A/N: In this chapter, Rikki is stalked and Zane gets an interesting offer from a certain evil scientist – does he take her up on her offer? Read, review and enjoy everybody!

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A Few Days Later - Dr. Denman

Since I've asked Jerry to take his leave, I've hired on a few more ambitious men to my crew – John and Eric. What I had planned for them had the potential to be quite a lot of fun. They told me that they weren't comfortable with murder – but everything short of it was fine with them. And you know what? That was fine with me because I wanted to be the one to kill these girls personally. But I was going to use them to help me manipulate the Bennett boy. They all recognized me, but they didn't know who John or Eric were and this was where the fun would begin. First things first: start messing with the Chadwick girl.

I gave them her picture. I told them where she worked, where she went to school, where she hung out. I smirked when I thought of their mission: their only job right now was to follow her. Just to follow her, very professionally dressed. People would think nothing of two attractive, well dressed men chasing some hood-rat. They weren't to say anything to her and if she started to run I instructed them to give chase for a few seconds and then to disperse - just to make her nervous. To let her know that there were people after her. I sent them out and let them do their work.

The report I received from them after a few days was perfect – just what I had wanted.

"She held out on her own for a few days, Linda. She was pretty nervous all right. She ran a few times, once it was perfect – John came up from one side and started following her and I came right from the other direction. Once she saw that she was surrounded she bolted and ran. Today we saw some other kid with her, though." Eric said proudly. I grinned; I kind of wished I had been able to see it for myself but unfortunately I am recognizable by these brats. I smiled even wider and flipped through my file on the girls looking for a picture. In another second I pulled out a photo of Zane Bennett – my good friend Harrison Bennett's son.

"Is this the kid you saw?" I asked.

"Yup, that looks like him all right. Kinda nervous lookin' kid, at least he was today."

"Excellent. All right boys, you know the plan. Go make him more nervous." I grinned and was happy when they smiled back at me – why couldn't Jerry have had the fire that these two have? It's refreshing to have people do what I want them to do without questioning me. The two of them grabbed their suit jackets and left and I turned back to my work. This was perfect; Zane was already panicking? Well then, he'd been in a LOT of trouble when I really started pushing him.

*

It's been a few days and if I could promote Eric and John, I would. They've done exactly what I've asked them to and I couldn't be more pleased with the daily reports I was getting. Zane was constantly with Rikki whenever she was out in public, and he was beginning to really get paranoid. Eric brought me some photos they took while Zane was waiting for Rikki to come out of her house and this child looked positively haggard: bugged alert eyes, dark circles under his eyes, fists and jaw permanently clenched… he's beginning to crack. Silly child – too worried about protecting his woman to realize two very important things: one being that the Chadwick girl was better off helping herself than anything he could do, and the other being that if I had had John and Eric following them with the intent of killing he and Rikki, they would be dead by now. Not that I was complaining about his blind and incredibly male perspective. It made my work so much simpler and so then I gave Eric the go-ahead to carry out the plan to push Zane Bennett to the edge. He had said that he wasn't comfortable with killing – he had too much at stake which was fine; I could understand that. So, he wouldn't have to. Instead of "shoot to kill," I had given him other instructions: aim to miss. He would be following Rikki on one of her swims and giving her the jolt of her life. If I knew this little firecracker's personality, and I'm pretty sure that I did, it would make her more angry than scared – angry enough to rant about it to her boyfriend.

"Have you got everything you need?" I asked casually perching on the edge of my desk. I watched him pick up a duffel bag and his scuba gear.

"Yes ma'am."

"Do you know precisely where you're waiting?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Good. Now remember, John will be above you and about a half kilometer away in the boat with the radar to let you know when she's headed your way. I think you'll be able to take it from there, at least I hope so."

"Absolutely, Linda! I've got this, I swear."

"Perfect. I would hate to second-guess my decision to hire you on."

"You won't regret it, I swear."

"All right, go on then you two." I nodded towards the door and without another word from them they were gone. I sighed and spun slowly to look out the window. Now all I had to do was to wait.

-

Rikki

I couldn't believe what had just happened. I hoisted myself up onto the deck behind Zane's house and steam-dried myself as fast as possible. I was seething when I saw the scratch across my shoulder – okay, so it's not like it was deep or anything and it didn't even hurt, and it wasn't bleeding, but come ON! If I'm being followed and you're going to take a shot at me while I'm swimming at least let me be able to see where the hell you came from. I didn't see anything down there and all of a sudden I get grazed by a crossbow?! Really?! Whoever did this was a punk.

I stormed into Zane's house from the back door and found him sitting on the living room couch.

"Rikki? What happened to you?!" He saw the tiny, miniscule scratch on my shoulder and jumped up. I raised my eyebrows and sat him back down and flopped onto the couch with him.

"It's a scratch, Zane. Literally. Look at it. I don't even think it bled." I laughed and sighed. Apparently this wasn't enough for him.

"Who did this to you?!"

"Take it easy. One of Denman's goons I'm guessing. D'you know, she gave them crossbows, Zane? Who uses crossbows?!" Seriously, where does a person even find a crossbow these days? Or EVER?! Then I took a good look at his face. He was pretty pale – kind of greenish. It didn't look like he'd slept in a while and he had some wicked bags under his eyes. He had frozen still at what I had just said and I thought maybe he wasn't feeling so great, "You wanna take a nap or something?"

"What? No… no I don't want to take a nap. Rikki, this guy could have killed you!" He sounded panicky, like he had for the last few weeks. But this time he sounded different, a little worse. I raised one eyebrow and gave him a look.

"That's the thing, Zane. He could have if he wanted to, but he didn't. I don't think he was trying to kill me, I think he just wanted to scare me. Denman wouldn't hire a crappy shooter."

"Scare you?! Rikki this guy took a shot at you with a crossbow—" He started. I laughed when he said it. I was still having a fun time realizing that somebody had actually just used a crossbow. "—Rikki this isn't a joke! It was one of Denman's men, probably one of the guys that have been following you! Of course he was trying to kill you; that's exactly what she wants them to do!"

"I think you need to calm down, Zane. Go lay down – I'll order a pizza or something." I said. He stared at me for a minute and in another second, without another word, he sprang up off the couch and bolted up the stairs. Something weird was going on with him and he definitely needed to relax.

-

Zane

I took Rikki back to her apartment a few hours ago. She didn't want me to. I did anyway. She gave me an Indian burn – it was still red. When I got back home I didn't know what to do. My hands were shaking. I was freaking out and it felt like I was losing my mind.

Somebody tried to kill Rikki today. She might not have been making a big deal about it but this person could have taken her head off. Linda Denman wanted her and the rest of the girls dead. She was going to turn them into science experiments and this time she wanted them dead. The first time around this crap had been my fault – Denman had come after them because I had helped her. I didn't know at the time that the mermaids were my friends and my girlfriend but it was my fault anyway. And now after I started to redeem myself a little she comes back and there is absolutely NOTHING that I can do to keep Denman away from them. I don't have any powers – I'm a good shot but apparently these guys are better. The girl I love and her best friends, my friends too, are going to be picked off and killed. And there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

I wracked my brain for hours and couldn't come up with anything. Nothing. I was going to have to just sit around and watch while this psychopath came after Rikki. I let out a yell and before I knew it my right fist was through my bedroom wall and there was a pile of drywall dust on my carpet. I couldn't even feel it and at that point I couldn't have cared less. I would do anything, absolutely anything to keep Denman away from Rikki and - no matter how drastic and I still came up with nothing. I heard my phone ringing so I yanked my hand out of the fresh hole in the wall and answered it.

"Yeah?"

"Hello, Zane." A woman answered me. This voice sounded familiar but not that familiar.

"Who've I got?"

"Zane, I'm sad that you don't recognize my voice. It's Linda. Linda Denman, your father's friend." She said. Ugh. I knew that I knew that voice from somewhere. And she had the nerve to introduce herself as 'my father's friend'?

"You! You're no friend to anyone, you're just a bloodthirsty bit—"

"Choose your words carefully, Zane. I've called because I have an offer for you."

"I don't want anything from you." I was ready to slam the phone shut when I heard her say something else.

"Is that so? You don't want to help Rikki? Well all right, if that's what you want… Have a pleasant evening, Zane."

"Wait – what did you say about Rikki?"

"Zane, I clearly don't need all of the mermaids – just one. I mean, Rikki is a prime specimen because of how healthy and strong she is and her powers are the most intriguing, but I'm more than willing to settle for another one."

"What are you talking about?"

"I will leave Rikki alone in exchange for another mermaid."

"You want me to help you catch one of the other girls?" I asked. I couldn't even believe she would ask me something like this but for some reason the thought wasn't as appalling as it should have been, "…Which one?"

"That is entirely your choice, Zane. Do we have a deal?" She asked. I paused for a minute and looked down at my hand. Huh. It was bleeding – I still couldn't feel it. This woman was telling me that I could help Rikki. That I didn't have to be completely worthless after all. I creased my eyebrows and thought of the girls. I had said that I would do anything, and I meant it.

"Deal."

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A/N: Zane is beginning to crack a little bit, and his temper is back – is he really going to help Denman? And does Rikki see what's happening to Zane? Find out in chapter 7! Reviews are lovely, I hope you enjoyed chapter 6!