Okay guys, I'M SO SORRY I HAVENT UPDATED FOR NEARLY A MONTH!

I'll admit I kinda got distracted with Teen Wolf, but I was also working on a personal project of mine, so I barely found time to write this chapter. But do not worry! I'm back and I hope you guys like this one… it's the longest I have written yet. Whoa.

And the new season is tomorrow! YAY!

Enjoy and leave a review!

After that… interesting vision, Rita sent Cam and Evie home. She told Ondina and Mimmi to stay in her house, just in case Veridia was near Mako. After they were gone, the older mermaid sat in her kitchen table, looking worriedly at a photograph. It was the one of her and Harry before he died. Rita sighed as she carefully took of the photo out of its case, revealing another picture. In it, there were two mermaids and her, the three of them young and smiling a bit nervously at the camera.

"Harry, how am I supposed to tell them this?" she asked, knowing that even though she did not have an answer; she hoped that the spirit of her dead fiancé would somehow leave her a sign. Rita sighed once again and left the kitchen towards her room.

Erik watched the news worried. He had two days, two freaking days, to find out where the hell Zac went. If he didn't, Veridia would kill him. The merman let out a frustrated growl. He shouldn't have made the deal with Veridia; the witch was basically asking to betray the few friends he had made for the first time in his life. If he helped her and found out where Zac was, Evie would lose her boyfriend and Mimmi her brother. And he, Erik Murdock, would be branded as a traitor by everyone who knew Zac and his fishy life. He himself liked the guy, so why was he doing this again?

Oh yeah, Ondina. The fierce mermaid who had stolen his heart. Erik had felt terrible when Veridia cast her and Mimmi out of the pod for defending Zac. Ondina had confided in him how much Mako meant for her and he decided to try to bring her back into it. And instead he ended up striking a deal with Veridia to give her Zac…so Ondina could go home again.

He sighted. He really didn't know what to do.

Cam groaned as he slowly woke up, the sun threatening to leave him just as blind as Daredevil. He turned to face his alarm clock and nearly suffered a heart attack when he looked at it.

"Oh, crap" he muttered. It read ten o'clock. And school had started two hours ago.

He jumped out of the bed, changing clothes, brushing his teeth and picking up his backpack as quick as he could. Then he made his way downstairs, where his parents were having breakfast like nothing was wrong with the world.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" he asked as he looked of an energy bar.

"Oh, we forgot to tell you. School was cancelled for you and the rest of Zac's close friends" his dad said. Cam stared, not sure if he heard correctly.

"I can't believe I'm going to ask this, but why?" he asked.

"We received a thousand calls from journalists wanting an interview. Evie, Carly and David too. So we spoke with your high school principal, and she agreed that it was for the best for you not to go for a few days, just until things got a bit settled down" his mum said, giving him a pity-filled face.

"Oh, well… I'm going back to bed" Cam said.

"Wait" his dad stopped him.

"What?" he asked.

"Don't you want to talk about it? About Zac running away?" his mum softly asked. Cam thought for a moment. Yes, he wanted to, but he couldn't do that properly in front of his parents. Not without mentioning the 'Tail Business'.

"Not really" he lied.

"If you want to, you know we're here" his dad said. Cam nodded. He turned back towards his bedroom, were he collapsed on top of his bed. He layed there for a while, all while thinking what everyone who knew Zac was asking themselves:

"Where did he go?"

"No way"

Sirena sighed. After Aquata had finally woken up and filled her up on what happened after she collapsed, she had been trying to convince her older sister to give her a pair of legs so she, Ondina and Mimmi could move her upstairs for better rest. But, like any other mermaid, she was refusing.

"It would be better for you" Mimmi tried to say.

"Why?" Aquata asked.

"Because, because…" the brunette said, while trying to find a way to convince her.

"Because, what if Veridia comes here and sees you?" Ondina said rising an eyebrow.

"Yeah! No one from the pod has come to me to tell me the news that you're 'dead'. What if they come and find you here, completely alive?" Sirena backed up. Aquata stayed silent for a while. Finally she sighted.

"Fine" she said with defeat. The mermaid trio smiled in victory. Mimmi left to accommodate one of the spare rooms in the house.

"I'll get some clothes" Ondina said, remembering how uncomfortable the first leg experience was.

"Can you climb out of the water?" Sirena asked Aquata.

"I think so" she said. However, she gave a yelp of pain once she tried. Aquata's eyes became watery. The wound might be healing, but it was still fresh and unbearable.

"Here, let me help you" Sirena said as she grabbed a towel and grabbed her older sister´s arms to avoid getting wet. She pulled her out of the water while Aquata let out a few pain filled hisses, and laid her in the stone floor, just like Cam had done the other day. Ondina came in with the clothes.

"I grabbed some of Rita's. I didn't think ours would fit" she said a she put them near the towels.

"All right… you ready?" Sirena asked. Her sister gave her a look.

"No" she mumbled, but it got ignored by her little sister as she pointed her moon ring and concentrated on transforming Aquata's tail into legs. There was a flash of blue light, and once it faded, it revealed a now human looking Aquata. She stared with some fascination at her legs, and then focused at the wound Veridia had inflicted. It was now a large crust spreading from her left knee down to her toes. But then she caught Sirena's smirk and quickly crossed her arms over her bare chest.

"That doesn't prove anything"

"Aja" Sirena said with the smirk still on her face. She and Ondina helped her put on the clothes that actually fit her and, between a few other hisses of pain (it was hard to walk with injuries) and learning to use the legs, they guided Aquata to the spare room where Mimmi was waiting. Aquata looked around the room curiously as they layed her in the bed.

"So… here's were land people sleep?" she asked Mimmi, who was putting a pillow behind her. She nodded.

"It's… quite comfortable" the older mermaid admitted.

"Well, some like to sleep in the couches when they are exceptionally tired, too" Sirena said. Her sister gave her a confused look.

"What's a couch?" she asked. Sirena giggled and took a seat beside Aquata and proceeded to explain.

Ondina turned to look at Mimmi, who was gazing at the ocean with a thoughtful face.

"I know that look, what's on your mind?" she asked.

"Zac… my mother… Veridia" Mimmi replied, not taking her eyes of the ocean. At the mention of Veridia, however, Aquata stopped paying attention to Sirena and turned to look at Mimmi and Ondina.

"There's more to tell about that" she said.

"You weren't inventing anything them?" Ondina asked almost accusingly.

"No. I wasn't" Aquata said with a frown as she gestured with her hands at the healing wound that decorated her leg. Ondina immediately felt guilty.

"We wanted to ask you about it-" Mimmi started to say, but got interrupted at the sound of the doorbell ringing.

"Must be David with the lunch. I ordered more for the five of us" Sirena said as she got up to get it. Once she arrived though, she found Evie and Cam panting at the entrance.

"Let us in!" Cam said as he pushed Sirena out if the way and got into the house, Evie following closely.

"Since you already busted in…" she muttered as she closed the door.

"Sorry about that, Sirena. It's just that we were being chased by journalists demanding information about Zac" Evie said as she tried to catch her breath.

"In the school?" Sirena asked.

"No, Rita allowed us, Carly and David a few days off to avoid… well, what we just went through" Cam explained.

"I called him and we agreed to come here to wait for your sister to wake up and here the full story about why was she bleeding and the whole 'Veridia is after Zac' thing and they literary ambushed us once we left our houses!" Evie continued.

"I have officially found a new profound respect for celebrities" Cam said

"Well, you didn't waste your time. Aquata is awake, we were about to ask her the same too" Sirena said as she walked past them and guided them into the room in which her sister, Ondina and Mimmi were.

"You gave her legs?" Evie asked a bit surprised as she stared at Aquata, who in turn stared back at Evie and Cam.

"They know?!" she asked Sirena almost accusingly. She gave her older sister a smug smile.

"Yeah…"

"But there's a good reason behind it!" Evie said before an argument broke loose.

"Explain" Aquata demanded. Evie gave the other mermaid and Cam a look that clearly said 'Help!'

"Well…uh, when Zac found out he had become a merman, he turned to me… because I'm his best friend…" Cam started.

"… And then, after a few problems with the trident… not much longer after you visited to take me back to the pod…"

"There was a struggle; someone got hurt… there was some jealousy…"

"… I was suspicious about what was going on and became aware of the mermaid/merman secret because Cam and Nixie wanted the trident back after putting it back in its resting place…"

"…Because Nixie didn't trust Zac and I was a power hungry idiot who wanted the power for myself and there was a big fight between all of us and Zac helped Sirena, Lyla and Nixie save Mako from me…"

"That's when we came to the pod explaining why Zac wasn't a threat…"

"… We didn't believe them…"

"… And Evie accidentally became a mermaid because Mimmi and I thought we could strip him out his powers… We were wrong about that…"

"… And that pretty much is it"

They all told the story in bits that it had been confusing to anyone else who anyone who didn't know about their secret lives. Fortunately, Aquata got it all. She stayed a few minutes silent, eyeing Cam and Evie.

"All right"

Both teens let out a breath they didn't realize they were holding.

"So… are you going to tell us what happened?" Mimmi asked. Aquata let out a shiver.

"I guess I should start from the beginning, then" she said. Everyone took a seat, giving the mermaid all of their attention.

"I don't know all the details, but… Veridia somehow found out that your merman friend-"

"Zac"

"Zac, yes; she somehow found out that he was the Son of Nerissa. Veridia only shared this information with all the oldest mermaids. She went to the land to destroy him, but didn't succed. She came back to the pod, with the news that Mimmi and Ondina were now considered outcasts" Aquata explained.

"Yeah, but what did you do for her to attack you?" Evie asked.

"I was getting there. I'm not sure exactly when or how it happened, but Veridia came in contact with another merman, who wanted something from her. In exchange, she told him that she wanted something from him" she explained.

"Another merman?" Mimmi repeated. Aquata nodded.

"Yes. Two days ago, he came to inform her that his step was completed and wanted her part of the deal done. She refused, saying that he wasn't finished yet. There were some threats and she told him that he only had three days to tell her where Zac went, so she could finish him off. I was feeling uneasy about Veridia wanting to kill your friend, especially after what Lyla, Nixie and Sirena told me he had done for Mako, so I tried to talk some sense into her to avoid bloodshed, but…"

"She ended attacking you" Ondina finished for her once she was unable to continue.

"Exactly, and to make things worse, she says that one will stand in her way, none of you and Rita" Aquata said.

"Well… that's a very big problem" Cam said.

"No kidding" Ondina snapped at him. Mimmi looked at Aquata.

"You said that a merman was giving this information to Veridia. Did you learn his name?" she asked. Aquata was about to give her an answer, but then she noticed someone leaning against the door frame of the room. Noticing her stare, the others turned around to see who it was.

"Him" Aquata whispered.

"She never really learned my name" Erik said sheepishly.