Once the gong in my skull stopped ringing, I squinted up at Harlow. Curls spilled over her shoulder, and the light fixture cast a golden halo around her head like an angel fallen from Candy Land. “How did you get in here?”

“I bribed the overnight manager.” She rolled a thin shoulder that caused her yellow mesh top to slide down her arm, revealing a black bra strap. “He was cheap, and it was worth it.” A heavy pause. “I owe you one.”

“No.” Debts made me uncomfortable. “You really don’t.”

“Why did you do it?” The question came out stilted. Maybe she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer.

“You had my car key.” I worked up the energy to smile. “What else was I supposed to do?”

She braced her forearm on the mattress beside me in a dent that made me wonder if she hadn’t been sitting just so for a long time before I woke. “I told you where I left the fob.”

I wrinkled my nose. “You thought I was going to stick my hand down the boot of a kid I barely know?”

“I’m not a kid.” She toyed with the ends of my hair, using her thumb to scratch off mud flakes that drifted onto the sheets. “I’m sixteen.”

Sixteen. Had I ever been that young? Four years separated our ages, but Harlow’s wardrobe pushed the envelope of decency and her personality sparkled. My pantsuits and frown lines left me dull by comparison. “Is it rude of me to ask—?”

“What’s a nice mer like me doing in a place like this?” She cracked a smile. “I’m on the mermaid equivalent of Rumspringa. I get a year to walk on land before I decide if I want to hang up my fins and embrace life on two legs for good.”

“I didn’t realize that was an option.” The tradition wasn’t one I had ever heard of before.

Pursing her lips, she mashed a mud flake into dust against my mattress with her thumb. She shook her head once, seeming to decide against whatever she might have confided. Her next words closed the topic of mer traditions and started a new one. “I meant what I said earlier. You risked your life for me.”

“A lot of people did.” The teen scoffed, but I insisted, “It was a team effort.”

“They would have let me die,” she said matter-of-factly. “I messed up. Big time.”

I didn’t disagree on either point. “Why is that?”

“I’m not what I pretend to be.” She flicked a piece of dirt off her nail, and her tone sharpened. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

I pushed upright, wincing as my temples throbbed from the sudden motion. Either that or the persistent, gnawing hunger raking claws across my abdomen. “I didn’t touch you.”