Too late.

As fast as he is, Galen is too late. He powers through the current as the floor of the gulf slants steeper and steeper. Every time he hears Emma’s desperate screams, he pushes harder, harder than he’s ever pushed himself before. But he doesn’t want to see it. What ever is happening to her to make her scream like that, he doesn’t want to see it. Already, he knows he’ll be haunted by those screams forever. He doesn’t want to add to his torment with the sight of it. Chloe has already stopped screaming—he doesn’t want to think about what that means. And he refuses to acknowledge how much time has passed since he heard Emma. He clenches his teeth and slices through the water faster than he can see ahead of him.

Finally, finally, he finds them. And he is too late.

He groans when he sees Emma. She clutches Chloe’s limp arm, pulling and tugging and twisting, struggling to pry her friend from the bull shark’s jaws. She doesn’t see that each jerk, each yank, each inch she gains only tears more flesh from Chloe’s leg. And she doesn’t see that her friend stopped fighting long ago.
She and the beast are at war. It shakes and writhes, mirroring her actions, pulling them both into deeper water, but Emma won’t let go. Galen glances around, wary for other contenders the blood might attract. But the haze of red is dissipating—Chloe is almost drained.

Why didn’t Emma change? Why didn’t she save her friend? Doubts mingle with remorse. He swallows the eruption of bile shooting up his throat. Rayna is right. She isn’t one of them. If she was, she would have saved her friend. She would have changed, would have carried Chloe away to safety—all healthy Syrena can swim faster than sharks.

I was wrong. Emma is human. Which means she needs oxygen. Now. He starts toward her but stops.

The several minutes she has been fighting that shark should have sapped her strength. But her tugs are becoming stronger. A few times, she even makes headway toward shallower water. She is making headway with a bull shark. Galen remembers Dr. Milligan saying humans make something called adrenaline, which makes them stronger, gives them more energy when they need it to survive. Maybe Emma’s body is making extra adrenaline . . .

Why are you thinking about it? Even if it is adrenaline, she’s still human. She needs help. And where is Rayna? She should have been here by now, with those useless humans who call themselves lifeguards. Lifeguards who sit in their tall wooden stands, keeping careful vigilance of the beach to make sure no one with a bikini drowns in the white sand.

Galen doesn’t have time to wait for any adolescent savior. Even if Emma’s making enough adrenaline to stay down here, it’s a miracle the shark hasn’t given up on Chloe and attacked her. He starts toward her a second time. And for a second time, he stops.

It’s just that . . . she doesn’t look as though she needs help. Her pale face is contorted with anger. Not fear. Not distress. Just fury. Her white hair floats around her like an aura, jerking in delayed reaction with each of her capable movements. She grunts and growls in frustration. Galen’s eyes widen as she lifts her leg to kick. Her human legs are not powerful enough to do damage; water slows the movement, blunts the force of the blow. Still, she lands her mark on its eye, and the impact is enough to make the beast let go. It doesn’t leave, just makes a wide circle around the girls. And then it swims directly at them.

Galen charges. Of his kind, he is the fastest. He can make it to her before the shark, snatch her away, and probably even change back to human form before she sees him. But why bother to change back at all? He’s in blended form right now, his skin mimicking the water all around him. All she would see is a watery glob carrying her to shore. Even if he un-blended, if he let her see him, no one will believe her if she tells. They’ll insist she lost consciousness, that she swallowed too much saltwater, that she
was too traumatized to know what she saw.

But he wants her to know, wants her to see him. For some reason beyond sense, he wants Emma to remember him. Because this will be the last time he ever sees her. There’s no need to follow her, to watch her. After today he has no interest in her. A human cannot unite his people. Not even a breathtaking one.

Breathtaking? Rayna’s right— you’ve lost your mind! He groans and speeds up. Emma’s scream almost chokes him.

“Stop!” she yells.

Galen stops. But Emma’s not talking to him. She’s talking to the shark.

And the shark stops.

Emma wraps both arms around Chloe and hugs her to her chest, leaning her friend away from the attack. “You can’t have her! Leave her alone! Leave us both alone!”

The shark turns, saunters away as if sulking.

Galen gasps. He watches until the smooth sway of its tail disappears in the distance. He tries to comprehend it. Because what he knows, absolutely knows, about bull sharks is that they don’t back down. Aggressive and ruthless, they are one of the most feared creatures among Syrena and humans alike—the most likely to attack the young of either kind. And this one just surrendered his meal, his rightful kill.

Galen’s attention whips back to Emma when he hears her strangled cry. She is still clutching Chloe, and they are sinking. Emma kicks her legs and fl ails with her free arm. Her face is not angry now but full of distress. Fear. Exhaustion. Emma looks like a real human.

Galen hears a noise approaching, the soft thrum of a boat getting closer. Rayna. But will she be in time? Each passing second drains the spirit from Emma’s fight. Her kicking becomes erratic, her arm thrashes without any clear purpose.

Galen is frozen in indecision. She isn’t human—she can’t be. Adrenaline might help a human hold her breath, but not for this long. Plus, humans don’t talk underwater—especially when doing so sacrifices precious oxygen. And bull sharks do not back down from humans—especially one as puny as Emma.
Still, they don’t back down from Syrena either. Unless Dr. Milligan is right. Unless Emma has the gift of Poseidon.

But if she is Syrena, then why didn’t she change? She could have saved her friend’s life. Why doesn’t she change now? Surely she knows her friend is dead. Why make a show of struggling in human form? Can she sense me the way I sense her? Galen shakes his head. There is not enough time to consider these things. For whatever reason, Emma is willing to drown to stay in human form.

And Galen will not allow it.

He launches toward her. The boat is visible a short distance away, breaking the waves on the surface. One way or the other, Emma will be saved. The boat stops overhead and Galen pauses. He can reach Emma if he needs to.

A white light strikes through the water, and the beam rests on Emma and Chloe; it is the first time Galen notices the absence of natural sunlight. The sun must be completely set. Two humans plunge in and swim directly to the girls. Galen knows Rayna must be on board, directing the light; without the Syrena’s ability to see into the water, these helpless humans could never have found them, even with a spotlight.

Emma releases Chloe to the lifeguards, nodding to them in understanding as they pry her lifeless friend from her protective grip. The two exchange a surprised expression as they kick their way to the surface. They lift Chloe onto the boat, but not before Emma catches a glimpse of her leg—a dangling bone from knee to ankle. Her anguished cry siphons the last of her oxygen, the last of her will to fi ght. Her body falls limp, her eyes close.

Galen wraps his arms around her before she sinks an inch.

Ignoring the two splashes on the other side of the boat, he pushes Emma to the surface and into the waiting arms of his sister. Rayna heaves her over the rim of the craft.

When Galen falls back to the water, he spots the two lifeguards and rolls his eyes. They don’t even realize Emma is already safe on board. They wade themselves stationary, not willing to search beyond an arm’s length ahead of them. Without the spotlight, these pitiful creatures can see nothing. If Galen weren’t here, Emma would be dead.

Infuriated, he torpedoes between them. The momentum spins them around like tiny whirl pools. He hears their startled cries as he swims away.

---

Galen dislodges his swimming trunks from under the rock; with a beach full of humans, he’d had to pull them off in the water. He slides them on, digs his feet in the muddy floor, and walks toward shore.

Rayna is waiting for him, sitting in the sand with her knees drawn to her chest. She wrings a piece of clothing in her hands until it resembles a rope; Galen recognizes it as the shirt Emma wore when he first saw her on the boardwalk. Even in the moonlight, he sees that his sister is crying.

He sighs and sits beside her. She accepts his arm around her shoulders without a fight, even leans her head on his chest when he draws her to him.

“Chloe’s dead,” she chokes out. For all her venom, his sister cares about life—human or not.

He nods. “I know. I didn’t get there in time.”

Rayna snorts. “Galen, this is one thing you can’t take responsibility for. I said she was dead. I didn’t say you killed her. If you couldn’t get to her, then nobody could have.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I waited too long to intervene.”

“Galen—”

“Forget it. What about Emma?”

Rayna sighs. “She came to right when we got to shore. They let her ride in the white truck with Chloe.”

“But how is she?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. She’s breathing. And crying.”

Galen nods, lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “So she’s okay.” His sister pulls away and leans back. He lets his arm drop but doesn’t look at her. “I think you should go home,” he says quietly.

Rayna stands up and angles over him so that she’s blocking the moonlight. She plants her feet in the sand, hands on hips. Still, he doesn’t expect her to yell like she does. “She isn’t one of us! She’s a pathetic human who couldn’t even save her own friend. And you know what? Even if she is one of us, I don’t want to know! Because then I’d have to kill her for letting her friend die!”

Galen is on his feet before she can finish the last sentence. “So if she’s human, you hate her, and if she’s Syrena, you hate her. Have I got that right?” He tries to keep the defensive edge out of his tone. His sister would probably have a different opinion if she’d just seen what he had. But she didn’t. And since he’s still not ready to tell her anything—not what Dr. Milligan said and not how the shark acted—he’s going to have to be patient with her misconceptions about Emma. And he’s going to have
to do better than this.

“She’s not Syrena! If she was, we would sense her, Galen.”

This shuts him up. He’d assumed Rayna could sense Emma the way he could, since she is his twin. But who ever heard of sensing another Syrena on land? Did he just make it up? Could it be that he’s just attracted to a human?

No. He knows what he felt when he touched her. That means something, doesn’t it?

“Wait,” Rayna says, jabbing her index into his bare chest. “Are . . . are you telling me you did sense her?”

He shrugs. “Did you get in the water?”

She tilts her head at him. “No. I was in the boat the whole time.”

“So how do you know if you can sense her or not?”

She crosses her arms. “Stop answering my questions with questions. That only worked when we were young.”

Galen cringes inwardly. There is no way to explain this to his sister without sounding foolish. And his answer would only lead to more questions—questions that weren’t any of her business. For now, at least.

He crosses his arms, too. “It still works sometimes. Remember a few days ago when we came across that lionfish and—”

“Stop that! I swear by Triton’s trident if you don’t answer—”

Galen is saved by the faint sound of music coming from beneath their feet. They both step away and listen. Galen gently kicks the sand around, looking for the cell phone. He finds it on the last ring. He picks it up, brushes it off.

This phone doesn’t look the same as the one Rachel—his self-appointed human assistant—bought him. It’s pink with little jewels all over the cover. He presses a button, and a picture of Emma and Chloe lights up the screen.

“Oh,” Rayna says, her brow wrinkled. “Whose . . . whose is it?”

“I don’t know.” He checks the missed call, but it only says, “Mom.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know how to tell who it belongs to.”

“Would Rachel know?”

He shrugs. “Is there anything Rachel doesn’t know?” Even Dr. Milligan admits that Rachel could likely be the most resourceful human alive. Galen has never told him her background, or how he found her, but if Dr. Milligan is impressed, then so is he. “Let’s call her.”

“She won’t answer from this number, will she?”

“No, but I’ll call the safe number and leave a message.” He dials the 800 number she insisted on buying. It goes to a fake company, a “shell company” Rachel calls it, that’s supposed to sell car warranties. She hardly ever gets a call, but when she does, she won’t answer. And she only returns Galen’s calls.

When he hears the voice prompt to leave a message, he says, “Rachel, call me back on this number, I don’t have my cell phone. I need to know whose phone this is, both names if you can get it. Oh, and I need to know where Jersey is and if I have enough money to buy it.”

When he hangs up, Rayna is staring at him. “Both names?”

Galen nods. “You know, like Dr. Milligan’s names are Jerry and Milligan.”

“Oh. Right. I forgot about that. Rachel said she has more names than a phone book. What does that mean?”

“It means she has so many names that no one can figure out who she is.”

“Yeah, that makes perfect sense,” Rayna mutters, kicking the sand. “Thanks for explaining.”

The phone rings. The safe number lights up the screen.

“Hey, Rachel.”

“Hiya, cutie. I can get you that name by morning,” she says. She yawns.

“Did I wake you up? Sorry.”

“Aw, you know I don’t mind it, sweet pea.”

“Thanks. What about Jersey?”

She laughs. “Sorry, hun, but Jersey’s not for sale. If it was, my uncle Sylvester would already own it.”

“Well then, I’ll need a house there. Probably another car, too.”

He turns away from his sister, who looks like she might eat Emma’s poor shirt. He prefers that she does—if it keeps her from biting him.

After a long silence, Rachel says, “A house? A car? What will you be doing in Jersey? Sounds pretty deep. Everything okay?”

He tries to put distance between him and his sister before he whispers, “I . . . I might be going to school there for a little while.”

Silence. He checks the screen to make sure the signal is good. “Hello?” he whispers.

“I’m here, babe. You just, uh, surprised me, that’s all.” She clears her throat. “So umm . . . what kind of school? High school? College?”

He shakes his head into the phone. “I don’t know yet. I don’t exactly know how old she is—”

“She? You’re buying a house and a car to impress a girl? Oh, swoooon!”

“No, it’s not like that. Not exactly. Will you stop squealing, please?”

“Oh, no, no, no, I will not stop squealing. I’m going with you. This sort of thing is my specialty.”

“Absolutely not,” he says, running a hand through his hair. Rayna grabs his arm and mouths, “Get off the phone now.” He shoos her away and is met with a growl.

“Oh, please, Galen,” Rachel says, her voice syrupy sweet. “You’ve got to let me come. And besides, you’re gonna need a mother if you want to register for school. And you don’t know a thing about shopping for clothes. You need me, sweet pea.”

He grits his teeth, partly because Rayna is twisting his arm to the point of snapping and partly because Rachel is right—he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing. He flings off his sister and kicks sand on her for good measure before he walks farther down the beach.

“Fine,” he says. “You can come.”

Rachel squeals and then claps her hands. “Where are you? I’ll come get you.” Galen notes that she no longer sounds tired.

“Uh, Dr. Milligan said Destin.”

“Okay. Where’s Destin?”

“He said Destin and he said Florida.”

“Okay, gotcha. Lemme see. . . .” He hears clicking in the background. “Okay, it looks like I’ll have to fly, but I can be there by tomorrow. Is Rayna coming, too?”

“Not in a million years.”

The phone is snatched from his grasp. Rayna sprints away with it, yelling as she runs. “You bet I’m coming! And bring me some of those lemon-cookie things again, will you, Rachel? And some of that shiny stuff to put on my lips when they get too dry . . .”

Galen massages his temple with fingertips, contemplating what he’s about to do.

And he considers kidnapping Emma instead.