When I awoke, it was just me and Kara in the pool and my mate was working on her tail and fin exercises. She quickly abandoned them to wrap me up in her arms and kiss me lovingly though. ~ Feeling any better this morning, my love? ~ she asked as she pulled away. It wasn’t hard to see the concern in her eyes, or hear it in her mind voice.

~ I am as good as I can be, considering what happened last night, ~ I told her with a shaky smile. ~ Better now that I have gotten some sleep, but I am worried about my sister, and how we are all going to get out of this mess. ~

~ For now, we are going to all lay low, ~ Kara replied with a shrug. ~ It does not really change much for us, except that we will have to be more careful about leaving the lagoon to hunt for food. We were talking about maybe avoiding the open water altogether until this is dealt with. Kieshala does not like it, but even she agrees that it might be best for now. ~

I nodded as I considered the problem with a somewhat clear mind. ~ If they are looking for us, and they think that Maddie and Nat are hiding us somewhere, then they likely have someone watching the local spots where someone could be hiding us. Like, they will probably be looking at abandoned swimming pools, motels with pools, water treatment plants, and such. They may be watching the fish markets and stuff too if they think we are reliant on fresh fish and seaweed like we were being fed in Pierce’s bunker of horrors. Sure, it’s probably the best for us, but we can eat whatever normal humans eat too. ~

~ If their insider is someone who was working with Pierce, then it is a good thing that Nat deliberately left out the fact that we can eat other stuff in her reports, ~ my lover agreed.

Once Natalie had found out exactly what and who we were, she had been deliberately altering her reports to Pierce to make it seem like while we were clever, we still had similar needs and dietary restrictions as other marine mammals. She had been trying to keep Pierce and those in his employ from figuring out how smart and adaptable we really were, but I hadn’t thought it would do much good beyond our time as Pierce’s captives. In fact, when Kara and I had been separated from the others during our first mating heat, she had said that we were sick with a cough and fever and were displaying heightened aggression. She had suggested a human virus that had mutated or ingesting human food as possible causes.

With that in mind, it would be best if we avoided the fish markets, even if I would really miss my daily shrimp. I probably could get some at grocery stores, even if it wouldn’t be as fresh. The problem was that we were probably going to be running low on food soon since we had been planning to leave here in a day or two. All of our supplies for the trip had to be abandoned last night and we didn’t have much left here at the villa. So it looked like I was going to have to do some grocery shopping soon since I was the only one who could go out in public without the risk of being recognized.

I wasn’t looking forward to going out into that heat by myself and doing that, but the others would be depending on me. I needed to push training my aetral harder anyway though, both of them, and having to shift repeatedly and for long periods of time would probably help with that. I sighed, but nodded. ~ Speaking of food, is there anything left for me to have for breakfast? And where is Kieshala? I thought that she’d be here with us once Jenny took over for her with Maddie. ~

~ Yeah, Babe, we still have enough seafood for a meal or two in the fridge, and I know that you love the shrimp, so I saved my share of that for you. I had more oysters instead. Kieshala left with Nat after we had breakfast. She is going to start Nat’s transformation process, ~ Kara replied.

~ Thanks, my love, you are too good to me, ~ I said with a smile as I kissed her. ~ Wait, she is going to turn Nat now? ~

~Yeah, we were originally planning on turning two at a time anyway and if they’re both in the same bed, then one of us can just lay between them and keep physical contact with both until it is time to move Maddie into the pool. Nat will not be too far behind her, and she wanted to do it now since Maddie is already going through the process. They wanted to do it together, ~ she explained.

~ Yeah, Maddie was telling me that last night. ~ That was before all hell broke loose and we had just been a pair of sisters enjoying a day out together, even if I had been complaining about the heat a lot. I found myself sighing again as I admitted, ~ I guess it won’t make too much of a difference if one or both of them are out of the picture for a bit since none of you can actually go anywhere anyway. We will just have to hope that we can stay under the radar until they are both recovered and can swim under their own power. Well, I guess I will go check on them and then eat since I probably have a busy day ahead of me. ~

~ I would come with you, but your mom does not want us crowding the patients any more than necessary since they both need proper rest. ~

I leaned in to give her a parting kiss. ~Well, you are only a thought away, my love. ~ Then I got up and swam to the edge of the pool to climb out and shift my tail into a pair of legs and don the pink bathrobe that I usually wore around the villa when I was roaming around the house. I had gotten to the point where I didn’t mind being topless in front of others, but I felt that when I had legs I should keep what laid between them somewhat covered.

As hungry as I was, checking on my sister and Nat was my first priority, so I headed straight to Maddie’s bedroom with a purposeful stride. Once I was there, I gave the door a gentle tap before opening it to step inside the busy room. Jenny was laying on the big bed between Maddie and Natalie and was making sure to keep at least a hand on my sister to maintain physical contact. Nat and my sister were both covered with paper gowns to maintain their modesty and Mom was currently hooking Natalie up to the second IV and other medical equipment.

Maddie was looking better than last night, but I couldn’t see any changes yet. That wasn’t surprising since Kieshala told us that the internal changes came first, at least from what she had been told. She had never really done this personally before or been able to observe any of us while we were changing, so she was going by what she had heard from other members of Clan Moonreef. Our knowledge might be secondhand, but she knew how everything was supposed to work in theory and was confident about her ability to turn people reliably. It had been Maddie’s only chance at the time, so I was willing to place my trust in what she had told us.

Since Nat was still alert and Kieshala was sitting on her coiled tail at the end of the bed, I guessed that they hadn’t done anything to start the process yet. Mom probably wanted to make sure that Nat was all hooked up first, in case there were any unexpected complications or something. “Hey, Nat, Kara told me you’re going to take the plunge.”

“Yeah, Maddie and I wanted to do this together, so I might as well since she’s…” she trailed off and a worried expression washed over her as she looked toward where my sister was lying on the other side of the bed.

Shit, she looked as worried about Mads as I was. It was time to lighten the mood before Kieshala nicked her and gave her some blood. “Don’t worry about Mads, she’ll be betta soon, Nat. So it’s o-fish-shell then? You’re just diving right in with no second thoughts, huh? That’s cray-zy. Are you sure you’re not going off the deep end, perch-ance?”

Jenny quietly chortled at the fish puns and it took a moment, but Natalie cracked a smile too. Fish puns make everything better. “Those puns are terrible, Naiya,” Nat said while trying not to smile.

“You’re just jelly of my wit,” I responded, sticking out my tongue playfully. “I guess I’m fin-ished for now though. I wouldn’t want to cause a roe between us; you might end up wanting to sea my head on a pike. Those should tide you over for a while.”

This time I got her to smile outright while I saw the start of one on Mom as well. Jenny was giggling madly, but the puns got her every time. Too bad that Kieshala couldn’t appreciate puns, her command of English just wasn’t good enough yet. “You’re terrible, Naiya. When I wake up, I’m going to have to pun-ish you.”

“You’ll both be swimming around with us soon, until then, we’ll take good care of you,” I promised as I gave her as much of a smile as I could summon at the moment. “I should go eat something and then figure out what my plans for the day are going to be, so I’ll leave you so Kieshala can do her thing.”

I backed out of the room and made my way to the kitchen, where I sated my hunger with a couple of oranges, some raw shrimp and sea bass, a bit of kelp, and a bottle of water. I couldn’t help thinking about Maddie and Nat though, and how we were all going to get out of Cuba with somebody who was eager enough to capture us to monitor the local cameras and send a wetwork team when my sister popped up.

I had a sinking feeling that we might have to hunker down for a while. If worse came to worst we might have to stay in hiding until we could turn Uncle Jack, Aunt Carmen, Mom, and Dad too, but I wasn’t sure if we could stay out of their sights for what might be a month or more. Then there would be the time that they would need to learn to swim and get used to their new bodies before we could risk swimming to the area that we thought might be where Pierce had found Kieshala. Could we even navigate accurately enough in the ocean depths to find the place? At least with the yacht, we had a GPS to show us the way.

Maddie thought that the group that attacked us was military too. What if they had the navy watching the coast? It was unlikely, but I had no idea what we could expect from these people, and it was making me nervous. I was finishing my breakfast and trying to sort through all those worries and doubts when Mom came to join me at the table. “How are they?” I asked.

“Madeline seems stable and Kieshala is taking care of Natalie’s initiation now,” she responded as she sat across from me. “We tried to get Natalie to wait until Maddie was done and we could be sure it was safe, but she was very insistent. Those two are good for each other, they’re nearly as besotted with one another as you and Kara, but I’m worried that it might be clouding Natalie’s thinking.”

“Yeah, that could be part of it,” I conceded with a nod and a sigh. “She’s been fascinated about the Naethari since she met us though and she was eager to become one as soon as she knew that it was possible. Maddie was really the only thing she had holding her back until now, and waiting for the proper medical equipment that you wanted.”

“That’s true. It’s not that I don’t trust Kieshala, but she has no real first-hand experience with this. That’s why I wanted us to be as prepared as we could be before risking it. Now, why don’t you tell me what’s worrying you, dear? Or should I take a guess?”

I hesitated but finally shrugged. “Maddie, Natalie, those mystery people after us now, and what we’re going to do about it. All of it, I guess.”

Mom reached out to take my hand in hers. “Kieshala seems to think that Maddie and Natalie will be fine. As for all of those other things, I know that we’re going to be counting on you to do a lot of the legwork, and that’s not really fair to you. It’s not fair, but it’s necessary and I know that we can count on you. We trained you and Maddie as well as we could to handle anything that might come your way. You may not have the practical experience that the rest of us do, and your time with legs may be limited, but you also have skills and abilities than none of the rest of us could dream of right now.”

“I still feel underequipped for this,” I told her sadly.

“That uncertainty is common before a mission, Naiya. Maddie feels it, I feel it, and so does your father,” Mom offered as she squeezed my hand. “The best that we can do is make sure that we’re well equipped and mentally prepared for how to deal with the worst possible outcomes. You shouldn’t have to worry about attracting the attention of our enemies, so long as you don’t use a form that they’re familiar with, so that is one thing in your favor. When your father, Jack, and Carmen get back from improving our security, we’ll discuss what our first priorities will be, and how to make sure that you’re as prepared as possible.”