Chapter 2

Emmett stayed with me until I fell asleep again, apparently getting stabbed and passing out in the water can really wear you out. When I woke up it was quiet in the room and he was nowhere to be seen. I sat there for a while looking at all the things he had around the room and couldn't believe the mess he had them in. Then there was the huge pile of clothes that lay in the corner of the room and I was afraid something was going to crawl out of the pile and attack me.

After looking over the room for the tenth time I decided I needed to get out of the room before I go crazy. Getting out of the bed and moving around wasn't too difficult but I didn't take into consideration that I would need something to wear once I was up and moving around. There was no way I was going to wear any of Emmett's clothes, even if I could tell the clean from the dirty they would still fall right off of me. The only option I could see was to just wrap the sheet around myself. Once I had it tied like a sarong I carefully headed towards the door. My foot was really sore but it was bearable as long as I didn't stay on it for too long.

I opened the door and groaned when I saw a flight of stairs that I would have to climb to get out of here. Considering that I am so not used to having legs in the first place stairs were extremely difficult to master, but add to it that the stairs are on a ship that was currently on the ocean just amplifies the difficulty by ten. I felt like a child learning to walk and I took the stairs one at a time holding on tight to the railing so I wouldn't fall and get even more injured.

A huge triumphant smile spread across my face when I reached the top of the stairs. The smell of the ocean water was amazing and the feel of the sun on my face was marvelous, I felt like I was home even though I was not even in the water. "I don't think you should be walking on that foot." I opened my eyes and looked to my left where Emmett was leaning against the railing of the ship. "I couldn't stay in that room any longer I was getting claustrophobic."

I blushed as I watched his eyes rake over me standing there in nothing more than a sheet from his bed. I swear I saw a twinge of shame in his eyes when he reached mine, almost like he as ashamed of getting caught looking at me. "Well in that case why don't you sit in that chair and I will go get you something to eat; I'm sure you are starved." Oddly enough wasn't hungry until he mentioned food.

Judging by the sun it was late in the afternoon and the sun would soon be setting and when I didn't come home I'm sure my dad would send out a search party, like always. It's not uncommon for me to disappear without a trace and every time it happens he sends out loads of search parties until I am found. This time won't be so easy since I am obviously not near any of my typical hiding spots. In all honesty I have no idea where I am.

Emmett returned with two plates full of food and a triumphant smile on his face. He sat in the chair that was next to me but closer to the ground. I looked at the food skeptically when he handed me the plate. "Um, what's this?" He chewed the food that was in his mouth before answering with a mouth full of food. "It's ham and cheese with salt and vinegar chips." I wracked my brain trying to remember what humans call their food in different countries. "Ham, as in meat, from a pig?" This time he spared me the sight of chewed food and just nodded his head. I didn't want to be too much of a bother so I sucked it up and just took the ham off of the sandwich and placed it on the plate before proceeding to eat the, now, cheese sandwich and chips.

"You don't want your ham?" I shrugged at him, it sounded as if he had never met someone who refuses to eat something before. "I don't eat meat." His eyes almost popped out of his head at hearing this, "Not even fish?" I rolled my eyes at the shock in his voice. "No." "Then what the hell do you eat out there?" I sighed before putting my plate down, "Most of the time I eat seaweed and different types of sea grasses and occasionally algae and phytoplankton, however most of my kind do eat meat so they will eat anything from fish and crustaceans to sharks and whales."

He was really quiet for a while so I finished my food and watched as the sun got closer to the horizon. "Are there many of your kind out there?" I shrugged my shoulders and kept my face down looking at the ground. I didn't want to tell him too much about my kind in case he was to go looking for them but I also hated lying to anyone about anything. I played with my gold star fish necklace before I bucked up the courage to answer him. "In comparison to humans we are very small in population and we scatter throughout the seven seas to stay unnoticed."

I looked up just in time to watch the last rays of light disappear. "Oh, I thought that you were gonna tell me that your kind lives among the humans and we are just unaware of it." I wasn't sure how to tell him that those of us who decide to live among the humans are often banished from the communities and families and would not be welcomed back after such a crime. "No Emmett, none of my kind are hiding out with your kind." He looked like he didn't believe me, which I am sure he didn't.

"Can I ask you a question now?" He nodded and waited for me to ask. I took a deep breath trying to prepare myself for a worst case scenario. "If I wanted to leave, would you let me?" He made a noise that I couldn't really describe it was like a growl mixed with a sigh while he scratched the back of his head. "I would be a liar if I said I didn't think about the possibilities I could have from keeping you, but that was back before I knew if you were gonna wake up. Then you were able to talk, not just talk but speak my language and then you had a name. I know that being the one to discover a new species, especially one that is believed to be mythical, would mean fame for me but I don't think I could do that to you."

I still wasn't sure if I believed everything he was saying to me but there was just something about him that made me want to believe him, I guess I would just have to be cautious until he proved to me that I could trust him with not only my life but my families as well.

"That's good to know."

"Do you want to leave?"

I hadn't anticipated him asking me that question right away and the look in his eyes made me think he was afraid of my answer. "Not yet." I caught a glance at his smile before he tilted his head down to look at the ground. He must not have wanted me to leave but didn't want me to feel trapped here with him; I just wasn't sure why he didn't want me to leave.

The night breeze coming off of the ocean was colder than I was used to causing me to shiver and goose bumps to pop up. I rubbed my arms slowly trying to be coy about the coldness of the air but Emmett saw right through it. "I'm gonna drop the anchor here for the night and get some shut eye so if you want to head on down that's cool." I carefully stood trying not to put too much pressure on my foot before grabbing the now empty plates from our meal. "Just leave 'em. I can get it on my way down."

Watching him move about the ship so he could drop anchor was fascinating. I wanted to learn as much as I could about human's for the longest time but Daddy would never allow such things, so I stuck with what we thought we knew and what others would report from the travels around the world. "Emmett," his questioning stare made me smile, "thanks for not leaving me to the sharks today." "It was the least I could do since I was the one that stabbed you." The silence between us was oddly calming and I didn't want to end it but when the wind blew again I couldn't help but shiver violently. "I'll see you below."

The bedroom was still just as messy as it was when I first left it so I tried to gather all of his clothes to at least to put them all in one pile in one corner instead of them being all around the room. I was very surprised to see that there was actually a floor below the layer of crap that I had moved to the far corner of the room. Even more surprising no little creatures came out to visit or attack me for destroying their homes.

I wasn't quite sure how we were going to handle the sleeping arrangements for the night. It didn't seem right for me to force Emmett out of his own bed but I did not want to share a bed with a man I have only known for a couple of hours. My ponderings were short lived as Emmett entered the room, "Wow, I do have a floor in here." I blushed, "Yeah it's amazing what picking things up can accomplish or in this case just pushing it all to the corner of the room."

Both our eyes drifted to the bed as silence crept back over us, Emmett clearing his throat broke the silence before he grabbed a pillow off the bed and two blankets out of the closet. Before I had a chance to stop him he was laying on the floor in a makeshift bed. "Emmett, get off the floor and sleep in your bed." Ignoring me he just rolled over onto his side facing the wall opposite the bed. "I'm serious I can't sleep in your bed knowing that you are on the floor less than 10 feet from me." Groaning he rolled back over to look at me, "Well I won't sleep in the bed while you are on the floor. I may not be a complete gentleman all the time but my mom did raise me right."

Groaning I grabbed the remaining pillow and the two blankets from the bed before tossing them to the floor as close to the bed as I could get without going under it. "Fine, I guess we will both be sleeping on the floor then." I drifted off to sleep while Emmett mumbled something along the lines of 'stubborn female who won't listen'.