Chapter 2 #2
"Stop, Riley. It's the only way out of here." Jax barely even looked at me, his jaw clenched tightly. "These are emergency escape pods for human personnel. It will take you to the surface."
Blake cupped my cheek and I jolted away from his touch. "They'll be here any second. We have to get you out of here." He frowned and stepped back, taking off his shirt and pants. Jax peeled off his boxers, and I looked away. What the fuck were they doing?
"I'm here because of you!" I said through clenched teeth. The anger that had been hiding in wait was coming to the surface.
I had been kidnapped and waterboarded because of them. It didn't matter how guilty my father was, I wasn't part of his world or theirs.
Jax took me from Morgan. My chest hurt and I started gasping for breath, my body already reacting to knowing the only thing that would separate me from water was a thin layer of material. I knew I'd be inside something, but it didn't take away from the fact that I'd be in the water.
Were they nuts? I didn't need to ask how deep we were because if they were sticking me in a bullet-shaped contraption, we had to be deep. There wouldn't be some secret mermaid facility for the mermaid mafia sitting near sea level. It would be deep, where no man dared to go.
"Do you trust me?" Jax lowered me into the pod and started strapping me to the flat cushioned seat that ran the length of the pod.
I would have fought him, but my body refused to cooperate. I met his eyes and he nodded as if he understood my reservations but wasn't about to let me go. Morgan and Blake came to stand around me.
"You're going to have to trust me just this once. I promise we won't let anything happen to you."
I opened my mouth to protest because they already had let something happen to me. He shut the door of the pod and it made a sound as it sealed tight. I wasn't claustrophobic, but I suddenly felt like I was being suffocated.
I pounded my fist against the window and flinched as the hard surface jolted my wrist. I didn't know what it was made of, but it felt like I was hitting metal, despite it being clear.
Morgan looked in at me and I felt how fish must feel. I was going to feel like I was in the water and they knew I had a fear of it. And where the hell were they going to be? Swimming naked beside me?
My eyes cut to Morgan again and he mouthed breathe and exaggerated his breathing. I mimicked him, my panic starting to decrease slightly. He smiled and then raised his hand in what I thought was going to be a wave, but instead, he pressed a button.
Suddenly, the pod took off, and it felt like a rollercoaster taking off at top speed. My ears popped as it shot through a dark tube and entered water. I gripped onto the roll bar with a death grip as small objects hit the outside. It was like driving through a swarm of bugs on the highway.
I should have shut my eyes, but they refused to close. I couldn't see anything except blackness at first, but then the pod flew into the night sky. I screamed and it landed with a jolt.
My fingers were going numb from gripping the bar so tight, and I let go, shaking them out. The pod rocked gently in the water as I stared up at the dark sky dotted with stars. If I wasn't in the middle of the ocean, it might have been enjoyable.
Three bodies flew over the pod, landing in the water with a small splash. Dolphins? I rapidly blinked as three heads came above the surface next to the pod.
My breath left me.
I knew they were different, but thinking it and seeing it were two different things. Their skin was blue, the color of the ocean, and their eyes were similar to a cat's.
It was real. All those years ago, it had been one of their kind that had saved me. They stared back at me as I examined their features. They looked the same, but fierce and deadly.
Behind them, movement caught my eye. "Shark!" I pointed frantically to the gray fin fast approaching.
Jax turned and then disappeared under the water. Morgan was laughing and went under after him. I was freaking out. What were they thinking? Could a shark get into a pod? If the shark ate the guys, would I roast inside when the sun came up?
The fin disappeared and Blake put his hand against the window. It was a human hand, but the skin looked thicker. Now that his arm was out of the water, I saw scales running up to his shoulder.
He stabbed you with a syringe.
"I hate you!" Despite my words, I put my hand against the glass.
There was movement above my head and I craned my neck to see what was going on. Jax and Morgan were pulling something from the top end of the pod. It was dark, but it looked like a rope.
The shark floated to the surface of the water and they looped the rope into its jaws. Jax scratched its snout area and then smacked its side. It started moving, pulling me with it.
Holy shit. A shark was pulling me in the middle of the ocean. A panicked giggle left me.
We moved through the water about as fast as a car in a residential neighborhood. It was smoother than I expected, and I kept looking to see the shark pulling me, thinking I had hallucinated the whole thing.
A flash of blue to the side of the pod caught my eye. I wished it wasn't night so I could have seen what their entire bodies looked like.
My eyes grew heavy with the gentle rocking of the pod, and despite the fight to keep my eyes open, they closed.
I moaned and slid my arms under pillows as I started to wake up. My body jolted awake, and I sat straight up. I was in Jax's room.
The sky was still dark, but the faintest hint of the morning lightened the sky. Had last night really happened? Maybe someone brought a hallucinogen to my birthday party and I had been tripping.
Not that I knew what that even felt like.
I looked at my wrists and gently probed the bruised skin. It wasn't a dream at all. I really had been used as a pawn.
I got to my feet and moved across the room to the windows. My stomach twisted at the sight of the ocean. Had a giant shark really pulled me like I was in a carriage and it was a trusty steed? I had hit my head on the floor when the chair fell.
I backed up a step and my attention stopped on the easel that was turned to face the bed. I walked around it and gasped. A faint outline of me sleeping was sketched. He was going to paint me.
The paint was laid out on a small table next to the canvas. Some of the caps were off, looking like it was ready to be used.
They kidnapped me and I was tortured. Anger bubbled up inside me, unlike anything I felt before, and I grabbed a tube of paint and squirted it onto the canvas. Red liquid hit the side of my sketched face and slid down.
I threw the tube across the room and then rubbed my hands over the canvas, erasing the picture he had done. He didn't get to draw me. Not after what he'd done.
My chest heaved, and I took another tube, blue, and squirted it on the bed. Jax would flip his lid seeing the mess.
I stalked over to the closet, the half empty tube of paint still in my hand, and opened the door. His neat rows of clothes stared back at me and my heart beat wildly. I was unhinged and it felt so good.
I squeezed the tube over the top of the clothes and then threw the tube down. I opened his drawers, and with paint covered hands, threw the clothes everywhere.
A laugh escaped me, and I put my hand over my mouth to stop it. I didn't want them to hear me. I wanted to be long gone by the time Jax discovered the mess.
I left the closet and quickly rinsed my hands in the bathroom, leaving a mess of red in the pristine white sink and on the counter. It looked like blood and added to my satisfaction.
I looked crazed with my hair standing every which way and red smeared across my lower face. I used a towel to clean it off before tying my hair into a bun.
How was I going to escape? I looked down at my feet and went back to the closet. I took two pairs of socks and a pair of Jax's shoes. They were big, but with two pairs of socks on, they fit better than expected.
The sky was lightening as the morning approached, and I opened the bedroom door. Voices filtered up from downstairs and I cursed under my breath. There was no way I was going to be able to sneak down the stairs and out the door with them in the kitchen or living room.
The terrace was my only hope. I slid open the door and walked outside. The steps leading down were just off to the side of the downstairs windows. I didn't know what the hell I was going to do once I got off the property, but it was certainly better than staying.
I held onto the handrail and walked as quietly as possible. Sounds from inside filtered out through the open floor-to-ceiling windows they always had open. It made sense now. They were bringing the ocean inside since they weren't in it.
I shuddered. They weren't human. I had known, of course, but seeing it up close and personal like I had... I didn't know what to make of it.
Mermaids are real.
I peeked around the corner and quickly flattened myself back against the wall, putting a hand over my mouth. Finn West.