I nod and she squeezes my shoulder. She smiles the “mother smile” before she goes into the bathroom. When I hear the shower curtain close, I pick up the phone.
Galen’s wary voice answers. “Hello?”
“Hi,” I tell him, just as wary. In the background I hear a muffled hum and wonder where he is.
He breathes a sigh into the phone. “Emma.” The way he says my name hurts me and excites me at the same time. Hurts, because what if Mom’s right, and he’s using me? Excites, because what if she’s wrong, and he really does care about me enough to sound like my calling him completed his life? “What happened?” he says.
Before I can answer, I hear Rayna in the background. “I already told you what happened. Her mother is crazy as a caught fish.”
I snicker, but then peek at the bathroom in guilt. Lowering my voice, I say, “Yeah, pretty much. We’re at a hotel in…”
I fumble through the nightstand drawer as quietly as I can, looking for the usual motel stationery. Picking up the notepad, I tell him, “I’m in Uptown. At the Budget Motel.”
“I know,” he says. “Rachel tracked you down by your mom’s credit card. We’re on our way.” Of course Rachel found us. Being an ex-mobster makes you a Swiss Army knife of Skills People Shouldn’t Know. I just didn’t realize she would do it this fast. I won’t underestimate her again.
It sounds like Galen covers the phone with his hand. I hear something clink in the bathroom and I shove the notepad back in the drawer. “I don’t have a lot of time,” I whisper into the phone. “Mom’s in the shower, but she’ll be out soon.” I realize Mom takes short showers, not because she’s a busy ER nurse who’s eternally on call, but because, like me, she can’t enjoy the luxury of hot water. Her Syrena skin is too thick to feel the heat. For her—and for me now—showering is just a matter of hygiene. There is no lingering for enjoyment anymore.
“Galen,” I blurt. “Mom thinks Grom is dead. She thinks you’re going to arrest her for his murder.” I’d meant to keep that a secret until I could see his reaction in person, but the bigger part of me couldn’t keep it in. Now I’ve given him a chance to come up with a good story and make it sound believable. You know, if he’s not already telling the truth.
Silence. Then, “Emma, Grom is sitting next to me. He’s not dead. Why would she think that?” There’s a weirdness to his voice though. Something feels off. Or does it? Am I being hyper-paranoid?
“I don’t have time to explain. I think she just turned the shower off.”
“Do you think she’d believe it if she talked to him on the phone?”
I think about that for a second. It’s possible we could end this madness right now. Put Grom on the phone and have him chitchat with her until she’s satisfied it’s him. But Mom’s so adamant that Galen can’t be trusted that she’d probably just write it off as a trick. Then she’d know that I called Galen, and she wouldn’t trust me anymore, either. And she’d know Galen has a way of tracking us. The best way is to bring Grom to her in the flesh—if Grom really is alive.
It hurts to have to think in that context. That Galen could be lying and tricking me as well. Which is why physical proof—a walking blob of Grom DNA—is needed. “She won’t believe it’s him. You have to bring him to us.”
He lets out a gust of air into the phone. “Emma, listen to me,” he says, and stupidly, I press the phone tighter to my ear. “I need you to stall your mom. We’re about two hours away from you. Don’t let her take off again.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, it was stupid of me to let her drug me that last time. Really should have seen that one coming.”
I can almost hear Galen grin. “Be good, angelfish. We’ll be there soon.”
I hang up the phone and stare at it for a couple of seconds, at the dirt crusted around each number. This phone, this decaying hotel room, has probably seen a lot of things in its time. But I doubt it’s heard a conversation like that. A conversation in which a fish prince is trying to hunt down a dead fish princess and her half-human daughter using the stealth of an ex-mobster.
“I’d hoped we could trust each other, sweetie.”
I startle at Mom, who’s standing by the bathroom door, arms crossed. Fully dressed. Fully dry. The shower is still going full blast. She must have heard everything. “You don’t know for sure he’s lying,” I tell her, trying not to visibly gulp.
“Pack up. We’re leaving.”
“Grom’s in the car with Galen.” I pick up the phone again and point the earpiece at her. “You could talk to him if you don’t believe me.”
She walks over to me and takes the phone. She stares at it long enough for the receiver to start an impatient out-of-order buzz. She slams it down on the receiver. “It’s just a trick, Emma. Pack up.”
“I’m not going.”
“Oh, but you are.”
It’s the first time I realize my mom could probably take me in a tussle. She’s full-blooded Syrena. Her bones are harder, her skin ticker, her build more muscular. She fought off Galen and Toraf. Plus, there’s this look in her eye right now. A survival-instinct kind of look. A make-the-hard-choice kind of look. And she’s already proven to what lengths she’ll go to keep me “safe.”