Chapter 124

"Ryan," Katya bit out angrily. "How could you?"

Ryan stared at Katya for a second.

"How could I?" He responded, seething, "I've done what I've needed to do. More importantly: How dare you! You just let our evidence walk out the door!"

"Ryan," Katya growled his name. "I am not a kidnapper. You just made me help you kidnap a child! This is a line I did not agree to cross!"

"That was a mermaid, not a human. You were quite happy to when it was just a mermaid we were taking," Ryan justified. "Besides, we need real evidence for anyone to believe our research findings,"

"That is not a real excuse, Ryan," Katya said. "You clearly know a lot more about mermaids than you have let on. You knew Jenny's mother by name. You knew that the mermaids live among us on land. You probably even knew that the mermaid children are enrolled at school!"

Ryan's silence told Katya everything she needed to know.

"We'll be lucky if we're not reported to the police," Katya said woefully.

"They won't report to the police," Ryan said. "Even if they did, this place would become a crime scene to prove the kidnapping happened – and the crime scene is full of mermaid DNA. It could expose them – they won't risk that now that they have Jenny back,"

Katya felt sick.

"You really are a calculating fiend," she uttered.

He had known about them already, he had thought about potential consequences, and still went ahead with it. He went ahead with a kidnapping. Katya couldn't believe it. It was like the man's ethics had disappeared.

"I've done what I need to do to prove to the world that mermaids exist," Ryan said icily.

"I will continue to do what I need to do. Today's work got us multiple fresh biological samples from a real mermaid. Samples that should be solid evidence. You need to decide if you want to prove this, Katya," Ryan locked eyes with her. "And remember that we have a deal,"

"I…I need time to think," Katya said, conflicted. Her heart felt heavy and her stomach churned. What had she got herself into?

With one last look at the tank, Katya left the warehouse.

OoOoO

Rikki, Cleo and Jenny had hurried out of the warehouse.

Cleo held on to Jenny's hand, as if she was scared to let it go - to let her daughter out of her sight. This was probably very true.

Cleo sent out a message over mindspeak to everyone saying that Jenny was safe. They also told the kids to wait at the mainland house after school and not go in the water without an adult, just in case. Texts were sent to the non-mers by Anna after she received the mindspeak message.

Cleo, Rikki and Jenny walked along the waterfront for some time before diving into the water and heading back to Mako. They did not want to go in the water too near to the warehouse in case there were traps.

As Cleo, Rikki and Jenny pulled themselves from the water onto the sand on the Mako Island beach, there was a mutually agreed, unspoken "pause."

All three of them lay back on the sand, looking up at the clear blue sky.

"Thanks for coming to get me," Jenny said quietly. Cleo squeezed her hand.

"Always," Cleo responded "I love you sweetie,"

They rested in their relief on the sand until their tails dried naturally.

The trio walked up to the village.

"How are you feeling?" Rikki asked Jenny.

"I'm ok," she replied. "I think I'm still shocked it happened at all!"

"Understandable," Rikki responded. "What exactly happened?"

"If you don't want to talk about it now, you don't have to," Cleo interrupted gently. "Only if you want to,"

"No, it's ok," Jenny smiled. "It wasn't too bad really – it could've been way worse,"

Jenny explained how she had raced ahead in front of the kids using her new power mastery, and was nabbed by a guy in a scuba suit. She described waking up in the cage, not knowing how much time had passed, with her lungs burning.

"I guess they saw I was struggling and lifted the cage up a bit so I could breathe," Jenny continued. "Once we got to the warehouse they put me in that tank. That lady was really surprised I could talk" she laughed.

"Surprised faces are always great," Rikki agreed with a grin. Her face sobered. "It's important that we know exactly what you told them and what they took from you – so we know what we're facing,"

Jenny nodded seriously.

"I mostly interacted with the lady, Katya. She said her full doctor-y name but I can't remember it. The other important man mostly watched. Katya knows that my name is Jenny, that I eat human food, and go to school," Jenny paused as she remembered. "She saw me transform from mermaid to human when I was dry. She knows we don't live in the sea. She didn't see my powers but she saw yours,"

"Okay. Did she take any samples from you?" Rikki asked.

"Yeah, some scales and some blood," she answered. "Oh yeah, and a few cheek swabs before the blood taking,"

Cleo paled at hearing 'blood'.

"We need to get those samples back," Cleo said. Rikki nodded her agreement.

Scientists had got scales before, but having both skin cells (scales) and blood built a really great case for proving the existence of mermaids – particularly since both were from the same person.

"Let's discuss it once everyone gets home later today," Cleo suggested.

OoOoO

Katya sat on the couch at home, eating from a tub of ice cream.

She believed in ethical science. She believed in "doing no harm". She sought knowledge and proving research without exploiting others.

How had she got herself into this position?

Her eyes welled up with tears.

Kidnapping.

Jenny was such a sweet girl. A girl that happened to be a mermaid.

She wasn't some animal or specimen like a starfish or a sea snake.

She was an intelligent being with thoughts, feelings, with a human life. With real parents.

Taking it out of the context of science made it all the more devastating to Katya. She had known going into this that the mermaids would likely be intelligent, but seeing it up close made it hit differently.

It wasn't that Katya didn't care about sea life, of course she did, she would be upset if a dolphin was mistreated for sure. But, the fact that this was a human, or at least, very human-like. She wasn't sure exactly. This was someone that could be her own child.

She aggressively dug her spoon into the icecream again.

And Ryan had known.

Katya felt betrayed. She had known that he knew more than he was letting on, but this was more than she expected. Idiot Katya. She should have dug more into Ryan's past, rather than mostly accepting based on his proposal and intriguing evidence. That being said, he lawyers had looked into it and hadn't found anything other than Ryan being disgraced for pursuing mermaids over his other research. Katya could relate – she was often ridiculed for pursuing the mythological.

She sighed.

That was why she had signed on in the first place.

Katya thought deeply about her motivations and what outcome she would want. She took stock of the current situation:

1. Katya still wanted to prove the existence of mermaids and mythological creatures.

2. Ryan was behaving unethically.

3. Katya was involved she wanted to behave ethically. She did not want to exploit the mermaids without their consent.

4. 2 & 3 clashed with each other.

5. There is a legal agreement between Ryan and Katya. This agreement secured confidentiality, and stopped Katya from acting on Ryan's evidence independently. Katya would need to talk to her lawyer to look at the exit clause details.

6. If Katya pursued this further, she wanted to involve the mermaids as partners. Not test subjects.

Katya felt tired. What a mess. She would return to this line of thought after a decent break.

A/N: Hey everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Sorry that this one was a bit of a filler. Please let me know what you think! Reading your comments are my favourite part of writing these stories.

Someone asked me "why doesn't Jenny use her powers of teleportation to escape?" …well….this is what happens when an author works on the same story (that has many plots) for 9 years bahahahaa (the sequel was started at the end of 2011) – I completely forgot that that was one of the older kids upgraded powers. Sorry about that! We're going to put it down to Jenny forgetting about it too…because she really does not use it much (too dangerous to be seen teleporting around & it can be unpredictable (as to where they land). Now that I have been reminded, I will make sure to keep it in mind moving forward lol.

Also…9 YEARS! I have been writing fanfiction for H2O Just Add Water since August 2011. The Fishy Tale Sequel started on 15th November 2011 – I had just turned 16. I am now 25 with a masters degree and full time job lol. I have seriously grown up writing this.

Thank you to anyone who has tagged along for this whole ride. It will probably continue for a while yet XD

I'd love to hear how long you've been reading in the comments/reviews.

Thanks especially to YaleAceBella12, CrazyHayniac, Guest #1, Rock Mint Swirl 22, Noisy Fan, & Sammiloveschoc for reviewing. THANK YOU!

See you all next time!