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Author's Note:Someone just messaged me earlier about Ch.10 and a continuation of this story. I actually wrote 10 whole chapters before stopping. I planned on writing more before posting this one but my venture into Whateley got in the way back in August and I never got back to it. I'm hoping to get back soon but I got a little stumped after finishing this one. I do have a solid plan in place for the rest of it though :). I'd like to thank Nyssa for her great editing :).

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10.

“Cassie Young?”

I was holding the ID in front of me, scrutinizing it intently. The girl in the picture barely looked like me. It said she was 18 too. All of this was too much, too fast. It was all a part of her grand plan though. The plan she came up with two days ago, right after she told me we had to run. We didn’t get very far though. We left the beach and ended up in a little motel not too far away. Eilish told me that hiding in plain sight sometimes worked best. It also gave her some much needed time to plan our next move. A plan that involved fake IDs and a lot of cash.

“Where did you get all that money again?”

She was in the process of sorting out several hundred-dollar bills into two neat piles.

She sighed. “The bank.”

“Wait, you didn’t...”

I looked toward the door of our dingy room, waiting for the police to kick it down any minute.

She laughed. “From my safety deposit box!”

It made sense.

How old did she say she was again?

Over 200 right? Which meant she probably had a lot of money. She told me last night when we got here that she traveled around a lot. She traveled light, usually in a van or some kind of jeep. When she paid for the room for a few nights in cash I was a bit surprised. All she would tell me then was not to worry about it. Now I knew why. She must have had cash stored all over the place. Being as old as she was, she probably moved around a lot. I still didn’t really understand it all.

Even after she tried to explain more.

“You age slower than humans…?”

She nodded, putting some of the cash in a duffel. “We age slower than humans. It's hard to know how slow, but let’s just say my boobs have been this perky for a long time and leave it at that."

I looked down at my own chest, suddenly very embarrassed.

I had so many more questions now.

My brain was still trying to wrap around the idea that she looked so young.

She frowned, sensing my confusion. “I’m not going to lie. It doesn’t get easier.”

She stopped sorting money and reached for another bag nearby. A moment later, she pulled out a stack of passports. She laid them on the bed one at a time. There were at least twenty or so there. I stared.

“We can’t stay in one place long, we can’t be one person long. It takes about a decade for people to notice, sometimes longer if we’re lucky. It was harder after I turned. All my friends started to age faster than me. Our Dad was no help. Thankfully I had your Mom. Celeste was great. If it wasn’t for her I’m not sure what I would have done. We tried to stay around, but people started to notice. Dad knew of course. Leaving him was the hardest thing we ever had to do...”

“Did you ever go back?”

She nodded. “Once, toward the end of his life. We kept our distance, but we watched him. He remarried, started another family. We never resented him for it. We were happy for him. He had people to grow old with, people to take care of him. I’ve tried to keep in touch with them, generally from afar… make sure they’re all right...”

Wow, that had to be hard.

I could only imagine…

No, I didn’t need to imagine.

It was now my life too.

I raised the fake ID, taking another look. Was this my new life now? How long would I have to pretend to be this girl before burning her away in a fire barrel? What about the next? What about all the ones that came after? If I lived as long as Eilish claimed, would I lose myself to time? What about my friends and family? Tori was human. Her parents. I’m not sure I could sit by and watch them die. I could tell them the truth, but would it be fair to them if they knew? Could I even tell them the truth knowing that it might put them in danger?

“Wow, that’s a heavy face.”

Eilish reached over and grabbed my hands. “I’m pretty sure I know what you’re thinking,” she said, giving my hands a squeeze. “I’ve been there. When it comes to loved ones, cherish the time you have with them. It's not ideal, but it's better than the alternative.”

I nodded slowly, but I had a thought. “Have you ever tried staying?”

She sighed. She didn’t say anything though.

Her silence was enough.

She held my hands for a while, but neither of us said a thing. For a few minutes, you could almost hear a pin drop in the room.

Finally she let out a forced laugh. “Way to kill the mood, kid.”

I chuckled.

More silence but not as a long.

“Ok then. I want to show you something important.”

She took me by the hands and gently led me toward the bathroom. It was one of those tiny motel bathrooms, barely big enough for the two of us, but we managed. She stood me in front of the mirror. I was still a little surprised to see that face when I looked at my own reflection. It was hard to connect the pretty blonde girl with me.

“Take a good look, what do you see?”

I frowned. “Me.”

“What else?”

I looked from me to her. I didn’t notice it before, but she looked a lot like me. Well, the new me. Her blonde hair was a little lighter and longer, and her eyes were blue, but I could see the family resemblance. Except of course for the ring in her nose. She was also wearing way too much eye makeup. But she was my aunt, there was no question about that. Except of course that she looked young enough to be an older sister.

“Us?” I asked, after a few seconds of reflecting.

She laughed, nudging my side. “Well, I see two totally bodacious babes ready to take on the world!”

I laughed. Eilish had an affectionately carefree attitude.

I couldn’t help but frown though.

“You’re frowning again. You gotta stop doing that, kiddo. I get it, trust me. It’s hard to get used to. It's not going to change. Well, not without help, anyway...”

I was about to ask her what she meant when something happened.

My mouth dropped open as Eilish’s reflection changed before my eyes.

Gone was the spunky blonde with the ring in her nose. In her place was a cute redhead with a smattering of freckles across her nose and bright green eyes.

This new girl giggled.

A second later, she was gone.

In her place was a black girl with tight cornrows.

Then an asian girl a chin-length bob.

She transformed into various other girls, all of different ethnicity and size. Finally, she turned back into herself, smiling as she did so.

“What was...how did…?”

She touched her necklace. “This is not just a piece of shiny jewelry you know.”

I looked at my wrist, at my bracelet.

“Like I said before,” she continued. “It’s the source of our mana. Not only does it allow us to form a tail while in water, it also allows us to use a Glamour to hide and blend in.”

“We can turn into different people?”

“Yes and no,” she said, turning back into the redhead. When she spoke again, even her voice sounded different.”There are limits. Those girls you saw me transform into, they’re only for me. I can try to be someone else...” She transformed into a copy of me. “But you’ll find it doesn’t last very long.”

She didn’t turn back right away, but it happened on its own about a minute or two later.

It was still mind blowing.

It made sense though.

“So all those passports are you?”

She nodded. “There’s IDs too. These faces are for emergencies though. Transforming like that takes a lot out of us. I can only do it so often and quickly because of practice. It's another one of the limitations I’m afraid.”

I nodded.

I think I understood.

It was the freakiest thing I ever saw. It got me thinking though. If she could change like that, did it mean I could too? If I could, then did that mean I could turn back to myself? My real self. Not this female version of me, but the male version I want to be.

“Do you think you could teach me how to do that?”

She smiled. “Thinking about the old you?”

Wow, was mind reading one of her powers?

She sighed heavily. “I can teach you, but you have to understand something too. There’s no going back. This form,” she said, poking me in the boob. “This is you. We’re called Daughters of the Sea for a reason, kiddo. There’s no sons or brothers. Trust me, I know...”

Wait, did that mean?

I sighed.

Maybe this ability wasn’t as cool after all.

I practiced well into the night.

It definitely wasn’t as easy as Eilish made it look. After about five hours though, I did manage to make myself look somewhat like Cassie Young from my fake ID. Eilish kept checking on me, giving me pointers when she could. She also made me take tiny breaks. Expending mana like I was, it took its toll. After first I didn’t know what she meant, but after a few dizzy spells, I caught on pretty quick. During my lessons, I asked questions when I could. I wanted to know everything about us. About me. She answered what she could. She talked about her childhood with my mother and where they grew up.

I was actually surprised to discover they weren’t American.

“So Eilish wasn’t a name that you randomly picked then?” I asked as we were walking out of the bathroom for another break.

She shook her head. “It belonged to me Mum,” she said, letting her accent slip in.

“Did she leave you guys too?”

Instead of answering, she took me by the hands and led me over to one of the beds. We sat on the corner of it. For a minute or two, she stared off into space. There was sadness in her voice when she answered, “Being who we are is no easy thing. We mate for life. When we meet the man we know we’re going to have a child with, we feel it in our bones. It's a Calling. Most of our kind can go centuries before the Calling takes us, for others it’s very quick. That was our Mum. She met Da shortly after changing. She didn’t really know how to handle things back then. Like you, there was no one there to guide her at first. She was lost and confused. When she had a pair of twins, something very rare for us, everyone was so excited. She couldn’t cope. After she left us with Da, she...”

A tear ran down Eilish’s cheek.

She didn’t have to say.

I understood.

I gave her hand a squeeze and hugged her tight.

I held her for a while. I waited until she calmed a bit before I asked about the twin thing.

“I thought you said Mom was the older sister?”

She laughed. “Oh she was, by about five minutes. She never let me live it down!”

She talked a bit about my mother and their childhood again. She was pretty vague about a lot of things though. Mostly her. It wasn’t my place to pry, but her earlier words got me thinking. She was a boy like me once. It was pretty obvious. It was the way she talked about it. How she knew what I was feeling and the longing I could hear in her voice. I quickly started to realize talking about these things was painful for her, so I asked more questions about my mother. She brightened up when she spoke about Mom.

“Celeste was a firecracker,” she said with a laugh. “Well is a firecracker. It's been so long...”

I squeezed her hand, realizing I needed to change subjects again and quick. “How many of us are there?”

“Merrows?” I nodded, she shrugged. “From what Celeste and I were told, there’s several families. Some are larger and have more importance than others. It depends on the place and region. We have territories, but we’re not overly territorial. Our kind are generally not hostile toward one another.”

The way she said “generally” though made me think.

“Are there bad Merrows?”

She didn’t answer me in the way I wanted: “There are good and bad people everywhere, kiddo.”

She left it at that.

It made me think of something else.

“Those men back there, the ones who attacked us, you could have killed them, right?”

She turned away from me and looked toward the window. She stared in silence for a long time; when she answered it was simple, “Yes.”

I’d been thinking about that fight for the last couple of days now.

Growing up like I did, I wasn’t completely defenseless. There was an older boy at the group home. His name was Rodney, but we all called him Hot Rod. He was bigger and older than the rest of us, but he didn’t pick on us like he could have. He protected us. He also told us how to protect ourselves. He never told us where he learned how to fight, but he was no slouch at it. He took a great interest in me because I was so small and girly looking. I met him shortly after that incident with Tommy, after the Mitchells returned me. When Hot Rod heard about it, he told me he was going to make sure that no one pushed me around again. He did too. Every chance he got, he took me aside and taught me how to fight. This went on for about two years or so. Then he turned eighteen and left us, left me. I remember crying for a while, but then life came into perspective for me. Shortly after I started the whole Emo thing and stopped caring. Later, I heard that Hot Rod had joined the Army. I was happy for him. He always talked about going out and seeing the world. I thought about him from time to time, especially when I was in that helicopter fighting.

A lot of what Hot Rod had taught me had come back then.

If not for him, I probably wouldn’t have been sitting here in this room.

Sure, it was all a sloppy mess but I was still free.

It got me thinking though. I really needed to defend myself. I saw the way she did it, and I knew she had had training. She said she was over one hundred years old so it was probably a lot of training. Training I could desperately need if these people didn’t stop chasing me. The thing was, I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject with her. Especially after she told me she probably could have killed those men. There was no remorse when she said it. It made me wonder if she had done it before?

Finally I took a chance. “Who taught you how to fight like that?”

She laughed. “So many questions….”

She didn’t answer though.

She made some excuse about having to get our gear ready. I sighed, but like before, I didn’t press it. She was a very guarded person and I respected that. I watched as she continued to pack the money and some spare clothes into a pair of waterproof daypacks. I guess she thought it was easier than the duffels. I tried to preoccupy myself with watching her because I didn’t have anything else to do. She had agreed to let me keep my laptop, but it was but worthless now. The only way I was allowed to keep it was to fry the hard drive. I wasn’t happy, but she told me they’d be able to track us if we didn’t. She had taken it into town with her yesterday. She never said where, but when she brought it back, it was like a giant paperweight.

Looking at it sitting on the table near the door, I couldn’t help but think about Tori.

She was probably flipping out.

How many days had it been now?

Five? Six?

I lost track.

If I knew my sister, and I did, she was probably going nuts. After one day, she was probably ballistic. Without my phone and laptop now, I had no way to tell her I was all right. I tried to bring this up with Eilish, but she told me it was better this way. The two of us needed to run and disappear. That meant no more contact with our old lives. The thing was, it wasn’t that simple. Tori wasn’t just someone in my old life I could easily forget. She was my sister. Even after all the things I’d been through, all I could really think about was her. I needed to talk to her. I needed to see if she was ok. I needed to tell her that I was ok.

Even if she didn’t know it was me.

Making up my mind, I checked the clock on the wall.

The sun was just going down.

There was a phone at the front desk. I saw it when we arrived.

I bit my lip. “Elle, you think I can take a walk?”

She asked me to call her “Elle” earlier.

She narrowed her eyes. “It's getting dark.”

“I’m going stir crazy in here. I wasn’t going to walk very far. Just around the parking lot or something. You have any idea what it's like to be cooped up in here for two days straight?”

I was hoping it was enough. After all, she got to leave the room numerous times already. She said me going out was too dangerous. We discovered the other day how far Bishop was willing to go to “acquire” me. Last night there was a story on the news, they were flashing my school photo across the screen. They said that I, Cassidy Parker, was kidnapped, and wanted for questioning in my kidnapping were two women. Those two women were us, well, Eilish and my new self. They showed an artist rendering of Eilish but they had a fairly decent photo of my new face. Neither one of us were sure how they got it, but there it was.

Eilish went paranoid.

That’s why I now had a new ID.

It was also probably why she was so hellbent on teaching me how to change my face.

The thing was. It was night now. I didn’t plan on going anywhere where people could see me. I just needed to use a phone, call Tori, and let her know I’m all right. Easy peasy. I knew it was a risk, but I had to make sure that she was ok. I was worried about her. I also had to let her know that I wasn’t kidnapped or whatever. I would make a quick call, no one would know.

I waited for her response.

It was quick and damning.

“No.”

Now, most people would have accepted that as a final answer. Not me. I pretended to accept it though.I tried to stem my boredom with the TV. I only partially succeeded. After everything I’d been through so far, most of the programming held little interest. Half the stuff was commercials anyway. After the umpteenth time seeing a Whisper Pines dairy commercial, I shut the damn thing off. Watching TV killed another few hours though. When I stopped it was around ten. She was still on the bed next to me, sorting things out. I wanted to ask her more questions, but her need to share information had clearly passed. At least information about herself. She was more than willing to talk about our plans.

“Tomorrow morning, we’ll leave bright and early,” she was saying, moving around two new bags near the door.

Like I said before, they were daypacks, small and easy to carry.

The type of thing for two girls on the run.

Two girls.

Even thinking about it made it feel wrong.

“Where are we going again?”

“Southwest,” she said, rubbing sweat from her brow. “I know a guy in Arizona who said he might be able to get us over the border. I have a cousin in Cancun, we can sort things out from there….”

She talked about the rest of our plans for a bit, but I blanked them out.

After another hour, we finally crashed.

I lay awake, waiting.

I didn’t move for another hour.

I needed to make sure that she was finally asleep. Getting up, I slid out of bed slowly. This was, after all. not the first time I’d snuck out like this. I used to be an old pro at it. At the group home, lights out happened at ten. There was a curfew too. As long as we were in our rooms by eight, they would sometimes let us stay up later. At least for kids my age anyway. It didn’t take me very long to get bored of video games and bad TV, so I used to sneak out. I got pretty good at it. There was only one guard in the whole place and I got to learn his routine pretty well.

Trying to be as quiet as possible, I slipped on a pair of my new shoes.

Eilish went shopping for me yesterday. She got me a few pairs of shoes, some shorts and some shirts. She didn’t bother with sizes, we could change to fit. She told me the clothes needed to be light and practical though. Something that I could slip on and off with ease. She also bought me a bathing suit. It was almost as if she thought I was going to go anywhere near the water again. When I told her it was a waste of time, she laughed. She told me I could try avoiding the water all I wanted but it wasn’t going to work. I didn’t believe her of course. I was my own person. I wasn’t going to let something control me. She tried to point out that’s exactly what I had been doing with my hydrophobia, but I ignored her.

As I was putting on my new sandals, she stirred awake.

“Where are you going?” she asked, half awake.

I nearly panicked.

I was quick on my feet though.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I said and grabbed the empty ice bucket. “And we’re out of ice. I’m going to the machine to get some...”

She grumbled something I couldn’t understand before dropping back to sleep.

I let out the breath I was holding.

I waited a minute or two just in case.

I started out the door, stopped and grabbed one of the day packs. They were small, but big enough for some quick essentials. I watched Eilish pack them earlier with money, some quick snacks and various passports and IDs. She called them bug-out bags, but they were a lot smaller than what I was expecting. When I mentioned it to her, she said they were only needed for a little while. Once we got where we were going and were stable, then she’d think about more needed things. She wanted to travel light, which I was more than used to. Even now, I only owned my laptop and the clothes I was wearing. Most of everything else I left behind at the bungalow. Thankfully, I wasn’t really attached to any of it.

Slinging one of the packs on my shoulder by the single strap, I slipped out of the motel room.

The night air was warm.

Which made me look like a weird freak wearing my jacket. It served a purpose though. I wanted the hood to hide my face.

I was a ‘Wanted Woman’ after all.

Slinking through the parking lot, I made my way to the little office.

The kid behind the counter was only a few years older than me. A bit overweight, covered in acne and bored as all hell. He only slightly perked up when I stepped inside.

“Hey, you think I can use your phone?” I asked, pointing to the phone on the counter.

“You don’t have a cell?”

I frowned. “It’s busted.”

Not to mention probably roasted to a crisp now.

“There’s a payphone at the convenience store down the street.”

Payphone?

I smiled and thanked him as I walked out.

No use arguing, I suppose.

I was surprised that there were even payphones left. Didn’t those things die out like last century or something?

I started walking, remembering that I saw a convenience store not too far.

When he said ‘down the street’ though, he really meant down the street.

I cursed after my nearly twenty minute walk.

Walking into the store, the dinging bell above the door announced my presence. The teenage clerk behind the counter leered at me. It made my screen crawl.

“Payphone?”

He looked surprised for a moment. “Outside, around back.”

I grunted and left.

I found it easily enough. I fed it my fifty cents and decided to call Tori’s cell first. I knew it was late but she was up a lot later than this. It rang a few times then went to voicemail. I cursed and hung up. I didn’t have a plan up to this point. I mean, she was expecting to hear from her brother after all. I definitely wasn’t him anymore. I sighed. I was NEVER going to be him again either. I was still getting used to it. How many days had it been now? Three, maybe four? It was hard to keep track. I still wasn’t freaking out about it though. I should have been having a heart attack with all this crap. I asked Eilish about it, after we left the beach. She told me it was all part of the process. There was something in the magic that helped us accept our changes. Apparently, that included flipping genders.

The strange thing was, I didn’t feel different.

I was still me.

Even when I looked in the mirror and saw my new reflection, I still saw me. I guess that was part of the magic too. I’m not going to lie though, it was all pretty strange. Especially in the shower. I had yet to fully “explore” my new body and didn’t intend to anytime soon, but I’d seen it. I thought I was going to freak out, but once again, I didn’t. I’d seen naked girls before. Not in person of course, but in movies and in some of those scummy magazines. They always felt like this foreign thing. Something far off and unobtainable. Now I had my very own naked girl body and I felt nothing for it. It was a hot body too. All the leering and the lingering looks from guys was enough to tell me that.

I cursed.

This was all stupid.

That didn’t stop me from trying again.

I got her voicemail again, but this time I left a message:

“Hey Tori, you don’t know me but I’m a friend of Cassidy’s. He asked me to call and tell you that he’s ok. You don’t need to worry about him. He said he’ll call you when he’s safe.”

Short, simple and to the point.

A lie too.

I sighed.

I hated lying to her, but I didn’t have a choice.

Finally satisfied that I called her, I had another pressing matter that I needed to attend to. I walked back into the store, already annoyed at the little bell on the door. The clerk smiled when he saw me. Something about him sent shivers down my spine.

“You have a bathroom?"

“In the back,” he said with disinterest.

I nodded, meandering through the narrow aisles until I was in the back of the store. It was the frozen food section, the whole back wall lined with those giant freezers. I made a quick mental note to grab an ice cold drink before heading back. The bathroom was wedged into the corner. Grunting, I squeezed myself inside; it was pretty small. It also smelled horrible. I’d probably been in several bathrooms that smelled this bad and none of them bothered me before. Now, I was disgusted by it. Especially because I was going to have to sit on that seat. I closed my eyes and held in the urge to vomit.

I peed quickly. As soon as I was done and wiped, I jumped off the seat.

I washed my hands in the dingy sink, trying my hardest not to touch anything else.

I left as fast as possible.

“Dude” I shouted. “That place is disgusting. I’m calling the health...”

I was walking while talking. As soon as I got to the end of the aisle, I looked at the counter, but there was no one there.

Well, where the hell did the guy go?

I started walking toward the front of the store when I noticed a pair of feet sticking out from behind the counter.

Oh shit.

I made a mad dash for the door, wondering why I never heard the stupid bell.

I was almost there when someone stepped out in front of me.

He was big, dressed in black. His head was shaved and he had one of those SWAT earpiece things dangling at his collar. I think he was just as surprised to see me. He started to reach for a gun on his holster. I snapped around, grabbing the first thing I could get my hands on. It happened to be a large bottle of cooking oil. I swung it at him, striking him in the head. The plastic bottle exploded all over the place, spraying both of us and the floor. He staggered, made a grab for me and slipped.

I didn’t stick around.

I quickly snapped around him, but I soon realized he wasn’t alone.

I was almost to the door when a shot rang out.

A bullet whizzed past my head through the glass door in front of me.

“That’s far enough,” said a familiar voice.

I slowly turned around.

Mr. Spencer was standing behind the counter, pointing a gun in my direction. My heart was hammering in my chest. These people!

“You really are a pretty little thing, aren’t you?”

He stepped around the counter.

I looked past him to the clerk, I could now see a pool of blood starting to form.

How had I not heard the gun go off?

He saw me look and smiled, holding a bloody box cutter in his other hand.

“I didn’t shoot him.” He waved it in his gloved hand, then dropped it to the ground. “I didn’t stab him either. Tragically, you did. You see, he recognized you from the news. You panicked, grabbed the first thing you could find, and stabbed him.”

I looked next to the counter. There was a carbon display of box cutters there.

Who the hell sold those in a convenience store?

“You’re a sick fuck!”

He shrugged, then looked past me. “Johnson, get your ass up!”

His partner slipped a few times before getting to his feet.

I didn’t take my eyes off of Spencer.

There were a thousand thoughts going through my mind. One of them kept bubbling to the surface though. I cursed myself for my stupidity.

“You traced the call,” I said with realization.

He smirked. Still with the gun firmly centered on my chest, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cellphone. It had a glittery pink case.

No….

“Didn’t need to,” he said, tossing it on the floor at my feet. “Your friend Miss Mitchell was nice enough to let us use her phone.”

No….

I felt something.

Something I never felt before.

Pure anger.

Before I even knew what I was doing, I snapped around and slammed the flat of my hand under Johnson’s chin. I caught the man off guard. He staggered from the blow, allowing me to spring, grab the front of his shirt and launch him over my shoulder. He was as light as a feather. I watched in awe as he sailed through the air and slammed into Spencer, sending both men sprawling into a heap. Before they could recover, I snatched up Tori’s phone and ran out of there.

I dialed as I ran.

“911, what’s your emergency...”

“There are two men shooting up the convenient store on...” I said, giving her the directions.

She was about to ask me to stay on the line, but I ended the call.

Tears were streaming down my face.

I should have stayed, but I ran.

I needed to get back to Eilish.

More importantly though, I needed to rescue my sister!

Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Anything critical you have to say, PLEASE do so in a PM. Pointing out people's flaws or mistakes in a comment is hurtful and NOT appreciated.Thanks in advance...EOF