“Well, you seem all right. And I mean, how can I be mad when they brought you right to me?” He smiled.
I snorted. Smooth.
His smile was genuine, and considering this was the first time she had looked at him all morning, I couldn’t really blame him.
Hip and I hopped in the back and we were off down the road. Atalanta sat in the front seat, probably sporting a pout on her face while Hip and I were talking about the new Kingdom Hearts game that had just come out.
“Before we forget,” Theseus said before reaching into the back for a bag of bandages and handing it to Atalanta. “We should make sure you’re all wrapped up.”
I leaned over to see her better and watched as she stared at her clawed hands, the frown on her face deepening. I had an inkling that she was sinking back into the slump we had just pulled her from.
Acting on instinct, I unbuckled my seatbelt and leaned into the front, taking the bandages from her and booping her on the nose.
She looked up from her hands to stare at me, the all too familiar shadows darkening her eyes.
“It’ll be fun. Like dressing up as a mummy for Halloween,” I whispered. It was the best thing I could think of.
“We passed Halloween.”
“It’s never too early to test out costumes.” Hip threw out, catching on.
“Exactly.” I pulled out one of the bandages and began to wrap it around her wrist. “See, you’re way ahead of us. I normally have my costume picked out by December.”
She squinted her eyes at me. “You choose your Halloween costume for next year right after halloween?”
“Of course.” I said confidently.
She giggled, the sound of it lightening the weight that had settled in my chest.
“You’re so weird.”
I stuck my tongue out at her and watched as those shadows receded. I happily helped her cover up the rest of her visible scales. Her hands were a problem though, as we didn’t have the mittens she had worn yesterday. And we were just pulling into the parking lot of our destination.
She looked around, wide-eyed and curious. “An aquarium?”
“Yep,” I smiled, trying not to sound worried since we couldn’t let her walk in with her hands like that.
As soon as Theseus pulled into a spot, I hopped out of the car and opened the passenger door.
I took her hands into mine. “Do you think you can try relaxing that little ball in your chest?”
She gazed down at our linked hands and shook her head. “I don’t know, Jason. I wish I had known so we could have brought Cal’s…Cal’s gloves.”
Hip hummed. “Hmmm, yeah, we messed up a bit on that. But we wanted to bring you someplace fun. Get your mind off things.”
“Like Ajax said, you just need to relax.” I said.
“I don’t think I can do it.”
“Perhaps it’s not about her relaxing.” Hip suggested as he leaned over into the front seat and began to rub Atalanta’s back.
Theseus, who had come to stand next to me, whispered, “Maybe it’s about trust.”
“Trust…” I echoed quietly before kneeling down in front of her. “I was born a Merman. Grew up as one my whole life.”
Her face scrunched up, confused. “And? I knew that already.”
“The day I saw you in the hall. The day we met, I was pretty freaked out that you had seen me drinking the salt water. It’s not that I wanted to lie to you. But I’ve been trained since birth to keep what I am hidden, so pretending you were just imagining things was my natural response. I also thought you were cute. And I really liked the strong and confident girl who confronted me without hesitation. But I did lie to you, and I kept lying to you.”
“Jason—” she started, but I held up my hand for her to stop.
“I’m just as bad as he is,” Theseus piped in before I could tell her the rest. “I know I apologized for this already, but I shouldn’t have pretended you were crazy. Yes, it was salt water in that bottle, and yes, my voice was what was causing your mind to go all fuzzy. But I swear I never used my abilities on you. At least not on purpose. The day we met I was singing to myself and I’m sure that effected you. It’s why you probably felt so comfortable around me. It wears off, though, so I don’t want you thinking that I have you under some spell.”
I looked over at Hip, who was still massaging Atalanta’s back. Silently prompting him to hop on this truth train I had started. He shrugged. “I never lied to her about anything.”
I frowned and glanced back at Theseus, who wore the same expression as me.
A teary eyed Atalanta giggled and sniffed. “It’s true. He might not have told me the truth but he never really lied to me. That’s more my fault, I guess.” She looked back at Hip. “You are more the type who will only answer direct questions.”
Hip shrugged again. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She rolled her eyes and smiled.
I squeezed her hands. “I want us to start trusting each other. Really trusting each other. Because I’m in this for the long haul.”
Her smile fell. “There are things about me that you don’t know. That I don’t think I can tell you yet.”
I nodded. “That’s okay. You can tell us your secrets when you're ready.”
“It’s not okay and you know it.” She scolded, her jaw clenched and fangs showing through her scowl. “We keep pushing things off. And I can't just expect you to tell me the truth and then keep my mouth shut.”
I tilted my head. “Well then, how about one truth. One secret that we know, and you can share one secret you know?”
“Th-that sounds fair.” she nodded.
I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before saying, "We know about the files, Atalanta.”
Chapter Seven
Hip
There. Someone had finally said it. From the moment I’d seen that file, I had been itching with the curiosity to know who Atalanta North really was. I had done some digging, trying to find any trace of her online but found nothing, and I mean nothing. There was a total of one Atalanta North in the United States and that one was an old Irish woman from Tulsa.
But when our Atalanta woke up, it was clear to even Jason that she wasn’t in the right mind for us to go digging into her past. At the moment, just poking the wrong spot seem to set her off in some way. So we kept putting it off, and I was smart enough to realize that it wasn’t making things better. Yet I wasn’t the one brave enough to pop the unstable bubble we had formed.
“W-what? What file?” She stammered, her face going pale.
I swallowed the pit in my stomach and said into her ear, "The ones that hold your fake identities. You, your father…and your sister. I found them the night of the storm.”
She twisted around to look at me. “You had no right!”
“It wasn’t like I was purposefully digging for it. I found them—”
She cut me off with a growl. “You found them while going through our stuff. You may not have been looking for those files, but you were still looking for something. They weren’t just laying out on the counter.”
My eyes flicked to the guys, hoping for some help. Their expressions matched mine. Deer in headlights. “I was nervous. You were unconscious and I didn’t know what to do with myself and before I knew it I was digging through your stuff.”
“You’re nosy, is what you are.”
Shoving us out of the way, Atalanta hopped out of the car. I scrambled out after her, readying myself for a chase. She just paced back and forth on the snowy pavement though, shoulders tense, muttering under her breath. The three of us stood off to the side, fidgeting, not sure what to do.