I thought seeing Erie would be a good thing. Serge says she’s eating and her tail is healing, so when Goodwin strapped a hidden camera on Cao before sending him into Oceanica as our negotiator, I was excited to see her. But from the moment she came into view, attacking bubbles with her claws, I knew that something was wrong.
This isn’t my Erie.
“What’s she doing?” Jen asks, leaning over my shoulder to get a better look.
I don’t know—I’ve never seen any of the Mer do this. “I guess . . . I guess she’s attacking the only thing that won’t get her foamed?” It’s the only explanation I can come up with, until she answers Cao.
They are lies.
Now I know what the bubbles are—they’re my promise to free her.
I can’t watch this. Without a word, I walk to the bedroom of Hilley’s suite. I slam the door, grab an extra pillow, and scream into it. I don’t know how long I sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the blue water that goes on forever. The water Erie should be in. Now, I do wish my dad had never discovered the Mer.
Eventually, Jen steps in, closing the door behind her. “Are you okay?”
Not a chance in hell, but I drop the pillow and squeeze my knees. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
She sits next to me and grabs my hand. “Delmara agreed to the sale. We’ll have Erie out next week.”
I should be relieved—we won. But all I can think is that plenty could still go wrong. Delmara’s lawyers could figure out who’s really trying to buy Erie. Erie could attack someone and be foamed. We can get her back into the ocean, but she’s too broken to be able to survive.
“Finn, did you hear me?” Jen squeezes my hand.
“Yeah, I heard you.”
“I thought you’d have some reaction to that. A smile or . . . something.”
I gaze out the window. “I’ll smile once I know Erie’s safe and able to survive on her own.”
“She won’t be on her own—she’ll be with her family.”
What if she can’t find them? What if they treat her like damaged goods? We know nothing about Mer society except for the little she’s told us and the little we’ve noticed in the holding tanks. I don’t want to burst Jen’s bubble, though, so I force my face to relax. “Yeah. She’ll be home soon.”
“There,” she says and pats my leg. “Keep thinking that and don’t worry about the rest. Erie will be fine.”
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We’re walking home from the hotel when my cell rings. It’s Sergio, and though I really don’t want to talk to him right now, I answer. “Hey.”
He takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, man. I have bad news.” He actually sounds sorry as he says it, and I can hear him swallow. “They sold Erie to a Chinese marine park this morning. There was nothing I could do.”
I don’t know what to say. It takes crushing my jaw together to not tell Serge that I’m the one who bought her. I trust him with my life, but not Erie’s, and I can’t take any chances if I want to pull this off. Not to mention, he led me to believe that Erie was doing okay when she’s very obviously not. He may have been protecting me, but I don’t appreciate it.
When I don’t reply, Serge speaks. “Dude, Finn, you okay?”
My voice actually breaks when I say, “Yeah,” because I’m still not over what I saw. Serge must think it’s because of his news.
“God, man, I wish there was something I could do. I told Aunt D you were raising the money, but she’s gone mad over this whole thing.”
The money is the other reason this could still fall through—we’ve raised enough to buy Erie, but not Niku, nor do we have enough for transportation yet. Now, we have to raise about a million dollars in a week. I can’t breathe, and my hands tremble. I think I’m having a fucking panic attack.
“I gotta go,” I say to Serge and hang up, shoving the phone back in my pocket while I take a deep breath. I can feel Jen’s gaze on me, worried, but she doesn’t say anything until we’re outside her place.
“Do you want to come in?” Her hand grasps the doorknob. “We can have a celebratory drink.”
It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been to Jen’s place, and I know that if I go in there now, I’ll either end up in her bed or I’ll see that picture of Hannah on her dresser and freak out.
“No.” I watch her fingers wrap around the brass knob. If I look in her eyes, I’ll fall right back into the place I was. “I . . . can’t.”
Her knuckles whiten. “Oh. Right. I’ll, uh . . . I’ll see you later, then?”
“Tomorrow.” I leave so I won’t see the hurt in her eyes. When I’m halfway down the street, I glance behind me, but she stands there, hand on the doorknob, watching me.
I go home and grab an overnight bag, then head to my mom’s house. If I stay at mine, I’ll end up telling Serge I’m the buyer.
Mom’s car is in the drive, and she glances up from the kitchen table, surprised, when I walk in. “What are you doing here?”
“Staying away from Serge.” I drop my bag on the floor and slide into a chair across the table.
She grabs her reading glasses from her face and studies me. I hate it when she does that. She looks more like a psychiatrist than a mom. “You want to talk about it?” she says.
“No, Dr. Jarvis, I don’t.”
A little smile pulls her lips up as she folds her glasses and sets them on the table. “Is it a girl coming between you? One with a tail?”
“Ha. Ha.” I steal a potato chip from her plate, but my mouth is dry, and it sticks. I don’t know what’s wrong with me—I should be happy, giddy even. Instead, I imagine Erie popping bubbles, destroying what she thinks are my lies.
Mom folds her hands like she’s sitting with a patient. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything’s fine. Delmara agreed to the sale. Erie will be free in a week.”
The calculating psychiatrist disappears, leaving a shell-shocked mom in her place. “Delmara agreed?”
“Yeah . . . well, she thinks she sold Erie to a buyer in China.” And if she finds out she didn’t, I have no idea what I’ll do. Probably break into Oceanica and end up in jail.
Mom sits back and taps her foot. It’s a sure sign that I won’t like what she has to say, but she’s gonna say it, anyway. “Maybe this has gone too far.”
“It hasn’t gone far enough.”
“Finn, listen to me. There’s more to this than you trying to buy a fish—”
“Erie’s not a fish!” I slam my fist on the table. “She’s not another dead-eyed Mer. She’s . . .” I swallow, throat tight, because, from what I saw today, she is another dead-eyed Mer, just like the rest of them. “She’s broken,” I whisper, “and it’s my fault.”
My breath hitches, and I clamp down on my jaw, not willing to dissolve into tears. I’m freeing Erie. There’s nothing to worry about. She won’t be broken for long.
Mom puts her hand over my fist. When I lift my head, she’s all mom, no psychiatrist in sight. “It’s not your fault, honey. This is all your father’s doing. Every last drop of it.”
“But—”
She squeezes my hand. “No. Trust me. What your father did . . .” She shakes her head and pats my fist. “Just trust me. It’s for the best that you’re no longer at Oceanica.”
“Erie would never hurt me.”
Mom stands and grabs her plate. “It was never the Mer I was worried about.”
When she turns her back to take the plate to the sink, I snort. “You’ve gotta be kidding. Aunt D’s harmless. I’ve known her my whole life.”
“She’s anything but harmless.” Mom lets the plate clatter into the sink, not bothering to dump the chips in the trash or put it in the dishwasher like normal. “When your father disappeared, Delmara lost her mind, and I don’t think she ever got it back.”
I knew Aunt D had a hard time with Dad’s disappearance—he’d been her mentor, after all. Serge said the family was worried she would commit suicide for a while, when she couldn’t find another Mer to prove him right. She was desperate to restore his name, and she did. She found another Mer and opened Oceanica, and now, everyone knows my father was right.
Maybe it’s “Dr. Jarvis” who lost something she never got back.
“Don’t worry, Mom. Delmara won’t hurt me—I’m practically her son.”
The expression that crosses my mother’s face is a blend of shocked agony . . . gone in an instant. “I have an appointment,” she says as she grabs her purse from the table. She won’t meet my eye as she walks out the door.
Guess Erie’s not the only one who’s broken.