Back on the shores near Mako, Cam was on the boat connecting his scuba gear.
"Will you hurry up? I don't have all day," Nixie said with annoyance in her tone as she waited for Cam to jump into the water. "The sun is starting to set, and I'd rather not look for Zac after dark."
Cam sighed, fed up with Nixie's attitude towards him. He had done absolutely nothing worth this treatment. "You know if you didn't want me to come in the first place, then why did you drag me into this, why not come with Lyla?" he asked in a sharp tone.
Nixie pursed her lips and remained silent. She didn't need to answer him; she didn't want to answer him. And so she went underwater, splashing him with her tail in the process.
Cam only looked at the spot where she had been, sighed, and then returned to connecting his gear properly. Once that was done he sat on the edge of the boat and took a few steady breaths before pressing his mask to his face and sliding off the edge and into the water.
It took a moment for the bubble curtain to clear up, and while Cam had intended to look for Nixie and follow her lead in this Zac Hunt, it still scared the crap out of him to find her all but in his face. If the smirk the mermaid had on her face was anything to go by, then this was premeditated.
Once he was able to get his heart rate back to normal, they went further down to look for Zac. Nixie had mentioned to him once that Zac could hold his breath for a surprisingly long amount of time, but unlike them, he couldn't breathe underwater for more than a few minutes at a time. Something the mermaids all found very peculiar.
As it got darker, Cam struggled to see, and he gestured to Nixie that he would be looking closer to the surface, with a nod she gestured to herself and then downward, letting him know she would be closer to the bottom.
By the time the sun had Cam's tank was nearly empty, he was exhausted after swimming for so long and his head felt like it was about to explode from forcing his eyes to look at the dark so much.
He was making his way back to the boat when Nixie swam up to him and led him under to the underwater entrance to the moon pool.
Once there, Cam pushed himself out of the water and took off his gear before going straight to one of the two corners of the cave where he and Zac had managed to hide a reasonably sized cooler with snacks.
Prying the top open he grabbed a can of pop and gulped it down, forever grateful the girls helped keep the cooler ice-cold with their powers.
Taking a seat by the edge of the moonpool he allowed himself a moment of reprieve. Once his head and eyes stopped pounding he looked over at the brunette, who looked pensive if not worried.
Cam remained in silence a while longer, figuring that she was thinking about Zac's possible whereabouts and did not want to disturb her line of thought and invoke her ire. Eventually, the silence stretched and Nixie's expression turned more and more sour.
"It's because of what I said, isn't it," He said, breaking the silence.
Effectively snapped from her thoughts, Nixie shook her head and rolled her eyes at him. "I wasn't even thinking about that, I have more important things to occupy my mind, you know, like finding Zac?" she snapped.
Cam held his hands up in defense. "Well excuse me for thinking I needed to apologize, you've been giving me attitude all day, and it just so happens that it was only yesterday I made a stupid comment about inter-species reproduction."
"You're a real jerk you know that?" the mermaid said disapprovingly, "If you must know, I'm worried about Lyla, so get your head out of your arse and get back in the water and help me find your stupid friend," she said bitingly before going under again.
Groaning Cam flopped himself on the sand and breathed calming breaths. "What does Lyla have to do with anything, Zac's the one that's missing, not her," he muttered to himself once he was ready and started putting his gear back on.
When he met up with her at the underwater entrance, he found her again with that pensive look on her face as she stared off into the distance. She didn't seem to have noticed him so he swam in front of her and in the general direction she was staring at.
He moved about a meter before he felt a hand on his leg, turning he saw Nixie gesturing to him with her head, he gestured back what's the problem?
The mermaid started gesturing with her hands, pointing and making faces but he couldn't understand her, it blew his mind that the Mers were able to communicate underwater, would it kill them to learn sign language though? It would certainly be better than the guessing game of charades they were playing.
Becoming fed up, he gestured for her to stop and choose, are they going in that direction or not.
Pursing her lips, the brunette gestured for him to lead the way as she followed behind him.
Nixie had been trying to explain to Cam that this side of the island was dangerous as it was Shark territory, their breeding grounds and they tended to get very territorial, especially at night, and more so when the breeding season had just finished. Deciding it was best the blond learned about this the hard way, she allowed him to take the lead as she followed behind him in the dark.
Nixie did not want to split up, considering where they were, but understood that time was of the essence and they needed to cover as much ground as possible, they spit up once again with Cam close to the surface where he could see, Nixie searching closer to the bottom shore.
Venturing too close to an alcove, Cam was startled when out of nowhere, a shark swam right in front of him. Startled, he swam back, but the shark had already latched himself to the straps on his gear. Instead of wasting time trying to get the shark off of him he instead opted for survival and quickly unfastened the staps and let the disturbed animal swim away with the tank while he took cover on the rocks, obscuring himself from view.
Waiting until the coast was clear, Cam held his breath and looked around for Nixie, but the moonlight wasn't enough to reach the bottom. Deciding he was safer sticking to the rock formation he started slowly making his way to the surface. As he did so his hand began to feel like it was on fire, the sensation was also slowly spreading itself down his leg, still, he was determined to make it to the surface.
Deciding to risk it now that the coast was clear of sharks he swam away from the rocky formation and to the open water. It wasn't long before the prickling sensation started to throb, and finally, Cam felt as if his limbs were literally on fire. Cam wanted to scream in pain but he was at least 3 meters from the surface and while the distance wasn't too much, every time he moved his leg would pulse, fire spreading its way over the entirety of his left arm and leg.
By pure power of will it was that he made it to the surface, taking in a deep gulp of air. His reprieve only lasted a brief second before his leg twitched violently before cramping, the muscle spasms forcing his limb to curl into him, and himself into a ball along with it in reflex.
Unable to keep himself afloat as the muscles in his arm began to twitch in much the same way his leg was Cam began to sink, his only hope was that Nixie wasn't too upset with him and all of his splashing would catch her attention, or he was done for.
In the dark silent depths, Nixie was busy searching every nook and cranny for Zac, who was still nowhere to be found, when the alarmed movement of the fish made her look up. Catching sight of what seemed to her as an unconscious Cam.
Her heart caught in her throat before picking up a hammering rhythm, with wide eyes she quickly made her way to him, wrapping an arm under his shoulders. After a frantic look around, she noticed the sharks in the area were restless, obscuring their access to the surface. Their only other option was to head back down and to the entrance of the moon pool, which was on the other side of the island.
Mind made up, Nixie prepared herself to torpedo away from Shark territory when the moon shined a ray of light directly into what could only be an underwater cave, one very similar to the entrance to the moon pool.
Closing her eyes in relief and sending a silent thank you to the moon above she made haste to the entrance, carefully maneuvering the unconscious Cam with her before breaking the surface and shoving the man in her arms onto the sand. She tried hitting him in the chest to wake him but received no response.
Her heart lurched, was he dead?
"Cam? Cam, can you hear me, wake up!" she pleaded, suddenly panicked, patting the side of his face and shaking him when that didn't work. "Dammit Cameron, wake up!" she begged when there was no sign of movement from the blonde land boy. Tears began to form in her eyes when she remembered she was a mermaid.
Taking a steeling breath she pressed her shaking hands to the blond's chest and closed her eyes, feeling for the water in his lungs and pushing.
Cam lurched forward as salt water was forcefully expelled from his lungs, coughs wrecked his frame and his stomach rolled as he dry heaved.
Nixie felt the air return to her lungs as she watched Cam struggle to catch his breath, tears spilling freely down her face.
Eventually, Cam turned on his side and stared at Nixie's tear-stricken face. "I didn't know you cared." he joked, a weak attempt at lighting the mood.
"You weren't breathing, I thought you were dead," she seethed in barely-contained anger, fresh tears spilling from her baby-blue eyes.
That sobered up the blond man and with a wince, he reached out towards the mermaid and brushed a tear out of her eyes with the pad of his thumb. "I'm sorry," he whispered, swallowing hard despite feeling like his esophagus was being sanded down.
"Don't ever do that to me again," she cried, leaning into his touch.
Cam frowned and scooted closer until he was able to pull her into a real embrace. "Never again," he promised. His resolve stemmed from the terrible sight of the mermaid before him, a woman he saw take challenge after challenge with a headstrong attitude and nerves of steel, brought to tears over the thought of his dead body.
They remained in each other's embrace for longer than what was probably appropriate for friends, but neither was making any move to release the other. So instead they rested against each other a while longer.
"We should probably head back to the others." Nixie eventually suggested.
Cam nodded. "Yeah, we should," He agreed.
The thing was, neither of them attempted to move out of the other's embrace, instead, Cam's icy blue eyes stared down at Nixie's pale eyes.
She liked her lips.
Cam leaned in closely, his breath ghosting over her lips, a clear indication of what he wanted. He paused, giving her time to pull away, because as clear as it was to everyone but them that there was an attraction, it was still an unspoken thing between them.
If this happened, if she didn't take the out he was giving her, Cam didn't think he had it in him to go back to the way things were before after this.
He wasn't that kind of man.
This is why he was so surprised when she was the one to close the distance between them, gently pressing her lips to his. Without hesitating any more than he already had, he pulled her closer to him for a proper kiss.
Eventually, their liplock ended and they pulled away, dazed looks in their eyes and face split by twin smiles.
"So, that happened," said the mermaid, breaking the silence her hand reaching out to trace her fingers over his cheek.
Cam took note of her need for physical closeness and though he is currently attributing it to his near-death experience, he decided to catalog it for later, just in case. "Well, it's been a long time coming, hasn't it?" he said offhandedly, earning him a swat in his arm.
"Sorry!" Nixxie was quick to apologize as she dipped her hand in the water and brought it back out again, a steady stream flowing from the pool to his arm, encasing it completely. "Leave it to you to find the one coral that could kill you." she chastised as she began healing his arm.
Shrugging he just grinned and let her do her thing as he looked around the cave. After a moment he frowned. "Where are we anyway, this isn't our moon pool."
Nixie scoffed and rolled her eyes before taking a look around, why would he say that? Frowning Nixie stopped her healing and took a closer look around.
Sure enough, there were inside a Moon Pool, though it wasn't theirs.
For starters, their pool was nothing but a downward tunnel from the volcanic opening down to the ocean a stoned resting area, and a small alcove above that was now used as a diving spot for the boys. Basically what a generic volcanic cave should look like.
This place, for starters, had sand everywhere. Aside from the stones that made up the actual pool, the place was a beach inside a cave. And was that a waterfall? How was that even possible?
"Is it me, or is the water coming out of the rocks?" Cam asked and Nixie all but lost it.
Back at Rikki's, a worried Zac eased himself out of his seat after the girls rushed into the room in the back in quick succession, followed by who he assumed were their boyfriends making their way towards him. "Um, is everything alright?"
Lewis turned to face the other man again. "Uh, yes, everything is alright" he nodded, almost eagerly, swaying on his feet again.
Yeah, and I'm Cleopatra, Zac thought, suppressing the urge to roll his eyes. "Well what about the girl you splashed, will she be alright?" he asked instead.
"Cleo's a big girl; she can take care of herself," Said some other guy, taller than Lewis, leaner, the type that might cause Zac some damage if this turned into a fight. Maybe.
"OW! Rikki, watch it!"
Zac raised a brow and turned to look at the four men surrounding him, when had this happened, "Should you guys be worried?"
Smiles and crossed arms were his reply. "Though crowd" he muttered and then sighed in relief when the back door opened and out stepped his waitress and 3 blondes.
"Sorry, Rikki here almost tore my shirt off while trying to dry it off," Cleo said in a bashful tone.
Zac would have probably bought it if her shirt didn't look freshly pressed and not at all as it had just received a cup full of juice. "Well, I should probably get going," Zac said and attempted to get past the group of men.
The big tall guy, Zane, stopped him by grabbing hold of his arm. "Are you forgetting something?" he asked pointedly.
Zac looked confused for a moment before it clicked. "Oh, OH! Yes, sorry about that," He said and pulled out his wallet. "How much is it going to be?" he asked.
Emma provided him with the total and handed over his check so he could see what he was paying for. Zac looked surprised for a moment, had he been at the Ocean Café, it might have been a lot more expensive, taking out the bills and a bit extra as a tip he handed the money over to Emma, who had served him.
Emma took the money with a polite smile. "Thank you," She said. Zac returned the smile and stepped out of the café into the dead of night.
"Think he's on to something?" Will asked as Ash walked over to Emma, feeling a little territorial at the moment, he didn't quite like all the attention the guy had been giving his girlfriend.
Rikki looked over at the girls. "Only one way to find out," She said.
"Are we swimming or walking?" Bella asked with a sigh.
Cleo frowned, having grown quite used to this. "Depends on where he's going," She said.