Chapter 125

The mer family ate dinner together in the dining hall. Jenny was feeling a lot better now that she had had the later part of the afternoon safe at home. There was a tangible sense of relief in the atmosphere. When the kids had got home, they hugged Jenny tight and a few tears were shed. They were all feeling overwhelmed that it could have been them.

"I'm glad they're doing OK" Cleo said, looking over at the far end of the table where the kids were eating together, laughing and being silly. They appeared to have bounced back quickly from the emotional whiplash.

In contrast, there was a strong feeling of tension amongst the adults.
"What do we do about Ryan and this Katya lady?" Rikki asked.
"Is there much we can do? It might be worse to try to get it back," Emma said. "They might be waiting with a trap. It's too dangerous,"
"And then even if we do escape the trap, maybe they could successfully get more biological samples from us first. Any scientist with DNA samples from more than one source have the evidence to garner wider interest. That's the last thing we need," Cleo added. "As much as I want to get them back for taking Jenny, I don't know if it is worth it,"

Lewis nodded his agreement.

"While that is true, that doesn't completely answer the question of 'what do we do now'" Bella commented. "Do we hide? Do we just go about life as normal? Do we fight back? What next?"

"I think we wait it out," Anna suggested. "Fighting back might get them to release the evidence sooner than later – we'd be better to monitor the situation but not put ourselves in any more risk."

"We're already at risk," Rikki said in a strained but quiet tone, not wanting the children to overhear. "Ryan knows who we are, the routes that we take to work or school. Heck, he probably even knows about Mako!"

They all felt their sudden spike of anxiety. There was a moment of tense silence.

"Do we hide then? Go back to the mainland?" Emma asked.

"Maybe that could be good," Will said. "That way we can wait out the heat, keep everyone safe, and then be able to come back here and get back to normal,"

"But we don't know how long 'the heat' will be an issue," Bella interjected.

"And being on the mainland doesn't necessarily keep us safe. It probably wouldn't take much to find out where Jenny goes to school, and also, she isn't the only target," Cleo said sadly, gesturing between herself and Rikki.

"While it may not be safer, it might be safer for the secret," Lewis said apologetically. "Imagine if they got photos of our village somehow then linked it to mermaids– our houses aren't exactly made of run of the mill materials,"

"Definitely not ideal," Rikki frowned. There was another beat.

"We know that Ryan isn't taken seriously in this field otherwise you'd already be outed. It is this Katya woman that is the threatening player," Lewis said.

"Can we find out more information on her somehow?" Ash asked.

"There's probably lots on Google," Cleo said. "Once all the kids are in bed, let's have a look and talk about this again then,"

"Sounds good," Emma agreed.

OoOoO

Cleo pulled the covers up over Jenny, and leaned over to kiss her cheek.

"Goodnight honey," she said gently.

"Goodnight," Jenny replied quietly, a brave smile on her face.

Cleo squeezed Jenny's hand, then moved to the doorway and turned out the light. She started to move down the hallway.

'Wait don't go!' Cleo heard her daughter exclaim into her mind. Cleo's heart broke.

She rushed back to Jenny's bed.

"Oh baby," Cleo said. From her bed, the 10 year old fell into Cleo's open arms for a hug.

"Don't go," Jenny plead, muffled from Cleo's shoulder.

"I'm here baby, you're safe. I'm not going anywhere," she reassured, stroking her daughter's back. As Jenny sobbed quietly, Cleo held her tighter.

How could Ryan have done this to a child? Cleo gritted her teeth with rage, but she forced herself to breathe deeply so she could be Jenny's comfort.

'Start without me. I think the ordeal has finally caught up with Jenny. She needs me here at the moment,' Cleo mindspoke to the other adult mers.

'Ok,' Bella answered understandingly, "We'll let you know what we find,'

Cleo knelt with Jenny in her arms for some time.

"Sorry Mummy," Jenny whispered, her face still buried in her mother's neck.

"Don't be sorry, Jenny," Cleo answered. "I love you. I'm here if you need me,"

Jenny nodded. She pulled back sniffling.

Cleo smiled at her gently. She reached out and wiped a tear off Jenny's cheek.

"Your shirt is all wet,"

"So it is," Cleo acknowledged. Cleo had made sure that it hadn't touched her skin – although funny, she didn't need to transform into a mermaid right now. Now that Jenny had pointed it out, she removed the water from her shirt with her powers. She held it as a heart shape facing towards Jenny.

Jenny grinned. "Thanks Mum," she said, taking control over the water heart.

A twinkle appeared in Jenny's eye. Cleo noticed too late.

The water heart burst in Cleo's face. Cleo felt her face contort.

A peal of laughter came from Jenny.

"Your face, Mummy!" she giggled.

"Oh, now you've done it!" Cleo responded playfully. Cleo pulled a small ball of water out of the air and threw it at Jenny. Jenny did the same.

Soon the mother and daughter were sitting in their tails, having a 'water ball' fight. Their bright laughter filled the room.

(Fortunately, they could both pull the water out of the wet sheets later)

OoOoO

"There are way too many of us now to comfortably live in the mainland house," Emma said practically. "It's only useful as a stayover place or for one family,"

"True – it'll be hard to find any one place to stay with 10 adults, 14 children and 2 babies," Rikki said resting her forehead on the base of her palm. "Remind me why we had so many children?" she asked rhetorically.

"What about staying with different family friends temporarily?" Ben suggested.

"It would put them at risk," Anna replied. "Particularly Jessie and Alan. We need to tell Jessie, but we don't want her to be on Ryan's radar by association,"

"Good point," Emma replied.

"We're still renting out a few of our houses, but it wouldn't be nice to our tenants to oust them temporarily," Lewis said. "I think we just all need to rent houses until we can safely return to Mako – we can definitely afford it after all these years not renting,"

"I don't like the idea of running scared and hiding," Rikki said. "I'd rather stand our ground on the home field advantage,"

"Understandable, but I don't know if we have much choice Rikki," Zane responded. "At this point, not hiding might equal exposure. I don't want anything to happen to you or the kids,"

Rikki let her frustration out in a heavy sigh, but she reached across the table and squeezed her husband's hand.

"Why don't we just build new buildings with normal materials?" Anna questioned. "As you said Lewis, we have enough money for renting…so why not put it towards building materials? Ben is a builder – he can do it,"

"Yep, shouldn't be too hard – It will help if an architect draws up the designs," he winked at his wife. "Dream team right here," Ben laughed.

"That's actually…a great idea. We keep the water structures up while we're building, so we can still live here, but work on replacing or covering them up. Cleo's Dad should be able to help - she said he was a builder for a short stint in his 20s before he made fishing his career,"

"I can help too," Ash offered.

"I'm in," Will said.

"Brilliant," Lewis said. "I'll order the materials once we have an idea of what we need,"

There was a pause.

"Well, we well and truly went off our research topic," Bella piped up from where she was using the laptop. "I found a few things on Katya while you were talking,"

"Okay, let's hear it," Rikki replied.

"To summarise what is on this website; Dr Katya Alekhin is a well respected scientist in the area of deep ocean research and discovery. She was involved in discovering 4 previously undiscovered species alongside a team of 36 scientists across 6 years of many research expeditions. She is known for her respect of sea life and ethical way of practicing. An interview with Katya highlighted her personal passion of researching marine mythology, quote 'I just love the idea that someday we might find out that those creatures really existed,'" Bella read.

"She sounds like a good person," Emma commented.

"She did let us go," Rikki said.

"Could she be an ally?" Anna asked. "You guys said she seemed unhappy with Ryan when she let you and Jenny go,"

"You want to go to the person who wants to expose mermaids?" Zane asked incredulously.

"I don't know," Anna said. "I just know that Ryan wants to expose us no matter what – he doesn't seem to have the same ethical principles guiding him like this Katya lady does,"

"Our biggest priority since we were 15 has been to protect this secret. To protect ourselves and any other hidden mermaids," Emma said. "I don't think we should add to the risk we're already at to try to make a marine mythology scientist an ally,"

"Alright. Let's focus on our immediate plan," Lewis said. "We will need to start our building project for our village tomorrow,"

OoOoO

Katya needed to take her mind off her big moral dilemma for a bit. She had been stewing it over in her mind for hours. Eating ice cream had helped a bit with the emotional weight, but not completely. It was time to do what she did best. Science.

Katya took the vial of blood out of her fridge. She had placed it there when she got home (happy that she had not left it there with Ryan). She took it to her lab room in her house.

Deep into the night, Katya started to document her findings. Katya started sequencing the DNA, however it would be a day or two until the results were there. As a test, Katya added water to a drop of the blood. As expected, the structure of the sample completely changed at the cell level (just like the skin/scale). Katya then started a second DNA sequencing test from the blood submerged in water. It would be interesting to see if there was a notable difference in the DNA sequences of both samples.

Katya wanted to continue with this research. It was the most exciting thing she had embarked on in her scientific career. However, she wanted to do this ethically, with consent from the participants.

How could she convince Ryan of this? Could they work with the mermaids? Could she legally get out of the contract and pursue this independently?

All questions that might start being answered tomorrow.

A/N: Hi everyone! I hope you're staying safe in these crazy times. I am very blessed to live in New Zealand.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It was a difficult one to write - I always find these ones harder...the 'how do I get to the main plot points without jumping straight there' lol. We'll get to the juicy stuff soon :)

Let me know your thoughts :D

Thanks especially to the following people who commented on the previous chapter: YaleAceBella12, CrazyHayniac, Zlytas & Guest.

To respond to the question from Guest - "what was the inspiration for 2 new ocs? was it because there werent enough main characters for the story youve been going for? ive always been curious, they were written brilliantly though..." - Thanks. It wasn't because of not enough characters, it was to give myself some freedom with character development and choices - when you're writing for existing characters you need to keep them true to who they were in the show, but with OCs you can do whatever. That was the inspiration haha.
One thing I do regret is just HOW MANY CHILDREN I created (16 kids across 5 families is toooooo many). I really made it hard for myself. But as a 15-16yr old I was obsessed with characters having families (As I have two sisters, at the time I wanted them all to have similiar sized families). 25yr old me doesn't give a toss XD . I do love the older children though (as you may have noticed by how many subplots I give them).

See you all next time!