Free Madly and Wolfhardt by M. Leighton Page B

Jackson didn’t release me right away.  We simply drifted in the gently stirring water, facing one another, his arm draped loosely around my waist. 
    In the sunlight, his eyes were the clear, pale blue of a cloudless sky and they were focused sharply on mine.  It was as if he was searching for something, but I had no idea what.  I only knew that they made me feel both weak and strong at the same time.  They made me feel confused, yet never more certain; fragile, yet more capable than I’d ever been.  He gave me butterflies, yet there was something about him that was more comfortable than my favorite pair of pajamas.
    In the midst of all that emotional turmoil, my lips began to tingle, crying out in want of a kiss that I’d felt only once before.  As if he could hear them, Jackson’s gaze flickered down to them and then quickly back up to my face.
    “Come on.  We’d better get back to shore.”
    I nodded and we both struck out across the water, swimming in a slow, rhythmic freestyle toward the beach.  Jackson tempered his strength to maintain a speed that didn’t push me.  He stayed right by my side, never once pulling out in front of me, although we both knew he could easily have left me behind if he so chose. 
    We moved in unison, our strokes such a smooth mirror-image of one another, our swim felt like a choreographed dance.
    When the water had grown nearly shallow enough for us to touch bottom, Jackson slowed.
    “I’ll be back,” he said just before he shot out to my left, swimming parallel to the shoreline, away from me.
    He didn’t even give me time to answer, much less to ask a question, so I just watched him swim until he ducked beneath the water and didn’t resurface.
    I felt the tingle of my scales receding and then my legs separated, no longer joined by the thin webbing.  I stretched until my feet touched sand and I walked out of the surf, my dripping uniform hanging heavily from my shoulders. 
    Aidan and Jersey approached me.
    “That was freaking awesome!” Jersey exclaimed excitedly.
    Aidan was smiling as well.
    “I have to admit that was pretty cool, James.”
    “Eh,” I said, waving them off casually as my cheeks stung with the blush of their praise.  “Nothing to it.”
    “Yeah, right,” Jersey said, rolling her eyes.  “I’ve never seen anything like that!”
    I just shrugged, for some reason bothered by her statement.  She didn’t give me much time to ponder it, though. 
    Bling, bling, I heard.
    Jersey grinned widely and Aidan shook his head in exasperation.
    “What was that?”
    Bling, bling, I heard again.
    Jersey held up her hand, where she gripped a bicycle bell that some unfortunate kid had apparently lost on the beach.
    “Isn’t it cool?”
    “It’s a toy, Jersey,” I said wryly.  “From a bike.”
    “I know,” she admitted, no less excited. “Isn’t it awesome?”
    Bling, bling.
    I rolled my eyes.  I could see where this was going.  She was going to ring that bell, day and night, until I would be forced to either steal it and hide it away or ram it down her throat until she choked to death on it.  Otherwise, I’d go slowly insane.
    I was happy to see Kellina step forward just then.
    “So, it’s all true?”
    I nodded.
    “It’s all true.”
    “So what does that mean for me?”
    I could tell by the frightened, bewildered look in her eyes that the full weight of what I’d told her had settled like an unwanted, leaden mantle across her shoulders.
    “Well, now that you know, you can help us to find the Wolfhardt descendent before…well, soon,” I said, not wanting to scare her any more than she already was.
    “But how?  How can I help?  I don’t know anything about… anything.”
    “You’ll be more help than you know.  Like telling me about the flowers this morning.  That was huge.  Huge!  Information like that could blow this thing wide open.”
    “So, what do I need to do then?” she asked nervously.
    “Live your life, just