Maker; 8,274 reads and 674 votes
(Published 1-11-19)

An; Hope you like this chapter. It's short but anything but sweet. It was hard to write this chapter *inhales air* SO PLEASE GIVE ME FEEDBACK!!!! It takes hours for me to write these chapters, and all I ask is you take 5 mins to write something back to me(: I love hearing my readers' voices, which I don't get nearly enough of on this book. You wattpadians are damn helpful with your critiques, not to mention hilarious😂
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Summer 1970

The sea was the only thing in my ears now. It's voice called to me to hurry back to the safety of its waves. Then Elizabeth spoke, and I was reminded that I might never swim in my beloved ocean again.

I sang the sound of distress softly under my breath. Human ears couldn't hear my song, but merepeople could. But I had little hope of it reaching any ears in the seas unless one of my sisters were close by. More people that weren't of royal blood rarely came anywhere near the shore.

"What were you planning to do with those boys?" she asked and my attention was back on her.

"I was just trying to make friends. But whatever it is dat you want to try and do with that knife, the boys are still close enough to hear my cries for help. I'm not sure what you heard or if your mind is unwell, but this all was a misunderstanding, I am no mermaid," I said and let my power saturate my voice since I could not use my eyes.

"Nice try mermaid. But I don't believe your lies."

It was then that I caught sight of the thing dangling from her neck. It glimmered red and blue even though there was no light reflected off of it. All thoughts of escaping died.

She had on a mermaid scale, what a vile thing, no wonder I had felt so much dread from her presence. It also explained how she could stare so deeply into my eyes and not be put under my spell and yet kiss me like she had...It also meant something else.

"Hunter," I hissed and felt the knife drawl blood when she further pressed the knife into my flesh.

"Release the souls now!" she commanded. She cast her eyes to the knife she held at my throat so that she no longer held my gaze.

"Did you think that no one would notice that so many young boys had ended up dead, some by there own hands, or missing along these parts? They may label them draft dodgers, but WE knew. We knew a royal must be taking advantage of her hunting licenses given by good old daddy."

I thought back to Delphine's words, her warnings that I wasn't careful. That I shouldn't be using our language with humans close. That I was taking too many souls too fast. How had she been so right about everything?

Despite this thought and the growing sense of dread at the possibility of my soon-to-be demise, I smiled at her, my mouth now full of razor-sharp fangs, that I usually kept hidden behind the row of my perfect human-like teeth. This action made her jump much to my surprise and delight. Judging by her reaction, even though she knew what I was, she may not have ever been this close to a mermaid. There was something we shared in common. We had never been this close to the other's kind before. This was my first time even seeing a hunter.

"Those souls are mine," I hissed, and a look of pure fury crossed her face, which gave me a small satisfaction, "Kill me, and I'll drag them down to the darkest pit of a watery hell. And what are you going to do with me on this beach? The boys are still within earshot, and if I scream, they will come running and stop you."

"Go ahead and scream! Do you think those wusses back there would leave the safety of their fire to see what was wrong!? You're insane if you believe that. They will go running for help, and by the time they returned with it, it will be too late for you. Watch, I'll prove it to you!?"

She removed the knife from my throat and drove it into my arm. Pain erupted through my body, and there was a scream, but it did not come from me. I was too full of joy and relief to let out such an awful sound like a scream.

"I'm here Marina," my sister's voice echoed in my head

Elizabeth looked behind her startled. Then came another sound, but this time it was a word.

"Help!"

This was followed by another scream.

She spared a glance beside her, and I took the opportunity to grab her hand with the knife and push her off of me.

Elizabeth rolled onto the sand. I jumped to my feet and promptly kicked her in the stomach. She gasped, while all the air in her body escaped her and I took the opportunity to dash towards the safety of the waves.

Up ahead I could see the bone fire still burning. I stopped just short when a shape appeared in my path.

It was Michael, the blond-haired boy that had approached me on the boardwalk. He was now dragging himself along the sand with one hand, and his other hand was clutching at the front of his shirt, that now had a large dark stain on it.

He looked up at me, his blue eyes clouded with pain. He opened his mouth, "Help me.... a creature came out of the sea..it looked human, but it wasn't... and James...he killed Robert...and..."

"Out of my way," I said, and went to move around him, while his hand reached out in desperation to grab me.

I was almost to the fire now, when voice stopped me. "Keep them away from her. Keep them away from her, it repeated and I soon saw who was whispering.

James was standing in front of the fire light repeating the same phrase over and over again. Flames reflected off glasses and the droplets of blood that were splattered on him. In his hand, he held a bloody small knife.

Michael began to scream again from behind me m, and I resumed my run towards the ocean and to Delphine.

When I reached the edge, sure enough, Delphine was there. She was in the process of pulling herself onto the shore. Her purple scaled tail dragged on the sand behind her.

"Marina!" she said in the language of our people, a look of relief crossed her face.

From behind us Michael was still screaming for help.

"Delphine!" I cried back in the same language. "I'm so sorry, and I was so wrong! I shouldn't have taken so many souls."

"I know," she replied gently. "That's why I made sure I was close to you and was able to hear your song." Her eyes traveled to my arm, and her eyes widen and to the gash that trickled with red blood.

"What did those boys do to you?"

I looked down at my arm and then back up at her. They did not do this..."

I stopped, Michael was no longer screaming, and there was a sound of a quiet struggle. I looked back and saw two  figures locked in combat, outlined in the dancing light of the fire. The shorter one was James, and the taller one had to be...Elizabeth. I watched her shadow while she tried to wrestle the knife out of Jame's hands.

I turned back to Delphine. "We need to go! A hunter did this to me. They're fighting with the boy who just slaughtered his friends. This night has taught me how savage humans truly are. I am done with land!"

Delphine's face paled, "A hunter? I thought it was those boys, so I spelled that boy to do that to save you." She glanced over her shoulder at the water. "Quickly, help me get back to the sea! I can't do it by myself in this form, and I won't be able to dry to get legs! If she is a hunter, that boy is no match for her, and she will be coming for us soon! You are young still Marina to understand this, but it's a great miracle that you are still alive."

I nodded and quickly stripped out of my clothes and cast them aside on the shore. I got behind Delphine and began to drag her backward toward the sea, and in the meantime, I kept my eyes on Elizabeth. She had managed to get the knife away from James, and she now had him in a headlock.

The second my feet touched the salt water my whole body trembled with the urge to return to its original form, and it took everything in me to resist it. It pained me to do so, but I held out.

Elizabeth let Jame's limp body fall to the sand.  Before it even hit the sand, she had started running towards the ocean. But I was almost ankle deep in the water. Just a little further and we would be in water deep enough to swim. Even if she reached the water, she wouldn't dare to get into the water with two mermaids!

I couldn't have been more wrong. Elizabeth barreled straight into the water. Her brown ponytail swished back and forth behind her. I looked down at Delphine who instantly knew what I was about to do. She began to shake her head frantically.

"Thank you for coming to save me," I smiled at her before I dropped my sister with a splash and moved to stand between her and Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, knife raised, lugged at me and we both fell into the waves. And it was at that moment I let go of my human form and returned to my true form. If I was going to die, at least I was going to die myself. The sand felt soft against my back while I laid there helplessly.

"You monsters! What did you do to those boys and his friends!?" Elizabeth yelled. She pushed roughly on my shoulder while she positioned the knife above my heart, and she paused. She looked down at me, and an emotion that I might equate with regret crossed her face "If things were different..." before she could finish that sentence a wave, so massive that we were instantly engulfed in at least ten feet of water, rolled over us.

Elizabeth and I both tumbled over each over in the water. At one point, she managed to grab onto me, only to be ripped away again . I finally steadied myself, only to look up into the  face leering above me in the blue and green waters.

Two, glowing amber eyes pierced me, and behind them laid a black scaly head where numerous horns perturbed from in a jagged crown set upon a long slender neck. The sea dragons body twisted back and forth in the current while it held a struggling Elizabeth in one of its four clawed hands.

I watched while it brought its claw to its mouth and swallowed Elizabeth before it snaked off away from me through the water.