Thank you so much for reading! I am so sorry for posting so late, but I had a rather eventful morning. Leave a review and let me know what you think of the story!
Disclaimer: I do not own Mako Mermaids or any of its characters/ideas. I do own a pair of ear plugs because I went shooting this morning. All OCs are my own creation.
Chapter 28- Fury
"Merissa," Ignista said, shaking me as I rolled on the ground. I was in the fetal position, screaming my head off and crying uncontrollably. My hands were covering my ears in some futile attempt to escape from the living nightmare.
"They broke his legs!" I cried out in between my aching sobs.
"Merissa, you need to be quiet," Iggy said in a firm yet frantic tone, "someone will hear you and then who knows what they will do to you."
"I have to heal him," I said, sitting up with the tips of my fingers digging into my scalp. This didn't feel real. I felt as if I were losing my mind.
My world was crumbling into a million pieces. The only thing that I could think of in that moment was my Introduction to Anatomy course. The bones of the legs, especially the femur, were some of the strongest bones in the human body. While ossification was the natural healing process to fix broken bones, it would take weeks. Depending on the severity and type of the break, there was a possibility that Dillon's fractures would not heal properly. This was a best-case scenario. If he sustained an open fracture then sepsis was a concern. He could die.
I had to heal him.
I stood up from the cave floor and began to frantically pace around the cell.
"There has to be a way for us to get out of here," I said, practically running along the length of the bars.
"Merissa, you need to calm down," Iggy said, coming up to put her hands on my shoulders. "Dillon will be alright, they are just trying to use him to get to you."
"This isn't fair!" I cried out as I crumpled against the bars of the cell.
Dillon was seriously injured. Wes, Trey, and Milo were all unaccounted for. My father was either imprisoned, hurt, or dead. All of this was my fault.
"This isn't fair," I repeated softly as tears flowed down my cheeks. I was sitting with my back against the bars and Iggy was standing across from me. I closed my eyes and softly hit my head against the metal in defeat.
"This isn't fair," I muttered.
"Life isn't fair," I heard a sinister voice say from behind me.
I quickly stood up and turned to face the bars. I recognized the voice as belonging to none other than Yersinia.
She had long black hair that was extremely curly and fell to her waist. Her skin was paper-white which contrasted with her bright-red lipstick. Her eyes were a shade of blue that was cold enough to freeze a furnace. She was wearing a long navy dress that fell to her feet. The dress had long sleeves that came to a point at her middle finger which made it look like it belonged in the Renaissance. It was embroidered with a silver thread along the neckline, bringing attention to the moonstone that was fastened to a silver chain around her neck.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked her with tears still streaming down my face. I had nothing to lose at this moment. All of the cards were on the table and there was a fire growing inside of me.
"You know," Yersinia said with a menacing smirk on her face, "I was initially mad at my idiot son for almost killing you. If only I knew then how obnoxious and incompetent you are."
I could only stare at her in a disgusted rage.
"Don't get me wrong," she added in a sarcastic tone, "I still think that he is an idiot. I'm just slightly less pissed than I was before."
"You didn't answer my question," I said between gritted teeth.
"I won't answer your question because the answer is blatantly obvious," she said in a condescending tone. "Your ancestors, the same as my husband's I might add, hid away a tool of great power. They had the potential to rule over the Seven Seas and they gave it up. 'For what?' I ask myself every night before I go to bed. 'For world peace and a chance to sing Kumbayah around the fireplace?' No. Your ancestors were fools. Fast-forward a few centuries and your father decides to take it upon himself to unleash the power of the trident. Frankly, he was more of an incompetent idiot than my poor Teron. He was head-over-fin for a land-girl. How disgusting."
I felt my blood start to boil. No one talked about my parents that way and got away with it.
"Anyway," she continued as she inspected her long fingernails, "my husband and I thought that we finally had a chance at reclaiming what was rightfully ours. Your father led us straight to the trident and all we had to do was get it. Unfortunately, your aunt and your father and the rest of their little teeny-bopper posse decided to destroy it before we could get our hands on it."
"The trident was a weapon of mass destruction," Iggy interjected, facing her fear of the menacing mermaid, "its full activation would have killed you."
"Shut up, you little punk!" Yersinia shouted. She raised her hand and sent Ignista soaring through the air. She hit the back wall with enough force to render her unconscious.
Yersinia was a powerful mermaid. I knew that I was more powerful.
"Don't you dare touch her again," I said as I felt my hands start to tighten into a fist. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that my moonring was glowing brightly.
"What will happen if I do?" She scoffed at me.
Without thinking, I held out my moonring and released all of the anger and hurt that was coursing through my veins. I saw a blinding flash explode from the stone on my finger. It traveled through the metal bars and struck Yersinia in the chest. She fell to the ground and started to violently convulse. I had electrocuted her.
I stood there in complete shock. I was both proud and ashamed of my actions. While Yersinia deserved what she had coming, I was also a healer and hurting someone felt inherently dirty and wrong.
"What happened?" I heard Iggy mumble behind me.
I turned around to see her starting to regain consciousness. I ran over to help her stand up, only to find that she had a large gash in the back of her head. She must have hit the wall of the cave so hard that it broke the skin.
"I don't feel too good," she muttered as she started to slip in and out of consciousness.
I gently lowered Iggy back onto the floor. I turned to see that Yersinia was still immobilized on the ground, twitching slightly but still completely unresponsive.
"It's going to be alright," I whispered to Iggy as I gently rolled her on her side.
I carefully put my hands over her gash, pressing with enough force to try and control the bleeding while also making sure that I didn't hurt her. I closed my eyes and focused on healing her. She was so young and had a full life to live. The power started to grow in my core and slowly move out into my arms. I was learning how to control the intensity of my power, but I knew that I couldn't afford to collapse after healing Iggy. The tingling sensation grew in my fingers and I could feel her warm blood start to fade away under my palms. I pulled my hands away to see that her scalp was completely healed.
She blinked her eyes open and placed her hand on the back of her head.
"How did you do that?" She asked as she looked at me in shock.
"I can heal people," I said as I quickly helped to pull her up, "it's a really long story. Right now, we need to get out of here."
Iggy turned to see Yersinia's lifeless body lying on the stone floor. A half-smile crossed her face as she saw what seemed to be the end of the woman who had tormented her for a year.
"Follow me," she said with a fiery and determined look in her eyes.
She walked up to the bars and inspected the lock. It appeared to be a heavy-duty padlock that was resistant to force and gunfire; however, it was not tested to withstand magic.
"I'm going to need you to freeze the lock," she said with her mental wheels turning. "I'm then going to start to boil the lock. Theoretically, the pressure should break it open, but we have to work fast."
I held out my hand and froze the lock so that it was encapsulated in ice. Iggy then started to form her out-stretched hand into a fist, causing the ice to start steaming.
"Hold It a bit longer," she said as she concentrated on boiling the ice at the proper speed.
Just when I thought that I couldn't hold the power much longer, the lock suddenly fell off of the metal latch. I grabbed the metal bars and slid the heavy door open. Iggy and I turned ourselves invisible before running out of the cell and down the long corridor.
We didn't know where we were going, but we weren't looking back.
What will happen to Merissa and Iggy? Will they be able to find everyone? Stay tuned to find out!
-Crispin Robb
