“This is so wrong,” Jen whispers, face pale.
I can’t help but agree. However dangerous Erie is—however alien—she knows two of our Mer. From the droop of her fins and the loss on her face, she cares about them. I didn’t know fish even had the capacity to care about each other. Clair and Huron—we call them Potassium and Argon.
“I wish you hadn’t done that,” I say.
“I wish I hadn’t, either. I was just trying to show her what she needs to do.” Jen covers her mouth like she’s about to be sick.
I rub my hand across her back. She looks like she’ll cry, if she doesn’t throw up first. “We can’t do anything about it now.”
She swallows hard. “We can let her see them.”
My hand stops as I consider the ramifications of that. “No. You saw how she freaked out when we took her from Niku—it’ll be worse trying to take her from her friends.”
“But—”
I squeeze her shoulder. “No.”
She deflates, wraps her arms around herself, and stares at Erie, curled up next to Niku’s tube. “I hate this job.”
If she tries to quit, I’ll have to remind her that anyone else will be trigger-happy with the electroshocker and won’t let Erie into Niku’s tank at night. And I sure as hell won’t pass Erie over to Maddy at the end of the summer. Jen has to stay and take over the pair when I go back to school.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “We’ll find something to cheer her up again. Jewelry . . . or something.” How much jewelry can one Mer own? What the heck else do they like? And why am I thinking this way about a fish?
I don’t want to admit it, but there was something in her magenta eyes—something as she gazed at Argon’s picture on my cell phone—that was more than fish. She may be covered in green scales, but there’s something unavoidably human about Erie, and it’s going to get us all in trouble.
We’re letting Erie into Niku’s tank that night when Sergio walks in. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? They’re supposed to be separated.”
It’s too late to get her back in her own tank, so I open the door and let her through. “It’s fine. She sleeps with him, and then goes back to her own tank for the day. It makes her easy to work with.”
Serge glances at the new electroshocker hanging on the wall. “Guess what else would make her easy to work with?”
I don’t honor him with a response. Erie swims forward to get a better look at him. He takes a step back when she smiles, her sharp teeth glinting in the fluorescent light. She raises her hand and points to herself, and somehow, like an idiot, I don’t realize what she’s about to do until it’s too late.
“Erie,” she says, then points at Serge. He gapes at her, dumbfounded, so she does it again, then points to Niku, Jen, and me and says our names. When she’s finished, she points at Sergio again, waiting for him to introduce himself.
“What the fuck is going on here?” He turns on me, eyes wide. “Did she just say your name?”
“Did it sound like someone else’s name?”
The smile fades from Erie’s face as Serge ignores her. “Did you teach her to do that?” he says.
“She did it herself a few days ago.”
“And you didn’t shock her?”
Erie knocks on the glass until we look at her, then points to Serge and raises her non-existent eyebrows. I elbow him in the ribs. “Tell her your name.”
“They’re not supposed to make noise.”
“Just tell her your name.”
He shakes his head before he answers. “Sergio.”
“Sergio,” she echoes, drawing out the R. “Sergio.”
He clutches his chest like he’s about to go into cardiac arrest. “This is . . .” He can’t even form the words. I expect him to say “amazing,” or “unprecedented,” or something similar, but he doesn’t. “This is completely against the rules.”
The grin that had been forming tumbles headlong off my face. “Since when do you care about rules? You used to be the one egging me on to break them.”
“Yeah, at school,” Serge says. He turns his back on Erie, which makes her face fall, too. “This is my aunt’s place—if it’s shut down, I have to go back to working at the restaurant, and, in case you don’t remember, that’s shit pay.”
“A fucking mermaid just asked for your name and you’re worried about your paycheck?” I can’t believe it, and I refuse to shock Erie into silence like the others. I know he’s being the smart one, but I don’t care. “Erie won’t shut down Oceanica. I mean, look at her.”
I sweep my hand toward her and realize I’m seeing Ariel, not a raptor. From the expression on Serge’s face, he knows it, too.
He jabs his finger into my chest. “You do remember Hannah, right? You remember the blood when Carbon pulled her under? You remember how she used to talk about him, like he’d never hurt her?”
That show is forever burned in my memory, but I can’t reconcile Erie smiling at me right now with the cloud of blood in the water. “I know.” I drop my gaze to the damp cement floor and clench my teeth. “I know, but I’m not getting in the water with her. I . . .”
I let out a long breath, and Jen touches my shoulder in an unexpected display of solidarity. “Don’t worry, Sergio. I won’t let her hurt Finn. We’ll get her out in the morning.”
He peers between us, and when his shoulders sink, I know he won’t tell. “Fine. Whatever. Are you coming to the Porch?”
“Of course,” I say. “Let me feed them, and we’ll meet you there.”
Serge scowls at Erie, shakes his head at me, and leaves. I clench my hands at my sides. He’s right, of course. I know he’s right. What I’m doing, what I’m saying, what I’m thinking, is dangerous. I glance at Erie. Her brows are pulled together, confused, one hand pressed against the glass. She has no way of knowing why Serge is upset. Why we’re all terrified of her. I think of Chlorine piercing my shoulders and know we’re terrified for a very good reason.
My hand, which I was lifting to the glass to mirror hers, falls back to my side.
Jen touches my arm and steps closer. “What do we do now?”
Does she mean, what do we do about Erie talking? How do we get her to perform without showing her a video that upsets her? Or what do we do to keep ourselves from getting killed?
I squeeze her hand. “We feed them and get the hell out of here for the night.”
I take the stairs two at a time to get away from Jen.