Author's Note:

Yes, I am putting this note up at the top, because this is a doozy of a chapter, and you deserve fair warning. It is not pleasant. Emphasis on dark, yeah? Just... brace yourselves.

XVI. The Dark Side of the Moon

Something huge was happening.

Everyone felt it. Between the bonding, feedings, and secret trysts in the showers, there was a shift in priorities for the way Denman ran things. Certain mermaids went through a whole new process of tests and immunizations. Their food supply was increased; their scales were buffered and polished until they threatened to blind anyone swimming behind them, and there was a general commotion while words such as "cargo" "passports" and "crates" were flung about from worker to worker. Among the specially treated were Lewis and Cleo, Charlotte, Nate, and Nixie.

Word spread that Denman was setting up a mermaid act at a water park—in California. She needed one or two mermaids to serve as test subjects, and since it was obvious she favoured Lewis and Cleo as her cash couple, it was assumed they'd be the first to go. How she intended on smuggling them into the U.S., they weren't entirely certain, but they had no doubt with enough threats, drugs, and solid crates, she would manage.

Cleo didn't want to go to California. Once upon a time, it might have been an exciting prospect; when Lewis had it in his sights for school, and she thought of using Disneyland as an excuse to visit him, but this was not the way she wanted to experience travel.

However, there was one cause for happiness, and that was in the fact that all the rumours were clear on their travelling as a pair. Lewis was trying to look at it as a silver lining, although he would have liked better to save her from the transition altogether.

Something else then occurred he was not able to save her from and it not only affected Cleo, but the entire body of merfolk under Denman's control.

Dr. Denman had never been too careful about the information the mermaids received on their treatment and transitions. She believed them so firmly in her grasp that it hardly mattered if they knew what her tests and injections were for. In fact, she more often than not used that knowledge to intimidate, though she had a soft spot for Lewis and his scientific mind.

No one was truly surprised when she explained the wildness of Charlotte and some of the others who had lost their human qualities. She'd been working on a special serum. Something to imitate the magic spell they were under during the influence of a full moon; science replicating magic. With the others, it had become permanent, which accounted for their animalistic tendencies. Now she believed she had perfected it. She tested it on Nate, first.

The affects lasted—as most of her injections—a full twenty-four hours.

Nate didn't notice a thing wrong with him. Of course, he usually didn't. But this was something else.

He woke up the next morning, staring up into the clump of trees that covered the far side of the island, and had no idea how he got there—or more immediately important, why Nixie was pulling him by the tail into the water.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" he said groggily.

"You're making up for last night. Come on, do that thing you promised."

Eyes half-closed, he asked, "What are you talking about, crazy?"

"Well, I didn't think I liked it before, but now I want to try it again and see if it can be improved."

"Nixie..."

"Yeah?"

"What happened last night?"

"You kidding me?" Nixie dropped his tail and smacked the water to send a splash at him. "You were crazy! You kept coming at me like you were going to force me to bond with you, and then I fought you off and you started to cry. Then you ate a whole school of fish. You threw up. You cried some more, and then I felt bad, so we bonded... a few times. Well, a lot, actually, and you fell asleep."

"I don't remember any of that." His eyes narrowed. "Are you making it up?"

"Why would I do that? I have absolutely nothing to gain by such a story."

"True."

"You know what this means?"

"What?"

"Denman won't be asking for willing participants anymore. She'll just dose them with that stuff and have a whole bunch of merlings in no time."

"But the stuff she stuck me with didn't work before!"

"She made a new serum! Duh!"

"Hey." Nate sat up as best he could, and grew serious. "You don't think she'd start placing us with other mates, would she?"

Nixie almost shrugged it off as an absurd thought, but considering how Denman operated, nothing could be counted on. She tried to bury her worry with a forced laugh. "Not if we keep showing her how compatible we are. Come on," she tugged again, "If you can't remember, I'll have to show you what happened."

"Suits me!" he grinned, and let her drag him under.

-x-

The serum didn't work the same with all the merfolk. Though Cleo and Lewis experienced symptoms similar to those of Nate's, Emma became ferociously hungry. Cam was making her up to five shakes a day, and she still insisted she was starving.

There were other strange symptoms that were troubling, but Cam didn't seem too concerned until she started to resist his advances.

"What's wrong with you?" he snapped, as she pushed him away from kissing her. "This isn't like you. How come the others got all hot and bothered, but now you're being a prude?"

"I'm sorry!" she said, irritated. "Would you want me kissing you just because of some stupid serum?"

"I wouldn't mind," he admitted.

She rolled her eyes at him and glowered.

"Well, well!"

Emma shot up from her seat at the sound of Denman's voice, and hoped she and Cam hadn't been caught in a compromising position. But the evil doctor was tapping her pen against her clipboard, and barely spared a glance for the two. "No wonder the serum didn't affect you like your friends!" It scared Emma to see Denman so happy. She was fairly beaming. "Looks like we'll have to switch you to a prenatal regimen."

"Pre... what?" Emma spurted.

"Oh, come now. Did you think all that unprotected sex was going on without my knowledge? I knew you'd be harder to pair with a mate, stubborn as you are. Luckily, I'm interested in the possibility of half-breeds, and discovered the perfect solution. Find you a human mate."

Emma was feeling woozy, but she took a few deep breaths to steady herself. She would not pass out in front of Denman. "How did you know Cam would like me? How did you know he wouldn't stick to the training?"

She laughed; a deep, long laugh from her belly. "Are you really that stupid?

"Cam," she said to him, "How did I know you would like your job?"

Rather than show anger at their private actions being known as Emma expected him to, Cam was smirking. He shot a side-ways wink at her. "The odds were in your favour."

"And after the first dose of that so-called love potion, did you use it again?"

"Nope. I don't know if it was the drugs, or my charming good looks for that first time, but she was so easy."

Emma's head began to pound with a fierce migraine as everything she'd done with Cam took on a new, horrific meaning. Why he only came on to her in the showers when she was in mermaid form; why he made her smoothies packed with ingredients that would easily hide any number of drugs; how he got away with so much and yet had so little surveillance or resistance from Denman's other workers.

Emma could have screamed. She was a stupid, stupid fool to fall for his promises of escape. Nixie had been right all along. The six smoothies and bucket of sardines she'd consumed were betraying her; threatening to make their reappearance in an ugly way, but she refused to give Cam and Denman the satisfaction of humiliating her any further.

Denman chuckled at Cam's cocky behaviour. It was the most human Emma had ever seen her. "Let's just agree that we both get some credit for her condition, shall we, Mr. Dominic?"

"I'd like to think I did the hard part," he retorted, still smirking.

"Of course. And you will be duly compensated."

"Actually, I was thinking something a little more permanent." Denman raised an eyebrow at this. "Could I have a job at the new park? After all, good help is hard to come by these days."

"I trust you expect housing, as well."

"Only the best!"

They carried on their teasing conversation as if Emma wasn't there. They were still laughing when two men picked her up like she was an empty shell, and carted her off to the tank.

It wasn't until the men had left, and she was settled back in her corner of the tank that she remembered what prenatal meant.

Emma pressed a shaking hand over her bellybutton and the other over her mouth, but was unable to contain the desperate wail that betrayed how utterly she despaired.