Chapter One: Hook-

Rikki, Emma, and Cleo knew to be careful.

It was trout season, after all, and the waters were always thick with them. Big, iron boats with shredding motors that could savage a marine mammal if they weren't careful.

Sadly, mermaids counted as marine mammals.

Thankfully, the boats didn't use sonar, so they could visit Mako pretty much unhindered. Rikki was feeling like a swim, so she told Zane to meet her at Mako for a date.

It should have gone well.

However, Rikki approached a fishing boat in what they liked to call 'hyperspeed', where pretty much nothing could catch them. Rikki took a carefully calculated turn to kiss the edge of the boat and avoid the motor. Rikki loved kissing the boats- it gave her a massive surge of adrenaline to be so close to something that could kill her in a moment.

She forgot to take into account the fishing hooks. The boat she happened to be skidding past had lowered one that had no lure. At the rate she was going, it didn't stop her and it probably didn't even tug too hard on the fisherman holding the pole.

What it did do was tear a chunk out of her shoulder. As she was swimming straight toward shark-infested waters. Damn.

Rikki kept swimming, using her ability to superheat the water around her. It didn't affect her, of course, but one unlucky and blood-lusting shark got its nose broiled because it made the poor choice of trying to attack the injured mermaid.

A little ways off Mako, well past the fishermen, Rikki knew she couldn't make it. The side effect of hyperspeed is a super-sped up heartbeat. Like running. While this got her to the safety of the Moonpool and Zane faster, it also made her bleed to death faster.

Rikki didn't know what to do. Speed up and bleed to death on the way to Mako, or slow down and bleed to death on the way to Mako?

She treaded water for a minute, watching blood pool between the fingers of the hand she had clenched to her wound.

She felt her head go weak. This is it. This is the end. A stupid fishing hook killed me, she thought.

She blacked out.

"Oh, thank God, she's waking up!" said a very familiar voice. In her drowsy state, Rikki knew that it was someone she knew well, someone she liked, but the name evaded her.

Wasn't I… bleeding a lot? thought Rikki. She tried to pull a hand up to her injured left shoulder, but it made her heart beat and her arm weak, so she dropped it.

Instead, she tried opening her eyes. The first attempt was pretty much a failure, with almost no light getting in. The second attempt, she got a flash of white wall and a hospital bed. By the third or fourth attempt, she could fully take in the scene around her.

She felt a person grab her hand and kiss her fingers. With effort, she turned her head to Zane.

"Zane? Wuh-" Rikki couldn't articulate. Why the hell am I so drowsy? she thought. Doing anything required so much more effort than she remembered.

"You gave us a right scare there," he said. "You were taking forever to get to Mako, so I went out on the way you should've gone and found you lying in a pool of hot, bloody water. Scared me to death."

Rikki looked down at her shoulder. She was right. She had bled a lot. All she saw was a sterile white bandage circling her upper arm and shoulder muscles.

Wrinkling her brow, Rikki managed, "Saved me… thank you…"

"Shh," came the reply, "rest a little. You had twenty stitches in your arm. Sleep."

Rikki furrowed her brow. This was Zane. "I love you Zane," she breathed.

With a slight tremor in his voice, he replied, "I love you too. Get some sleep."

The suggestion sounded so good, especially from Zane, that she took it.

The next time she woke, the drowsiness was gone. Rikki shot up, for a second caught up in the remembered adrenaline of her last crystal-clear memory, panting hard.

Zane's warm hand pushed her back down. "No. You almost bled to death, even the great Rikki has to rest a little."

Rikki grudgingly yielded, not wanting to admit how good it felt to relax into the pillows. "Damn fishing hook."

Mirth lit in Zane's worried eyes. "Is that how it happened?"

"Yeah. Didn't even run into a motor or anything noble like that. Just one hook and I was a goner," Rikki admitted.

A nurse in a sterile white uniform strolled in, holding a clipboard. "Miss Rikki, you have some worried friends who'd like to see you."

Rikki blanched. "Why did Zane get to come in and the others didn't?"

The nurse frowned at Zane. "This young man picked the lock and broke into your room over twelve times. Your other friends only accompanied him on the first attempt. Eventually, we decided to simply let him stay here. He hasn't left for long since we let him in. Should I go fetch your other friends?"

"Yeah," Rikki said to the nurse, glancing at her before redirecting her stare to Zane.

She loved her friends. She loved her dad. But Zane, her wonderful boyfriend staring at her with eyes brimming with concern was different. Her friends and her dad always wanted to do what was best for her. Zane wanted to be with her, to give her what she wanted no matter what.

Leaning over to kiss him, she murmured, "I love you Zane."

After a brief kiss, to her consternation, he replied, "So I've heard. I love you too."

Rikki considered pressing the topic, but Zane chose that moment to resume kissing her. Eh, that could wait. Zane probably wouldn't.