“There’s only one way to find out.” I pick up my cell phone and dial the 800 number, then leave her a message. “Rachel, it’s Emma. Toraf is here and we need your help getting to Hawaii. Tonight. Call me.”

“What’s Hawaii?” Toraf asks as I hang up.

“It’s an island in the Pacific. If we fly there, we can swim the rest of the way to the Boundary.”

Toraf looks almost green. The same green Galen turns when he gets on a plane. “Oh, no. I can’t fly. No way.”

The phone rings. “Rachel?”

“Hiya, cupcake. I see Toraf found you. What’s up?”

“We need the next flight out to Hawaii. And, um, we need some Dramamine for Toraf. A lot, because remember Dr. Milligan said they metabolize it faster than humans.”

“I’m on it.”

* * *

You’d think someone as resourceful as Rachel would know whether or not Toraf was the identical twin of a known terrorist. But nooooo. So we wait by our guard in the corridor of the security office of LAX airport while about a dozen people work to verify our identity.

My identity comes back fine and clean and boring.

Toraf’s identity doesn’t come back for a few hours. Which is not cool, because he’s been puking in the trash can next to our bench seats and it’s got to be almost full by now. Because of the regional storms in Jersey, we’d had a rough takeoff. Coupled with the reaction Toraf had to the Dramamine—excitability, no less—it was all I could do to coax him out of the tiny bathroom to get him to sit still and not puke while doing so.

His fingerprints could not be matched and his violet eyes were throwing them for a loop, since they physically verified that they aren’t contacts. A lady security officer asked us several times in several different ways why our tickets would be one-way to Hawaii if we lived in Jersey and only had a carry-on bag full of miscellaneous crap that you don’t really need. Where were we going? What were we doing?

I’d told them we were going to Honolulu to pick a place to get married and weren’t in a hurry to come back, so we only purchased one-way tickets and blah blah blah. It’s a BS story and they know it, but sometimes BS stories can’t be proven false. Finally, I asked for an attorney, and since they hadn’t charged us with anything, and couldn’t charge us with anything, they decided to let us go. For crying out loud.

I can’t decide if I’m relieved or nervous that Toraf’s seat is a couple of rows back on our flight to Honolulu. On the plus side, I don’t have to be bothered every time he goes to the bathroom to upchuck. Then again, I can’t keep my eye on him, either, in case he doesn’t know how to act or respond to nosy strangers who can’t mind their own business. I peek around my seat and roll my eyes.

He’s seated next to two girls, about my age and obviously traveling together, and they’re trying nonstop to start a conversation with him. Poor, poor Toraf. It must be a hard-knock life to have inherited the exquisite Syrena features. It’s all he can do not to puke in their laps. A small part of me wishes that he would, so they’d shut up and leave him alone and I could maybe close my eyes for two seconds. From here I can hear him squirm in his seat, which is about four times too small for a built Syrena male. His shoulder and biceps protrude into the aisle, so he’s constantly getting bumped. Oy.

Truthfully though, playing mother to Toraf has helped keep my mind off the potential things to come. Until now. The possibility that I’ll be killed keeps coming to mind. Or even worse, Galen might not ever speak to me again. That would be worse than death, I think.

Not to mention all this school I’ve missed. It’s four in the morning on a Wednesday and I’m leaving California, headed to Hawaii, then to who-knows-where and will return who-knows-when. I’m going to have to come up with a fantastic excuse to give my guidance counselor for all of these absences, especially if I’m still interested in all the scholarships I filled out applications for. I should have had Rachel write a note or something before we left. But knowing Rachel, she might have already thought of that.

In fact, knowing Rachel, she can probably make the absences disappear.

Am I really thinking about school when my mom and Galen are in trouble? Yes, yes I am. Because this is the life bequeathed to me. Part human, part fish. Part straight-A student, part possessor of the Gift of Poseidon. Yep, I’m a natural-born overachiever.

Fan-flipping-tastic.

Behind me, I hear the most obnoxious belch in history. “Excuse me,” Toraf says. I hear him wrestle with his buckle and make a hasty retreat to the bathroom. And I’m officially glad I’m not sitting next to him. Let’s face it. He’s a loud puker.

Syrena were not meant to fly.

When we land, Toraf is asleep. He doesn’t even wake up despite the wobbly landing and the giggling girls and the announcement of “Aloha” by the captain. When everyone has disembarked I make my way back to Toraf and shake him until he wakes up. His breath smells like slightly microwaved death.

“We’re in Hawaii,” I tell him. “Time to swim.”

We take a cab to a hotel on the beach. We check in under the reservations Rachel made for us and dump our luggage in the room. I decide that if I ever get to come back here under different, nonstressful circumstances, I will stay at this hotel and drink fruity drinks and lay in the sand until my skin looks like it had a makeout session with the sun. But today, I’m looking for an inconspicuous way into the water.