Page 52 of Blood of the Sirens
“Well … because we haven’t seen any?” I said, confused.
Calypso rolled her eyes, but didn’t elaborate.
I shivered despite the hot sun beating down my back.
“I don’t know how I did it,” came Jesse’s quiet reply. Her lips were tight in a line, her brows furrowed in thought.
I was just shocked she wasn’t a catatonic mess next to me. She’d casually switched species and back, all while narrowly escaping being mauled by numerous clans.
And she was shaking off the transition from gills to lungs like she had more practice at it than me! When we did our first trip to the surface around our twelfth year, most mers were a mess after the first physical shift.
Calypso raised one tentacle up, tucking a strand of light brown hair behind Jesse’s ear. Jesse tried and failed not to flinch away from the slick appendage.
“What were you thinking at the moment you changed?” Calypso asked. “What was happening? How did you feel?”
Jesse bit her lip. “I was thinking … oh god, I was so pissed at Merrick.”
She turned and glared at me. I jerked at the revelation, then remembered I had abandoned her in a dark cave.
Anger was warranted.
Calypso nodded, silently asking her to continue.
Jesse took a deep breath. “I was angry at Merrick and wanted to follow him. He was going to confront the men—er,mers who had attacked me, butIwanted to confront them with him.”
Calypso stroked Jesse’s hand thoughtfully. “At the moment, your greatest desire was to...?”
“My greatest desire was to go to him—to be with him to face this together,” Jesse admitted.
My heart swelled even as I bowed my head in shame. I shouldn’t have left her in that cave, even if it was for her own safety. I’d let my fear rule my heart and my head.
“Then you changed?” Calypso asked, clarifying.
“Then I changed.”
Calypso smiled, her tentacles shifting a bit to grip the whale’s back.
“It all makes sense.”
“Glad it does for someone,” I muttered. Both females shot me a mild glare.
Calypso twined her hand in Jesse’s as if she were just as afraid she’d disappear as I was. “Do you know why the sirens disappeared, merman?” she asked me, her tone suddenly hard.
I thought back to my school days as a young guppy. We talked a lot about how to chase the siren born on land, but there was never much discussion about why or how the sirens had left to begin with. The way the elders told it, mers had woken up one morning and the sirens were simply all gone.
That made little sense, though.
“We … weren’t taught anything, really,” I began. “The sirens just … disappeared.” I frowned. How had I not noticed this glaring oversight before? Had the sirens been gone for so long we had just accepted it without wondering why? Without knowing how?
Calypso scowled. “I am not surprised. Grab onto my friend Sedna. We will retreat to a safe place and I will tell you everything, and hopefully, what will come next.”
SEVENTEEN
Jesse
Merrick washesitant to go with Calypso, but we didn’t have too many choices, and she was clearly a powerful ally. If an entire clan of mer-guys was after us, that could prove handy. That was clear to see in the tension in his muscles, and how his eyes kept darting back and forth between us. Ever since I’d shown up with a tail, he wouldn’t look me in the eye, yet I caught him staring at me when he thought I wasn’t looking.
I really hoped this didn’t make things weird between us, though that ship had most definitely sailed by now.
