I pace the arena as Maddy watches from the platform. Every flick of my broken tail sends pain shooting through my core, but I’m so angry I barely feel it. Right now, her arms are crossed, her foot tapping in annoyance, but I know, eventually, she’ll grab the loop and shock me. I don’t know why she’s waiting.
Apparently, she’s waiting for dark. As soon as the sun goes down, she grabs the loop and sticks it in the water.
“Princess.” Niku’s tone is warning, but I don’t care anymore.
“Sorry, Neeky.”
Before he can say anything else, Maddy does. “Get back to your tank, now.”
I turn to her and bare my teeth. “No.”
The first shock is quick—a reminder of how much it hurts. My tail throbs with my heartbeat.
“Get in your tank.”
I lift my middle finger out of the water, and the second shock is long enough to leave me floating.
“Do you want to try again?” Maddy says. “Or do you want to continue this game until you’re dead?”
Death is better than this life, and I’d rather die under the stars. I think one last time of my family—of Clair and Huron, stuck somewhere nearby. Tomorrow, they’ll perform, and swim through whatever has become of me. They won’t even know I’m gone.
Foam streams from my eyes again, and I imagine Finn wiping it away with his always warm fingers. I wish he had saved me in time, but I can’t wait any longer.
“Just kill me.” My voice rasps as I say it, and Maddy hits me with the loop until the world goes dark.
I feel before I can see, and it feels like someone stabbed me in the chest. I wipe the foam from my eyes and realize I’m back in the holding tank. I tear my nails down my face until I bleed.
Niku stares at me from his tank. Between us is the contraption they used to bring us in that first day, a net draped over the edge. For the Tides—they brought me back here with a net, and I didn’t even realize it.
Sergio walks into the room, his magic rectangle lighting his face in the dimness. When he glances up from it and sees me, his shoulders slump in relief. “Thank god. I thought you were dead.”
That was the plan. I rub the painful spot on my chest and find a dolphin-nose-sized bruise.
“Your dolphin punched you in the chest—I think he was trying to wake you up.”
Waking me up wouldn’t take so much force, but I remember once when my grandmother’s heart stopped. Her guard punched her in the chest and she gasped and started to breathe again. He saved her life. I guess Niku saved mine, though I really wish he hadn’t.
“Well then”—Sergio interrupts my thoughts—“since I’m fairly sure you won’t foam in the middle of the night, I’m out of here. I’ll tell Finn you’re not dead.”
There are so many other things I’d like him to tell Finn, but I can’t say them to Sergio. Instead, I try to think of a way to kill myself. The loop almost worked—if it hadn’t been for Niku, my heart might have stayed silent and I’d have turned to foam without ever waking up. Maybe I could jump out of the tank, or pull myself onto the platform and wait for the air to do its work. How painful would it be to dry out? How long would it take?
What would happen to Niku if I foamed? Would they kill him? Free him? Make him perform with someone else? One thing’s certain—my death will mean they send another boat out hunting, which means another one of the ’folk will share my fate.
If I do that—if I kill myself and allow them to capture another of the merfolk—then I refuse to die alone. I’ll take one of the landfolk with me.