Sergio returns while I’m still belly-up, as in control of my fins as a jellyfish. “Jesus Christ, Maddy. She has to perform in two hours.”
Perform? I can’t even move.
“Delmara told me to. Iodine will be fine.” Every step of Maddy’s feet on the metal stairs pounds in my head as she descends from the platform.
“She better be. This is my show now, and I don’t care what your problem with Finn is—if you injure my star performer, I’ll have you fired.”
I can do nothing more than gaze at the ceiling, so I don’t know how Maddy reacts to that, but it can’t have been good, because Sergio sounds even more angry when he speaks again. “Go get them fish, and nothing rotten, Jesus. I won’t let you sabotage this show just because you’re pissed Finn doesn’t want you anymore.”
From the sound, Maddy slaps him. “Fuck you.” Then her angry footsteps stomp off.
Sergio’s weary voice travels through the water. “Are you okay, Io? Erie. Whatever.”
Slowly, I turn to peer through the glass and make sure Maddy’s gone. Can I answer? Will I be shocked again the moment I try? Everything changed so quickly, I’m not sure what’s safe, so I swim to Niku and wrap my arms around him. I don’t even trace his scars—I just hold him like the terrified minnow I am.
“It’s okay, Princess,” Niku says. I shake my head against his side because I’m too afraid to speak.
“Listen,” Sergio says. “I won’t shock you for answering a question or speaking nonsense words to your dolphin, okay? Just don’t talk while Maddy’s around. She’s trying to get on Aunt D’s good side.”
I bury my face into Niku’s side. I don’t care what Sergio says—I can’t trust him.
He taps on the glass. “Are you able to perform? I might be able to get you one more day, if not. We can tell the vet your forehead’s still bleeding.”
The dull ache hasn’t left that wound in days, but it doesn’t hurt as much as the rest of me right now. I stick my nail into the scab and rip it off, wincing as the water blooms red with blood.
Sergio nods. “Looks like the electroshocker reopened your wound. I’ll tell the vet to cancel today’s show.”
He leaves, and I curl up around Niku’s dorsal fin.
I’ve moved back to my old tank, with only the necklaces and the Ariel figurine for company. I told Niku the landfolk were making me move, but really, I asked Sergio to do it so Neek wouldn’t be shocked because of me.
Sergio spends most of his time staring at his magic rectangle, ignoring us. He mutters to himself and taps at it constantly. I’ve even heard him say “Goddammit, Finn” a couple times. I can’t ask what’s wrong with Finn because Maddy hovers near the loop whenever we aren’t performing or practicing.
“Holy shit,” Sergio says after breakfast one day. “They closed the beaches.”
Maddy picks at her nails. “Which ones?”
“All of them. Up to Miami.”
She drops her hands. “What?”
He studies the rectangle, brows furrowed. “A kid was attacked this morning at Fort Zach. A local kid. In broad daylight.”
Maddy clomps down the stairs, away from the shocker, and my breath comes a little easier.
“By a Mer?”
“Yep.”
Sergio holds the rectangle out to her, the laughing voices turning to screams as she watches. Maddy’s face pales, then pinches tight in anger. She grabs the phone from him, eyes moving back and forth across it as her hands begin to shake.
“That was my neighbor’s son,” she whispers. “They killed my neighbor’s son.” Her gaze darts to me, and her jaw clenches. “He was only eight!”
I don’t know what she’s talking about. One of the merfolk attacked a landfolk? That’s ridiculous—none of the ’folk would come this close to land in the daylight. The threat of boats is too great. Unless the landfolk went hunting again, or the merfolk were so desperately hungry that they decided to hunt something other than fish.
I shudder at the thought of eating a landfolk and jump when Maddy slams the rectangle on the tank. “Explain this!” she screams. “Why are they doing this? Why are they killing kids?”
The laughter is back on the rectangle, but I see the movement below the water, just beyond the rocks. None of the landfolk seem to notice, until a little boy, as young as the children who watch us perform, throws his hands up and yells before disappearing beneath the surface. Blood—so red, you can see it from this distance—blooms in the water. A tail pierces through the blood, rising into the air. A tail that’s green right to the tip.
Eaton.
My brother—Crown Prince of the Seadom—killed a landfolk child.
The breakfast I just finished comes back up.
“Why did they do it?” Maddy screams again as I heave. “Why are they killing kids?”
Sergio grabs her shoulders and yanks her from the tank, even as she screams, “I’m going to kill you all!”
He pulls her from the room, still screaming, and I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Breakfast and bile float past me to the hole that sucks everything up—Finn called it a “filter”—and I’m left alone, shaking like Maddy was, trying to figure out what happened to make Eaton kill an innocent child.