised.
She knew the building and video surveillance patterns well enough to be able to smuggle the selkie to her car without leaving evidence. Not that it mattered when Rick would no doubt give Colonel Ottoman a full report. She waited until close to the end of the shift to retrieve the selkie. He came with her docilely, dressed in the spare sweats she gave him.
Marina sat on her rock and sang, her light voice echoing in the lab.
The selkie lingered for a moment until Marina waved good-bye. Robin pulled him to the next room.
“Sir,” Rick, hands pressed to the plastic of his cell, called. The selkie met Rick’s gaze unflinching. “I know your kind. Treat her gently.”
The selkie didn’t react. He seemed to study the vampire, expressionless, and only looked away when Robin squeezed his hand.
Robin lingered a moment. “Good-bye,” she said.
“Take care, Robin.”
Impulse guided her again, and she went to the control box for the lock to Rick’s cell. She pushed the button; the lock clicked open with the sound of a buzzer. The door opened a crack. Rick stared at the path to freedom for a long moment.
Not lingering to see what the vampire would do next, she gripped the selkie’s hand and ran.
She smuggled him in the backseat of her car, making him crouch on the floorboard. Routine did her service now; the shift had ended, and the guard at the gate waved her through.
They’d be looking for her in a matter of hours. She had to get rid of the car, find a place to hide out, wait for the bank to open so she could empty her account. She could leave tracks now, then disappear.
Desperation made her a criminal. She ditched her car, swapping it for a sedan she hotwired. She kept the sealskin under her feet, where the selkie couldn’t get to it.
Two more stolen cars, a thousand miles of highway, and some fast-talking at the border, flashing her military ID and spouting some official nonsense, found her in Mexico, cruising down the coast of Baja.
She knew the stories. She should have driven inland.
They stayed in a fishing village. Robin’s savings would hold out for a couple of months at least, so she rented a shack and they lived as hermits, making love, watching the sea.
Convinced that she was different, that she was smarter than those women in the stories, she hid the sealskin not in the house, but buried it in the sand by a cliff. She wrestled a rock over the spot while the selkie slept.
He was no less passionate than before. He spent hours, though, staring out at the ocean. Sometimes, he wore the same sweats she’d smuggled him out in. Usually, he wore nothing at all.
She joined him one evening, sitting beside him on still-warm sand, curling her legs under her loose peasant skirt. Her shirt was too big, hanging off one shoulder, and she didn’t wear a bra—it seemed useless, just one more piece of clothing they’d have to remove before making love. Nothing of the poised, put-together young army lieutenant remained. That person wouldn’t have recognized her now.
He didn’t turn his eyes from the waves, but moved a hand to her thigh and squeezed. The touch filled her with heat and lust, making her want to straddle him here and now. He never seemed to tire of her, nor she of him. Wasn’t that close enough to love?
She kissed his shoulder and leaned against him. “I don’t even know what your name is,” she said. The selkie smiled, chuckled to himself, and didn’t seem to care that she didn’t have a name for him.
He never spoke. Never said that he loved her, though his passion for her seemed endless. She touched his chin, turned his gaze from the ocean and made him look at her. She only saw ocean there. She thought about the skin, buried in sand a mile inland, and wondered—was he still a prisoner? Did he still see bars locking him in?
Holding his face in her hands, she kissed him, and he wrapped his arms around her, kissing her in return. He tipped her back on the sand, trapped her with his arms, turned all his attention to her and her body, and she forgot her doubts.
One night, she felt the touch of a kiss by her ear. A soft voice whispered in a brogue, “Ye did well, lass. No hard feelings at all.”
She thought it was a dream, so she didn’t open her eyes. But she reached across the bed and found she was alone. Starting awake, she sat up. The selkie was gone. She ran out of the shack, out to the beach.
Sealskin in hand, he ran for the water, a pale body in the light of a full moon.
“No!” she screamed. How had he found it? How could he leave her? All of it was for nothing. Why had he waited until now to speak, when it didn’t matter anymore?
He never looked back, but dove into the waves, swam past the breakers, and disappeared. She never saw him again. The next shape that appeared was the supple body of a gray seal breaking the surface, diving again, appearing farther out, swimming far, far away.
She sat on the beach and cried, unable to think of anything but the square of sand where she sat, and the patch of shining water where she saw him last. He’d taken her, drained her, she was empty now.
She stayed in Mexico, learning Spanish and working in the village cleaning fish. She treasured mundane moments these days. Nights, she let the sound of water lull her to sleep.
The army never found her, but someone else did, a few months later.
That night, she sat on the beach, watching moon-silvered waves crash onto the white sand, like her selkie used to. Sitting back, she grunted at the weight of her belly. The selkie hadn’t left her so empty, after all. She stroked the roundness, felt the baby kick.
She didn’t hear footsteps approach and gasped, startled, when a man sat down beside her.
Dark hair, an aristocratic face, permanently wry expression. He was even graceful sitting in the sand. He wore tailored black slacks and a silk shirt in a flattering shade of dark blue, with the cuffs unbuttoned and rolled up—the kind of clothes she always imagined him in. He flashed a smile and looked out at the water.
“Rick! What are you doing here?”
“Besides watching the waves?”
“So you did it. You left.” She was smiling. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled.
“Of course. I didn’t want to stay to explain to Colonel Ottoman what you’d done. I brought Mr. Njalson along with me.”
“Brad’s here?”
“He’s hunting back on the mesa. Enjoying stretching all four legs.”
Robin sighed, still smiling. Of course, Rick could have gotten himself out of there—just as soon as he convinced one of the doctors to look in his eyes in an unguarded moment. Now she wished she’d let them all out a long time before she did.
“I was worried about you,” he said, in a tone that made it a prompt, a question rather than a statement.
“I’d have thought you’d have much more interesting and important things to do than look after me.”
“I had the time.”
“How did you find me?”
He shrugged. “I know the stories. I followed the coast. Asked questions. I’m very patient.”
She imagined he would be. He could have left that lab any time he wanted. Maybe he stayed to see what the researchers were up to. To experience something new for a while.
“When are you due?” Rick asked softly.
He startled her back to the moment, and she swallowed the tightness in her throat. “In a month. It’ll have webbed feet and hands. Like in the stories.”
“And how are you?”
She took a breath, held it. She still cried every night. Not just from missing the selkie anymore. She had another burden now, one she’d never considered, never even contemplated. The supernatural world, which she’d tried to treat so clinically, would be with her forever. She didn’t know the first thing about raising a child. She didn’t know how she was going to teach this one to swim.
