Chapter Fifteen

She hopped on one foot, struggling out of her stubborn shoe, and it seemed as if everything was fighting her: items of clothing, the doorknob, the packets of smelt. Breathless, she hit the water and grew a tail.

Fish girl bring fish.

And realized she was still gasping from the kiss. Jonas’s inquisitive comments about how mermaids breathed without gills—

Fish girl bang bang fish girl bang.

—flitted past her brain and she realized her mouth was closed. So she was gasping in her brain.

Fish girl bring bang bang thud thud.

Or thought she was gasping.

Fish girl bring bang bang thud thud.

Or—

Fish girl bring BANG BANG THUD THUD.

EVERYBODY SHUT THE HELL UP!

Startled, an angelfish swam into a chunk of coral reef, reeled dizzily for a foot, then straightened and darted away.

She took a deep breath. Or thought she did. And tried to think. Yes, get Artur into the Marriott Long Wharf tonight, tonight, then get

(sneak)

—the hell back to her apartment on Commonwealth Avenue. Tomorrow was another day, and all that. Yes.

How she would keep a strong-willed, large, immensely powerful man at arm’s length was tomorrow’s problem. She just—didn’t he understand? This wasn’t how things were supposed to be.

She offered fish to fish, and some of them, cowed from her mental screeching, actually fed. Distractedly, she fed several reef fish and a couple of the turtles. The sharks grinned as they swam by, and ignored her offerings. That was all right, though. She had plenty of other problems right now. So many that she couldn’t be elated that some of the fish had given in without her having to blast “West End Girls” over the PA system.

For example, the tourists and what they’d think if the sharks turned on, say, the eels at exactly the wrong moment. Like the guy she could see through the window. He’d probably freak out at a feeding frenzy. Or maybe he’d get off on it; you never could tell. A bigger problem was that the guy was here wicked late—the place had closed a couple hours ago. Did they even have security guards in this place anymore?

And what was he doing? Leaning on one of the fifty-two windows and staring at her. Like there weren’t 650 other fish in the tank to glare at. No, he had to gawk at her. When were the tourists going back to wherever the hell they spawned? Wasn’t it autumn already?

Well? Wasn’t it?

She irritably tossed another smelt and glowered at the dark-haired gawker, then realized with something like relief that it wasn’t a tourist, it was Thomas Pearson. Hmm, another geek with no life; he’d fit right in at NEA. Why else would he come back to the aquarium in the wee hours of a Friday night?

And he was looking right at her. Guess he was giving the toxins a rest. Was that flattering or annoying?

You have a tail right now.