How to be a Mermaid (The Cotton Candy Quintet #1)(39)

Levi and Nadia were out in the bay by the tanks, ready to greet Kai when he flew out of the water. Nadia had been a nervous wreck before we parted ways, and I couldn’t blame her. This was the second attempt to rescue her son and the first one hadn’t gone very well.

Well, it did do something right. I looked to Finn. If everything went according to plan, I was seriously going to have to sit down and figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

When we neared the shore, the water got murkier and darker, and there were fewer creatures here. Pollution from the boats and the land dwellers? I hadn’t even noticed it when I dove into the water yesterday, probably because I wasn’t used to how clear and clean the ocean water near Thalassa could be.

I coughed at the water, making Finn turn back to me. His face was stricken, obviously wanting to take over, but he respected my decision enough not to try and sway me.

“Here’s where you’ll have to go on alone,” he said, his voice hoarse. “If we get any closer, we could be spotted.” He hesitated as he looked at me. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes,” I said honestly.

“Stay safe,” he whispered, leaning into me.

“You too.”

I was painfully reminded that we weren’t alone when Ponce bounced into me. Luckily, it wasn’t hard enough for me to drop the potion. I would have sashimied him otherwise.

“You gonna be all right?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I told him. “Protect Finn for me, will you?”

His eyes bulged. I laughed and hugged him. “Stay safe, Ponce.” I looked at my little caravan of sea creatures, from dolphins, crabs, and fish, to even tiny little octopods and jellyfish that looked like little bouncy balls. I addressed them from the bottom of my heart. “Thank you for being here,” I said. “I’ll have Prince Kai back before the deadline.”

I turned to leave, and Finn caught my hand. I turned back to him and his soft lips met mine for one more fleeting moment before I had to break away. Despite all the eyes watching us, I got swept up in it. They didn’t even know what we were doing anyways.

“Come back to me,” Finn said.

“I promise.” I meant it.

I started for the shore.

***

I washed up on the shore on my stomach. The shallower the water got, the less my mermaid tail helped. I had to claw my way up the sand with my free hand, grasping the precious kelp package in my other hand. My mermaid skills helped me swim farther and faster than I did before. My upper body, however, was still pathetically human.

I grunted, getting a mouthful of sand as I pulled myself along. How long would it take for my tail to turn back into legs? Movies made it look almost instantaneous.

Once I was finally out of the wet, hard clumps of sand and onto dry, soft sand, I could feel my legs itching.

I glanced down, seeing my scales retract before my eyes. A crease formed down the middle of my tail, bisecting it into two legs. My toes sprouted forth, then the thin fin curled in on itself and hardened into feet.

I flopped onto my back, breathing heavily. That was a lot harder than I had expected. And to think that Finn had pulled himself up on the rocks and scaled the walls with only his arms to move him. I had a lot more respect for him now.

Thankfully, my skirt had survived my army crawl, so I had something to cover up my bottom half.

It felt odd standing again, like gravity suddenly remembered to include me. My legs gave out initially and had to catch myself with one hand.

“Come on, Tara,” I gritted. “You don’t have time to be a wuss.”

I totally wish I did though.

I forced myself to my feet again and steeled myself to make sure they were planted properly. My knees shook, but they held. I remembered reading that astronauts had trouble getting re-accustomed to Earth gravity; apparently having your legs be turned into a mermaid tail and back again was a similar experience.

I held the package with two hands, because I was going to be battling walking while trying to hold onto my precious cargo.

I took a step, tentative at first. I didn’t fall. I took another, quicker step. After a few tries of this, I broke out into a jog towards the main entrance of the Aquarium. I didn’t have my temporary swipe card to get in the side entrance, and with a limited amount of time, I couldn’t waste a second.

They weren’t busy in the evening, yet I got weird looks at the way I was dressed from the people standing in line. Their curiosity turned to irritation when I went straight to the front of the line and pushed my way in to talk to the ticket vendor.

“Hey, uh...” I recognized the girl behind the counter, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember her name. She gave me an unimpressed look, and I realized that she wasn’t happy with me skipping the lines. “I’m Tara Porter, one of the performing mermaids from Neptune’s Aquarium.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t have my swipe card to go in the back. Could you call Neptune or Christine? They’ll vouch for me.”

The girl raised an eyebrow. “I’ll have to speak to my manager.” She got up and disappeared. Minutes ticked by, and I found myself drumming my fingers on the counter.

Finally she came back. Without addressing me, she wrote a note on a pad of paper, tore off the top, and handed it to me.

“Take this to Jerry,” she said. “He’s at the entrance. He’ll let you in.”