Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
At eight o’clock in the morning, Angie sat in Bàba’s office, waiting for Beau and Emily to show up for their meeting.
They arrived five minutes later, and after a brief greeting to Angie and Bàba, they took their seats to Angie’s right.
She didn’t have her chance to talk until twenty minutes had passed.
Bàba gestured to her. “Beibei, was there something you wanted to ask them?”
Emily tilted her head, her expression soft, urging Angie to go on. Beau had his chin resting on his fist, lips pursed, his focus like a laser beam.
Angie jumped at the chance, having both Beau and Emily’s attention on her. “The Coast Guard situation? Two of our colleagues died yesterday, and I saw one of their ships pass by. It looked like it was just leaving, so they had to have seen what happened.”
Beau let out a slow exhale.
Emily sat straighter, and spoke. “We don’t know. The feds won’t send us help. Said they need to prioritize the bigger ports, but I can’t shake the feeling they’re hiding something.”
“What do you mean?” Bàba cut in. “Hiding what?”
Emily shrugged. “I don’t know. It could be anything. Secret experiments, protecting someone important—” Whatever she was going to say next trailed off as Beau shot her a wide-eyed look.
“Thanks for your time, Zixin. We should get going.” Beau stood. He put a hand on Emily’s shoulder, and she did the same.
“Wait, one more question. Please?” Angie couldn’t let them leave now, not without doing what she promised Kaden.
To her relief, they paused at the door. “Would you consider stopping killing all the mer? At this point, I think we need to try diplomacy. We’ve lost so many people already.
” Her voice shook as she asked, suddenly self-conscious of appealing to her town’s mayor for help.
Though they were friendly with Bàba, Angie still saw him as an out-of-reach leader.
She forced herself to continue. “They’re highly intelligent beings and not just animals. We could come to a truce. Make a deal.”
“We’ve tried to talk to them before, but if there is a way we can understand them, I’ll consider it,” Bàba said, and Angie gave him a grateful, relieved smile. “The more we keep this up, the more people we lose, too.”
“No, absolutely not.” Emily folded her arms across her chest, her countenance hardening. “How could you ask that? Zixin, you know as well as anyone why we’re doing this. Them killing us is exactly why we need to hunt them down. What makes you think they’ll stop if we will?”
“We can just catch one and learn how to talk to them.” Angie was repeating herself from their staff meeting almost two months ago.
“I agree, and—” Bàba started, but Beau cut him off.
“You forget what they did. They killed my boy. My teenage son was fucking impaled by those bastards.” His voice cracked at the word son, and Angie’s heart dropped.
“If they hurt or killed one of your daughters, would you not want the same? What, you would just talk to them, and everything will be okay?”
Bàba paled.
Beau continued. “And Angie, who’s side are you on?” His cheeks flushed. “Speaking of which, where were you when my son was murdered? He said he was meeting you that morning.”
“Don’t question her loyalty,” Bàba cut in. “I’d trust her if I were you. She’d never go behind my back.”
An invisible razor drove itself into Angie’s heart.
“I was going to meet him. He wanted to have breakfast together, and we planned to talk about my school. But, when I got to the docks, he wasn’t there. I found him.” The memory made tears well up behind her eyelids, and she swiped at them.
Beau studied her as if searching for cracks in her story.
Emily touched his arm, and he slid his gaze to his wife. “We should go,” she said, her voice hardly above a whisper.
The door shut quietly behind them, leaving Angie and Bàba sitting in silence.
When her shift ended at seven p.m., Angie waited at the same spot she saw Kaden last. Bàba and Nick were holed up in the central meeting room and showed no signs of coming out anytime soon, no doubt planning their retaliation.
Her skin crawled thinking of what they were discussing.
Minutes passed, and Kaden didn’t show, but a familiar rowboat approached her from the horizon. She fixated on it as it moved closer to her, until it finally wedged onto the shoal.
Kaden peeked over the surface, and angled his head toward the boat. Angie’s shoulders collapsed in relief, and after ensuring she was alone, she climbed aboard.
He took his time, meandering underwater, back and forth, back and forth. Angie’s hackles lowered. She’d expected a rough ride not unlike when she nearly hit floating ice, but now, the gentle bobbing and swaying and soft breeze melted the tension in her body.
She stretched out her legs and her eyelids fluttered close.
The boat slowed to a stop. Jolting awake, Angie rubbed her eyes and ran a finger over a deep vertical indentation in her forehead.
Great. She must have fallen asleep with her forehead on the rowboat’s edge.
Her hair was a tangled mess from the wind messing it up, there was a dent on her forehead, her eyes were bleary, and her lips were dry.
They stopped at a remote piece of land nestled within a fjord.
Landmass surrounded them on both sides, bases for towering granite walls dotted with bright greenery.
In the distance were mountains nestled within a blanket of fog, the epitome of nature’s masterful craftsmanship.
Angie’s fatigue vanished as she took in the awe-inducing sight.
Kaden climbed ashore first and held out his hand as Angie stepped off. She lost her footing when the boat rocked with the waves, landing into his waiting arms.
“You planned that, didn’t you?” Angie grunted, sitting back up and dusting sand off her jacket and out of her hair. The sight of him set her aglow, sitting coyly and with hooded eyes, one arm draped casually over where his waist transitioned into his tail.
“Perhaps.” With a tender sweep, he brushed a strand of hair away from her face, his palm lingering on her cheek. His gaze trailed to her forehead, and his playful smile returned.
“Wait, that stupid dent is still there? Damn it.” Angie rubbed her forehead. “I was tired, and I fell asleep. Okay?”
“You’re still beautiful, and I doubt I will ever stop finding you so.”
She rolled her eyes, her cheeks flaming. “Flatterer.”
“Is it flattery if it’s the truth?” Kaden stroked her cheek with one hand and let his fingers slide behind her ear. He smirked. “No gills to worry about jabbing my finger into.”
“Oh, stop.” She laughed and gave him a light shove on his bare shoulder.
“But please, don’t worry about your appearance. I can tell you’ve worked the entire day.”
“More than worked. I talked to the mayor this morning.”
He tensed. “Good news?”
“No,” Angie said, glum, and recounted the meeting’s events. “I don’t know what else to do. I don’t even know if there’s anything my bàba can do.”
“I’ll keep trying on my end.” Kaden tapped his smooth chin. “Have you been eating enough?”
“Barely.” Her lips thinned. A spark of irritation flared. “We’re rationing out what we still have at home. Been eating a lot less.”
Kaden reached behind him, the movement drawing her attention, and Angie tilted her head. “I worried about that, and brought you a few things. I hope you’ll like them.” He opened his palm, unveiling a full handful of dried black seaweed. “Snacks?”
“Nori? I love this!” Angie plucked two from his palm and chewed on them. They were crispy and light and mildly salty, exactly the way she liked them. “I bought these in bulk from Korean supermarkets when I was in college.”
“They’re all yours.” Kaden pushed his palm closer to her. She took him up on his offer, brushing his soft, warm hand when she took the last one.
“Thank you.” She put her free hand over the proximal part of his tail, solid and cold and smooth under her touch. He glanced at where her hand was, and a tail muscle twitched under her touch. The seaweed’s mild bitterness danced on her tongue. “How did you dry this to be so crisp?”
“It’s not wet everywhere all the time.” She didn’t blink while mulling over what he said. Kaden clarified. “In the palace and mer dwellings, there are airy parts. Mostly for keeping things dry.”
She nodded, trying to visualize it. He reached behind him again, but froze.
“Wait. Where did it go?” He planted his hands flat and tensed his tail, using a powerful force to push off.
To Angie’s astonishment, he launched himself a good fifteen or twenty feet ahead, swiped at something, and then returned, landing with such grace that he hardly stirred the loose rocks and soil. One hand flattened on the ground, his other holding something within.
Her eyes rounded. “Can you do that again?”
Kaden stared at her with an expression of disbelief.
“No. It’s an extremely inefficient way for us to move on land, and it uses too much energy. Energy I would much rather spend on you.” He pressed a thick bracelet into her palm. “And this is also for you. Thought I lost it. Must have dropped it when I came ashore.”
Speechless, she turned it over. It looked to be solid gold and dotted with pearls, wrapped inside a soft, romantic design, curved and dreamlike.
A gold hallmark was etched into the bracelet’s inside, beside the letters and numbers “10K” and “1902.” The quality of the gold and the year it was made.
Not a single spot of rust to be found. “This is over a hundred years old!”
“You said you wished to explore the deep. Until I can take you with me, I wanted to find something for you.”
“Where did you find this?” Angie slipped the bracelet over her wrist. Slightly loose, but it held on tight enough.
“In the trenches. I swam through some schools of pipayu and denglongyu who eyed me like I was about to steal from them. Or perhaps they wanted to eat me.” His lips quirked into an amused grin.