“Oops! sorry!”

“Watch it, freak!”

“I’m not a freak, bitch.”

“What was that?” The pale girl barks, “Do you know who I am?”

“Hm, don’t care.”

“You little—!”

Too slow, Lola’s running away now. You’d think being a secret superhero, you wouldn’t have petty fights with strangers, but..this is New York.

And if she happens to see that girl who just yelled at her getting robbed? She better beg for their help, because there’s no way in hell that they’d..okay! That’s a stretch, Lola thinks, I should’ve gotten more sleep last night.

But that girl she saved last night, who she almost walked home..

They kinda can’t stop thinking about her.

Yes, even right now, as they watch a hooded figure grabbing a wallet out of a purse and..wait a minute.

“Hey!” Lola shouts, “Put that back!”

The hooded figure perks up, “Um, I was just..” They say, stumbling away backward, wallet still in their hand. “Ya know..”

“I know what you’re doing,” Lola says, “You can’t distract me and run off. It won’t work.”

“Oh, yeah? And who do you think you are? A superhero? Oh no, I’m scared of a five foot three teenager.”

“Wait, five foot th—you’re literally the same height as me! How does that even make sen—“ The figure shrugs before Lola can even finish, and fucking bolts. “WHAT? WAIT!” Lola yells, “You didn’t explain your stupid insult!”

Lola is fast on their trail, sweat forming on her brown forehead, it’s too early for this. Well, 11 am isn’t that early, but she’s getting used to the city, okay? New York crimes don’t sleep. Annoyingly. Maybe she should just retire, well, she really only just started a week ago—Lola face palms. Why are you so easily distracted?

“Can’t keep up?” The figure yells over their shoulder. “Maybe you should sit down and take a break!”

“Oh shut up!” Lola yells back, and nearly runs into a brick wall. “You should be--“ She pants, “Scared!” They finish, and it’s obvious they’re already tired.

The figure turns a corner, and Lola takes that as a win, well, if it has a dead end.

It doesn’t.

But the hooded figure is halfway up a flight of stairs, and their hoodie is caught on a hook and Lola—beside herself, laughs at them.

The figure whips their head around at her voice, and the hood falls.

And.. Lola freezes, because she knows that girl, and she knows her voice, and how she looks when she’s shy after being saved and.. “YOU!"

“Me?” The pink haired girl gawks back, “What about me?"

“Well,” Lola says, then shuts her mouth. “You’re all talk for someone who is also a teenager. And five foot three.”

“Okay?” She replies, eyebrow raised. “And you’re annoying.”

“Wh—How?"

“Go away!” The pink haired girl says instead, still struggling to get her hoodie out of that hook. “I’m not giving you the wallet!”

“Why not?” Lola asks, walking up the steps sheepishly, “You said you owed me.”

“What? No I didn’t.”

“Hm, but you did. When you were being chased by that old dude last night, and I saved you, you told me you owed me after I walked you to the subway.”

“That was—YOU?” She blinks, “You..”

“Why exactly were you being chased?” Lola asks, “What’d you do to piss him off? Steal his wallet?”

Her eyes shift from Lola, to the apartment wall beside her. “Well…”

“Oh come on!” Lola says with a scoff. “And here I was thinking you were like, this nice girl, with a cute voice and—uh,” Lola freezes, her cheeks warming and she raises a finger then drops it. “Pretend I didn’t say that.”

But the girl is smiling, and Lola knows she shouldn’t like it because, hello, they’re a criminal, but..

“Okay, I owe you.” She admits it, “But you can’t have the wallet.”

“Then what can I—“

Lola see’s the movement of pink hair and her heart flutters, because that girl has leaned in and pecked her right on the lips. But she pulls away way too quickly, and Lola doesn’t even realize that her hoodie isn’t stuck anymore.

She’s already back on the ground, unbeknownst to Lola, who has a hand placed over her mouth, dazed.

“Hey!” She calls from the ground, “Call me when my stealing is as cute as my voice.”

Lola turns toward her, feet stuck on the stairs.

Maybe..she can get used to New York.

“Captain—dad, forgot I’m not supposed to call you that. What the fuck did we hit?” His daughter asked, peering through the glass, eyes of wonder, no fear laced in her wild brown eyes.

“What did I tell you about cursing?” He asks, instead.

“To do it quietly?” She replies, face still smushed against the clear window, “Dad, what if we hit a rock? Remember what happened to the titanic?”

“Our boat is a lot smaller than the titanic.”

“Exactly!” She replies, pushing her body off the window and turning toward him, she notices how he’s reaching for the doorknob and she sputters out, “WAIT! Let me go with you!”

“Last time—“

“Last time, I just wanted to swim! But I don’t want to swim right now, come on! Give me a chance! I just want to see. I can warn the others if we’re about to sink and—!”

“You’ll do no such thing.”

“What? Why?”

“We don’t need mass hysteria,” he casually replies, then opens the door and motions for her to follow him down the hallway. “We didn’t actually hit anything,” he adds. “Maybe a graze, maybe not anything at all. I really don’t know what you’re on about, or how you could have felt something like that.”

“Dad, you birthed and raised me on a boat. Remember? You trained me.”

When they made it outside onto the dock, a wicked stench filled their noses. Salt water, dead fish in bins but—something else that they couldn’t quite see. Yet.

“I know that smell.” He says under his breath. “Is that..blood?” He asks, then turns to the few passengers playing cards on the ground. “Hey, everyone up! I need a head count right now!”

“Dad, what are you—what happened?” She asks, “Dad, is someone hurt?”

“Jessie, calm yourself.” He warns, “Mass hysteria, remember?”

Jessie closes her mouth, but the question still lingers in the air unanswered, right next to that smell—that fucking smell, strong but not unfamiliar. People got hurt all the time at sea, but it never mixed with the water like this.

“Listen to the waves,” Her father orders, “Remember when I taught you that—“

“We can hear gaps in the water, a wave being blocked from passing?”

“Exactly.”

So Jessie held her chin up high, and listened as best as she could, dismissing the distant whispers from the bunks—questions of, “what is the captain doing?”

A wave, a pause, another, that smell—then, a whimper. A whimper..? Wait, “Dad, do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” He asks, but Jessie’s beat him to it, and she’s racing toward the edge of the boat just as he yells out, “Jessie! Don’t you fall in that water again!”

“I won’t—!” She yells back, over her shoulder and not paying attention as her stomach hits the railing, “Ow! God! Fuck!” She mutters, grimacing and looking down, and—holy shit there’s something in the water reaching out to her. “Holy fuck, Jessie whispers.

Her dads footsteps are heading toward her, but Jessie’s not listening to her surroundings like she’s been trained to because, that’s not something, that’s someone! That’s that smell! Salt water and blood, and it’s so much more of an experience to see where it came from. Wait—she’s hurt, Jessie tells herself, check on her and..

Wow, her eyes are beautiful, and, she’s crying, and, that’s..not a human?

“Please help me.” The girl in the water pleads, “I wouldn’t ask if I could untangle myself,”

Jessie stares at her, unmoving for a moment, brown hair, light brown eyes, bloody skin and a tale. She never knew these things actually existed!

“You’re a mermaid,” Jessie sputters out, grasping the girls hand, and her heart stutters a little. She knows in the back of her mind that her fathers behind her now.

“You’re a human,” The mermaid weakly replies, “And I’m stuck, and hurt.”

Jessie smiles, then, “Oh, fuck, right. Let me help you! I’m so sorry!”

Blood smears her dark skin, and that smell hits her nose at full force, and it’s a mixture of so many different things, a life she hasn’t lived but has read about in stories that aren’t supposed to actually be real.

Salt water, blood, sand, seashells, scales, skin, and right now?

Jessie really wanted to save it.

“Ah, no! Queenie, where are you going? Stop it!” Lucia huffed then, being yanked forward by her growing dog whose leash she wasn’t the best at holding. “Queenie, no! We can’t go over there!”

The white dog with dirt stained fur stopped at the gates, peering at the slight gap that would provide an entrance. Lucia pauses beside him, hands on her knees and sighs.

“It’s time mom starts walking you, you’re too fast for me, I can’t even keep up in gym and you..” she coughs, hitting her chest, “Are a lot worse than coach when it comes to making me exercise, when I really, really don’t want to!”

Lucia’s grip on the leash loosens, just at the wrong moment, when the dogs curious gaze glances at his owner, and back to the space small enough for him to just…

“QUEENIE!”

But he’s already running through the hole, and the leash unwraps itself from Lucia’s tanned hands, and she yelps in shock, before squeezing her slim body determinately through and chasing after the dog toward the..the..GRAVEYARD?

“Queenie, why a graveyard OF ALL PLACES?” Lucia calls out, though she’s not able to find that familiar white fur. “Why couldn’t you just—I don’t know! Pee on a fucking fire hydrant?!”

Lucia wraps her arms around herself, steps onto the grass by the tombstones as an uneasy feeling settles into her chest. “Fucking scary movies,” she mutters, then closes her eyes. “You’re almost nineteen! Grow up!” It’s disrespectful to stand by someone’s grave and to fear they may haunt you, right? Well..

A girl around Lucia’s age pops up behind a tombstone across from where she stands, and without warning, Lucia’s legs give out and she falls onto her butt in fear.

“Hello,” the girl says, chin resting on the stone, calm and collected and not acknowledging how her sudden presence had scared the lurking girl beneath her gaze. “Is there a reason you broke into my grandpas cemetery?”

“Um—“ Lucia starts, “You see, my dog—“

“Your dog..?”

Lucia licks her lips nervously, looking the girl over and freezing a little. Dark brown eyes, dark skin and curls, an oversized sweater and honestly, the cutest face—FOCUS!

“Um—“ Lucia repeats, and looks away, eyes focusing on her shoes for a moment. She contemplates her own outfit, her own appearance for a moment, then reminds herself again, THE DOG IS GONE! “Yes, my dog, he ran in here, took the leash with him and now..I can’t find him.”

The girl hums, “You know, a lot of people have snuck in here with that excuse.” Lucia looks up, frowning, and the girl continues. “Though I can never tell who is and isn’t lying, because most living things that come to a cemetery do die.”

“What?” Lucia gasps out, eyes widening, throat closing up and—the girl across from her laughs.

“I’m fucking with you, but you better not be lying.” Then she exits from behind the stone, smiles down at Lucia and offers her a hand. “What’s your name?”

Words, Lucia thinks, your name, she thinks. But what she says is..

“Are you a ghost?”

“A ghost?” The girl repeats, gawking. “Is..that a compliment or an insult?”

“A question.” Lucia answers, accepting her hand, it’s warm and soft and…the girls looking at her with a raised eyebrow, and oh god, Lucia still hasn’t let go. “Not a ghost!” Lucia blurts, pulls back her hand like it burns because—it does. “Not a ghost, right. Sorry..”

“Do I look like a ghost or something?”

Lucia opens her mouth, but a distant bark stops her from replying. Then—the sound of little feet racing toward her, and the sound of a leash against the concrete and…

“QUEENIE! You’re in so much trouble!”

“Oh, they’re adorable,” the girl says with a gasp, “Oh my gosh. Can I hold them? Please?”

“Um, yeah. Okay.” Lucia dumbly replies, picking the dog up and hesitantly handing him to the curly haired girl. Their bodies brush at the exchange, a dark brown fingertip grazing the exposed tan skin of Lucia’s arm, and she shivers.

“And uh, you don’t look like a ghost!” Lucia suddenly says, fidgeting with her hands, her own fingertips pressing onto where the other girl once touched. “But, like, it would be a compliment! ‘Cause you’re super pretty. I’m uh, Lucia, by the way.”

“Ames,” the girl whispers.

Lucia blinks, cheeks warm, takes back Queenie and sets him on the ground, but looking back up, there’s no trace of a girl who never actually said she wasn’t a ghost..

A ghost, huh?