Page 49 of Emerge

Chapter Sixteen

Riley

Itried all of their phones multiple times and got no answers. I was so angry that they weren't telling me what was going on that I nearly broke my phone slamming it on the counter.

"Is someone going to tell me what the fuck is going on?" Aiden was sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee despite it being nearly ten o'clock.

I, of course, hadn't listened to them and we'd stayed at the townhouse. Aiden's parents wouldn't have let us stay there anyway, and I wanted to be close to the water.

"It's better if you don't know." Ivy opened the refrigerator for what must have been the tenth time, hoping food would magically appear inside.

"Ivy gets to know but I don't?" Aiden crossed his arms. "I'm hurt."

I would have told Aiden everything in a heartbeat if I didn't know for a fact that he'd freak out. The last thing we needed at the moment was for him to have a mini meltdown about me having a tail and Poseidon being real.

"I'll tell you everything. Just not tonight." He didn't like my answer, but his disappointment was the least of my worries.

There was a knock on the front door and Ivy and I stared at each other before I ran to it and looked out the peephole. I threw open the door to find a soaking wet Olivia.

"Girl, you are in so much trouble." I grabbed her arm and pulled her inside. She was shivering and hugging herself. "Where have you been?"

I grabbed the blanket that was thrown over the back of the couch and wrapped it around her. She started crying, and I put my arm around her.

Aiden busied himself on his phone as Ivy grabbed my phone off the counter and we led Olivia upstairs to find her a pair of dry clothes. She hadn't said a word yet, and I worried about what had happened over the past hour she'd been missing.

"I'll find her something to wear." Ivy went into my closet that still had a few clothes.

I dialed Jax's number again and it went straight to voicemail. "Your brother isn't picking up." I sent him a text letting him know Olivia had come back. "Where did you go? Are you okay?"

I took the blanket and dropped it to the floor, looking her over to make sure she wasn't injured. She nodded and kept her arms wrapped around her stomach. Did her stomach hurt? Maybe all the land food and candy throughout the week had taken its toll.

"I found some old yoga pants and a hoodie." Ivy came from the closet and dropped the clothes. "Oh my God. Riley. There's a fucking tentacle."

"What?" I moved around to see behind Olivia. "Holy fucking fucker!" I yanked down Olivia's pants and she let out a strangled cry as she fell to the ground. "Help me!"

We got her shoes, socks, and pants off as fast as possible. The shift she was going through seemed to hold off until her clothes were off, but once they were, her legs morphed into tentacles and six others grew from her hips.

"What do we do?" Ivy fell back on her ass and was breathing heavily. "Should I turn on the shower? Should I call the police? She has fucking tentacles!"

"Shh!" I jumped up and locked the bedroom door. "We need to be calm."

I was anything but calm. Olivia was examining her tentacles and then started laughing before bursting into more tears. "I'm a freak."

"It's not that bad." Who was I kidding? It was bad. She had eight tentacles that were the same coloring as a triton, and the rest of her looked human. "Here, let's call your brother, or hell, let's call your dad."

I picked up my phone and she grabbed it with a tentacle, throwing it against the wall. It was such a hard throw it left a dent. She cringed. "Sorry, I didn't realize they were that strong."

Ivy stood against the wall, as far as possible from Olivia. "What does this mean? You're like... Ursula."

"Ivy!" I shut my eyes and took a calming breath. I could handle this. "We need to get you to water, right?"

"I mean... I think? That's what caused this. I spilt some water on my leg and then ran and hid on the side of your house."

"But you've been in the water and this didn't happen." It had to be a coincidence that a little spilt water would cause her to turn into a creature from a science fiction movie.

Olivia had stopped crying but had a deep frown. "I'm going to kill that motherfucker for doing this to me."

"That's the spirit!" Ivy moved against the wall toward the door. She was still within tentacle grabbing distance despite how hard she was pressing against the wall. "I'm just going to go get Aiden to leave, okay?"

---