Chapter 128

Ryan had realised quickly that if the mermaids were no longer following their normal routine to throw him off, that he would have to pay particular attention to them 'after hours' so to speak. He decided to plant some cameras around the reefs on Mako, to see if there were any patterns. There weren't at first, but after a few weeks, he noticed that different mer-juveniles would come for a swim in the evening. They weren't consistent with where they swam, but it seemed consistent that they did swim.

Ryan knew that he would just need to show up in scuba gear consistently and he would get his moment.

Ryan parked the boat on the far side of Mako – the public side. He knew the mermaids would avoid swimming over there, and he knew that driving his boat towards the mainland would get suspicion. He also knew that mermaids could easily catch up to his boat on full speed. He got an employee to be ready to drive a second boat towards the mainland, 'bait' if you will.

He had a good feeling about this evening. From his boat, he monitored the camera feeds. He had his tranquiliser gun ready – a modified dose so that it wouldn't harm the mers. He hadn't had a good opportunity yet, but he knew he would get his chance. Patience always wins in the end.

It was time! Some juveniles were in the water without an adult. They quickly jumped in the water, and swam in their scuba gear over to where the mers were swimming. He wanted the mers to relax, so he told his men that they wouldn't move in close until the mers had been swimming for a bit and looked about ready to head back in.

He observed the mers from a distance for about 10 minutes, then he signalled his employees to come closer. He targeted the identical boys first, pulling the trigger of his tranquiliser gun. The mermaid noticed something was wrong and whipped around, before she had the chance to react, the tranquiliser dart was in her upper tail.

He lined up the shot to hit the last mer. As his finger pulled the trigger, the mer whipped around and panicked. Ryan's aim was true, hitting the boy. Then it was Ryan's turn to panic as he felt his arm get sliced by a spike of ice sailing past. He was very fortunate that the tranquiliser had impaired the mer enough that he missed. Ryan clamped his hand over the wound on his upper arm.

"Leave that one," he said quickly, "He's too much trouble,"

So, they grabbed the younger boys and the girl, and swam as quickly as possible towards their boat.

They heard the decoy boat start up and head towards the mainland.

He and his men successfully lifted the heavy mers onto the boat.

So they didn't have to cart a very conspicuous tank around, Ryan decided that they would transport the unconscious mers dry. It would be much easier with them in their human forms. Quietly, their boat moved out to sea, away from Mako, and the opposite direction from the mainland. They would wait out here for a bit and then head back to the shore when the mers believed the boat carrying their children was long gone.

Ryan grimaced as he looked at his arm. It was still bleeding.

One of his newer employees, Casper, set to bandaging the arm while they waited.

"You know boss, I didn't believe you at first. I was just here for the money. But seeing them?" Casper gestured to the unconscious children. "This is amazing. I won't say nothing about your methods, I don't like knocking out kids" he added in a mutter, then louder he said "But you have that proof you've been after,"

Ryan nodded, a hopeful smile spreading across his face.

"Yes."

OoOoO

Rikki angrily wiped the saltwater and tears from her eyes. Both her boys, gone just like that. She had had hope as they chased that boat out to sea, but that hope was stolen when they discovered it was the wrong one.

She felt Bella squeeze her shoulder in support as they pulled themselves up on the sand. It was a nice gesture but it didn't do anything for how Rikki felt. She felt like she'd been suckerpunched. She angrily dried herself off. She had been devastated when Jenny had been taken, but this was next level. Jenny. Now Andy.

Oh no, how was Cleo?

Rikki turned to see Cleo standing, sobbing quietly. Emma was cradling Eric – the only child left behind. Was it because he was older?

Raw emotion churned in her gut as she approached Cleo. She embraced her friend and the floodgates opened. Tears flowed down their cheeks.

"I'm sorry," Rikki whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry we couldn't find them. We chased the wrong damn boat,"

"Don't blame yourself, Rikki," Cleo choked out. "There's nothing we could've done,"

Rikki was about to protest, but Cleo squeezed her hand.

"There is nothing we could've 'll get them back somehow,"

Rikki let out a loud sob, and nodded.

The news did not go down well when they got back to the village.

"We had been so careful," Anna said mournfully.

"Not careful enough," Emma said sadly.

"We know already who must have done this," Lewis said. "From Eric, we can see it was the same tranquiliser gun,"

"When Eric wakes up we can ask him what he saw," Will said.

"I think we should give him some space – it was probably traumatic for him," Emma replied.

"Jenny has been through it, maybe she can talk with him?" Bella suggested.

"I'll ask her," Cleo responded.

"We have to stop Ryan, he is a danger to you all," Zane said angrily. "He's deliberately targeting our children. Who knows if he is after more?"

"But how do we stop him?" Anna replied.

There was silence from the adults.

"We can't easily go to the police because we can never give them the full details of how the kidnappings took place," Bella said, "But Ryan is also counting on that – so maybe we should go to the police?"

"Are you crazy? They'll find out our secret," Emma replied.

"But is our secret more important than our children? I know Ryan wants to expose our secret but we don't know what he'll do. Is he going to do experimentation? What kind of samples will he keep? Or will he only broadcast their identities to the world? I don't want to risk the worst!" Cleo said. "If we try to solve this by ourselves, are we going to make it worse?"

"There are a lot of unknowns and what-ifs," Will replied.

"First Jenny, now Andy, some of you don't know how this feels!" Cleo exclaimed in anguish.

"Hey hey, while they're not our own children, don't you dare imply that we're not feeling this," Anna said.

"We're all hurting," Rikki said calmly. Her contribution to the discussion caused pause. It was unlike Rikki to be calm in an argument and also, they realised this was the first thing she had said. "We need to decide what to do quickly, for the sake of our kids. We could report their kidnapping to the police or not, now or later. Or we can try to find Ryan ourselves. The problem is, we don't have a single place to start. They kids are all unconscious still so we can't communicate with them. He will have started over in a new location that we don't know of. We are stuck."

"Um…" Emma started, "I thought you were leading up to something hopeful there, Rikki,"

"There is one place we could go for help that hasn't been said yet," Anna jumped in. "We go to Katya,"

"Absolutely not!"

"No way,"

"Huh."

There was a cacophany of noise from the various adults.

"Think about it," Anna pleaded. "Jenny seemed to think she was nice. And she let you go from the warehouse. It was said that she seemed surprised to know that we lived as humans. Maybe she can be persuaded to help us?"

No one said anything.

"Do we really have any other options?" Anna asked. "It's either chat to her and see if she knows anything, or call the police,"

"She has a point," Rikki acknowledged.

The adults took a vote – police vs Katya. Both not great options.

By 4 votes, contacting Katya won. And Anna won the phone call.

OoOoO

Katya had finished eating dinner, and was washing the dishes.

Her phone rang. Quickly wiping her hands on a tea towel, she picked up the phone. Unknown number calling at 8.30pm. Interesting.

She answered it.

"Katya speaking,"

"Um, hi Katya," the female voice started. Katya could hear faint muffled chatter in the background. "We need to talk with you about something,"

Was that a hint of desperation in her voice?

"Sorry, who is this?" Katya answered.

"Oh, um. I'm Anna. I believe you have met my friend's daughter, Jenny,"

Katya heart started pumping faster. What had made the mermaids actually reach out to her?

"Ah, I am deeply sorry for how that meeting occurred," Katya replied. There was a tense silence. Katya continued, "I would love to meet with you sometime…"

"How about tonight?" Anna interrupted.

"Tonight?" Katya replied, surprised.

"Yes, I don't want to say much over the phone," Anna said cryptically.

"Where should we meet?" Katya said.

"Rikki's Café on the waterfront, at 9 o'clock,"

At least that was a semi-public place. Katya was aware of how dangerous this could be for her if the mermaids wanted to get back at her for her role in Jenny's kidnapping. Wow that was soon.

"I can be right there," Katya replied. "Promise me that you're not luring me into some kind of trap,"

"No," Anna replied, "That is, as long as you're not going to try to trap us?"

"That is not my plan,"

"Good,"

"Good."

"See you soon," Anna said, and the line went dead.

Katya was nervous as she drove to Rikki's café. She brought a copy of her draft paper to share with them if the atmosphere was right. She still had her digital copy if things went south. Thinking about it, she probably should've let someone know where she was going. Once she pulled up and parked, she sent a text to her lawyer, telling her to check in with her in an hour. Katya had no idea what she was walking into. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed her handbag, locked her car, and walked towards the lit up café.

OoOoO

Rikki, Zane, Cleo, Ash, and Anna sat in a booth at the café. Zane and Ash were there as human support if needed. Rikki and Cleo were there because Katya had already seen both of them, and Anna was the one who did the phone call. The other adults remained on Mako looking after the remaining kids.

Before they left, the other older kids had been told in simple terms what had happened.
Jenny had burst into tears.
"Not Andy," she whispered. "It should've been me again, I'm the big sister,"

Eventually, she had calmed, especially hearing that Mum was going to talk with Katya. Jenny agreed that this might work. She had been much more scared of the man than Katya.
Lewis stayed with her and they put a movie on.

Zane came back to the booth with a tray of coffees and teas for everyone. They sipped these as they waited. They weren't exactly sure how this was going to go, but they knew the urgency. They had been amazed that Katya had agreed to meet right there and then. Anna had been expecting to have to suggest tomorrow morning.

Their quiet chatter stopped as the café door opened.

OoOoO

As she opened the door, a bunch of heads turned to look at her.

Katya immediately recognised Cleo and Rikki. She did not know their names, but she knew their faces. There were also two men and another woman – maybe Anna from the phone. Safety in numbers she supposed. It made her feel ashamed that they felt they needed to be safe from her. There was no one else in the café. Unsurprising afterhours.

"Hello, I'm Dr Katya Alekhin," she introduced herself, putting on friendliness to hide her nervousness. "Thank you for inviting me to speak with you,"

"Hi," the red-headed woman spoke, "I'm Anna, we spoke on the phone. I believe you have already met Cleo and Rikki," she gestured. "And this is Zane and Ash,"

"Nice to meet you all," she acknowledged politely.

"We'll get straight to it," Anna said. She had obviously been nominated spokesperson. "Are you still working with Ryan?"

"No," Katya replied earnestly, "When I realised you were intelligent beings and didn't live like dolphins, I stopped! Sorry, I don't mean it to sound like I think you're animals, I know you live like- you are humans now, well kind of, I don't fully understand it, but I, I just…"

"Katya, it's okay," Cleo interrupted. Katya was grateful for her stopping her pitiful rambling.

"We are glad that you are not working with Ryan anymore," Cleo continued.

"You know our secret, but for that reason we have been forced to ask you for help. We think Ryan has kidnapped three of our children and we need your help to find them,"

A/N: Hello everyone! Thanks for reading! I would love to hear what you think of this chapter :) It's a bit longer than normal haha but I think this is a natural chapter end.

To answer a few review questions: This story is already posted and updated on Wattpad. No, please do not repost this anywhere on my behalf. While it is fanfiction and I acknowledge I don't own the show, this is my story, my ideas. It post it where I want it haha. (Your PMs were disabled so I couldn't reply privately).
Posting schedule question: I update roughly every 1-2 months based on what life allows :) And after nearly 10 years (10 in August) working on these stories, I won't be giving up anytime soon lol

Thanks so much to the following people for commenting: Sammiloveschoc, Guest, CrazyHayniac and Catgirl23.

See you all next time!