Page 46 of Make Out With A Merman

“That was during training. A panic surge. No one blamed you but”

“I blame me,” I snap.

Because I do.

Because the second I realized what I could do, I stopped.

Dead stop.

No summoning. No control trials. No deeper dives into my tribe’s current craft.

Because it scared me.

BecauseIscared me.

But now?

I don’t get the luxury of fear anymore.

“Ryder,” Julie says gently, “you’re the only one here who can match what’s waking up under us. If you keep locking this down, we’re going to lose.”

I don’t respond.

Because she’s not wrong.

And that’s what terrifies me most.

After she leaves,I sit on the dock, feet dangling in the water, palms pressed flat against the planks. The lake laps softly against the posts, but underneath, the power coils like a live wire.

I could pull the tide.

Split it.

Turn it inside out.

I used to dream about what I’d become if I wasn’t afraid of it.

Then I hurt someone.

And I decided that was the end of the story.

But stories don’t end just because we quit telling them.

The lake still remembers me.

And now it wants me to remember it back.

The sun’s up now,but it doesn’t help.

The light feels thin. Weak. Like even it’s afraid of touching what’s waking up under this lake.

I walk the perimeter once more, half hoping for quiet, half expecting the ground to split open.

It doesn’t.

But somethingshifts.

In me.

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