The loft is dark and stifling, like I haven't bothered to turn on the lights since I stumbled home. The air hangs heavy with moisture, clinging to my skin like a second layer. Through the haze of pain, I hear the shower running—had I turned it on? Or has it been going this whole time?

A whimper escapes my throat before I can stop it, raw and animalistic. The sound startles even me, but the pain is too overwhelming to contain. Every muscle feels like it's tearing itself apart from the inside out, bones aching with a deep, primal need I've suppressed for too long.

The tsunami hit days ago, but the real damage is just now revealing itself beneath my skin. I can feel it—the scales trying to break through, my body rebelling against the human form I've forced it to maintain through sheer willpower. The memory of the water, the panic when I realized Christopher was gone, the split-second decision to jump back in despite the crowds...

The bathroom door bursts open, flooding the space with light that makes me flinch. "Buck!" Maddie's voice cuts through the fog of my pain.

Steam billows around her as she takes in the scene—me curled on the shower floor, clothes soaked through, water turning pink as it swirls down the drain. The shower is ice cold now, but I can't bring myself to move. Relief washes over me at the sight of her, followed immediately by shame.

"M-Maddie," I whimper, another high-pitched keen building in my throat despite my efforts to suppress it. This is why we don't sing anymore—not in public, not when we might be overheard.

She drops to her knees beside me, her hands gentle but urgent as she assesses my condition. "Did you not shift at all in the water?" Her voice holds a note of desperation.

I shake my head, teeth chattering. "Couldn't. Too many p-people... not enough time—"

My words dissolve into a scream as another wave of pain crashes through me. Maddie's eyes widen with alarm. "Buck, you have to stay quiet," she begs, glancing toward the door as if expecting someone to burst through at any moment.

"H-Hurts..." I gasp, the word torn from me. It's more than physical pain—it's the weight of guilt, the fear of what I almost lost, the ocean's siren call tempting me to let go completely.

Maddie lifts my shirt, and I hear her sharp intake of breath. The bruises from the debris I was thrown against during the tsunami are nothing compared to the hives breaking out across my torso—my body rejecting its human form. When her fingers brush my waist, I tense, already knowing what she'll find.

Iridescent scales, rough beneath her touch, freckling the skin above my hips. Copper-red, they'd glow like embers in sunlight if we weren't trapped in this dim bathroom.

"We have to get you to the water," she says firmly, her hands cradling my face. Her blue eyes match mine, but where mine are clouded with pain, hers burn with determination.

I shake my head weakly. The ocean calls to me, promising relief from this agony, but it also whispers of forgetting—forgetting Christopher, forgetting Eddie, forgetting the family I've built on land. "I can't..." I whisper.

"Yes, you can," Maddie insists, helping me sit up despite my protests. "You have too much to live for. Too many people who love you."

But do they love me enough to accept what I truly am?