Chapter 7
The water was colder than I expected.
Maris held out her hand.
For a moment, I could not take it.
Evelyn had bandaged my knees, taught me to read, and sat beside my bed through every fever. Evelyn had been the one who called me her daughter.
Maris was a stranger from the ocean.
But when I looked into her silver eyes, I saw twenty-seven years of pain.
I took her hand.
The instant we touched, the pressure in my chest disappeared.
I could breathe.
Not by holding air.
By pulling it from the water.
Panic surged through me, but Maris tightened her grip.
Her voice entered my mind.
Do not fight what you are.
We moved through the flooded tunnel.
Sophie clung to Maris’s back. Her legs had become a pale blue tail.
Natalie swam beside her, staring in disbelief.
Mira rested against my chest, calm beneath the water.
Thomas followed with a small breathing tank.
Behind us, flashlight beams cut through the darkness.
Vale’s men had entered the tunnel.
Maris moved faster.
The passage narrowed, then opened into a cavern illuminated by blue plants growing along the walls.
Old metal cages rested at the bottom.
Some were empty.
Others held bones.
Human and otherwise.
Thomas stopped beside one of them.
He touched the rusted bars.
“This is where they kept us.”
Us.
A second skeleton lay inside the cage.
A bracelet still circled its wrist.
EVELYN.
I ripped my hand from Maris and swam toward it.
No.
My mother had supposedly been buried in a closed casket in Miami.
There had been no body inside it.
I touched the bracelet.
A final memory struck me.
Evelyn was not killed in our house.
Vale had stunned her.
He brought her here.
She was alive after the storm.
She had been alive while Natalie and I cried ourselves to sleep, believing she was dead.
Thomas came beside me.
“I found her after I was captured.”
I turned on him.
You knew?
His voice came through the water, muffled by the breathing mask.
“I was too late.”
How long?
“Three days.”
Rage burned through me.
You let us bury an empty coffin.
“I was already a prisoner.”
Maris touched my shoulder.
The cavern shook.
Flashlights appeared in the tunnel behind us.
Thomas pulled me away from the cage.
“We survive first. We grieve later.”
We swam toward a crack on the far side.
A net shot through the water.
It wrapped around Thomas.
Electric light flashed across the cords.
His body went rigid.
I turned back.
Maris caught me around the waist.
Father, she said inside my mind.
I looked at Thomas.
He was still conscious.
He shook his head and pointed toward the exit.
Go.
I refused.
Another net flew past us.
Natalie pulled Sophie through the narrow opening.
Maris handed me Mira and rushed toward Thomas.
She slashed the net with the ridges along her arms.
The current carried him downward.
Two divers entered the cavern.
One aimed at Maris.
Sophie screamed.
A pulse of sound tore through the water.
The divers’ lights exploded.
They spun helplessly as the current reversed around them.
Natalie stared at her daughter.
Sophie looked terrified by what she had done.
Maris freed Thomas and pulled him toward us.
We escaped through the crack.
Beyond it was open ocean.
Sunlight shone above.
A group of large shadows circled below.
Sharks.
Natalie saw them and clutched Sophie.
Maris made a low clicking sound.
The sharks moved aside.
Then dozens of figures rose from the deep.
Men and women with tails of blue, silver, green, and black surrounded us.
Some carried spears made from bone.
Others wore scars from Vale’s collars.
They stared at me.
Then at Mira.
An older male with a black tail approached Maris.
His face was hard.
Maris pushed me behind her.
The male pointed his spear toward Mira.
The child must return.
Maris answered in a language I did not understand.
The male’s expression darkened.
She has human blood now. She cannot lead us.
Lead?
Mira was not merely Maris’s child.
She was important to them.
The male looked at me.
And the firstborn must face judgment.
I felt Maris’s fear.
Before I could ask what he meant, the group closed around us.
They took Thomas’s breathing tank and replaced it with a clear shell that covered his mouth. Two guards separated Natalie from Sophie.
Natalie fought them.
Sophie screamed, “Mom!”
Maris tried to intervene.
The black-tailed male struck the water with his spear.
Enough.
A current slammed us apart.
Mira was taken from my arms.
I lunged for her.
Three guards restrained me.
The male lifted the baby above his head.
A silver light spread through the ocean.
Every figure bowed except Maris.
The male looked at her.
You broke our oldest law when you gave the first child to the surface. Now you have done it again.
Maris moved between him and Mira.
I gave Claire a life.
You gave the humans a weapon.
He pointed toward Sophie.
Their experiments have created an abomination.
Natalie heard him.
Her face changed from fear to fury.
She pulled free of the guards and swam in front of her daughter.
“Call my child that again.”
The male seemed surprised by her courage.
Thomas moved beside her.
“She is innocent.”
The male turned his spear toward him.
No surface-dweller is innocent.
An explosion sounded behind us.
A metal vessel descended from the sunlight.
Vale’s submarine.
Mechanical arms extended from its sides.
The merpeople scattered.
A beam of red light struck the water.
Maris screamed.
So did half the others.
Hidden collars lit beneath their skin.
Vale had marked more of them than we knew.
The submarine’s speaker vibrated through the ocean.
“Bring me the three children, and I will spare the rest.”
The black-tailed male looked at Mira.
Then at Sophie.
Finally, he looked at me.
I knew what he was thinking.
He could surrender us and save his people.
Maris raised her bone blade.
May you like
The male knocked it from her hand.
Then he pointed his spear at my heart.
