CLEO

"So," Lewis whispered, taking a seat on the bed, "Run through this with me again. What exactly happened out there?"

The girls were gathered in Charlotte's bedroom. They had, after a brief disagreement, decided to bring Charlotte to her aunt and uncle's house. Evie and Isabella had wanted to bring her to the hospital; Rikki, Cleo, and Emma insisted that they couldn't.

"We have no idea what's wrong with her. For all we know, she could be in a magical coma or something, and if the doctors can't figure it out, they'll suspect something else is going on," Emma explained, "We could be exposed."

Begrudgingly, Evie and Isabella had agreed, and the five girls had made their way to Lewis' house, lugging Charlotte with them the whole way. Evie threw rocks at Lewis' window until he woke up, and when he emerged, hair tousled and still looking half asleep, the girls rushed to explain their story.

Now, sitting on the plush carpet in Charlotte's temporary room, Cleo was beginning to wonder if they had made the wrong choice. They'd tucked Charlotte into her bed and gathered around to tell Lewis the story. But even twenty minutes later, the new mermaid still had not woken up.

Lewis was seated next to his cousin on the bed, looking as if he had seen a ghost. If he wasn't awake before, he certainly was now. Cleo couldn't blame him for needing the situation explained to him again; she was still processing everything that had happened, herself.

The girls recounted everything, from Nixie's sudden attack in the cave, to Sirena's betrayal. They told him once again how Charlotte had fallen into the Moon Pool, and, under the light of the full moon, transformed into a mermaid. They explained Charlotte's power, and what they had learned from the memories she'd pulled out of Sirena.

Lewis took a moment to process it all, and then he sighed.

"So," he began, "Let me get this straight. We shouldn't have trusted Sirena all along, because she's a mermaid from a pod of 'real' mermaids that live in the ocean?"

The girls all nodded, and Cleo felt herself turn red. She had insisted that they trust Sirena. If anyone was to blame for their current predicament, it was herself. Lewis continued on.

"And Sirena's pod happens to be led by a mermaid who wants to kill three of you for the sake of some curse that she wants to lift? Sirena and Nixie were helping her accomplish this?"

"Meridia's curse," Isabella said, "and yes, although it seems like Nixie might have had her own personal reasons for being involved."

Lewis shook his head in disbelief.

"And," he finished, "my cousin has now turned into a mermaid with the power to look at people's memories?"

There was silence in response to this. Everyone looked over at Charlotte, who was still on the bed but for the rising and falling of her chest. Lewis reached over and squeezed Charlotte's hand. Cleo felt her eyes fill with tears.

"What are we going to do?" Evie moaned, putting her head in her hands. "We have a crazy mermaid that wants to kill us because of some seriously fucked up mermaid mythology, and probably an entire army of mermaids rallying against us. We couldn't even beat this ONE mermaid."

"Two," Rikki added, darkly. "There were TWO mermaids we should've been fighting. Not just one."

Suddenly, Charlotte's eyes fluttered open, and she sat up. The girls gasped.

"Charlotte!" Lewis explained, throwing his arms around his cousin in a tight embrace. Charlotte looked scared.

"Lewis?" she asked, pushing her cousin back to look at him. "Where am I? What happened to me?"

"You're in your room. You're safe now. Oh my god, I was so worried about you," Lewis replied. He tried to embrace his cousin again, but she held up her hands, as if to tell him to back off.

"What happened to me?" she repeated, and this time, there was a note of panic in her voice, as if she was truly waking up. She gazed around her room, and, for the first time, she noticed the girls. Cleo could see the realization wash across her as the memories of the night flooded back to her.

"That girl had a knife at my throat…I fell into the water. Then I…I had a tail. I had a tail," she muttered, her eyes widening.

"You transformed into a mermaid, Charlotte," Emma stated, trying to sound gentle. "The full moon was out, and when you fell into the water, you transformed."

The reality of the situation seemed to hit Charlotte at full force.

"I can't be a mermaid!" she exclaimed. "It would ruin my life!"

Rikki snorted. "Well, that's slightly offensive. Just because you changed, doesn't mean your life is ruined."

Charlotte glared at her. "You know nothing about me, or my dreams. I was going to be an astronaut! I was going to work for NASA!"

"I'm sorry, I don't think I'm following. How exactly does being a mermaid ruin your dream of being an astronaut? Is there water in space?" Rikki asked. Lewis opened his mouth to speak, but Charlotte cut him off.

"To be in the NASA astronaut program, you need to be able to swim 75 meters without stopping. Water is used as a replacement for being in a zero gravity environment. The resistance you face in water is similar to-"

Her voice broke, and Cleo watched in horror as tears began to stream down the other girl's face.

"Oh Charlotte," she said, "I'm so sorry." Lewis reached over to console his cousin, but she slapped his hand away.

"Don't touch me," she snapped. Then, she glared at Cleo.

"You're sorry?" she asked, her voice raising with hysteria. "YOU'RE sorry? I'M sorry I ever trusted any of you. I'm sorry I ever came to this stupid city and met any of you."

"Charlotte," Emma said, "We all know how you must feel right now. Before I became a mermaid, I wanted to-"

"Save it," Charlotte cut her off, and Emma shut her mouth, looking stung.

"Look, obviously this is a horrible situation, but we need to keep our cool and work through this together. We're ALL in danger," Isabella pointed out, "and fighting with each other isn't going to help any of us!"

"Why, because we need to protect each other?" Charlotte scoffed. "I think I've had enough protection from all of you. Get out of my room.

"Charlotte-" Lewis tried to speak, but he was silenced.

"You did this to me!" she yelled, tears beginning to stream down her face. "You ALL did this to me. Because of all of this mermaid stuff, my dreams are ruined, my future is uncertain, and I'm in danger of being hunted by a crazy mermaid who wants to kill me. I don't want your help. I don't want your support. I want you to go away and stop ruining my life. Get out of my room."

The group stared at her, stunned by her breakdown. Suddenly, a voice from outside called.

"Charlotte! Keep it down in there, we're trying to sleep!"

"Shit, we woke my parents up," Lewis said. "You guys better go."

The five girls left the room and tiptoed to the stairs. Cleo was the last to leave, and even as she left, she could feel Charlotte's glare burning into her.

A silent tear rolled down her cheek.

SIRENA

The journey back was a tense one.

After Sirena had fled the scene of the crime, she'd dived into the water with no goal other than to escape. She swam and swam, as far out as she could, not worried about becoming lost. Mermaids had an impeccable sense of direction in the water.

She swam until Mako Island was just a dot in the distance, relishing the feeling of having her tail back and trying to forget what had just happened. But, no matter how fast she swam or how hard she tried, thoughts of the night crept in.

"Why did I do that?" she thought. "That was absolutely insane! Lyla is going to kill me. No, scratch that, actually. NIXIE is going to kill me."

Then, her thoughts turned to the girls. The shock of betrayal on their faces. Their angry hands glowing as they surrounded her. Charlotte, up on a ledge, with Nixie pressing a knife to her throat.

Charlotte, tumbling into the water under the light of a full moon.

She shuddered at the image of that in her head. How ironic that she had been sent to help her pod, and instead, she had thwarted Nixie and caused the creation of ANOTHER of the very things her pod was trying to destroy.

"I should've just let Nixie do it," she thought, but even as she thought it, the words seemed fake, like she was trying to convince herself that they were true. Maybe they were. She sped up, trying to release herself from the torture of her inner conflict, as if she could out-swim her problems.

That was when she crashed right into Nixie.

"Watch where you're-" Nixie began, but then she realized who she had collided with, and a look of fury crossed her face. When Sirena tried to pull herself back, Nixie grabbed her arm and gripped it tightly.

"Nixie, I'm so sorry!" Sirena exclaimed.

"I don't care-" Nixie growled, gritting her teeth, "-that you're sorry. You thwarted our plans. You betrayed me. You betrayed our pod. You betrayed LYLA."

"I just think there's another way to solve this problem!" Sirena replied. "One that doesn't involve murder. We have to be better than that!"

Nixie released Sirena's arm and pushed her back in disgust.

"You have got to be the biggest fool I've ever known. There is no other way. Lyla was clear; this is what needs to be done. Three of them need to die to lift the curse!"

"Nixie, I know you want to help Mimmi. But would she really want you to do this dark thing?" Sirena asked. Nixie snarled.

"You know NOTHING," she said, "of what my sister would want, or who she is. I have been tortured by visions of her for months now. She comes to me in my sleep, or during my waking hours. It doesn't matter. At any given moment, she can come and remind me of how I am failing her. I cannot continue to fail."

Sirena stared at her, dumbstruck because, for once, the cracks in Nixie's tough exterior were starting to show. Tears were filling her eyes.

"You," Nixie continued, her voice raising in volume with each word, "know nothing of the real world, or of what humans are capable of. You've led your whole life sheltered by the pod, and it has made you naive. Can you even remember your parents? Can you even remember a time when Zac wasn't there, holding your hand?"

Sirena wanted to speak, but she couldn't. Nixie was right.

"I thought so," the other mermaid sniffed, plunging on in her rant. "You don't know what it's like to lose. You might not have your parents, but it's like they were never there to begin with."

"I would give ANYTHING to meet my parents. To remember them, the way that Zac does." Sirena shot back, her voice trembling with a quiet rage. Nixie didn't relent.

"But you don't," she said. "You don't remember them. I remember mine. I remember Mimmi. I remember what life was like before I lost everything. That's the difference between us. I lost everything I knew, and you lost nothing. I've been alone in this pod, fending for myself, for years. All of this bullshit about how the pod is our family is a lie when you remember what it feels like to have your own flesh and blood. So don't try to convince me that we're doing something wrong, or that we need to find another way. You don't know what it's like to lose everyone you ever loved. I'm willing to do what's necessary because that's how I learned to survive. By doing the necessary thing, and by trusting myself."

Sirena continued to stay silent, but a single tear streamed down her cheek. Nixie rubbed her eyes, and slowly, Sirena watched her build her defenses back up. Now that her tirade was over, Nixie's walls were rising around her again. She glared at Sirena.

"Now, here's what's going to happen,"she said, very slowly, as if Sirena were a child. "I could easily tell her that you sabotaged our mission and betrayed me, but if I did that, you'd tell her that I let my emotions get the better of me. You'd tell her that I turned ANOTHER human into a hybrid. I'm not stupid."

"So," Nixie continued, twirling a lock of hair around her finger thoughtfully, "here's what we're going to do. We tell her that we tried to stop them, but they were too powerful. We tell her that there's another girl who's been a mermaid all along, one that we didn't account for. We don't mention that she exists because of me, and we don't mention that you, in some kind of childish rage, tried to help them fight me. We stick to the story I just made up, and we hope Lyla believes it. You don't get exposed for being the treacherous coward you are, and I don't get exposed for my mistake. We both get to continue to live with the pod, and Lyla doesn't exile anyone. Got it?"

Sirena, still mute, just nodded.

"Okay," Nixie said. "Let's go home."

As they swam, they fell into silence. Sirena had never felt so conflicted in her life, but she knew one thing; as much as she hated to admit it, Nixie was right. She WAS naive. What did she know of the world? How could the kindness of a few humans make up for the horrors Lyla had described? How could it make up for whatever horrors they had inflicted upon Nixie and her family?

It simply couldn't, and so, Sirena resolved to shut out thoughts such as these. She would return to the pod. She would ponder these questions further in her home. But for now, she knew one other thing to be true:

She needed to focus her energy on convincing Lyla of their story. Something told her that if they slipped up, Lyla would make both of them her new targets.

XXX

When Sirena returned to her cave, she was completely spent. The encounter with Lyla had been exhausting; she wasn't accustomed to lying, and she thanked the heavens that Nixie was with her. She wasn't sure if she could have told the entire made up story on her own. All of the lying paired with the fact that the two had arrived back at the pod at sunrise and gotten no sleep meant that Sirena had no energy left. But, when she floated through her doorway, she was dismayed to find her brother and best friend awaiting her return.

"Please, I just want to sleep," she thought, exasperated.

"Hey! How was round two?" Ondina asked brightly. Zac shook his head in annoyance.

"Maybe we should ask about round one first," he said. "You know, since you never even told us that you came back from the first round."

Sirena was startled to realize that her brother was correct. She'd spent her one day in the cave hiding from everyone, too conflicted and worn out for social interaction. Apparently, she had completely forgotten to update the two most important mermaids in her life, as well. Sirena swam over and gave them both a hug.

"I'm sorry guys," she apologized. "I didn't mean to worry you. My first mission has just been, well…a lot."

"I know," Ondina replied, "Lyla has been updating the pod on it."

Sirena tensed. If Lyla was updating the pod on their mission, that couldn't be good. That meant that she felt the need to involve everyone, and that she was preparing for something. Sirena prayed that Lyla had believed her and Nixie's lies, or else the two of them might as well just pack their few belongings now.

"What has she been saying?" Sirena asked, mentally preparing herself for whatever was going to come next.

"Not much." Zac answered before Ondina could. "Basically just that the hybrids are more dangerous than we thought, and that we might want to prepare for the possibility of battle with them."

Sirena's heart dropped. "You mean like…war?"

Zac shrugged, but his grave face didn't match his nonchalant demeanor.

"Honestly, we don't know," Ondina replied. "We were kind of hoping that maybe YOU would know. I mean, you were up there with them. What were they like? Were they really that much more powerful than us?"

Sirena hesitated, wondering how much she should tell them.

"I mean, I wouldn't say they're MORE powerful than us," she began, "but they're not less powerful than us either. For humans who have only had mermaid powers for a few months, they have pretty good control of their abilities."

She stopped before the next part, then decided to go on, hoping she could tell Zac and Ondina this without scaring them.

"There's also actually more of them than we initially thought, too. There are six total."

Zac's eyes widened. "Six? Are you joking? What are their powers?"

Slowly, Sirena told them the story of her time on land, from the moment she'd reached shore to the events of the previous night. She carefully recreated the lies that she had told Lyla in order to keep a consistent story. As she recounted the tale, Sirena found herself missing the group of girls.

"They'll never forgive you," she reminded herself, and the thought caused her heart to ache.

When she was finished with her story, both Zac and Ondina looked perplexed.

"Wow," Ondina said. "So they really just trusted you and believed your cover story?"

"Yup," Sirena replied. She hesitated before adding, "And honestly, they're really not all that different from us."

Zac snorted at this. "Right, except for the fact that they're murderers who would lock us up if they knew we existed, and now they have the same powers as us."

Sirena felt the anger rising in her chest. Why was everyone so quick to choose violence? Why couldn't her friends try to see the other point of view the way she had, to open their minds to the possibility that maybe their mistrust wasn't warranted?

"You know what guys, I'm exhausted. Can you leave me to go to sleep?"

"But-" Zac began.

"No," Sirena replied, more firmly this time. "I'm going to bed. I'll see you tomorrow."

And with that, she pushed Zan and Ondina out the door, ignoring the concerned looks on their faces. She took a long nap that day, despite everything that had happened.

But outside her door, her brother and her best friend talked.

"She's acting weird."

"Yeah, it's not like my sister to have an attitude."

"I hope she's okay. I just feel like she isn't telling us something."

RIKKI

Rikki slowly unlocked and opened her front door, cringing as it squeaked on its hinges. The house was dark and quiet. She hoped this meant that her father and Cathy had gone to sleep. Silently, she shut the door behind her.

"You were supposed to be back by eleven, at the latest."

Rikki whirled to see Cathy a little ways down the hall from her, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest. She marveled at the sudden appearance of her stepmother, but the wonder soon turned to dread as she processed just how much trouble she was probably in. Despite this, she took the more risky route of answering the statement with a question.

"When did you come back?" Rikki asked. She pulled her sandy flip flops off and lined them up neatly on the shoe rack next to the door.

She was expecting Cathy to snap at her, but her stepmother just sighed.

"I came back tonight. We talked things out, and I'm here to stay. We stayed up talking until your curfew, but when you hadn't come back by twelve, I told your father to go to sleep, and that I would wait up for you. Little did I know that you would make your triumphant return at four in the morning."

Rikki was about to snap back, but she hesitated at Cathy's tone. The woman before her didn't seem angry or indignant. She seemed tired. When Rikki didn't respond, Cathy put her hands up in surrender.

"Okay, look," she said, "I was your age once. I had my fair share of wild nights. If you just tell me where you were and what you were doing, I won't tell your father in the morning."

Rikki was so shocked by this that she took a moment to collect her thoughts. She walked past Cathy into the kitchen, debating what she should tell her. Grabbing a cup with shaky hands, she filled it with water and took a sip before answering.

"I was out at Mako Island with some friends. Cleo, Emma, and a few other girls from school."

She held her breath as Cathy took this in, hoping that she couldn't tell that Rikki was withholding information. Her stepmother gave her a skeptical look, and then, she said something that surprised Rikki even more.

"One time, when I was sixteen, I went out to a party, got drunk, and drove my car through someone's fence."

Rikki almost spat out her water at this.

"You WHAT?" she asked, not even bothering to hide her amused smile. Cathy smiled back, humor in her eyes.

"Yup," she said. "I got absolutely hammered at a party, and on my way home, I drove through some middle-aged woman's perfect white picket fence. I stopped in her yard. I still remember it like it was just yesterday…"

Her voice took on a dramatic tone, as if she were reciting Romeo and Juliet rather than the tragic tale of a fence's demise.

"It was a perfect summer night. Not too cold, warm with a slight breeze, and a clear sky. You could look up and see all the stars in the sky. In fact, that's exactly what the woman was doing when I barrelled into her yard. She was stargazing."

Rikki was speechless. Cathy dropped her dramatic tone and looked Rikki dead in the eyes.

"Can you imagine being out in your yard on a beautiful summer night, just peacefully stargazing, when all of a sudden a CAR just randomly bursts through your fence and stops in your yard?"

Rikki couldn't hold it back anymore. She started laughing, and Cathy laughed along with her. Before long, they were both in hysterics.

"You…literally…drove into her yard?" Rikki asked, trying to breathe in between her laughter. Cathy nodded.

"What did she do?" Rikki asked.

"Well," Cathy said, "I got out of my car and apologized, but she just kept staring at me with her jaw dropped open."

Rikki continued to laugh at the absolute absurdity of the situation, but suddenly Cathy became a bit more serious.

"Once she processed what had happened, she did the last thing I would have expected her to do; she took me inside for tea."

"WHY would she do that?" Rikki asked. "You drove into her yard!"

"Because she understood that everybody makes mistakes," Cathy explained. "Once I finished my tea, she drove me back home and told me that she would worry about fixing the fence, but I was responsible for coming to pick my car up in the morning. And that was it. She never told my parents. To this day, they still don't know."

Rikki gazed at her stepmother in awe. She had never thought about what Cathy might have been like as a teenager, but all of a sudden, in her mind's eye, she could see it; a younger version of Cathy, cruising down the street, intoxicated but with a joyful spirit in her eyes.

"The reason I'm telling you this is not to say that there aren't consequences for drunk driving," Cathy continued, "so don't do that. I'm just saying that I see myself in you, Rikki. You think you're wild? I promise I was ten times wilder at your age. You can trust me; I think I can understand you better than you think I can."

Rikki wasn't sure what compelled her to blurt out her next words, but they flew out of her mouth before she had time to think.

"I'm sorry I've been so mean to you. It's just been really hard adjusting to life without my mom."

Cathy nodded and put a hand on the teenage girl's shoulder.

"I forgive you, and I'M sorry that you had to hear me fight with your father. I said some pretty ugly things that I didn't mean."

"Yeah, well," Rikki replied, "I've said some ugly things, too. I think everybody says things they regret sometimes."

"I'm also sorry that I broke your mother's jar," Cathy apologized. "And that I sold the bookshelf. If I had had any idea how meaningful it was, I would have never done that."

Rikki fell silent. The pain of that night was returning to her, and the memory of Cathy dropping her mother's jar stung. She could still hear the glass cracking on the hard floor. She wasn't sure whether she was ready to forgive her for that, but she didn't need to, because a voice from the stairway interrupted them.

"What are you two still doing awake?" Rikki's father asked, leaning over the banister. Then, he narrowed his eyes at Rikki. "And why did you come home so late?"

"There was a boat with a bunch of drunk teenagers zipping around the island recklessly, and Rikki's friends decided it would be better to wait for them to go away rather than risk crashing into them trying to leave," Cathy quickly answered before Rikki could. "She only came back like ten minutes after you left, but we've been sitting outside for hours. I wanted to show her the full moon, and we needed to talk about some things."

Cathy winked at Rikki, but Rikki couldn't even bring herself to respond. Cathy was COVERING for her? Lying for her?

"This night keeps getting weirder and weirder," she thought.

Thankfully, her father bought the story, and he seemed pleased to see that Rikki and Cathy were getting along. As she climbed into bed that night, Rikki felt a faint wave of hopefulness wash over her.

"I might be the target of a murderous pod of mermaids," she thought, "but at least maybe my family isn't as broken as I thought."