Under the Ocean Waves

Vic’s eyes opened to the water being a bit brighter than it was before. After a moment he blinked and rubbed them, getting used to the feeling of the water surrounding him once more. It was strange, waking up in a rock and feeling so cold. It took him a minute to notice that Kellin was no longer lying on top of him. In fact, he was no where to be seen.

Getting up off of his back, Vic poked his head out of the crevice that served as an entrance to the little hallow. “Kels?!” He called, his voice traveling strangely in the ocean.

No sooner than the word left his mouth did he see two bright blue orbs coming towards him from deeper out where he could hardly make out what was what. “You’re up?” Kellin called as soon as he was within ear shot.

Vic nodded and swam closer to him. “Where were you?” he asked.

“Just swimming with Matty. I woke up really early and I wanted to talk to him about something,” said Kellin.

“What were you talking about?” Vic reached out to take Kellin’s hand, growing curious.

“The situation up on land… you know.” he answered. “Speaking of that.. you’re gonna have to go back soon, aren’t you?”

“I guess,” Vic answered, nodding his head and honestly not wanted to leave. It seemed so much more dangerous when they were above the water. Spencer could be lurking anywhere, waiting for them to make some sort of move that would put them in peril. “I mean, It’s not like I can go to work… especially with Josh in the hospital like he is…”

Kellin nodded and gave him a sympathetic look. “Its going to be okay,” he promised. “I’ll come up with you and whatever happens will happen, okay?”

“No, you need to stay where its safe, Kellin.”

“I’m coming with you and so is Matty,” Kellin said finally, crossing his arms. Vic frowned, since when did Matty come in to any of this? “I told him everything that’s going on, Vic, and he wants to help.”

Frowning, Vic cast him a confused look. “With what? Or, how? And how is he going to come with us if he’s like, half fish?” asked Vic, his own fingers creeping towards the necklace around his neck. If it came down to it he wouldn’t be unwilling to give it up, even though it was extremely important to him and he didn’t like the idea of letting it go off with someone else. It was his main link to Kellin, after all.

The siren looked up at the surface for a moment, and then back at Vic. “Tonight is a half moon,” he said, pointing up. “So he can walk amongst humans until the sun comes up tomorrow morning.”

The human frowned. He had almost forgotten about that rule. “Well, fine.” he finally agreed. If there was something that they could do to get to the bottom of all the crap that was going on… then he had no choice but to do it, for the safety of himself and everyone around him that he cared for.

—

“WHY!” Matty was screaming, gripping the seat in front of him in fear as Vic turned another corner. The two sitting in the front couldn’t help but laugh at his discomfort in a moving vehicle. “HOW DO YOU HUMANS DO THIS?!?!”

Vic grinned purposely took a turn a little too fast. “Easily,” he chuckled. Kellin was gripping his hand a little tighter than usual and the tan boy almost felt guilty for scaring him as well. Almost.

“You get used to it after a while,” said Kellin, turning to look at his frowning friend where he sat, also wearing borrowed clothes from Vic. It was interesting to see him go through the process of learning how to dress himself like Kellin had. And it was lucky that Vic happened to have that spare change of clothes, probably for Kellin, sitting in the back seat of his car. “Besides, we’re almost there.”

It was true, they were nearing Vic’s street quicker than usual as he couldn’t help but drive a little recklessly with Matty freaking out in the back seat. That might have been an extremely stupid decision given their current circumstances, but Vic couldn’t really bring himself to care at the moment. It was fun, after all.

His good mood was quickly gone when he pulled up to his driveway and caught sight of a police car sitting there where his car should have been parked. Fear seeped in to him as he pulled up and turned the car off. “This might be a problem,” he said quietly, unbuckling his seat belt and wondering if he should have Matty and Kellin stay here while he took care of things. It’s not like he’d done anything wrong, right? He still felt nervous, however.

The two sirens got out of the car and followed Vic up to the door, but before the human could even reach for the doorknob it was flung open and a worried-looking Mike was staring down at him. “Come in,” he said, holding it open and looking pale. “I told you he’d be back.”

Vic stepped in with the others behind him and looked at the two Police officers sitting at the table with their hands folded. “Can I help you?” he asked, leaning against the wall. Kellin scuffled over to stand next to him, and Matty just followed and crossed his arms.

“You’re Victor Fuentes?” asked one of them, looking stern.

Vic gave him a stout nod.

“Where were you when the fire started?” he asked bluntly.

“I… Uh… Well, I don’t really know exactly how long it was going before I got there, but in the morning I was here for the most part, until I went out to drop Kellin off before I got to work,” Vic answered, tilting his head towards Kellin to identify him.

“And he lives where?”

For a moment Vic felt his heart stop. What was he supposed to say?! Kellin technically lived at the beach! The others looked at him expectantly, and Kellin’s eyes widened. He didn’t know what to say either. It’s not like he could straight up admit that he was a siren or anything.

“Umm…” The officers glared at him, scrutinizing his reactions. Vic tried to play it off as being unable to remember the exact address. “I’m not completely sure of the house number but its one of the streets by the beach,” he said finally.

Confused, the two officers cocked their eyebrows at him. “Well, why don’t we ask him then? Which house number?” Their gaze turned to him, and all the color drained from the siren’s face. Even Matty looked dumbfounded. Mike was giving him a shocked look, but Vic knew none of them were going to say something.

“He doesn’t speak,” he answered for Kellin. “Mute. Look, I didn’t set the shop on fire. What’s going on?”

“We’ve gotta ask all the questions we can, sir. It doesn’t look like an accidental fire and whoever did it won’t be brought up on just arson after this morning,” the officers explained as they stood up from their chairs. “Technically we don’t have anything to arrest you on, and I believe you, son.”

“What happened this morning?” Vic pressed on, taking a step forward to look the officer that had spoken to him in the eye.

The man frowned at him and stopped in his tracks. “I’m sorry to be the one to inform you, but Joshua Ramsay was pronounced dead this morning.”

It was like falling backwards. Vic felt his entire body go numb and he swore he was physically fading away. The room went quiet as Mike ushered the police out of the house and Kellin tried to put his arms around Vic, although he could not feel it. Josh? dead? No, he was one of Vic’s close friends, and a person he had tons of respect for. No, that can’t happen. Because of him? Because of Spencer?

“I hate him,” Vic murmured, softening in to Kellin’s embrace. “I fucking hate him.”

“Who? Dude, you’ve got a shitton of explaining to do,” Mike eyed him warily as he pulled out a chair to sit down in. “Where the fuck were you all night? Mute, dude, I’ve heard you talk before. What the hell is going on?”

“I’m going to fucking murder him,” said Vic, sinking to the floor and bringing Kellin down with him. Matty frowned at the scene and took a step back. Humans certainly were strange, what was with the two men who had been wearing matching clothes?

“Who?!” Mike urged him.

Slowly Kellin helped Vic back up to his feet and guided him to the chair that Mike pulled out for him. He still held his hand tightly as he faced his brother, trying his absolute hardest to drown out his own emotions.

“Don’t worry about it,” Vic choked out finally. “There’s a lot going on right now that I can’t tell you about.

It was obvious by his expression that Mike wasn’t pleased with the answer. “Why can’t you tell me? Dude you totally lied to that police officer. And hey, who are you?” asked Mike, looked up at Matty, who was frowning at all of them.

“How can Josh be dead?!” Vic cried, not giving Matty the chance to answer Mike’s question. “I don’t believe this!”

Sighing, Kellin allowed Vic to bury his head in his chest and gently rubbed his back to soothe him. Mike was still looking around at all of them with a lost expression on his face. At this point he was considering just walking away and letting his brother deal with it, but this was too serious to just walk away from. Whatever his brother had gotten himself in to, he wanted to stick around if he needed help getting out of it.

“Can someone please explain to me what’s going on? All I know is there was a fire and now your boss is dead. Who ARE you people?!” Mike practically shouted in frustration.

Vic took a deep breath and looked up at Mike. “This is Kellin, I think it’s damn obvious we’re together. That’s Matty; he’s a friend of ours.”

“Okay, so why did you lie to the police about Kellin being mute and not knowing his address?” Mike asked, folding his hands in front of him. His mouth was slightly ajar, and his eyes showed anger and confusion.

“Because Kellin isn’t good with people,” Vic answered. Kellin frowned and shrugged; he couldn’t even begin to argue. “And I can’t make you understand why so please don’t ask. And well, he doesn’t have an address. Again, don’t ask. Everything is going to be fine, Mike. For the most part. Just… don’t worry, okay?” The older boy looked in to his brother’s eyes, silently pleading him to just drop the subject.

Mike shrugged and got up from his chair. “Whatever,” he said over his shoulder as he turned away. “Just stay out of trouble, okay? Don’t need you dying in a fire alongside Josh.”

His words stung, although they were not meant to. There was no way he could know the amount of danger anyone surrounding Vic was actually in. With another deep sigh he got up and faced his friends. “I was going to say, ‘let’s go see Josh’, but I guess that’s not fucking happening right now. Look, how do we track down the asshole that started the fire?”

The two sirens looked at each other, frowning. Matty turned back to Vic and shrugged. “So, let me get this straight. You want all these attacks to end, right?” he asked. Vic nodded. What the fuck else would he want? “I guess we should see how exactly that fire started, because you know it wasn’t started by a human.”

Again, Vic nodded, and Matty turned, heading for the door again. Kellin looked and Vic and grabbed his hand. “Are you okay?” he whispered, giving him a little squeeze. As Matty exited the apartment, Vic stopped to look at Kellin for a moment.

“No, I’m not, to be honest. It’ll probably hit me a bit later that Josh is gone. For now, let’s go find out what Spencer is, yeah?” he said, giving Kellin a little half-smile. The siren nodded and leaned forward, gently pressing their lips together to show him some support. Vic let out a whimper and deepened the kiss. He didn’t want to pull away, but Matty’s knocking on the door forced him to.

“Damn, I didn’t think you would be so eager to get back in to a car, Matty,” said Vic as he pulled Kellin out of the house with him. The red-headed siren frowned and ignored him, pulling on the handle of the car as he waited for Vic to unlock it.

“Just go slow this time,” he pleaded as they each got in.

“No promises,” said Vic. Kellin shot him a warning glance, but they both silently giggled to each other.

—

The shop looked rough. On the outside it was unscathed, but the inside was dirty from the smoke and the back room was a burned out shell. It was obvious where the bulk of the flames had been, and where they had started. Now that they were back here Vic realized it had burned through the wall and if you looked at it from the back you would be able to see just how bad the damage was.

He couldn’t tell if the building was a total loss, however. They had ignored the yellow police tape on the doors, figuring if the building hadn’t fallen apart yet that it probably wasn’t going to while they were there.

It struck Vic that this was what had taken Josh’s life. This was the last place he had seen. And that hit him like a bush of thorns, growing inside his heart. It was physically painful to think about. At least he had spent his last moments in a place that he loved, that he considered home.

“Warlock,” Matty said after a moment. “This was started by a warlock.”

“How can you tell?” asked Vic, taking a step closer to the siren. Kellin hung back, examining the walls like Matty was.

“I can just tell,” said Matty, squinting at the darkened walls.

The blue-eyed siren took a step forward and ran his hand along the walls. Vic looked at him, wondering what he was thinking. “Human water can’t put out warlock fire,” he murmured. “So another warlock had to put it out.”

“Good job.”

A new, cold voice was heard behind them. One that they had all heard before, but never thought they’d have to hear again. In unison, all three heads turned, and three pairs of eyes widened as they stared back at the brown ones glinting at them.

“Danny,” Vic whispered. “Were you the one that stopped the fire?”

Suddenly Matty stepped forward, but Danny answered before he could do anything. Not that they heard him, because a second later, the perimeter of the room was aflame all over the place. And standing in that flame as if he’d just poofed in to the room was another person that they all recognized.

It was Spencer. And he looked pissed.

“FUCKING MURDERER!” Vic shouted at the sight of him. He dashed over, nearly knocking himself in to the flames as Spencer seemingly teleported to another side of the room. “FUCK!”

“Murderer?” Spencer repeated, that sly smirk creeping on to his face. “Oh no, Vic. I think you’ve got it wrong. Hello, Matty!”

“Spencer,” said Matty, staring at the warlock.

Vic whipped around to face the red-headed siren. “Friends?! You two are friends?!”

“Ahem.” Still standing in the doorway, Danny drew everyone’s attention back to him. “I think its time you got out of the way,” he snarled, hurling a ball of fire at Spencer. The group of three watched with wide eyes as the flames seemingly bounced off the wall, not causing any damage whatsoever. Another blast of flame was produced, this time directed at Kellin, Matty and Vic - but just as they braced themselves with shouts and screams, a wall of blue flame appeared in front of them, deflecting the blast.

“What?!” said Vic, whirling around to see Spencer with his hands raised.

The warlock stared at Vic and frowned. “What? I told you, you’ve got it wrong. Danny was the one that’s been after you this whole time. Matty, don’t you tell these guys anything?”