“You’re not what I expected,” Red confessed.
Asha attempted a smile. “Neither are you. I assume you are Tameka’s friend, Red?”
Red nodded. “It’s good to finally meet you at last. I’ve heard so much about you. Most of it’s been good.”
He couldn’t stop staring at her. It was fascinating. It was like seeing Tameka dressed up as a mermaid. He didn’t like the mermaid’s bald head, though. He loved Tameka’s springy hair. It was her trademark.
“Why are you here?” Asha asked.
“We followed a magical trail back here,” said Bethyl, staring up at Asha with suspicion. “Did you have something to do about that?”
“I cannot perform magic,” said Asha. “I am just a regular mermaid.”
“Maybe.”
Bethyl picked up the shards of something that were behind the bench. It appeared to be the remains of some kind of ceramic jar.
“You didn’t need magic for this,” said Bethyl. She was triumphant. “All you needed to do was crack this jar open and order the piranhas to go to their target.”
“I do not understand what you are implying,” said Asha.
Red couldn’t believe he’d doubted the mermaid’s intentions for one second. He should have just stuck to his instincts. Mermaids were not to be trusted.
“Why did you send piranhas to kill me?” Red demanded.
Asha seemed confused. “I do not understand. Why would I send fish to kill you? You are my sister’s friend. She cares for you.”
He took out a gun, kindly loaned to him from Tameka’s vast weapon’s stash. “Tell me now or I swear I’ll put a bullet in you.”
Tameka couldn’t keep the grin off her face as the police and fire trucks arrived at the charity building. There were dozens of firemen, storming the place, running around for some fire to put out with their hoses. It took them a while to realize that there was no fire.
“Where’s Galina?” Tameka demanded.
Vincent shrugged. “Perhaps she doesn’t care for this charity as much as we thought.”
“Something is wrong.”
She was about to sort through things in her mind when her cell phone rang. It was an unknown number.
“Hello?” she said.
“I trust you’ve had a nice night out,” said Galina.
Tameka gritted her teeth. “You knew I was going to do this.”
“I knew you’d do something reckless, just not this exactly.”
Tameka took a deep breath. She couldn’t become angry. She had to try and talk to Galina herself.
“Tell me what you’re up to,” said Tameka. “I know you’re having thousands of humans killed around the world. Tell me why.”
Galina laughed. “You should be more concerned about your sister. I fear someone is about to kill her.”
Galina hung up. Tameka started up the engine again and they drove off. She had to get to the abandoned marina quickly.
Tameka ran, ignoring the loud, stomping footsteps of Vincent as she strained to catch up. She couldn’t believe this was happening. How had she not seen this coming? Red had been cautious about her spending time with Asha all this time. Now he was going to attack her because he thought her sister was behind the piranha attack!
You better not hurt her or I’ll…
What? What would I do to Red to protect my sister?
She ran across the marina, screaming as she saw her sister’s prone body by the bench. She had her human legs on, which meant Asha had come out of the sea for something. Had Red called her to talk and then attacked her?
“Asha!” Tameka shouted.
Tameka turned her sister over. She was breathing, and her eyes were open, but she was in pain. There was a bullet wound in her abdomen.
“What happened?” Tameka asked, hoping she was wrong. “Who did this?”
“Your friend Red did this,” said Asha, sounding weak. “He tried to kill me.”
Tameka shook her head, using her hands to stench the bleeding. Her sister’s blood was crimson with a hint of green. Vincent hung back, unsure how to help.
“You’ll be fine,” Tameka urged her. “Be glad you’re not human. Can you heal?”
Asha nodded. “I will heal, yes, but I do not care that he shot me. I care that he told me something important.”
I care that Red shot you! He could’ve killed you!
“What did he say?” Tameka asked.
Asha took a deep, agonizing breath and said, “He admitted something to me. He told me, before he shot me, that he was the one who killed our parents that night on the cruise ship.”
30
Tameka felt light headed as Asha’s words sunk in.
“He said that?” she asked. “He really said that?”
Asha started pulling herself to her feet. She leaned into Tameka for support, who led her to the bench to sit down. The wound was already healing. It looked better than it did mere moments ago.
Red was only just here. I must have missed him by mere minutes.
“Are you sure he admitted it?” Tameka asked, torn. She still couldn’t believe it. “It’s just…I looked him in the eye when he thought his brother was dead. He was raw and honest and I knew he wasn’t guilty.”
Asha glared at her as she said, “He admitted it and then he shot me. He knew it would not kill me. He just wanted to make me suffer.”
“That’s not Red. That’s not the man I know.”
“Red would never do that!” Vincent protested.
Asha leaned into her shoulder. “I felt such…such anger. I was angry at him. He took away our parents.” She looked up at Tameka. “I have not felt anger in such a long time. Is it supposed to make you feel nauseous too?”
“Sometimes.”
“I do not like being angry.”
Her sister rested her head on her shoulder again as Tameka tried to make sense of everything. She’d spent so long hating Red only to realize he couldn’t ever be so evil. Had he just been playing her all this time? Had she really been taken in by a convincing sociopathic dragon? Had he fooled her?
Why would Asha lie?
Why would Red lie?
“I don’t understand why Red hates you so much,” Tameka confessed. “He’s always going on about how you can’t be trusted and that all mermaids are bad.”
“I know why,” Asha whispered.
“Did he tell you?”
Asha pulled away from Tameka, poking at her wound. It was almost gone now. She wondered what happened to the bullet. Did it go straight through, or was it still inside her sister’s body somewhere?
“I heard the story from my mermaid father,” Asha explained. “Red had a family once; a wife and three children. They were killed by a rogue mermaid during the shapeshifter wars in our home dimension.”
The revelation floored her. Red had a family? And they died? Why did he never tell her? They’d had some intimate moments, some moments of true intimacy where she’d bared her soul. Why couldn’t he tell her about this? Didn’t he trust her?
Red’s family were killed by mermaids. No wonder he hates them so much.
“I wish he’d told me,” Tameka admitted. “I thought we were close.”
“There is more to Red’s story that I have not told you. The night he killed our parents he was with a group of dragons trying to destroy a colony of mermaids. The cruise ship just happened to be passing over the colony at the time.”
“He was going around massacring mermaids wholesale?”
Asha nodded. “I fear he is still doing it. It makes sense now. It is him that has been attacking our colonies recently. He wants to wipe us out.”
Red had killed her parents while enacting some revenge scheme against the mermaids. If he hadn’t attacked the cruise ship her mom and dad would still be alive. Asha wouldn’t have fallen off the deck in the life raft and drowned and turned into a mermaid. Every disaster that had befallen her life was his fault. He’d ruined her family. He’s ruined her entire life. To ad
d insult to injury he’d made her fall in love with him.
He’s not going to get away with it a moment longer.
She stood up, resolute in her mission. She was going to kill Red.
Vincent followed Tameka as she stormed back to the car, her sister momentarily forgotten in her vengeful rage. Personally Vincent hadn’t believed a word the mermaid said. She’d painted Red to be a monster, something he clearly wasn’t. They all knew him better than that. Surely Tameka had to see that?
“Stop!” Vincent shouted. “You can’t hurt him!”
Tameka stopped. “You heard what he did.”
“She’s lying.”
“He shot her!”
“And that means that she isn’t lying? You know Red. You know he…”
Tameka pulled her gun out, aiming it at Vincent’s chest. She stepped back in horror. The betrayal she felt caused her to shake in fury.
This isn’t Tameka’s fault. She’s being used.
“You can’t stop me,” said Tameka. Vincent stared into the barrel of the gun, hoping she wouldn’t use it. “I’m doing this.”
“You’ll regret it for the rest of your life when you realize you were wrong,” pleaded Vincent. “Red did not kill your parents.”
“Are you saying Asha lied to me as she lay there bleeding?”
“You stupid girl. You’re being so gullible. I thought you were better than this.”
Tameka said, “My memories don’t lie!”
Vincent knew what she had to do next would either kill Tameka or free her, but it needed to be done. Ever since she’d been forced to use her hypnotic powers for evil she’d been wanting to make amends. She thought she was doing that, helping to find Galina and stop her from hurting anybody else. Tonight she could do something to help the woman who had done so much for her at incredible risk to herself.
“I thought that when I finished transitioning my powers of hypnosis would lessen, like they would for a normal troll,” Vincent explained. “But they didn’t. I talked to other trolls about it and they confirmed what I feared – I’d used my powers so much I’d actually trained my body to use them on a permanent basis. I’ve been honing my powers for a while now to help you. I hadn’t planned on using them this soon, but needs must.”
“If you use your hypnotism shit on me…”
Tameka fired a shot. The bullet passed through Vincent’s shoulder and embedded itself into the alley wall. She didn’t feel it much. She was too busy concentrating on her friend, pushing every ounce of concentration into the task at hand.
“This is the most precious gift I could ever give you,” Vincent stated, slowly walking towards Tameka. “When this is done I’ll either be dead or my powers burned out completely. But it’s worth it. You’re worth it.”
“Vincent…”
Tameka turned to run. Vincent snatched her into the air, her huge hands wrapped around the human’s waist. She dropped the gun as she struggled, but Vincent had her tight. She’d never let her go, not until this was over.
Vincent smiled as she said, “Tameka, remember everything.”
“So how’s our sleeping beauty?”
“Still in the land of nod.”
“Red, you don’t have to stay here all day, every day. We have offered to keep an eye on her too.”
“I’m never leaving her side again.”
“Just tell her you love her when she wakes up, okay?”
“Are you leaving?”
“I just got a ping on my hook-up ap. There’s this male model waiting to go down on me in the city. A witch’s work is never done.”
Tameka screamed as she sat up.
“He could be a serial killer!” she shouted.
Bethyl was standing at the door, watching her with vigilant eyes. The witch smiled, gave her a wave, and left.
Tameka pulled herself off the couch, feeling hung-over. The last thing she remembered was sitting in the car with Vincent near Galina’s charity, watching a whole host of hunky firemen run around aimlessly. What had happened? How had she ended up like this?
She yawned and stretched, feeling stiff. She felt like she hadn’t moved in days.
“What am I doing here?” she asked. “Shit. My throat feels as dry a nun’s crotch.”
Red smiled and pulled her into a hug. “You’re awake! I’m so glad.”
“Why was I asleep?” she demanded, pushing him away. She was so confused. “What happened with Galina?”
“You’ve been asleep for five days,” Red explained. He had bags under his eyes and his clothes were disheveled. He was a mess. “Five long, agonizing days.”
Shit! Asha will be wondering what happened to me.
Tameka felt something stir in her memory. “Asha.”
“What about her?” Red asked, his expression curious.
“Something happened. Something…”
It all came back to her in one fateful click. Everything. She remembered growing up with Asha. She remembered every birthday, every fight, every time they’d use their twin-ness to trick somebody. She remembered the excitement and trepidation of their first cruise. She remembered everything.
“What is it?” Red asked. “You looked like you were about to pass out.”
She bunched her hands into fists. “I have to go.”
“You’ve been ill, and you haven’t eaten in days!”
The glare of pure fury she directed at Red caused him to back away.
“I know what I’m doing,” she told him. “Trust me.”
Tameka stalked all the way to the abandoned marina. Her legs didn’t ache. She didn’t get out of breath. The people she passed on the way avoided her, sensing they’d get a punch to the gut if they interfered. She was fuelled by anger and betrayal and a sense of righteous indignation.
When she arrived at the marina, the place she met with her precious long lost twin, she picked up their bench and smashed it against the floor.
“Asha!” she screamed.
She could still see droplets of her sister’s blood on the floor.
“Asha!” she shouted again. “Get the fuck out here right now before I burn this whole fucking marina down!”
The moment her sister stepped out of the sea Tameka couldn’t control herself any longer. She marched up to her, grabbed her by the neck, and swung her down onto the ground. She placed her foot on Asha’s chest.
“You lied to me you bitch,” Tameka spat. “You lied to me about everything.”
Asha’s lips curled up into a vindictive smile. “Took you long enough.”
31
“Let me go,” Asha ordered.
Tameka pressed her foot down harder. She wanted to crush this bitch’s chest and make her suffer. She’d never wanted to hurt something so bad in her life, even if she was her blood, her sister. Nobody used her and lied to her and got away with it.
“Everything you told me was a lie,” Tameka shouted. Asha winced in pain as Tameka’s boots dug into her scaled skin. “Was anything you told me the truth, or were you just lying out of your pathetic mermaid ass?”
“Lies peppered with truths,” Asha admitted. “But mostly the truth. Or mostly lies. It depends on how you look at it.”
“I look on it as you being a sociopath who took great pleasure in lying.”
“I do not experience emotion. I did not get any satisfaction from deceiving you.” Asha tried to smile and added, “But you made me feel emotions, despite my reluctance to do so. So I suppose I am quite pleased with myself. I think it is called smugness.”
“You won’t be smug when I splatter your brains all over this marina.”
Could mermaids even die? She didn’t know. Tameka knew they lived a long time. They did bleed, though. That meant they could die.
“Why did you give me false memories?” Tameka asked.
“They were not false memories,” Asha insisted.
“No. They were your memories, weren’t they?”
She removed her foot, her hand hovering over the gu
n in its holster. Asha would get a bullet to the head if she so much as tried to give her a paper cut.
Asha stood up, her face a mask of creepy detachment. Tameka backed away, careful to keep her distance. She hadn’t yet seen what a mermaid could do when it went on the offensive, but she assumed they were deadly strong. For all she knew her sister could pick her up and snap her in half like a twig.
“Why did you give me your memories?” Tameka asked.
Tameka tried to keep calm. She tried to stop herself from crying, from being overwhelmed at the monstrous deception her sister had perpetrated, but it was hard. She’d got her sister back only to find out she was lying about literally everything.
Was she even her sister?
Asha had to be her sister. She had all her memories back now and knew what had really happened on the cruise ship. Or most of it, anyway. The last thing she remembered was plunging into the sea in the life raft.
“I needed you to think you were a monstrous, cruel child who tried to kill her own sister,” said Asha. “And I needed you to remember the red dragon murdering our parents.”
“Why?” Tameka demanded.
“You were more apt to trust me if you felt guilty over trying to kill me.” Asha nodded her head, as if pleased with something. “And you did trust me, didnt you? I could have told you your adopted mother was a werewolf and you would have shot her full of silver bullets. Frankly, I am surprised you were so easily manipulated. I thought better of you.”
“You were my sister. I trusted you, even if…”
“Even if was a mermaid? Do not be so racist. You can trust a mermaid far more than you can trust a human. Humans are cattle.”
“I’m a human. I can be trusted.”
“But are you?”
“What?”
“Are you human?”
Her sister was trying to manipulate her again by questioning her humanity. She wasn’t going to fall for it this time. Asha could go to hell.
“Did Red really murder our parents?” Tameka asked.
Asha paused before saying, “That is the funny thing. I honestly do not know. There was a red dragon. It did rip your useless human parents to pieces. It could have been Red. It could’ve been another dragon. If I knew I would tell you.” Asha stepped towards her. Tameka pulled out her gun, aiming for the mermaid’s head. “That is the thing. I really did not lie all that much. The dragons did attack our colony that day. They are responsible for the deaths of your sister and your parents. For all I know it was your precious Red.”
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