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“Oh, I see it now. Blue too. That’s really cool,” she says. The blue matches her eyes.
“That’s not common, Little Krill. It’s really something special.” Nico kisses the top of her head. I see what he’s doing, staying near her head in case she needs help.
Eros fans the surrounding water in a whirlpool. With each passing minute, more scales appear on her skin. Purple and blue. I’m wondering if the rest of the guys are thinking about the fairytale of the mermaid with a purple-blue fluke that comes to save the Dorian from evil. It’s just a podlet story.
I lean over and kiss the top of Belle’s head. “You doing okay?”
She nods. “Yes. Scales but no fluke.”
“Give it time, Belle.”
46
ANNABELLE
It’s unreal. I reach down and run my hand over the scales on my thigh. I rub toward my toes and back the other way. “Ouch.” It doesn’t hurt that badly, but it certainly doesn’t feel good. “They’re really pretty.”
“They certainly are,” Castor says. He turns to the other guys.
I close my eyes. Holter’s right, I don’t have to rush it. I have time. I have time.
“Belle?”
I open my eyes and look down. I don’t have legs. I have a fluke. It’s longer than where my feet were. Blue and purple with a streak of fuchsia on the tip. I move it, and it’s like watching someone else move. But it’s definitely me. The guys are all at the end of the tub, their eyes like saucers. I pull it down and up, and a large splash of water flies at them, but Nico gets the brunt of it. And I laugh.
“You think that’s funny, my tide and moon?”
“I do. I do think it’s funny. I want to swim. Oh, crap, I want to swim, swim out with my sharks. And you guys too.”
That has them laughing.
Back in the pod room, a chorus of dings ring from the discarded clothes on the floor.
“Whatever it is can wait, Belle. Let’s go swimming.”
I nod and try to get up, but that’s hard to do when you don’t have legs, so I slide back down the tub wall.
“Try to relax again. Think about the first time you shifted into a swim bladder,” Holter says.
“You mean when I almost drowned in the shower?”
“Okay, more relaxing, less drowning, Sunshine.” Eros kisses the tip of my fluke.
I close my eyes. Relax, don’t wonder about why all our blocks went off at the same time. The Braesen who hurt my family are gone. We’re good. Relax.
I open my eyes and catch Nico’s expression. “You know what the message is?”
“Indeed. Your cousin and aunt are pulling into port now.”
“What?” I push up again but this time slide all the way under, coughing out water because, well, normal lungs.
“We can swim later. Let’s get you dried off. That might help you shift back.” Holter reaches into the tub and pulls me out. He holds me while the rest of the guys dab me with a towel, and when I’m all dry? Yeah, I still have a fluke.
“I can’t go meet them like this. They’ll be scared enough as it is.” I’m hyperventilating. I turn to Holter and kiss his cheek. “Can you lay me on the bed?”
He places me on the other side where the guys haven’t spilled any water. I close my eyes and take deep breaths. I’ve never been one to meditate. My brain is too crowded with random thoughts to sit still for that long. But then Castor starts singing. At first, it’s odd. He’s singing in Dorian, and I can only pick out a few words, adjectives mostly. I catch the mermaid and happy. When he gets to the chorus, they all sing. The room vibrates with their voices. And I can only hear their voices; the voices in my head go blank. In-out, in-out, I breathe. And when they stop, I open my eyes. My legs are back, but there are a few purple scales on my upper thigh. It almost looks like a really detailed tattoo. “Wow, all it took was you guys to sing a whole song to make me shift back.”
Holter leans over and kisses the shell of my ear. “You’d shifted back before we joined in.”
