Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
The last person Angie expected to see when she walked into work the next morning was Celia, in front of the building with the staff locker rooms.
Eva’s daughter.
Angie hadn’t seen Celia here since the start of the summer, when she had come with some friends to go scuba diving. Before Angie had first glimpsed Kaden’s tail.
The young woman had her hands wedged in her sandy hair while pacing back and forth, appearing flustered.
“Celia?” Angie began, once she was in earshot.
The young woman stopped and let her hair fall limp around her face, eyeing Angie up and down, as if trying to figure out where she knew her from. “Have we met before?”
“You probably don’t recognize me anymore. I met you a couple times when we were younger, and your mom brought you to the docks.” The same way Mia came with Rosie to meet Nick, and the same way Māma and Bàba brought her and Mia when they were little girls.
“Oh!” Celia’s face flashed with recognition. “Angie, right?”
Angie nodded. “Are you okay? Waiting for your mom?”
A stream of tears slid down Celia’s cheeks, and on instinct, Angie moved to comfort her.
“I’m looking for her. She didn’t come home last night, and she’s not answering my texts or calls.
I thought maybe she might still be here, and I don’t know, but I’m so worried.
Grace and a few others are looking for her now. ”
“I’ll stay with you, if that’s okay.”
Celia’s anxious energy rubbed off on Angie, and Angie held her arms over her stomach, dreading what news would come. Eva had to be okay, right? Maybe she had just worked overtime and somehow forgot to tell her daughter—
“Celia?” Grace approached them.
Celia stood at attention. Her face hardened. “I’ve seen doctors with that same look when they’re about to give a patient’s family bad news.”
Angie’s gaze darted between the two women, her next breath catching in her windpipe. Grace hung her head. “We found her, pulled her out from the water. She’s unconscious, and the paramedics are with her now.”
“What? No!” Celia began to push her way past Grace. “Where is she? Where’s my mom?”
“Celia, wait!” Grace ran behind Celia. “You’re going the wrong way!”
Angie followed as they changed directions, and they stopped in the middle of their main gangway, where two paramedics were on their knees performing CPR and a group of workers cluttered around them watching the seas, hands on their gun holsters. An ambulance was parked nearby.
“Mom!” Celia shrieked, wedging her way between the paramedics and dock workers, and collapsing at Eva’s side, her body racked with sobs. “Mom? Come back. Please come back. Don’t leave me all alone.”
“I’m sorry, we couldn’t save her,” one paramedic said. “We tried.”
With a roaring in her ears and a numbness in her cheeks and chest, Angie walked to Celia’s side and kneeled beside her. Eva lay supine, bloated and pale, her lips blue.
Celia’s wails and cries rang through the open sky, and Angie’s heart broke.
Friday evening came, and Angie waited for Kaden at Creston Harbor’s lighthouse before the sun descended. She replayed her night with Kaden over and over in her mind, wishing she could go back in time and take back her confession. Though she meant every word, she should never have said them aloud.
She was moving back to Seattle in less than a month. If she made it to the first day of class. The thought turned her nerves into fireworks. She should be elated at what her future held. Instead, stress and frustration overshadowed whatever happiness may have been bubbling inside.
She checked off the other reasons in her mind: There was a war. Kaden was a merman. She lived on land; he lived in the sea.
Self-loathing festered in her knowing she was betraying her bàba and her people.
An impossible situation that could never be.
It was cruel to lead Kaden on, thinking they had a future together, especially given their circumstances.
Both of them would be better off if they parted ways now.
“Did you wait long?” Kaden approached the shoreline. He took her hands in his and squeezed. The broad smile faded as he studied her face.
“What’s wrong?” Angie quirked an eyebrow.
“Your face. It’s awash with pallor, and there is smoky puffiness under your eyes. Your lips are no longer that beautiful pink. You are sitting here, slumped as if holding up the weight of your body is too much.”
“That’s a really poetic way to say I look exactly how I feel. Exhausted.” She covered her yawn.
Kaden curled the distal part of his tail and used it to give him a forceful push onto the seaside.
Tell him now. Cut the cord.
The words rose to her throat, ready to be vocalized.
But damn it. She cared for him, and it was much too tiring to fight the feeling. The look on his face, his smile, was so heartfelt.
“Sorry. I’m beat. I feel like my head is going to explode if it keeps pounding.
This was supposed to be a fun, educational, relaxing summer.
I feel like I aged ten years.” The words tumbled out of her mouth in a single breath.
Pausing to think through her words would overwhelm her fatigued brain.
She straightened her back, and then collapsed again.
She swallowed hard, blinking back tears.
“More of our workers disappeared. One of them was Eva, someone I’ve known since I was fourteen.
Found out about her yesterday, when I saw her daughter at the docks. ”
Kaden parted his lips, but Angie hurried before he could utter a sound. “Do you know what happened to her?”
“I—” The word stuttered.
“Please, tell me.” A pleading note coated her voice.
Kaden’s gaze was fixed on the space between them.
The lower part of his tail tensed, as if hugging the sandy ground.
He fiddled with something in one closed fist. He didn’t look up at her.
“I didn’t see it happen, but the mer-king and mer-queen spoke of it and praised our sentinels for capturing and killing two humans the day before.
The woman you speak of was left to drown, the sentinels striking her down when she attempted to swim to the surface.
They watched her struggle until she no longer drew breath. ”
An uncontrollable shudder swept through Angie’s core. “They couldn’t at least kill her quickly? To think she suffered like that.” Her hands curled into fists. She knew her own people hadn’t shown mercy to the merfolk, but it tore at her innards to know Eva died a slow, agonizing death.
“I wished they had delivered her a merciful death, as well.” Kaden wet his lips. “It makes me sick hearing the proud swell of the mer-king’s voice when he praised them for their barbarism.”
Angie drew her knees to her chest. “I know we’ve done terrible things to the mer, but still. It’s awful. Her poor daughter had to see her, too.”
Kaden visibly softened and put his hand over hers. “I can only imagine the horror she experienced. I hope she’s able to take the time she needs to grieve properly.”
“I called her this morning to check on her. Some of her friends and family are going to stay with her for a while. She’ll have support.
” She rested her chin on the tops of her knees, thinking back to what Kaden said.
It stuck out to her that he called his parents by their royal titles. She questioned him about it.
“Cyrus and I asked once why we could not call them Mother and Father like our peers referred to their parents. They shot the idea down. Told us they were our superiors and the rulers of their territory, and we would respect them as such. It’s how we’ve lived.
” His tail swept across the sand, creating a gritty arc.
He slid one arm around her, and she pulled in closer to him.
“Interesting. I can’t imagine calling my mom and dad anything else besides Māma and Bàba.” She changed the subject, “Boats aren’t going out anymore, unless they’re boats that can do some damage to the mer. They brought another merman back last night.” Her words faded into silence.
“Your people sent a boat full of spear fishers. They came hunting us yesterday. I heard they found a family of wayward mer in the southern seas. They fled, but the father stayed behind to defend them and was killed. That was likely the one you saw.”
“Did you know him?” Her voice lowered, blunting her words. Angie lifted her gaze to meet his.
Kaden shook his head. “Not personally, but he was of my queendom. Lived in a rural town far from the palace.”
“I’m sorry.” Angie pulled away from him, fingering her ponytail until it fell over one shoulder.
“The people in my village are getting skinnier by the day. The docks are losing business, and soon my bàba will be struggling to run it.” She stopped short.
Was this too much information? Would Kaden take this and go to the king and queen?
Her guilt was a dagger in her abdomen. Here she was, talking about how her people suffered, revealing how weak they were, while cozying up to the mer’s prince.
Yet she didn’t want to stay away from him.
“The humans do look skinnier,” he agreed. “I think of you each time I go to the sanctuaries.”
She cast a side-eye at him. “How do you get those fish to go there? It’s like they willingly trap themselves.”
“It’s not a trap.” Kaden sounded defensive. “We don’t force them to go. They live in harmony with us and trust us because we treat them as equals.” A distant, unfocused smile stretched across his face. “They know they are well fed and cared for when they are close to us.”
A series of frenzied splashes emerged and faded into the distance, like someone pranced through a puddle, diverting his attention. Kaden froze, and Angie whirled around, eyes wide, her hand to her mouth.
Her heart jumped at the thought that they had been spotted. She tensed. “Y-you think there are mer here?”
Kaden’s guard held strong, but he wanted to comfort Angie. He kept a lookout around them. “Likely not a mer. They don’t usually come around this area.”
Angie yelped when, from behind Kaden, a tall wave rose from the sea and rushed for them.