Chapter 1
Satellite internet was a beautiful thing, Kazuya decided. The United States foster care system, on the other hand, was not.
His bends headache hadn't even dissipated before he slumped into his chair down in the kitchen and tackled the mission of getting Mai over to the Queen's land and out of danger as soon as they hit a dock. It only took him a few minutes to learn that, with Mai's status as a ward of the state, it would be nigh impossible to get her a passport in any reasonable amount of time, let alone getting the necessary paperwork to even allow her to get out of the damn country and into another. Then there was the fact that, even when she was in another country, she was still considered a United States citizen, and therefore under United States jurisdiction.
After tugging on his hair hard enough to make his eyes water, he put his face into the keyboard and hissed out his favorite cuss words. Why'd he have to fall in love? Damnit, why'd he have to be a teenager? That had to be what was at fault here, his damn effing hormones on the alert to mate.
Of course, he knew that wasn't the case. Love or not, he wouldn't have allowed an innocent girl to get sucked back into the torturing system of the Aquatic Agriculture Association (or was it 'America' instead of 'Association'? Ugh, like he cared). He also knew it wasn't stupidity to fall in love, as his studies into human nature and culture proved to him the love between a man and woman made the flesh, blood, and foundation of human society.
And despite his genius and success, Kazuya was still eighteen, in pain, and beyond stressed out.
He almost lashed out at his assistant when he stepped over and set a mug of tea next to him with a soft click. Lucky for Kazuya (or lucky for Lin), he didn't say anything, which was often his way.
Kazuya let the computer keys imprint in his forehead a bit longer before sitting up and taking a whiff of the hot earl grey.
"Where are we?" he said.
"Roughly a day's sail from the coast of Houston," said Lin in his usual flat tone.
"Can't this thing go faster? Gun the engine or something?"
"Yes, but we shouldn't. We need to conserve the fuel we have."
As he had said yesterday when he had Kazuya running back and forth to help get the stupid sails up in the first place. He should have gotten a stupid smaller yacht.
"Do we have enough to get to Housten?"
Silence.
"I asked a question, Lin."
"I don't know, and I will not try it."
Or in other words, employer or not, Lin wasn't about to take sail instructions from an eighteen year old who knew the basics and nothing else. They would get there when they got there and Kazuya would just have to deal with it.
Which left Kazuya with little to nothing to do.
Still grumbling, he made an attempt to research more on how to hire a government level hacker as Lin set down a bagel with cream cheese along with a second cup, which Kazuya had asked him to make for the sleeping mermaid in his bed. At the look on his assistant's face when he said that, he almost blushed, but he did have some dignity. It didn't matter what Lin thought happened, because whatever it was, it didn't. Even if the young genius had wanted to do something to the girl, recovering from the bends had knocked him out cold the moment he had a calm moment after confessing his love and he had simply woken up after a day of sleep with her unconscious besides him.
It didn't take a genius, though, to know what the trails of dried tears and swollen lips meant. And he might be a heartless bastard, but even he knew better than to try to seduce an emotionally unhinged girl, never mind the fact that he had standards, believe it or not.
Thus…the tea. Hopefully she would wake up before it got too cold.
He nibbled at the bagel and clicked another page. Nothing. Just more fictional jabbering or wannabes.
Just before turning off the computer completely, a new thought occurred to him—one that he instantly shot down. Sure, it might get her out of the country, but it just wasn't going to happen. No sooner had he dispelled it when memories of her fingers in his hair came back with the force wonderful memories often came with.
And trailing behind it was the research.
Back in the triple A, they had hired him to find mermaids, after all, and since he had a basis in investigating myths in the first place, he had a good hand for it. Though he only had interests in learning how to break out of the hellhole with Mai and whatever mermaid he could take with him, he had to make it look like he was doing what he was hired for, right? That meant actual research into mermaids. In attempts to help him, they had given him what research they had, which had consisted of years of sonograms, satellite footage, and accounts.
But what had caught his attention wasn't the maps of underwater mountains or the stories of supposed 'mermaid' sightings. It was another myth, one he had researched into for only a few minutes and decided was nothing. And yet, combined with the fact that mermaids (maybe even all merfolk) could walk on land when dry—could even blend in with society, perhaps—came another idea that, perhaps…perhaps…
But if he started thinking merfolk were interfering with oceanic studies to hide their whereabouts, then he really would have nowhere to go.
Which just brought him back to the debunked myth of the Bermuda Triangle.
He pulled up a map of it as he thought, stale bagel squeaking between his teeth and his forehead furrowed against the headache. From what information he had gotten from the triple A (of course they didn't give him anything, but most he got through observation (idiots)), mermaids, and perhaps merfolk in general, preferred, maybe even needed warmer waters. They didn't have much insulation or blubber to speak of, and unless there was some secret plant or animal that grew in abundance on the ocean floor, food sources were more abundant in warmer waters as well. However, warmer waters were also harder to hide in, for obvious reasons: shallow water, animal life, tourist attractions, etc.
Which meant, wherever merfolk hid, there would be no escaping people, and therefore they would need more than some land folk to hide news and studies of them. They'd need to stop those tales from happing, which meant disappearing persons.
And the Bermuda Triangle was based off of mysteriously disappearing persons and sunken ships. Not only that, but half of it touched upon the warmest ocean waters in the world.
Thus, he found himself pulling up the papers and studies he had thought to never revisit on just why the Bermuda Triangle didn't exist. This time, rather than skimming through it and picking out the sources and evidence he needed, he read it carefully, taking notes on the side in his battered composition journal. Thank God Lin had thought to bring that down with him this morning. Kazuya hated nothing more than menial tasks getting in the way of a breakthrough. Walking up a set of stairs and digging through his room for a notebook was one of those.
He had just tracked down one particularly critical source to a woman and was doing a background check into her education when the door to the kitchen squeaked open and a bleary eyed, copper haired girl shuffled in, wearing one of his bigger shirts. Even though she also wore a pair of his sweats, he couldn't stop the memory rising of when she had only worn the shirt and the flash of thigh and higher as she leapt into the ocean.
He quickly looked away. This couldn't be healthy.
"Care to explain why you were in my bed?" he asked.
She didn't say anything at first. Just sat at the table and stared down at the second teacup of tea. He nudged it closer to her to indicate it was for her, then looked back to his screen, though he didn't read any more.
Then, she wrapped her hands around the tea and sighed. "I didn't want to be alone."
Made sense. He had read somewhere that people, when anxious, craved human touch. And watching your fellow mermaid along with a dozen or so other men die before your eyes would make anyone anxious, although the men themselves had drown out of sight.
But she had sung the song that did that to them.
"You're not concerned about your part in those men's drowning, right?" Best to make sure.
"No. They killed Jamie." Her flat tone picked up a sharp bite there.
He took a sip of his tea. Hatred, perhaps? Hatred was rarely healthy, yes, but normal. He could handle that.
"What upset you last night, then? Just recent events?" At the look she gave him, he added, "I would have assumed that, but I'd rather not make a mistake in…in something I'm not particularly good at."
Aka, he didn't want to hurt Mai more than he already had by just being himself, and being himself could possibly just aggravate whatever was bothering her now. He also worried that, should he leave her to sort out the trauma of triple A by herself, she may develop emotional instabilities akin to chronic depression and panic attacks, and they didn't have the time to properly deal with those.
But she just hugged her mug of tea, bit her lip, and sighed again.
Something that had already been tense with stress beneath his rib cage twisted tighter and he frowned.
"Mai—"
"I'm thinking, just be your usual heartless self for a minute, okay?"
He didn't particularly care for that statement, but he clenched his jaw and tried to practice a measure of patience.
He finished the rest of the stale bagel by the time she spoke.
"I'm just…scared. I'm a freak, after all, and the whole…you know, thing, just sort of nailed into my head how little of a future I have. I can't go to college, heck, I can't even finish high school—I can't do anything normal. It's like I'm not a person anymore. And then to top it off, I'm all alone. I have no family, no..."
"You have me," he said, with a squirm of his stomach and a slight heat on the back of his neck.
"That's why I climbed into bed with you last night." She gave him a shy look through her lashes then went down to staring into her tea. "I'm just uncertain, that's all. And…the torture…it's hard to forget."
"I imagine," he said dryly. "Is that all?"
She thought for a minute, then shook her head.
Figuring that was about as much research as he was going to get done this morning, he closed his laptop and leveled his attention on her. "First of all, half of what you said is false. Who says you can't complete high school and college? You can still be human as long as you're dry, and I still intend to find a place where you can be feel safe. Being able to turn into a mermaid is simply a part of you, it doesn't change who you are. When I said you had to learn to live as a mermaid I didn't mean you had to abandon your human side as well. It's just wise, since, from now on, you will live part of your life that way."
She sipped at her tea as he spoke. Her shoulders seemed to relax as he said these things, but her eyes still conveyed the same apprehension.
"But…Naru, I can't depend on you like that—not that I'm saying you aren't trustworthy, but you have your own life. How can I learn to live like this if you do it for me?"
He snorted. "Alright, then, shall I push you over board and let you get recaptured for opal harvest?" When she flinched, he rolled his eyes. "Mai Taniyama, I'm not going to let you go. I'm giving you no choice but to depend on me because, right now, your life is in danger, and I can't allow that."
Her eyes narrowed. "What kind of guy controls a girl he loves like that?"
Now it was his turn to flinch. That's right. His words did come off a little…controlling, which was suppose to be unhealthy, abusive even.
That twisted, tight feeling in his gut gave a nasty spike of pain that made his hands grow cold. He couldn't be like that. He had never wanted someone's well-being and happiness more in his life, and the idea that his own attempts to ensure that might defeat the purpose made his thoughts jumble together and his heart constrict.
But he couldn't let her go either. He couldn't…
Images of her bruised eyes and pale, limp body came to his mind. The tight corners of the cell of screens, the vomit floating on top of the tank, the after glow of LED's and featureless people dressed in rubber suits.
Then there was Mai, petite, soft, and vulnerable in the present, sitting across from him with her lips pursed and having no idea what affect she had on him just by wearing his T-shirt.
He opened his mouth. Then he closed it. What could he say? What was there to say?
She cocked her head to the side. "You okay? All I said was don't boss me around, I'm not going to go jumping off the side of the boat or anything."
Of course she wouldn't. She wasn't talking actual actions, these were feelings they were talking about, feelings that he was trying to relieve before they caused problems. When had he forgotten that? When had he lost control over himself?
Thus, he forced on a smile after taking a breath to relieve the tension that had momentarily overwhelmed him. "You have to depend on me, whether you like it or not. I don't know how to help you feel better about that other than saying it is no problem or trouble to me. I prefer it this way."
"Not much dignity in it."
"There's little dignity to be found in survival."
"I suppose so." She drained the last of her tea. "Thanks for caring, though it's still kind of weird. What you been up to this morning?"
"Research. Looks like we won't be able to be getting you out of the country as soon as we like, so I was looking into the likelihood of finding the other merfolk, just as a second option. And before you ask, yes, I also looked more into hiring a hacker to save the others, though if we can find the other merfolk in any reasonable amount of time, we could also ask them for assistance."
"That is if they're even out there."
"That very question is exactly what I'm good at." He couldn't help but smirk. It felt good to finally dip back into that which he didn't fail at. "You may like to forget it, but I am the world's leading expert in proving the extraordinary and paranormal."
"But the ocean's so big!"
"Only a matter of cutting it down to the sections worth looking into. And since we have a living mermaid right here," he dipped his chin towards her. "We already have plenty of clues to work with. Are you up to some labwork today?"
"Labwork?"
"Blood samples, scale samples, basic experiments."
She jaw dropped and her eyes widened. She spluttered a bit before pushing out the words, "But you said—experimenting on your—I thought you said you loved me!"
The heat on the back of his neck again. "What does that have to do with it? You want to find others, don't you?" Then a bit of his pride twinged. She didn't honestly think of him like those triple A bastards, did she? "I'm not going to hurt you, just get data."
She stared at him. "Uh, Naru?"
"What?" Why'd she have to keep calling him that? Why?! And why'd did she look all unsure like that too? It wasn't like he sounded angry—he wasn't angry. Just annoyed.
"I…" she shook her head, and for a moment he thought he could see her cheeks pinkening. "I'm sorry, I was being silly. Of course. We'll work together on this. And…I hope you know I don't hate you. I…"
But she didn't say what she meant, just looked at him with those flushing cheeks and shadow lined brown eyes.
Lin choose that moment to step into the kitchen. He didn't have to say anything but look at him. Kazuya heaved a sigh. That's right. This ship wasn't supposed to be run off of only two men, let alone one able man and one getting over the bends.
He pushed his chair back and stood up. "I'm coming. Mai, you better come too. Best you learn what you can about staying alive on a boat."
