After school, Umi and Dave met up with Mizu and went to a cafe. With some borrowed money from Dave's parents, they ordered drinks and food.
"Have we found a place for Umi yet?" Mizu asked.
"She's staying with me for now. My dad and his team still haven't found her father yet."
"What are we going to do? He could be in danger!" Mizu exclaimed. Umi looked at her candy blast frappe. She tried ignoring their conversation. She didn't feel like talking about her father.
"We could try finding my mom. She went missing when I was an infant, but if the woman in the picture is her, we could ask around and see if anyone's seen her. Maybe she knows who took dad," Umi explained. The boys looked at Umi, then at each other.
"It's worth a shot. We can see what she knows. If she knows anything, that is," Mizu answered. Dave nodded and they finished their food and drinks. After paying, they walked around town and asked if anyone's seen the couple in the picture. One person said they saw a man struggling with a group in a passing car, but he doesn't know where the car went or the vehicle's license plate number.
Once they finished their rounds and got back at Dave's house, Umi flopped on the couch in frustration. "Why isn't this working! We should have found something by now," she exclaimed. Mizu looked around and sighed. He knelt beside Umi and kissed her forehead. She was shocked and placed her hand where he kissed her.
"It'll be alright. We have a small lead at least," he said. Suddenly, there was a knock at the front door. Dave got up and looked through the small hole in the door. He looked terrified, locked and chained the door, and started backing away. The knocking turned to pounding as Umi stood up. "Who is it?" she whispered.
"The man and woman from the beach. I don't know how they found us," he whispered.
"We know you're in there! Hand over the siren and no one gets hurt!" a woman yelled. Dave motioned for Mizu to follow him. He looked at Umi and pointed to a set of stairs leading upwards. Umi quietly started walking upstairs. As she was reaching the halfway point, there was a crash from downstairs. It sounded like a window broke. She ran upstairs and locked herself in a bedroom. She pushed a dresser in front of the door.
Umi looked around and saw a tree branch not too far from the window. She unlocked it and opened the window. Someone started jiggling the doorknob in an attempt to open it. When that didn't work, they started slamming themself into the door. Umi climbed out the window and onto the branch. She closed the window and started climbing down only to see the woman making her way to the tree Umi's on.
"I see you, siren. You can't escape this time!" she exclaimed. Umi jumped down and started running. She found herself at the beach and waded into the water. She was pushed under by the woman with purple hair. Umi felt her nose and mouth fill with water as her lungs started to burn. The woman wrapped her hands around Umi's neck and grinned.
"You have no choice but to shift to your true form, if you want to live!" the woman laughed. Umi tried pushing the woman off of her, but was quickly losing strength.
"Shift already!" the woman screamed. Umi started clawing at the woman's hands but she didn't seem the least bit bothered by it.
"Goddammit, just shift and you'll live!" she yelled. Umi was certain she was going to die as her hands went limp and everything turned black.
She felt cold again. But there wasn't water. There was a small breeze and the smell of the ocean. She was laying in the sand, but she felt she wasn't alone. All of a sudden, someone pressed their lips against hers, separating her lips and pushing air into her lungs. Umi's eyes shot open as she turned to her side and coughed up water.
"Umi! I thought you died! Are you okay?" a boy asked. Umi looked up and saw Dave looking at her. It looked like he was crying.
"I'm okay now. Did you just give me CPR or something?" Umi asked. Dave turned red and looked down.
"Yeah. My dad had me learn CPR in case things like this happened. I'm glad he did, though. You wouldn't be alive now if I didn't learn," he muttered. Umi hugged him and started to cry.
"Why do they think I'm a siren? I didn't choose this hair color." she cried.
"Can't you wash the dye out?"
"This isn't hair dye! I was born with it. If you look at all my baby pictures, my hair has always been blue-green!" she exclaimed. Dave looked at her in shock.
"Don't you find that a little strange? I mean, it seems hard to believe," Dave stuttered. Umi got up and started walking away from him.
"I got to go clear my head. If I'm not back in twenty-four hours, report me missing," she muttered. Umi knew it was a bad idea, but she couldn't think of anything else to do.