Author: wow sudden motivation. 2 updates in a month has to be some kind of record for my turtle ass. But thanks for being patient with me everyone! It is much appreciated, as always.

Some review responses:

giraffesplaycello: Thank you! Wow that's really kind of you. I do try my best. But this little...debate, I guess? This thing we had was kind of fun. I love being challenged. Well, maybe not challenged, but I love reading everyone's different viewpoints, so please continue to submit your input if you'd like!

TheOneandOnlyMe: this is a really good idea! I have the same line of thinking as you do. So who knows what will happen? The possibilities are endless! And thank you for waiting! It is much appreciated! Feel free to share ideas if you have any more because I love reading them!

As always, keep reviewing! The reviews, the favorites, and follows are really motivating me to get through these chapters. I'm very grateful for all of them!

Anyway, thanks for reading!

-Spiz

Someone was screaming.

Emma opened her eyes. Her gaze was fuzzy and unfocused and everything was dark, but she could clearly hear someone screaming. She sat up and looked around until she spotted the source of the screaming.

Annabeth was lying on her air mattress. She twitched and screamed, all while still asleep.

Emma kicked herself off the bed and crouched over Annabeth. She took Annabeth by the shoulders and shook her.

"Annabeth! Annabeth!" Emma called. "Annabeth, wake up! Wake up!"

Annabeth's eyes flew open and she awoke with a start. She was breathless and drenched in sweat with her heart racing.

"Wha? What? Emma? What's wrong? Are you okay?" Annabeth demanded, sitting up.

"I'm fine. But are you okay, Annabeth? You were screaming in your sleep. You were having a nightmare, weren't you?" Emma asked. Annabeth blinked and tried to catch her breath. Already she was forgetting her dreams, but she knew they were terrible and she knew they were about Tartarus.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. I'm sorry, Emma. I'm sorry I woke you." Annabeth murmured sheepishly.

"It's okay. You don't have to apologize. You can't help what you dream. And that's all it was. It was just a bad dream. You're here and you're safe. There's nothing to be afraid of." Emma reassured, giving Annabeth a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. "Do you want me to get you anything? Water? Percy?"

"No, don't get Percy. He'll freak out. It's nothing. I'm fine, Emma. Really. Please don't trouble yourself any more for me."

"Are you sure?"

Annabeth nodded and offered a small smile. "Positive."

"Please wake me if you need anything. I'd be happy to help in any way that I can."

"Thanks."

Emma climbed back into bed, but she didn't go to sleep. Instead, she watched Annabeth fall asleep. Emma couldn't bring herself to sleep. She couldn't help but wonder and think is Annabeth was going through something. Elliot used to have nightmares, but after talking about them and working out what was bothering him, they disappeared. But with Annabeth, Emma questioned whether or not it was any of her business.

"Jailbreak!" Rikki called as she entered in Emma's house that morning. Cleo trailed behind her with a cheerful face. Emma was standing in her kitchen, drinking water.

"Good morning, Emma." Cleo greeted brightly.

"Good morning. You two are up rather early." Emma remarked.

"We thought it would be hard for you to get away, so we thought maybe we could have some fun." Cleo explained. She raised her hand, curled her fingers, and started twisting it left and right. The water in Emma's bottle slowly rose into a pillar before her. Emma's eyes widened as she stiffened and leaned back.

"Cleo, stop! Don't mess around like this! It's too risky!" Emma protested. Cleo lowered her hand and the water instantly dropped back into the bottle. Rikki laughed.

"Sorry, Em..."

"Tense, are we? You need to loosen you up." Rikki said. "C'mon. Let's escape while they're still sleeping. Percy is asleep, right?"

"He'd sleep until noon if he could." Emma said, capping her water bottle and setting it aside.

"I'll be right back." Rikki walked upstairs.

"Rikki, no! Don't wake him!" Emma called.

"Relax, Em!"

Emma shot Cleo a confused expression, which Cleo returned with a shrug. A few seconds later, Rikki descended the stairs with a smile on her face. She walked past Emma and Cleo towards the door.

"Alright! Let's go!"

"Hold it." Emma clapped a hand on Rikki's shoulder to halt her. "What did you do?"

"Snuck a pic." Rikki answered, waving her cell phone before pulling away. "He was drooling, but still very cute." Emma's jaw dropped.

"Delete that! That's my cousin and you have a boyfriend, Rikki!"

"I just want something to remember him by." Rikki giggled. "Alright. I'll delete it. But you have to take a picture with him before he leaves."

Emma rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine. Whatever. Delete it." Rikki opened the phone and Emma watched her delete the picture with reluctance. Rikki sighed dramatically.

"C'mon. Lewis is going to meet us at Mako." Cleo urged before Emma could scold. "Last one to Mako is a rotten egg!"

Emma and Rikki locked gazes and both grinned mischievously.

The three ran to the ocean, laughing the entire way. They dove into the water in unison, and as soon as they transformed into mermaids, they went into super speed. Swimming faster than dolphins, the three mermaids pierced through the water like torpedoes. Bubbles from the rush of their speed blew across their bodies and into their faces, but they each wore a smile.

Emma was the first to surface in the moon pool of Mako Island, shortly followed by Rikki, and a moment later, Cleo arrived.

"I win again." Emma said with pride.

"Hardly." Rikki scoffed. "At least we beat Cleo."

"Hey! I'm not that slow." Cleo whined.

"Yeah, you kind of are." Rikki said apologetically. Cleo rolled her eyes. Emma and Rikki giggled to each other. Rikki pulled herself up out of the water to sit on the stone edge of the pool, but also keeping her tail in the water. Emma yawned.

"Tired, Em?" Cleo asked. Emma nodded.

"I didn't get much sleep last night." Emma admitted.

"How come? Up all night talking to Ash?" Rikki asked, wiggling her eyebrows. Emma rolled her eyes.

"I wish. Annabeth has been having nightmares."

"Sounds rough. Must be hard sharing a room with someone. Especially when you've never met her before." Rikki said.

"I'm sorry for her. I don't really mind sharing a room with her because Annabeth seems like a nice and smart girl. I just feel bad for her. There's nothing I can do about it. They seem terrifying." Emma explained.

"You make it seem like she's been to hell and back." Rikki muttered.

"She must have gone through something rough. I had tons of nightmares when my parents divorced." Cleo admitted. "And I even had some when I became a mermaid."

"So either Annabeth has divorced parents or is a mermaid. Or both." Rikki joked. Emma rolled her eyes.

"Annabeth definitely is not a mermaid. She might have problems at home. And maybe her parents are divorced. We don't know. We don't know anything, but it's really none of our business in the first place either."

"Let's just hope she's not going off the deep end." Rikki said. "Only we can do that. We can go as deep as any fish in the ocean!"

Just then, Lewis stumbled into the dormant volcano. He smiled brightly at the sight of his friends.

"Hello, ladies." He greeted cheerfully. He walked over to the edge of the pool, but stopped and looked down. "What's this?" He pointed to the ground, where there was something written in the sand. "Number of days since last incident? Twelve?"

"Whoops! Never changed that." Rikki leaned back and reached across the sand. She wiped the number twelve away and traced the number zero in its place. "I've been keeping track of the days we've gone without growing a tail in public by accident. I was trying to go for a whole month, but then Cleo had to go swimming with the dolphins yesterday."

"It was an accident! Ronnie was being playful and splashed me! I panicked!" Cleo protested.

"It's not like these incidents are our fault, but we gotta try doing better than we are. I really want to make it a month and keep the tail under control." Rikki explained.

"That's actually not the worst idea you've had." Emma admitted. "Maybe not the best method, but we should set goals for ourselves to achieve to control our powers."

"Thank you!"

"So what did you guys want to talk about?" Lewis kicked off his sandals and took a seat beside Rikki while sticking his feet in the water.

"My cousin Percy. And my aunt and uncle and Annabeth. None of them know about us being mermaids and it must stay that way." Emma said. Lewis nodded.

"I thought that was a given, but okay." Lewis responded. "He seemed like a decent guy at the marine park. A bit childish when it came to seeing the animals and riding the rides. He was really into that. He bought Annabeth a keychain too. Zane was mostly talking to him and giving him a hard time. I spent more time talking to Annabeth-"

"Ooooo." Rikki teased.

"Would you shut up?" Lewis shot Rikki a glare, who only chuckled. "Annabeth is nice and is really smart. She has her head on her shoulders. We had many insightful and intellectual conversations yesterday. She likes science, and various kinds of sciences too like biology and chemistry. But she seems really passionate about architecture more than anything. That's my analysis of those two, anyway."

"But Percy's a problem. Like Charlotte's a problem-"

"Charlotte is not a problem!" Lewis snapped at Cleo. "Let's keep this conversation civil and about Emma's cousin."

"Okay, look. Percy is nosey and gets in my face. He remembers that I was a swim champ and suddenly wants to prove himself to me in a swimming race. How do I get out of that?" Emma asked.

"Easy. Get in the water, kick into your torpedo speed mode, and knock the poor guy out of the water."

"Lewis!" Emma backhanded Lewis's shin.

"Just give him your best record time and have him swim against that time. In fact, you can give him a time worse than what it actually is so he can beat it and feel better about himself and then he'll leave you alone." Lewis suggested. Emma smiled.

"That is a good idea. I mean, he'd never be able to beat my real time anyway." Emma added. Cleo and Rikki laughed. "But he's still a touchy-feely kind of guy. He's really into this family vacation and spending time with me. Which I'm okay with, but with someone like Percy...an incident is bound to happen in no time."

"Give the guy a break. He hasn't seen you in years, right? I'm sure he's just happy to be here, in a new country, on vacation, and seeing people he loves." Lewis said.

"I get that, Lewis! I just want to protect the secret, okay? He'd freak out and probably tell his mom, who will tell my mom, and then everyone will know. He's so rambunctious and I can only take so much. Besides, he's acting like he's never going to see me again." Emma protested.

"You two do live on two different continents on opposite sides of the world." Cleo pointed out.

"Yeah, but it's not like we can't ever communicate. He's never called me or texted me or even wrote a letter. Actually, he's dyslexic, so I can understand he's not into writing. But our moms are actively trying to see each other more often, and I don't think the world is going to end any time soon, so I think that Percy can relax a bit, can't he?"

"Okay, Em, you're getting way too worked up and defensive about this." Rikki slid herself into the water to float aside Emma. "You're just freaking out about losing our secret all along, aren't you? I think you need to just relax on the beach and enjoy the day today. Take a deep breath, and don't judge anything, got it?"

"But Rikki-"

"No, I'm in charge now, Em. And I say, you relax today." Rikki assured with a smug look. "Let's all go to the beach today. It'll be fun, and you know it, and you have nothing planned. If you do have something planned, cancel it. Call in sick at work. As someone who has said plenty of things without thinking, I know that if you don't cool it, you're going to say something you're going to regret to Percy or somebody."

"Rikki's right. C'mon, Emma. You have nothing to worry about. And Lewis will be with us in case of any incidents happen again. Right, Lewis?" Cleo volunteered. Lewis blinked, startled by Cleo.

"Uh, yeah, yeah. Definitely. Will be there."

A smile tugged on Emma's lips.

"Thanks, you guys. I'll try to lighten up a bit."