Here's an extra update this week because Gryffindor Rat was so kind as to make me my first ever fanart! It's an awesome picture of Mai as a mermaid! She got her skirt-like tail fin and gills and the fins on her forearms and everything! ^.^ You guys should ask her to show it to you! I wish there was someone I could put it up here on fanfiction.

*squeal* Please review! I've loved all your thoughts oh so much!

Oh, and to Beth the guest reviewer, you made me blush. Thank you. For all your many 'wonderful's'. I hope you find this update.

Chapter 24

"A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown." - William Butler Yeats

Naru was acting strange. If she had to put her finger on it, she'd say he might be happy, but as his relaxed expression said nothing and his normal state of being was grumpy, it was all guesswork.

Course, his curious attitude didn't distract her from the dread of returning to the chute. Sonja, Amanda, and her slipped into the dark, claustrophobic tubes as Mandy was lifted out for her weekly prenatal check up. When she was spat out into a familiar cylinder tank, she swallowed the bile rising to her throat and tried not to shiver. The blazing white line of light framing the bottom of the tank never failed to pop up in her nightmares of late.

The little metal arm holding the ring rose up and the rubber stranger appeared from the darkness on the other side of the glass.

"You've been such a good girl, Mai," they said. "If you're just as good today, we'll have another present waiting for you in your cell."

They had promised her a present last time and it had turned out to be a TV and a set of Disney and classic movies to entertain her while she was bored. Whatever could be next, though, she couldn't really care, but either way she was going to suffer, and she might as well get something out of it.

Still fighting not to throw up, she put her arm into that cold, metal ring. It tightened, holding her in place. Then the syringe popped out.

Mai closed her eyes.

Some time later, after the screaming had stopped and all the little, gleaming pebbles of rainbow were sucked up from the floor, Mai was lifted out of the tank and brushed clean of any vomit that had stuck to her hair. Like usual, she passed out at that point and woke up dressed, clean, and human back in her cell. Besides her bed against the wall was a new plastic tote of books.

Groaning, she sat up, emptier than ever before. The books stared back at her, their covers as illegible to her blank mind as if they were written in another language. Unconsciously, she hugged herself. She hated this feeling: as though all her organs had been sucked out with the opals.

A hand brushed against her face. With a shudder, she leaned against the warmth. That's right. She always got so cold after the hormone treatments. Without a word, Naru slipped an arm beneath her still pink legs and around her shoulders and lifted her from the bed. If she hadn't been so drained of feeling, she might have protested or even cared about what he was doing with her.

When the blinding light of the bathroom broke through the underwater gloom of the bedroom's screens, a part of her woke up. He set her on the sink, quietly closed the door, then soundlessly put a paper and pencil next to her. As he wrote, he spoke.

"How are you feeling? You have something on your face, let me get that."

Except he wasn't looking at her face. He switched on the facet full blast and let the white noise of rushing water fill the small bathroom, but kept his eyes to the paper, which he then pointed to for her to read.

I'm going to do something. Don't say anything about it.

No cameras in the bathroom. Only microphones. That's what Jamie's companion had found. But what if it wasn't true? What if things had changed? What if he was wrong?

"There, all clean," he said, having not touched her face at all, though his eyes had met hers. "What are the books for?"

"They said it was because I was good."

His hands came for her. She flinched when they reached for her shirt and down to her strap. Just as she felt his fingertips leaving burning trails along the top of her breasts, she realized what he was searching for and pointed to the right strap where she kept the sharpened seashell.

He pulled it out with a small smile. "Books? Doesn't seem like fit compensation, but I guess it could be."

"It's better than nothing."

Naru moved around her to the toilet, where he picked a bit at the wall just above it. Within seconds he had silently pulled out a flap, and the folded metal arm glinted in the depths of the square hole it had once covered.

"Think they would give you anything if you promised to behave? I'm sure we could use a few chosen tools for getting out of here." His fingers dove down past the metal arm. He frowned as he fingered about for a bit, the seashell left on the tank of the toilet.

"I doubt it. They probably would have thought of that." Naru pulled out a set of colored wires pinched between his fingers. "Why didn't you think of that? You're not as smart today, methinks."

"Geniuses have off days too." A jolt of either worry or excitement managed to make its way through her emotional emptiness when he frowned, and then picked out two of the wires, which were as thick as both his thumbs put together. He took up the seashell in his other hand.

Before she could think of what to say next, he had torn off the rubber lining, exposing the tight band of copper beneath, set both naked bands of copper next to each other and twisted them. He twisted and twisted, face red with the effort of staying quiet as the water kept going in the sink. She was dying to ask what he was hoping to accomplish when, all a sudden, there came a sharp snap and all the lights turned off.

It was pitch blackness. She wouldn't have been able to see her hand in front of her face, let alone anything else, for that matter.

Naru's hand fell over her mouth, cutting off the question at the end of her cry of surprise.

"What happened?" he said, as he tugged her off the counter. Only then did he take his hand off her mouth.

"I-I don't know." She said, afraid she didn't sound too authentic. But why was he bothering to keep up the charade? If the power was off, didn't that mean the microphones were too?

Though he couldn't see any better than she, he led her along with his hands to the walls. When they got to the door, there came another click and snap before Naru pulled her through the tiny opening of the barely moved door. Fear crawled at her throat as people stumbled by, shouting to one another, and somewhere in the distance an alarm wailed. She could hear pounding on the walls and perhaps Mandy's voice yelling somewhere behind it all.

"N-Naru—"

He gave her hand a harsh squeeze and she closed her mouth with a snap.

Several times she bumped into bodies running by, and each time she had to choke back a squeak to reveal who she was. Just as she was wondering how Naru knew where he was going, there came another squeal of metal and the first dim line of light caught her eye. He pulled her through another cracked door and let go of her hand.

The light came from the dead LED ring of light at the bottom of the tank, glowing like the screen of an old tube TV after it had been turned off. What little she saw was only bright enough to show the bubbles of water and where the counters of controls blocked her way.

Naru let go of her hand and disappeared behind these counters. She bundled her hands into a tight knot beneath her chin. Any moment now the door behind them would snap open and the guards would come through, weapons drawn, mouths open wide to shout warnings while looking too much like one of those deep water, predatory angler fish without their lures.

A curse, a chink, and Naru reappeared before the dying glow of the tank. His fingers found her arm, then felt their way up to the collar around her neck. With a steadying hand on her neck, he wedged something cold, like scissors, between the collar and her tender skin. He made hushing noises to calm her when she started to tremble violently.

A loud snap, like breaking bone, and the arms of the collar slipped away. Naru took her hand and they were once more off into the darkness and chaos.

When next he slipped her through a door, the darkness fell away to the new light of a dying day. Twilight had long past, and the only remains of the sun was the grey-blue light on the horizon. Stars glittered high above them and no moon shone.

They both stumbled to the peer. The water licked at the docks lips. High tide.

"Take us to the left end of the grating as quick as you can."

"But, Naru—"

"Please, trust me."

So, even though she had an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach that weighed too close to premonition, she did as he said. Before she had even managed to regain her breath from the pain of the change she had Naru held tight against her chest as she bulleted over the bay's forest of coral. Fish bolted, but at her frantic speed some couldn't move fast enough, and their bodies slapped against her face and shoulders.

She took a great gulp of water. Air rushed to her head, along with a punch of adrenalin. Left. She had to go to the left end, he said.

But what was he thinking? How could this help? The chains of the grating couldn't be cut, and even without electricity, by the time they managed to dig deep enough to swim under the power line, both of them would be found.

The thrum of water speeding past her ears reminded her suddenly of blood.

She didn't like this. This couldn't work.

Naru tugged at her arms and she surfaced in time for him to take a great, ragged suck of air. She waited till he met her eye before diving under and speeding off once more.

They hit the grate in record time. Naru threw himself at the grating, gasping for air as he scrambled about it like a jungle gym, his blue scrubs sticking to him like a second skin. In one hand was something she hadn't even realized he had brought along, which seemed phenomenal considering she had been holding him so close.

Tree trimmers, but strange ones. They had short handles and the blades had a wicked, industrial gleam to them. Had that been what he cut her collar with?

Impressive they may be, Mai doubted they could still cut the chains that made up the grating. But rather than proceeding to attack the grating with the cutters, he turned to her.

"Straight beneath me, right where the grating meets the cement walls, you're going to find a big dip, a hole, if you may, lined with mollusks. Keep following the wall—you listening to me Mai?" Because a snap behind them where the rest of the bunker was had distracted her. "Right to the bottom, you'll find a bit of the power line connected to the grating. Cut the power line. You have to be quick, they could turn on the power any moment now." He held out the cutters.

"But doesn't water conduct—"

"Mai!"

She flinched, grabbed the cutters, and dived down so quick she nearly smashed her face into the wall she was to follow. Down down, into the dark depths, where the rainbow coral didn't wish to go.

He had been right. The mollusks made a cone of sorts down to where the grating ended and a thick, black line broke the blanket of chains. The mollusks had kept the sand from being pushed in by the ocean currents. Heart pounding, body hot with the desperate attempt not to think about what should happen to her if the electricity should turn on while she was cutting—or what if it didn't cut—or what the hell they were both doing—she stabbed the cutters down like Excalibur and brought the arms together with all her strength.

The power cord put up a fight, but gave a final twang and sprang apart, as though it had been rubber. The bits of chain connected to it curled up as the tension the power cord had been holding broke, leaving a tiny space between mollusks and grating to squeeze under.

Teeth chattering, she shot back up to the surface to Naru.

"It's cut, we can fit."

A loud bang, and across the bay the Triple A institution flashed to life like a sleeping dragon suddenly opening its eyes. On the distant pier, against the brilliant light, she could just make out a dark silhouette in a lab coat.

"Mai! Hurry! I don't know how long I'll be able to hold my breath!"

It was awfully deep. She suddenly hesitated.

"Naru-"

"I can do it! You're going to need my connections to stay safe once we're outside, so just take me!"

Praying he could do what he said, and hoping her speed wouldn't fail them, she embraced him and dove back down. But though she moved as quick as she could, diving with Naru in her arms was a lot different than swimming across the surface with him. He was buoyant, and every molecule of air in his body fought to return to the surface. Just as she thought she'd have to turn back or risk killing him, she saw the opening, and flung herself for it. Mollusk shells scraped against her, the hard edges of their closed lips scratching every bit of her skin they could reach. She heard cloth tear and her dress loosened.

Naru's buoyancy that had fought so hard against her going down pushed her faster to the surface now.

She couldn't believe her relief when he came up violently coughing water out of his mouth. As he struggled to clear out his lungs, she back paddled with him, desperate to get as far from the wall as possible. A new feeling had overcome her as the wide expanse of the ocean caught her attention. For a moment she couldn't breathe. Had the walls always made her feel so cramped? How had she ever lived in confined as she had been? How could she have ever thought the water in that closed off bay could feel the same as open sea?

Something hit her shoulder. It dug deep, cold, and hard. Even as her vision blurred and her tail started to sink down without her, she saw the fat, fletched dart.