Chapter 79

That afternoon, Lewis spent hours, with the help of Emma, scouring through the many books on mythology that they had bought over the years; books whose mythology coincided well with what they had experienced in reality. They could not find anything specific to different kinds of mermaids or mutations.

They had not checked one book. Lewis felt quite stupid for not checking it first; the infamous purple book. He got Emma to open the secret pages within the book, the pages meant for mer-eyes only, the pages that always miraculously seemed to hold the answer.

"Here!" Emma spotted a heading halfway down the page – 'Rare Diseases, Disabilities and Mutations.' "That sounds like it right?" Emma asked. Lewis gestured for her to continue reading. There were numbered subheadings following – naming and defining diseases, disabilities and mutations, as well as explaining their symptoms, causes and effects.

They read down the list, reading the first few lines of what each one was. They found as they read that many of these rare conditions were untreatable, but didn't really take enough time looking over each one to be experts. Lewis noted that amongst the specifically mermaid disorders, there were mutations that occurred to humans such as Cystic Fibrosis or diseases like Multiple Sclerosis. From a medical perspective, this was fascinating stuff.

'Falla de Enerxía –from the Galician for 'Power Failure.' An Enerxian mer has an inability to access and use the powers they have. Effectively, when a mermaid or merman has no powers. Unknown cause. No cure or treatment.

Harmaa – from the Finnish for 'Grey.' When a mer is born with colourless or grey scales. No cure or treatment. Often mers with Harmaa, if they are self-conscious, will invest in scale paint or a colour charm. It affects one in one thousand mers.

Tailosis – When a mer cannot transform into human appearance once dry. Because many mermaids and mermen never venture onto land, sometimes it may never be known that they have tailosis.

Zerailia – from the Polish 'zera' meaning 'zero' and the English for 'tail.' Zerailia is an extremely rare mutation where the child is born with legs, without a tail, but still inherits powers. Although it is more common with children of hurmaids and morphe-maids, fully blooded mermaids can have Zerailia'

"What's a hurmaid and a morphe-maid?" Emma asked.

"Oh, I've read stuff about that – there are different types of mermaids based on how you became one. A hurmaid is a mermaid with a human parent and a mer-parent, most commonly a mer from a nomadic pod, not a kingdom. And a morphe-maid is what you are – you transformed in a moon-pool," Lewis said.

"So what are our kids?" Emma questioned.

"I'd say they fall under the hurmaid category – just with morphe-maid and human parents,"

"So fully-blooded mer-people have two mer-parents. So would Anna and Ben's kids be considered pure-blooded mers?"

"I don't know. I'd assume so, but it seems like there is a prejudice by kingdom and pod mers against hurmaids and morphe-maids – like they are not as mer. It's pretty interesting stuff. It's probably akin to something like racism," Lewis explained. "This Zerailia mutation seems to be what Fi has," he said before continuing to read.

'Risk Factor: Three cases in 50,000 for the children of hurmaids and morphe-maids. One case in 50,000 for the children of pure-blooded mers. Cause of Mutation: Unknown. It is believed that the mermaid genes are corrupted by the mutation – the child taking both extremes; the development of legs suggests the recessive trait of humanity becoming dominant, however, at the same time most Zerailians develop gills, allowing them to breathe underwater; this reflects a fish-like trait. No cure or treatment. Side note: Often Zerailians are seen as inferior and most are rejected from mer communities. Famed Zerailians: Warlock Aegeus the Great and Powerful, Shieldaean Politician Coral Ari.'

"Well, that certainly explains some things,"

OoOoO

The fourth day since Hunter had found out, Jessie came into work. Anna had given Hunter an assignment that took him away from the office for the day. She was in the process of attempting to get Hunter transferred. However, this would be a long and arduous process for them. Anna also had no official reason to be able to fire Hunter yet. Jessie was tense, looking around, looking over her shoulder constantly keeping an eye out for the antagonist.

"Jess, I know it probably won't help, but relax," Anna tried to calm her. "I sent him to work on the other side of the building for today and a lot of it will be offsite. If he wants to keep his job, he will do that. Just keep an eye out on your lunch break,"

Jessie successfully avoided Hunter completely for the few days until the weekend. On Monday, she wouldn't be so lucky.

OoOoO

Jessie was in the office , packing up her stuff to go home when Hunter entered. It was the first time she had seen him since the incident. She felt her heart rate speed up. This wasn't good. Anna had just gone out to the loo, only leaving Jessie alone for a few minutes. Hunter had seen her leave and taken up the opportunity. Hunter closed the door behind him and locked it.

"Hunter, please let me out," Jessie began shakily. She edged closer to the door. Where was Anna? She saw Hunter take a drink bottle from his satchel. No. This definitely was not good.

Think Jessie, think.

"The world needs to know what you are, Jess," Hunter said as he opened the lid.

"No, they don't," she replied. "I'm just a person,"

"You're a fish," Hunter spat. "You deserve to be punished for the secrets you've kept and what you've done to me,"

"Done to you? What?" Jessie exclaimed. "I've done nothing to you," He was going mad. What on earth had gone wrong with his head?

"You have been manipulating me into loving you with your mermaid magic. Who knows what you've gotten me to do? You've hurt me,"

"Manipulating? You fell in love with me! It was one-sided. I love Alan and I never led you on. You hurt yourself. I told you I wasn't interested,"

"Lies!" Hunter said, "You wanted the thrill from it, seeing me go after you,"

Jessie rolled her eyes in frustration.

"Really?"

"Really. You deserve to be locked up for using your magic on me, and the money will be a fantastic bonus," Hunter grinned sardonically.

"Okay, Hunter, I don't know what you've been telling yourself to get yourself in this state, but you've got to stop. This is going way too far," Jessie said, trying to plead with his humanity that was buried under the insanity.

"No. This is what is right," Hunter said, pointing the bottle at her.

"Okay, let's not be too hasty now…" she said putting her hands up.

"I'll get my proof and make myself rich," Hunter said, "You don't have real feelings, fish."

Jessie felt anger building up inside of her. How dare he say such things to her? Of course she was a person! She saw Hunter draw his arm back and begin to squirt the water from the bottle at her. Jessie put her arm up and just before the water hit her, began to control the water away from her and back into the bottle. Her heart was beating at a hundred miles an hour. That was close. She breathed.

"What are you doing?" Hunter asked wide-eyed and the water returned to the bottle. Jessie smirked.

"You are attacking a mermaid," She declined to mention that if he wanted to expose her, all he would have to do would be to wet her when she wasn't expecting it. He had let his attack build up for too long.

When Anna came back from the bathroom, she found the door to her office locked. She knocked on the door before peering through the window. She gasped when she saw what was going on. Hunter. Water.

Jessie saw Anna looking through the window and sighed in relief. Then she remembered that Anna had left her keys on her desk, expecting the door to still be open.

"Unlock the door, Hunter," Jessie said warningly.

"Why should I?"

Jessie rolled her eyes and used her powers to manoeuvre the water she stopped from reaching her to travel over to and unlock the door. Anna pushed it open once she had seen that Jessie had brought the water back to the bottle.

Anna looked livid.

"Leave now." Anna ordered strongly. "Before we do something we regret,"

Hunter left the room with a dangerous glare in his eyes.

"I'll get my evidence someday, don't you worry about that," he said menacingly.

A/N: Hey everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. To be honest, I'm not overly happy with how it turned out, so if you could encourage me that would be great! I just think its a little sloppy, but I don't know how to make it better :/ Oh well. If you enjoyed it, please let me know.

I managed to upload this before my morning lectures :) hehe

I'm so glad that you seem to be liking the storylines :) It makes a writer want to write more.

Thanks so so much to all the people who have followed, favourite and reviewed! Reviews put a name to the numbers, so its really nice reading them :D

Thanks so much to WannabeMerman, HeartlandFan101, CrazyHayniac, The Writer Es, YaleAceBella12, zikki 3, Sammiloveschocolate, Green DayLuuver, KKbobbitt93, Hybrids Rose, Mermaids Forever, Acgisme, and halfbloodbugsy for reviewing the previous chapter. I love you all and thanks so much for the lovely comments. I love to read your ideas of where the story is going, and what you enjoyed so I can understand what you like for future storylines.

Thanks again! And I'll see you all next time or on another story. Hopefully the next update won't be too far away.