Jude frowns and paces for a moment, thinking. “Okay, maybe you’re right, but what about Avery? He’s been shot! He needs a doctor.” He drops to his knees beside me, trying to see what I’m doing.
“The shot was clean, in and out. The bullet didn’t hit anything but muscle. If we keep it sterilized and bandaged, he should heal just fine on his own.”
“But what about pain medicine? That’s got to hurt like a bitch.”
Avery groans and rolls his head back and forth in answer.
“Alcohol will dampen the pain enough to get him through the worst of it, but the truth is, you’re going to feel terrible for a while, Avery.”
“It’s okay, I understand,” Avery rasps, coughing on the last word and clutching his middle.
“I’ll get you some booze, Ave, just stay still.” Jude jumps up and heads to the galley.
He comes back a few seconds later with a fifth of whiskey and holds it to Avery’s lips like a baby bottle. I lift Avery’s head so he can drink without choking. After he’s consumed as much as he can handle, Jude takes the bottle and gulps down a swig of it.
“This shitstorm seems like a pretty good excuse for day drinking.” He tries to smile, but his lips twist into something halfway between a frown and a sneer.
I get the first aid kit, some clean towels, and some scissors. Jude holds Avery up while I cut his shirt off and rinse the entry and exit wounds then bandage him up, trying to keep my hands from shaking. One of us needs to be calm and collected right now.
“Hey Gio, we need you.” I motion for him to come over when we’re done.
Gio glances at me in confusion for a moment then shakes himself out of his catatonia long enough to help Jude and me carry Avery to his bunk. Jude gets him a bottle of water with a straw, and I put the Jack Daniels beside it on the nightstand.
“We’ve got some things to take care of, Avery, but we’ll be right here if you need us.” I lay an emergency whistle on his bed within easy reach.
Avery nods, his eyes closed already, and I’m pretty sure he’ll be asleep in minutes, as much whiskey as he ingested. He looks terrible — pale, clammy, and lifeless. I hope I’m making the right decision here. I’m not a doctor, but I know enough about biology that I’m pretty confident in my assessment. But I’m still taking a big gamble. That’s not like me, either. I don’t take risks, I make plans, but I never planned on any of this. It’s just another crazy thing to add to my list of recent insanities.
“Okay, now for the dirty work. We need to dump these bodies, but not here, not this close to their ship. We don’t want to risk anyone finding them.”
“We might as well head back. We can dump them somewhere along the way,” Gio says.
I look at him, trying to determine if he’s mentally stable enough to captain the ship right now. My concern must be obvious because he scowls at me. “I’m fine, Liam. I’ve gotten along just fine without a mother for the last eight years, I certainly don’t need you to mother me.”
Gio tromps off to the wheelhouse, and Jude and I get started hauling James and Roy’s bodies out to the deck, gaining a new understanding of the phrase dead weight. I notice Sam isn’t breathing anymore, and I give a sigh of relief that at least I won’t have to throw him overboard while he’s still alive. I bark out a harsh laugh at the ridiculousness of that thought.
“We need something to weigh the bodies down, or they’ll float to the surface once the decomposition gasses start to build up.” I look around the deck for something heavy, expendable, and non-traceable.
“Gio has a set of free weights in his cabin. We could probably use those,” Jude suggests. Of course he does. You don’t get biceps like that from navigating.
We grab the weights and tie them on to the bodies. I do a bit of math in my head to determine how much weight we need then add several more pounds just to be safe. Hopefully, predators will get to them before long, though, making discovery and identification less of a worry. I cringe at the callousness of that thought, but they’re already dead. It doesn’t matter to them, but it might matter to us.
While we work, I can’t help staring at the cold, pale, waxy bodies with blood dried in macabre splashes on their clothes and skin. I’ve seen a few human corpses before — anatomy class and the occasional funeral — but never one I was indirectly responsible for. The bullet holes are new for me, too. I’m disgusted by my urge to examine the wounds more closely.
This entire situation is so surreal, I feel like I’ve fallen into a fantasy. Only, the fantasy creature at the center of all this is gone, and all that’s left is the gruesome aftermath. My chest pinches at the thought of Coral, and I rub my breastbone, trying to relieve the ache.
Gio told us what Sam said, how Coral escaped with the help of another merman and swam off in the opposite direction. That was more than a day ago, and there’s been no sign of her. If Coral wanted to come back to us, she would have. I force the pain of that knowledge down deep. I’ll know have to deal with it later, but I can’t let myself get caught up in it until we’ve dealt with the situation.
Jude stares at the water as the boat pulls away. I know he still thinks she’s being held against her will, maybe by her grandfather, but if so, there’s nothing we can do to help her. We have no idea where her shoal is, and the Atlantic is a massive ocean.
If we didn’t need to get rid of these bodies, we could say here a little longer in case she turns up, but not with their empty boat sitting right next to us. We can’t risk getting caught with three dead men on our ship. No, we have to protect ourselves, and this is the only way. Coral knows how to find us if she wants to.
A few hours later, we’re surrounded with nothing but water on every side and far enough away from James’ boat that no search and rescue diver should ever look here for the missing sailors.
“I think this is a good spot.” I head to the helm and tell Gio.
He nods and slows the boat while I return to the deck. A few minutes later, Gio comes out to help us dump the bodies. Jude and I each pick up one of Sam’s legs, and Gio grabs him under his arms.
We lift him up and start to heft his body over the railing, but Gio stops us. “Wait, I think we should say a prayer or something.”
Jude and I aren’t religious, so we just set the body back down and look to Gio. He doesn’t really practice, but I know his parents were catholic. He probably went through catechism and confirmation. He might’ve even been an altar boy. I stifle a laugh at the thought of a young Gio in a long, white robe, carrying a candle. After his parents died, I think Gio gave up on religion, but if the tradition makes him feel better about all this, who am I to argue? We all have our coping mechanisms. I am surprised that Jude has enough tact not to make a joke about it.
Gio mumbles a few words then makes the sign of the cross before picking up his end of the body again. We dump the three bodies over the side of the boat, the only sound the heavy splash as their stiffened corpses break the surface.
I feel my emotions swelling inside me, too intense to stay bottled up any longer, so I quickly head to my cabin for some privacy. Once I’m there, I feel a few tears well up in the corners of my eyes. Instead of wiping them, I let them drip down my face, streaking in a hot, wet trail over my cheeks. My nose starts to run, and as soon as I sniff, my body shudders out a sob.
I drop to my bunk and bury my face in my hands, letting my tears wet my palms, as I cry as quietly as possible. I let myself mourn for the loss of life, the loss of innocence, and the loss of the incredible creature who was so much more than that. I was fascinated by her, clamoring to study every nuance of her biology, but I let my curiosity distract me from the fact that I had fallen for her. I didn’t realize how much I loved her.
I wonder if she knew it before I did. Did her telepathic abilities allow her to recognize the emotions hidden behind my thoughts? I hope so, because I don’t think I ever told her how I really felt about her. I’m not sure I even understood the depth of my feelings for her until
right this moment.
I’m not used to letting my emotions out, so I only cry for a few minutes before my psyche forces them back inside. I wash my face, pressing the cool, wet washcloth to my eyes to soothe the redness till I look almost normal again. Then I head out to see what the others are doing, hoping to distract myself.
Jude is sitting by Avery’s bedside, talking to him and laughing like nothing happened, but his voice is high and jangly, almost manic. Avery is too out of it to participate, so it’s a one-sided conversation, just a way for Jude to work out his nervous energy. Avery doesn’t need anything, and Jude is too wired for me to handle right now, so I head for the wheelhouse to check on Gio. He’s slamming things around and cursing like the proverbial sailor, his jaw and hands clenched into granite.
“Need some help?” I ask, poking my head into the wheelhouse. He turns to look at me with a snarl on his face and growls. I hold up my hands and back away. “Just checking.”
The hallway still looks like a scene from a horror movie, so I busy myself cleaning it, sopping up the sticky puddles of blood with yards of paper towel that I pile in a bucket once soaked, intending to dump overboard. At first, I try not to get any on myself, my stomach retching at the thought of someone else’s blood on my clothes and skin. But there’s so much, it’s impossible to stay clean, and eventually I’m covered in it.
When the obvious mess is gone, I mop the floors with bleach and scour the walls, looking for blood spots. I end up wiping down every inch with the bleach water, just in case, then I do the same for the deck. My sinuses burn from the bleach fumes, makes my eyes water and my nose run. I want to wipe them, but can’t stand the thought of smearing blood on my face, so I just let them drip, cleansing my body and my soul.
It takes me hours to clean up the mess. When I’m done, my hands are red and raw, and my knees ache from crawling and squatting. No one is on deck, and the sky is black around me, hiding me from any spectators, so I take my clothes off and toss them into the water then hobble, exhausted, to the shower. I stand under the hot, pounding stream till the water runs clear and my skin starts to pucker.
It’s late when we pull into port, well after midnight, but I’m totally exhausted from the mental stress and physical exertion. “I’m just gonna crash here tonight, if you don’t mind. I don’t think I can stay awake long enough to drive home,” I tell Gio.
“Sure, yeah, of course.” Gio waves his hand towards the cabins.
“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I think I’ll stick around, too. No sense disturbing the ‘rents in the middle of the night,” Jude says.
In the morning, I’m up before the others, so after checking on Avery, I decide to give Jude a break from kitchen duty and make some breakfast. He and Gio wander in a bit later, drawn to the smoky smell of bacon. They slump down at the table, eyes sunken and skin sallow, looking like they’re hungover.
Jude shoves a strip of bacon in his mouth and talks around it. “Thanks, man. I couldn’t seem to get my ass out of bed this morning.”
Gio downs half a cup of coffee and immediately looks a little better. “Did anyone check on Avery yet?”
I nod. “Yeah, he’s doing all right. I’ll change his bandage after breakfast. I was thinking maybe he should come and stay with me while he recuperates so he doesn’t have to explain his injury to his parents. Let them think we’re still out to sea for a while.”
Gio waves away my suggestion. “He can stay here, and I’ll look after him. You’ve got school to worry about.”
“What are you going to do now?” I leave off the last part of that — now that Coral is gone — but it hangs in the air anyway, unspoken.
“I already bought the boat; I need to make some money off it pretty quick, so I’ll probably go out again as soon as I can. Jude, are you still in, or have you got something else you wanna do?”
“I’m in. I can’t apply for culinary school till next year, anyway.” Jude shrugs, and it seems like he’s lost his motivation for it. I understand how he feels.
I always wanted to be a marine biologist, but discovering Coral ignited a whole new passion in me. I always assumed there were still creatures out there we’d never seen, and it’s every scientist’s dream to discover a new species, but finding Coral was more incredible than I could have ever imagined.
I spent hours pouring over her blood work. Surprisingly, it could probably pass for human, but that only raised more questions. Fish blood is normally quite different from human. Do her blood levels change when she morphs? I wanted to take another sample when her tail was out to compare, but I thought I had time to do that later.
I managed to recover the scale samples I accidentally left at the lab before anyone else could stumble upon them, thankfully. They were not too dissimilar from the cycloid scales of other fish, but larger than you would expect for scales with no growth rings. That, of course, made me wonder what her scales would look like after months or years in the water, since the sample she gave me was from just moments after regrowing her tail.
There are so many questions I still have, so many things I want to learn about her. But now I’ll never get the chance. How can I be bothered to study well-known sea creatures when there’s a whole new species out there that’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before? Everything else seems dull by comparison.
I’ve been pampered my whole life. I never lacked for anything, and I always got whatever I wanted, but now, the only things I want, money can’t buy. Even my expensive education can’t satisfy my desires.
I don’t have any other reason to stay on the boat for now, so after breakfast I pack my things and say my goodbyes. It seems strange not knowing when I’ll see the others again; they’ve been such a big part of my world for the last several months. But without Coral, it’s not like we have much reason to get together. Our lives are totally different.
“Hey, maybe we can hang out sometime, you know?” Jude says, obviously feeling the same dissonance.
“Sure, yeah.” I nod, but we both know it’ll probably never happen.
When I get home, the first thing I notice is how empty my apartment seems. I always thought I preferred solitude, so why does the emptiness seem so oppressive? I turn on the TV to fill the silence.
As I start to unpack my bag, I spot Coral’s dress lying at the top of my hamper. I pull it out and instinctively hold it to my nose, inhaling the scent of her. Even fresh out of the bath, she always smelled a bit like the ocean to me, like the scent of the surf when you walk on the beach.
I should probably wash the dress and pack it up along with the rest of her clothes, donate them to charity, or at least hang it with the others, but instead I fold it up and impulsively stick it under my pillow. There’s no hurry to get rid of her things; I have plenty of space in my closet. Besides, there’s still a chance she might come back, right?
We have no idea what happened after she escaped from James and his crew, but I assume she’s safe, at least. She never mentioned any kind of danger from other merfolk. Logically, it makes more sense for her to stay in the sea with her own kind, her family. But Coral has always listened to her heart more than her head, and I know she loves us.
I laugh out loud at that, the sound echoing coldly in my empty apartment. For a guy who’s normally ruled by reason, when it comes to Coral, logic goes right out the window. I never knew love could do that to you.
I breathe in the scent of Coral’s dress one more time before leaving the room then head for my computer. Her scale is sitting there in the small container, throwing off a different color from each angle, and I pick it up and stare at it. Then I pull up her blood work results and scan them again, burying myself in the data to keep her close to me.
Chapter 5
Coral
“Llyr, do you know the way to Persephone’s Cradle? Would you take me there?”
I glance at my mother, wanting to ask her instead, but she’s already made it clear how she feels. She won’t go anywhere near that shoal,
and she doesn’t think I should, either.
Llyr’s face wrinkles in worry. “I can get you close, but I can’t risk being seen by any of the border guards.”
I nod, happy with that much. “I understand. Just get me close enough that I can make it the rest of the way on my own.”
“Do you think they’ll let you in?”
“I’m sure they’ll recognize me,” I say, but his question brings a new worry. How will Grandfather react when he sees me? Will he be angry, or welcoming?
“It’s a long journey from here. You should rest tonight, and we’ll go in the morning. You can stay with me and my family.” Llyr smiles kindly at me.
I open my mouth to thank him, but Pearl interrupts me. “You could stay here tonight, if you want to.”
When I turn to her, her eyes are wide with hope. I can’t resist the chance to spend time with her. I glance back at Llyr, and he nods in understanding.
Once Llyr leaves, an awkward silence descends again. The sun is setting, cloaking the shoal in shadows, but instead of suggesting we go to sleep, Pearl clicks on an underwater flashlight like the kind divers wear, filling her home with a yellow glow. The light warms the room but it doesn’t do much to break the ice between us.
My mother and I stare at each other, neither one of us knowing how to make up for 20 lost cycles. Finally, she asks the question she’s been wondering about ever since she left me.
“So what was it like for you growing up, Coral? Where you… happy?” Her voice is hopeful, but her face is etched with guilt.
I smile at her, a small peace offering. “I had a good life there, really I did. My best friend, Meribel, lived in the castle with us — her mother was my handmaiden — and we used to spend our days playing in the reef.”
The Mermaid's Return_A Reverse Harem Romance Page 4
