Chapter 4
Blair
“I’m not going to take the last one of these.” I eye the last hedge-tot sitting lonely in the basket.
“It’s fine, Aunt Blair. I made them for you,” Holter says.
I really do like them. There’s a lot of food here, and it’s all so good, but these are one of the few things that look like home.
We didn’t eat a lot of fish on the farm.
Well, not unless it was catfish. Which I despise, mostly because the ex made me clean it after he left it in a cooler with no ice.
So many bones. I shouldn’t have, but I used to pray that I might miss one and he would choke on it.
I should have left sooner. But I stayed.
I remind myself I’m stronger than that scared woman who stayed and ate catfish.
Nico elbows me. “Take it. It will keep us from fighting over it.” He’s so friendly and nice, but I’ve seen the way people quiver when he walks by. Like they are so scared they might just faint if he turned and looked at them. But honestly, he’s the sweetest of my niece’s mates.
Oh, they’re all smitten with her. And I love seeing every second. Never have I had a man encourage me to take the last favorite anything. Once, I left the last oatmeal cookie in the jar for a week until I made more because I was afraid my ex would come looking for it.
“I insist.” Nico’s voice has dropped, and I take the fritter from the plate. It’s not hard to understand how he commanded a submarine and had everyone following his directions.
I chew and nod at the same time. My niece’s glare at her mate isn’t hard to pick up on. “Thank you. I really do like them.” I smile, hoping I can smooth any edges I might have roughened between them.
“Yes, but Nico doesn’t have the right to order you around, Aunt Blair. No one does.” She smiles. Where this girl got her confidence from when she lived in the same oppressive house that I did for all those years, I have no idea.
“Oh, he’s fine. It wasn’t an order.” I laugh.
“This is your home now. You have every right to be secure.” Annabelle stands and takes her plate and Marlee’s to the kitchen.
I fold my napkin and place it on the table. “I do feel secure.” And I’ve never spoken truer words. I’m at ease. And the last two nights, I’ve slept soundly, even with the shadows of Annabelle’s three sharks making dappled patterns on the ceiling. “Let me do the washing up.”
Castor takes the plate from me. “No, it’s Eros’s turn. Plus, we have a surprise for you and Marlee. Go take a seat on the sofa.”
“Wait!” Annabelle calls out. “I want to turn the sofa around so they get a better view.”
“You go, Belle. I’ll get things set up,” Holter says.
And then he picks the sofa up around the middle and flips it to face the giant windows outside.
Finished, he hands me his phone. “I’m going to turn the lights off.
But if you want them on, hit this.” It’s a green button with the scratch-like writing of the Dorian.
“Wait. Sorry.” He takes his phone—block—back and fiddles with it, then hands it back to me.
Now it’s in English and the lights on and off button is obvious.
I thank him and scooch down the sofa closer to Marlee and put my arm around her.
Neither one of us is fond of the dark. I spent a lot of nights in a twin bed sleeping next to both girls when I wasn’t sure what my ex was going to do, if he was mad that someone looked at him sideways the day before.
And here . . . it’s so dark. Even during the day.
But when you turn the lights off, it’s absolutely black.
That was one of the surprising things on the first night here.
Holter goes down the hall, and the lights go black, but then the reef outside lights up.
Gold and blue lights shimmer over the pink and green sea anemones.
Little fish dart around. They don’t seem to be shocked that their space is suddenly awash with bright colors.
And then from the right comes Annabelle’s mates: Nico with his dark fluke, Holter’s blue, Eros’s deep blue, and Castor’s gold.
“Where’s Annabelle?” Marlee’s holding on to my arm as much as I’m holding on to hers. The lights switch from white and gold to purple, and Annabelle appears. “Holy shit, Mom. Annabelle’s tail is amazing. Fluke . . . fluke. It’s gorgeous.”
Marlee’s not wrong. It’s purple and blue mixed together like sequins on a red-carpet gown. She’s wearing a white bikini top. I’ve seen a few other mermaids swim by. Some wear tops, but most don’t. It’s fascinating.
Annabelle comes to the front window, and I feel like I’m watching her one and only dance recital again. But this time there’s no fear on her face, only joy. She puts her hand on the glass and smiles at us.
Marlee rises from the sofa and places her hand on the other side of the glass. “Wow,” she says exaggeratedly.
I don’t have words for it. It’s like the time I took Marlee and we left the farm in my old car.
We headed to Phoenix, but we stopped by a lot of national parks on the way.
Places I’d always wanted to visit but never could.
My ex didn’t like to travel, and he had the perfect excuse of being responsible for the farm.
It’s hard to leave when you have that many animals depending on you for their protection and nourishment.
It’s the whole reason why we were sucked into the farm in the first place.
Too many lean years had made it impossible for my brother to hire help. No help, no vacations.
When we were driving through those national parks, we made a rule that we couldn’t say amazing, beautiful, or breathtaking anymore. The words no longer held any meaning.
This display evokes the same feeling. Fabulous? I don’t know what to call it. I can’t take my eyes off Annabelle. The way her tail flutters around her. She darts to the side, and Mickey’s there with the other two.
“What’s that one’s name again?” I ask.
“Sharknado, and that one is Chompers.” Marlee laughs. “Do you think if Annabelle has a podlet, one of the guys will name it? Or maybe she’ll name it Podletie or Kiddo?”
I laugh mostly to calm my fear of the giant sharks and Annabelle being so close to them. She talks about them like they’re her pets, but somehow I’m having a harder time believing that than I did in the Omada when we were told about them.
“Wait, Mom. Make sure you’re looking.”
I squint at Marlee. “Did you know this was going to happen?”
“I may have seen them practicing outside the side window the other day. This part coming up is really cool. Although, the sharks weren’t out there the other day.
I wonder how this is going to work?” Marlee turns her head to the side just as Annabelle rushes up.
All three sharks leave the seafloor. They rush away from the reef.
Annabelle swims back down, her hands moving from side to side like a hula dancer.
But then she stops and jerks. She tries to swim after the sharks, but Nico wraps his arms around her and she’s rushed away from the window.
Eros and Holter kick their flukes hard, chasing after the sharks.
Castor shoots off in the other direction.
It’s interesting how they seem to know what the others are going to do, yet I don’t see them moving their mouths at all.
Something is definitely not going right but very wrong.
Then the lights switch from the gold and blue to the normal outside reef lights that I’m used to.
But what I’m not used to is the feather-like drift of red floating out past the far reef.
My throat clenches shut. “Annabelle?” I’m on my feet and about to run down the main corridor when I remember to turn the lights back on.
I blink at the brightness and follow Marlee to where Annabelle’s pod bedroom is and the airlock they use when they want to go swimming.
The first chamber is empty, but the second one is full.
Annabelle and Nico are waiting to step into the third chamber where they’re rinsed and blown dry like two fancy cars in a touchless car wash.
The door slides open, and Annabelle’s trying to turn back to head out into the ocean. “Let me go, Nico. I don’t want them to hurt him. He thought he was protecting us.”
“Be still, Little Krill. No one is going to hurt Chompers. The damn Stele male was a fool to get that close to our apartment. It’s posted. He knew the consequences of coming into our water.”
Annabelle’s arms go slack, and she stops resisting. “He was—”
“Demanding the shark be put down because the damn thing bit his fluke. It’s a reasonable thing to say.” Nico takes a robe from the wall and wraps Annabelle in it.
“Yes, reasonable. I suppose. But we need to talk him out of it.”
“I’m sure Holter and Eros are already on it.” Nico kisses the top of her head and takes a robe for himself. “I won’t let anyone hurt your sharks.”
Marlee and I have been studying the ceiling, but when Nico takes a robe for himself—and only then—I look at no-longer-naked Nico. He’s really calmed her down.
“What happened out there? Did one of the sharks bite someone?” I ask. I’m shaking on the inside, but over the years I’ve learned how to not show any fear. Showing fear to the ex just made it worse.
“Sorry, Aunt Blair. I know I treat the sharks as pets, but they were trained for protection. When the whole thing was going on with Braesen’s governor attacking Glyden, the sharks were put in place as guards.
They’re trained to let only certain people into the water around our apartment.
Nico’s right; it’s posted, and everyone knows.
I can’t see how someone wouldn’t know.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “Really? How did he not know?”
“He knew. He probably thought he could outswim them.” Nico takes her hand and leads her down the hall to the living room. Marlee and I follow along. “Let me make you some tea—all of you some tea.”
“I wanted to show you how much I trust the sharks and my fluke.” Annabelle curls up in the corner of the sofa, pulling a blanket over her feet. “I’m sorry the show was ruined. I had this neat spin thing I’ve been working on.”
Marlee sits next to her. “AD, your tail is really pretty. Does it . . . does it hurt when you shift into it?”
“No . . . but when I shift back, I get itchy sometimes. I have a lotion I’ve been using, and it makes it so I don’t scratch it as much.”
I’m torn about what to do. While the girls are talking, I wander closer to the window. “The male who was injured, is he okay?” I glance over my shoulder at the kitchen.
Nico’s coming back with four mugs in his giant hands. He places two on the sofa and hands me mine. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters.” I’m stunned. This male who shows so much compassion for his mate has none for a person who was attacked by a shark.
“Like I said earlier, he knew the consequences.”
“Why was he even here?” I ask.
Nico’s lips curl into a smirk. “You, Blair.”
The airlock hisses, and Annabelle shoots off the sofa, running down the corridor. We all follow.