Bunny Ears and Broken Contracts Chapter 10

Bunny Ears and Broken Contracts Chapter 10

Gano took the vial and brought it straight to his lips. I caught him by the wrist.

“Wait. The sea witch told me something.”

I was quiet for a moment. Then I told him the truth.

“When I was born, my parents were building their empire. They didn’t have time for two kids. So they kept Chloe and sent me to live with my grandmother.”

“My grandmother died a few years ago. That’s when my parents finally brought me home.”

“The funny part? When I got there, I realized they’d had plenty of time for years. Their careers had stabilized ages ago. They just didn’t want me back.”

“Chloe got groomed for the family business. I got told to go do whatever.”

“In my own family, I was a stranger. In their world, I didn’t exist.”

“Everyone who mattered chose Chloe over me. Everyone except my grandmother.”

I laughed — the kind that isn’t funny at all.

“My mother spent every day convinced I was some kind of bad influence. Terrified I’d contaminate her precious Chloe.”

“Even knowing all that — and I’ve known for a long, long time — I still couldn’t stop wanting them to love me.”

Gano watched me without a word. Something moved behind those blue eyes — something I couldn’t read.

I steadied myself.

“Gano, if you want to go back to your family — to your tribe — you don’t have to drink this. The choice is yours.”

Gano blinked at me. Then licked his lips.

The vial was floating on the water. Empty.

One of the jellyfish had already nudged it to the far end of the pool.

He glanced back at it, pointed, and shrugged. “Oh… I already drank it.”

I’d spent all that time circling around my sad little backstory just to give him a choice he’d already made. The second I’d let go of his wrist, he’d tipped it back and downed the whole thing. Apparently, even holding a vial was too much work.

I stared at the empty vial floating away. My face gave nothing away, but inside I was recalibrating everything.

The silence between us was almost funny. After a beat, Gano blinked.

“So this potion… it gives a merman legs. But if I touch water, the tail comes back.”

“It’s not permanent.” His eyes curved into crescents when he smiled.

“And I don’t want to go back to the tribe. At all.”

Oh. So I’d been sentimental for nothing.

I’d imagined a whole dramatic scenario that didn’t exist.

I was a complete clown. I turned away. Gano’s voice came close to my ear, warm and teasing.

“Hmm? Why are you blushing, Hazel?”

Oliver had fought his way free of the dealers and slipped into Hazel’s courtyard. This was what he walked in on.

He’d heard everything Hazel said. He stood frozen where he was.

Everything inside him collapsed at once — grief, anger, hope, all of it gone. Behind him, the dealers were closing in.

Oliver didn’t run.

He finally understood what Hazel had meant. Why everyone could choose Chloe over her — everyone except him.

Because in Hazel’s entire life, only two people had ever counted as family.

Her grandmother. And him.

Everyone in her life had told her she wasn’t enough — her parents, the world around her, all of them.

And now, so had he.

Oliver’s chest seized. He couldn’t breathe right. Understanding it didn’t help.

He didn’t want to watch Hazel with the merman. He couldn’t stop. His eyes stayed on her, refusing to let go, even for a second.

They caught him. Pinned him to the ground. Jabbed a needle into his neck that forced him back into rabbit form. They locked him in an iron crate.

He kept his eyes open until the last sliver of Hazel disappeared from view. Only then did he close them.

I didn’t know any of it. Not a thing that happened in the courtyard reached me.

But as Oliver was dragged away, the merman sitting in front of me — sweet, obedient, head tilted, smiling — let his gaze drift past my shoulder for just a moment.

A look I’d never seen on him. Cold. Full of contempt. And gone before I could’ve noticed.

—The End—