Page 22 of Surge

"Excuse me?" Morgan's eyes went wide as he folded his pants and put them on a bench. "How?"

"I didn't get that good of a look at it, but I swear I saw abalone insets on the hilt. She had her fist pretty tightly wrapped around it." I rubbed the back of my neck. "That would be impossible though."

"I'd have to see it." Blake stood at the edge of the platform. "It's doubtful it's real."

I stood next to him. "I hope you're right." Because if it was real, we needed to worry about where she got it.

Morgan was practically vibrating standing on the edge of the platform. "We can't go this long again. It hurts to shift."

Our house sat on a cliff overlooking the ocean, and in the cliff was a hollowed-out section with boats and jet skis. With a push of a button, the cliff opened to the wide-open sea. There was also an exit under the water for us to swim through.

"Stop being a guppy." Blake dove into the water, his body instantly morphing as soon as his fingertips hit the surface.

Morgan whooped and dove in after him.

Even if I did want to kiss Riley more, she would never accept this world. Humans could never know of our existence, which was the entire purpose of some of us being on land in the first place. With tritons being entrenched in the human world, we could squelch any discovery of our existence.

I dove off the platform and the change ripped through me, my legs burning as the connective tissue grew. Morgan was right about it being uncomfortable. Freshman year we could only go a day without changing.

With swimming practice three days a week, the urge to shift was strong. Only true tritons from an elite bloodline could manage to keep the human appearance for as long as we could, and even then it took years of training to work up to a solid week of being bipedal.

Blake and Morgan stared back at me under the water with their amber-colored eyes. Our eyes were similar to a feline's which allowed for quick adjustment of the pupil underwater.

I swam toward the exit of the cave and then we were free. My mind and body became relaxed as we raced out to sea.

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