Page 106 of Tracking Snow

Snow's waiting. My jaw is locked, my hands have gone numb around nothing, and the pressure on my chest keeps me exactly where I am.

Ariel is human sometimes and fae at other times. She can morph between the two. It means more than I want it to.

Snow's voice barely filters through the roaring in my brain, her panic only vaguely registering. "Five, do you hear me?"

Chapter 33

Your Friend’s Fin is Showing

SNOW

Five isn’t responding. He looks as though he’s seen a ghost or something, though I can’t blame him. Mermaids are ridiculously scarce on land.

Talk about near non-existent.

I’d been hella shook the night a pipe burst over the rear hallway at Poison Apple and dumped a full sheet of water over Ariel’s lap.

One second, she was calm, sweet Ariel, telling everyone to clear out before the ceiling gave.

The next, she was retreating so fast her chair clipped the wall, one hand fisted in her soaked skirt like she could hold her body together by force.

I followed her because I thought she was hurt. Then I saw scales.

A rainbow iridescence shining over her silver scales, gleaming beneath the wet fabric. Her legs were fusing, knitting together from thigh to ankle, her body changing in a way I had no context for.

Ariel looked up at me, her face pale, her eyes huge before they narrowed.

"Get out," she snapped.

I stopped so hard my boots squeaked on the wet floor.

Ariel never snapped.

Then her voice broke. "Please, Snow. Don’t look."

So I turned around, blocked the hallway with my body, grabbed every towel I could reach, and started patting her down as tears streamed down her face.

"I’ve got you," I told her, keeping my eyes on her face. "No one will see. No one will know. I’ll keep you safe and dry."

She’d nodded and hugged me for several long minutes, and I knew I would die before I betrayed my best friend. And I stupidly just revealed her to a stranger.

Well...a near-stranger to her.

"Do you understand me, Five?" I say more harshly. "That is my best friend in there, and this is her most vulnerable secret. If you fuck up my relationship with her, I don’t know what I’d do."

Die, something inside me replies.

I’ve already lost too much. Too many people.

Though I’m still determined to find them and bring them home before they end up like Carolee.

But losing Ariel would be like losing Rosie. My stomach knots at the fear I’ve already broken her trust, that she won’t love me anymore. As Two pointed out last night, sometimes a person’s love can be broken. Not mine, but I wouldn’t blame her.

As much as I want to barge in and ask if we are okay and if she can forgive me, she’s still in the bath. A vibration on the kitchen counter has me grabbing my phone.

A text from Ariel.

Ariel