Despite the earlier hostilities and her growing dread at the conversation that still loomed before her, Katie could not hold back chuckles as she watched Riley practically inhale a small bowl of shrimp. Katie had just polished off a jammed piece of toast, but Riley was shovelling her food in with no regard for manners. She did not even seem to recognize that others were watching her. She supposed that she could not blame Riley; she had to be starving after everything that had happened.

They had taken a snack break after Katie had been given introductions and given the details on everything else that had happened over the last several days. But Katie knew they could not linger in this limbo forever. Sooner or later, she would have to face her fears.

But for now, Riley’s bowl of shrimp looked incredibly enticing. Katie was not certain if it was simply that she was still hungry, or if a new craving for seafood had awoken in her, but she found herself reaching out across the gap between her and the bowl. Riley glowered at her from the corner of her eye as Katie’s hand got closer to her meal. The other Mer hunched over the bowl, curling an arm protectively around it and pulling it further from Katie’s grasp. A low warning growl rose in her throat, though Riley’s scent was still warm and sweet to the taste.

“Give me one,” Katie protested as she leaned closer.

“Get your own,” Riley countered with a huff as she pulled the bowl even closer to herself and further from Katie.

“Just one,” Katie argued. She leaned over the table and forced her hand into a gap between Riley’s arm and chin. She just barely had time to yank away before Riley snapped at her. Her jaws clacked together harmlessly, but Katie had narrowly avoided the retaliation. She stuck her tongue out at Riley and popped the shrimp – shell and all – into her mouth and crunched it between her molars. “Thank you,” she teased around a full mouth.

Riley hissed at her. “Everything I did for you and this is how you thank me?”

Katie puffed her cheeks up so she would not accidentally spew food as she stuck her tongue out at Riley, who only growled again in response.

“Katie, there’s more in the fridge if you’re still hungry and would like a bowl,” her mom offered.

Katie shrugged and nudged Riley beneath the table. “That is alright,” she refused. “I only wanted the one.”

Riley huffed and shifted her weight before resuming her meal, though it made Katie laugh and puff with pride that Riley continued to shoot her wary glances, as though she expected Katie to lunge for the bowl again. Katie did not think she would get away with it a second time, however, so she forced herself to take a breath and finally focus on the task at hand.

She swallowed the painful lump in her throat and winced as it grated all the way down. “Umm…I do not think I can avoid asking any longer…what happens now?”

Beside her, Riley’s crunching stopped abruptly and Katie saw her glance up too. Katie searched the faces of the people around the table. Ixion and Rebecca – who had joined them midway through introductions – were both returning her gaze, while Lewis leaned forward in his seat and twiddled his thumbs. None of the three newcomers made a move to speak, so it was Sophie who broke the awkward silence.

“Katie…you know that what comes next for you is a choice you have to make for yourself. What do you want to do?”

The way her throat constricted, Katie could barely breathe, and when she attempted to speak, it came out in a croak. She coughed and shook her head. “I…I do not know,” her voice cracked as she spoke. She wrapped her arms around herself and bowed her head. Her short strands fell into her face and her eyes began to sting and water. “Nothing has changed.”

“A choice does not have to be permanent,” Riley offered. There was a whisper to her tone.

“She’s right,” Lewis agreed. “You could go back and forth.”

Katie shook her head. “I do not want that either. A journey like that…I would still have to spend so much time always separated from someone I love.”

Katie chewed her lip and remained staring at her scales until Riley reached out and curled her fingers around her forearm. At that point, she forced herself to gaze across into the pale irises of the other Mer. Any lingering playful aggression from earlier had vanished from Riley’s softened expression. “No one can choose for you, Katie. This has to be your decision, your life.”

Katie sucked in a breath. She did not want Luna to leave without her, but so much more of her life was here. She could not imagine leaving it all behind, especially after what she had admitted – the choices she had made for herself – only hours prior. It felt cruel to ask, but a question weighed heavily on her tongue and demanded to be voiced. “If…if I did go with them…would you come with me?”

Instantly, Riley’s gaze clouded and her straight posture wavered for half a heartbeat. But when she spoke, she did not hesitate. “Yes.”

As soon as she spoke, Rebecca’s gaze whipped to Riley. Katie watched Riley turn and return the stare. She lifted her chin and did not say anything. There seemed to be a silent conversation going on between the two. Then Rebecca’s smile softened.

But Katie felt her heart squeeze. “I could not make you do that,” she muttered. “And I do not truly want to leave. I…do not want to go, but I do not want to be left behind either.”

When Rebecca cleared her throat, Katie flinched and hesitantly glanced back at Luna’s mother. “Katie, do not swim in circles,” she instructed. “This is a discussion about your future. Yours, Luna’s, all of our lives are going to be affected. But you must decide what it is that you do want. Now is the time to be selfish and ask for it, no matter how impossible or unkind you think the requests might be. I cannot promise your desires will be fulfilled, but we cannot move forward until you speak your heart. What do you want?”

Katie wrung her fingers and chewed on her lip some more. What did she want? She had pushed off this conversation, had made so many assumptions about choices she would have to make, that she was not even sure she had actually stopped to consider what she actually wanted to decide. “I want to learn to be a Mer,” she stated finally. “I want to learn properly. I cannot change that it is a major part of who I am and I cannot properly choose how I want to live my life if I do not understand half of myself.”

Ixion jerked his chin at her and offered her a reassuring smile. “It might take some time, but we can teach you all that you would need to know.”

“Thank you.”

“What else?” Sophie prompted.

Katie chewed on her lip. Learning about the new half of her culture would be a massive relief. She wanted to stop feeling so confused and like something was missing. Despite everything she had been through and the friends and routines she had made, she still felt like an outsider. She had grown comfortable with using her tail and getting around in the water and on land, but it still felt foreign. Her life had a hazy quality to it and she wanted to fix it. But voicing all of those desires would be pointless, it was the same thing.

It was not until Riley started to chuckle that Katie realized she had been staring at her. She blushed and glanced away. There was that, too. She wanted to explore her feelings more, but she hoped that would come with her first request, and it did not need to be voiced just yet. She coughed and cleared her throat, and kept her gaze trained on her scales so that she would not have to risk meeting any potential gazes. She was not ready for that conversation yet.

That did not leave her with many items left on her list. All at once, her stress and anxieties came flooding back, and her shoulders slumped. She supposed it was time to admit it. She shook her head. “And I do not want to have to choose between the two halves of my family. I want my family to be whole and together. We have been through too much and I cannot make a choice like that, no matter how much time I might have to do it.”

“You want Luna to stay,” Rebecca clarified.

Katie shook her head and rubbed at her stinging eyes. “No. I want you all to stay, or us all to go…I do not know. I do not know how it would be possible, but I hate that after everything else, Luna and I cannot just merge the two lives we have to choose between. It is not fair,” Katie whimpered. “That is what I want; for my family to be whole…but that is not possible, is it?”

Katie gulped at the heavy lump lodged in her throat and her tears were hot against her flesh as they flowed down her cheeks. She bit her lip to suppress sobs, but it manifested in quakes that caused her sail to twitch and thump against the back of the chair. She had been forced to leave too many family members without the chance to say ‘goodbye’ to them. Her father, Roxanne, Sophie and Lewis and everyone she knew and loved when she was abducted, and again when they had to leave her behind and she had been forced to pretend nothing was wrong…she could not find it in her heart to watch anyone else that she loved leave, or to have to leave them. She refused to choose that.

Beneath the table, she felt the feather-light touch of Riley’s fingers against her wrist before the other Mer clasped their hands together. Katie clung desperately to that grip, as she squeezed Riley’s hand so tightly that her fingers began to ache. She imagined it had to be hurting Riley’s hand too, but her friend did not complain or pull away. Grasping Riley’s hand felt like a lifeline and helped her take a few shuddering breaths before she found the courage to look up again.

She found Rebecca’s gaze first and unexpectedly, her dark brown gaze was filled with tears and her face had pinched up around her eyes and nose. Her lip quivered as she spoke. “It is not impossible, but the only way…is if Luna stays here.” She closed her eyes and her shoulders fell. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks and she shook her head. “I love my daughter; I love her so much. I want nothing more than to take her home, help her heal, and be a family again. But she is no longer mine to take or keep. Loathe as I am to accept it, we failed her and she grew up without us.”

Katie shook her head. “She does not think that; you did not fail her and she does not blame you.”

Rebecca inclined her head and shrugged. “It is sweet of you to say, Katie, but it does not make the truth any less so. I cannot change what happened in the past, but I do want what is best for my children. Ixion and I have been away from our pod for too long, and Karina and Nero need a stable environment to raise their son. But I will not ask a young woman whose life has been torn apart to leave her family behind, and I will not force my daughter to say goodbye to her sister.”

“But Luna would not want this,” Katie protested. Bile rose in her throat and she felt the fingers of her free hand begin to shake. Riley’s grip tightened around those of her other one and Katie squeezed back. “And neither do I. This is not keeping our family whole, it is just shifting the sacrifice to others. This decision has been choking me for weeks now. I cannot put that on Luna. I will not.”

“I do not think there is another choice,” Rebecca replied. She raised a hand to wipe a few tears from her cheeks.

“No,” Ixion refused beside her. His dark gaze had narrowed dangerously and he shook his head and curled his fingers into a fist resting on the table. “That is not an option, Rebecca.”

As he spoke, his mate twisted to look up at him with parted lips. “Ixion?”

“I will not leave Luna behind,” he refused with a hiss.

“Ixion, we cannot force her to leave Katie and Katie does not wish to come with us. Anyone can see that. The only thing that makes this choice hard for her is that she does not want to be without Luna. And you were the one that first said she will not stay with us if Katie does not come. I agree. We are her family and I know she has been overjoyed to be with us, but her loyalties lie with the people she has grown a new identity with. I will not force either of them to be miserable in a pod simply to make myself feel better about having her close!” Rebecca’s chest heaved and she beat a fist against the table. “The last thing I want is to leave her behind.”

“Then do not,” Ixion argued.

“We may not have a choice, Ixion,” Rebecca protested. “She has a life and people she cares about here. I just held her while all the pain of possibly losing that spilled from her. I will not condemn her to live with that pain.”

Katie chewed her lip. She was beginning to feel out of place in the room. This argument felt personal and she did not want to intrude. She also could not evade feeling guilty. She had caused this, but she did not know how to fix it.

Ixion shook his head. “I am not suggesting we force her to leave, only that we do not leave her behind. I would rather stay here than go back without our daughter.”

“Ixion, you know that we cannot do that.”

“Why not?”

Rebecca shook her head and bared her teeth at him. Katie leaned back in her seat. She knew all couples disagreed, but seeing the two Mer mates fight was frightening. Ixion and Rebecca have always seemed so level-headed and calm to her. “You know why we cannot,” Rebecca growled. “Our grandson needs the security of a pod and a reef to grow and learn. I will not ask his parents to risk his future, nor will I send them away alone. I will not ask Karina to lose a second family. Our family has loved and supported us and we them for a long time, and abandoning them now would leave them without a healer and dwindle their numbers of capable hunters. We cannot because despite her flaws, Iliene is my sister and I need her. And for all the reasons we went with them when our pod tore in half. Nothing has changed, Ixion.”

Once again, Ixion shook his head. His low, rumbling growl began to echo in the room. It made Katie’s scales prickle with unease. “When that storm hit and Nero did not return from the hunt, I felt so much guilt. He had been in so much danger and I had not been there to help him. I imagined only death or grave injury would have prevented his return, envisioned he died suffering or was slowly starving to death somewhere. It is what drove me to go find him. The not knowing for sure ate at my soul.”

“I know,” Rebecca acknowledged. Her tone had softened and she reached out to cup his face.

He caught her hand in his and held onto it. “To come home without those answers and learn that Kera was gone too, that you were left alone to grieve twice over, that guilt doubled. To never know the fate of either of our children, to lose them both, was the hardest thing I have ever endured. They both had to survive terrible traumas in their absence. I am glad Nero found Karina and that Luna was not entirely alone in the end, but the risks they both faced…” He growled again and his fingers began twitching in and out of clenched fists.

“I remember,” Rebecca reminded. She cupped his face. “You were not alone in your pain, Ixion. Why are you reliving it now?”

“Because we were incredibly lucky. Not all who lose a child are blessed with their return. Nero came back to us and grew our family. Now we have the second chance to see our little girl grow and discover dreams of her own. I will not squander that second chance, Rebecca.”

Rebecca hissed and twisted her gaze away, but when Katie inhaled, she could taste the sour emotions rolling off Luna’s mother. “I want that chance too, Ixion, but that does not change that we are pulled in two different directions. How do we abandon our daughter or our pod? And what about Karina and Nero? They will not be comfortable here. I do not know what else to do!” Rebecca took a breath, but when she began to speak again, it was in a low language that buzzed in Katie’s ears. She did not understand what was said, but Ixion responded just as easily in the same low tones.

Katie did not like the idea of eavesdropping, but it was hard to contain her confused curiosity. She leaned closer to Riley. “What are they saying?” she whispered.

Riley shook her head. “I do not know. I have not heard this tongue before either, but I suspect it is purposeful. We perhaps should not linger while they argue. It feels wrong to sit in silently on a private argument.”

“I agree,” Sophie decided as she came around the table. “Come on, let’s go find Luna and give everyone a moment to cool off. We’ll get this all sorted out after.”

“Okay,” Riley agreed readily.

Katie sighed with relief. She had not wanted to be the one to voice it, but she was glad for an emotional reprieve. She did not feel anything had been gained and that was making her feel even worse. She just wished there was a way to give everyone what they wanted. She needed to stay with her family, but she desperately wanted to remain with Luna too. Luna needed her family and they needed her, but they also had obligations to the rest of their pod. It was too much of a journey for any of them to easily go back and forth, but it was not like Rebecca and Ixion’s entire pod could come stay at the house, there was hardly enough room and she did not imagine they would be comfortable here, they needed a reef or other safe ocean environment.

As the thought struck her, Katie paused. Riley had already slipped out of her chair, and Lewis was making his way around too. Instead of following, Katie twisted back around. “Umm…Rebecca?” she called cautiously.

The emerald Mer abruptly cut off whatever she had been saying and turned to meet Katie’s gaze. Her face was pinched and her eyes narrowed, but she forced a patient smile. “Yes?”

Katie took a breath. “I am sorry to interrupt,” she apologized. “But…you told me to be selfish right now…right?”

“What is it?” Rebecca pressed.

“I do not know much about your pod or where you live, but Riley mentioned you migrate a lot, right? Or at least, you used to move around a lot?”

“That was before our pod split up,” Ixion sighed. “We are settled now, our numbers are too small to safely sustain nomadic life.”

Katie chewed her lip. “Theoretically…if there was another place that was secure and plentiful, would your pod be willing to move closer, perhaps? I do not wish to leave my family or live permanently in the ocean and I do not want to leave Luna or have her get left behind. But I feel part of what makes going back and forth so daunting is just how far away it seems to be. A dangerous trip, alone…it feels like I would have to stay and leave for such long periods that it is not truly a solution…but if the journey were a lot faster, it would not be so bad. I know that is a huge request and I do not even know if there is anywhere suitable close by, but…”

“It is not a bad idea,” Rebecca offered. Her lips were pursed and she tucked her chin as she stared past Katie. “We would have to do some scouting, but our pod would probably move if we asked. Our current home, while safe and secluded, forces our hunting parties to travel a lot further for food. It keeps them gone longer and causes hunger to fester. It is not dangerously so, but the opportunity to find more abundant territory would be taken eagerly. I do not know if it is doable, but it is worth considering.”

“More than worth considering,” Ixion agreed. “I will take on the task myself.”

When Devin cleared her throat, Katie spooked. They had been so silent through the discussion, that Katie had forgotten she, Carson, and Az were even in the room. “I think I can help with that. But the rest of you go on still if you’d like. It’s a nice day and there’s no sense wasting it holed up debating conflict. Ixion, Rebecca, if you’re willing to hang back and go over a few maps with Carson and I, we might be able to at least start your search off.”

Ixion dipped his head. “I will stay,” he agreed. Rebecca hummed in agreement beside him but made a shooing motion at Katie.

“Go,” she urged. “Check on Luna for me.”

Katie took a breath and nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered. Her throat tightened and she bit her lip so that she would not start crying again. She pushed herself out of her chair onto the floor, and got herself situated back on the scooter board she had come in on.

Her mom was holding the door open for her and made a waving motion. “Come on,” she urged. “The three of us are going to have a talk.”

Just beyond the threshold of the doorway, Riley froze and glanced warily up at Sophie. Her mom’s tone had likely been the cause of the unease. Katie forced a sheepish smile. She had an idea of what might be coming.