Chapter 127

Ryan paced around his living room, clearly thinking hard.

"Gah!" he exclaimed in frustration, sinking into the couch, head in hands.

"I was so close and she had to go and ruin it!" he yelled to no one. "It was a waste of time trusting someone else,"

He slammed his fist against the cushions, before sighing.

"I'll show them," he muttered. "I will prove it, no matter what,"

Ryan was a geologist not a biologist, so as much as he could attempt to analyse samples, it would not have any credibility in the scientific community. This meant that Ryan was going to have to prove it the old-fashioned way.

Get a live mermaid and show them off to the world.

OoOoO

The next morning, Ryan parked his car in view of where the mermaids usually came from on their way to work and school.

He looked at his watch.

Hmm.

They were late.

30 minutes later, they still had not arrived.

Ryan gritted his teeth. They were playing it safe.

He would have to find out their new routine.

Otherwise, he could always go to Mako.

He knew this was last resort because he would be one person taking on essentially a village of mermaids. He wanted to avoid fighting the adults – last time he had, it hadn't ended well for him.

He would be patient. The mermaids would slip up at some point.

OoOoO

Friday, 3 weeks later

"Do we have to take the boat to school again?" Jay whined as he put his raincoat on, "I miss swimming!"

"Yeah," Alex backed up his brother. "Do we have to?"

Rikki looked up from where she had been helping Ariana with her raincoat.

"Yes, we do," she answered, moving to help Stefani next. "I know it feels like it has been a long time, but we have to stay out of the water near the mainland to keep us safe,"

"But…" Alex started.

"No buts," Rikki interupted gently. "Remember why – we don't want what happened to Jenny to happen to anyone else,"

Rikki stood and took Fi from Zane's arms, then ushered all the children onto the boat.

"You can have a swim around Mako when we get home - just make sure you take an adult with you. We're ready to go, Zane,"

Zane gave her a nod and started driving the boat away from Mako.

Knowing that the mainland house was compromised, the adults had taken to docking at the main thoroughfare, ensuring that there wouldn't be complications getting the kids to school. Since they weren't arriving wet, this wasn't a problem; they just had to leave about 20-30 minutes earlier than they normally would.

As Rikki and Zane were heading off with the children, Ben started chipping away at the village construction. As a building contractor, he could choose what he worked on – at the moment, he could put all his effort into the village. The first week he was still wrapping up a job, but once that was finished he was free.

Anna had tried to encourage him to take more breaks but he reassured her that it was only a little bit more work than a regular week, and reminded her that the physical labour was a different kind of intense since he could use his powers to move things around.

Don had continued to come a few days each week to help out.

The kids were particularly excited to move in once everything was finished. The adults were also keen but were quietly sad that an era was ending.

"At least we won't have to patch cracks in the rooves as often," Bella had quipped.

Ben had finished securing the last internal door of one of the houses when everyone started arriving home in the early evening. He could hear the chatter of the large group getting closer as they walked up from the beach.

"Welcome back everyone," Ben greeted. "The main construction is done,"

"Oh that's great!" Lewis smiled.

"We can start painting and carpeting tomorrow – it being the weekend and all," Ben announced.

"Can I help paint, Dad?" Daniel asked Ben.

"For sure, all you kids can," Ben acknowledged.

Emma and Bella headed to the kitchen to start making dinner (the cooking roster system worked well).

"Mum, can we go swimming now?" Alex asked.

Rikki shifted Fi to her other arm.

"After dinner," Rikki said. "It'll be less dangerous then. Ask Auntie Anna if she can go with you,"

"Awwww," Alex and Jay moaned in unison.

"Hey, it's not too far away boys," their mother responded. "Why don't you get out your new hot wheels and see if Danny or Andy want to join you?"

"Okay," they replied, and went to do that.

'Anna? The boys are probably going to ask you to take them swimming after dinner, if that's okay? I know you've been in the office all day,'

'Yeah, that's fine Rikki. It'll be nice to be in the water,'

OoOoO

Katya decided to write up her findings. Yes, she no longer had the samples, but knowing the truth of the existence of mermaids, she knew there was a possibility she would find new samples – even if it was just a scale from a beach.

From memory and scribbles in her notebook, Katya started to draft a paper detailing the discovery. She made sure the file was encrypted and secure so that it couldn't be stolen or used by the wrong people.

She still wanted to talk to the mermaids at some point to discuss if they would possibly consent to research, but she knew it needed to wait. They would be on edge and with Ryan doing who knows what, it probably wouldn't help her cause.

Unknown to the other parties, Ryan had set up hidden cameras in a variety of places and had been using his drone discretely to start figuring out the new routine.

OoOoO

The weekend was a working party on Mako Island. All the family and friends who knew the secret came to help with the DIY – carpeting, plumbing, electricity. Alan and Jessie, Fred and Kelly, and some of the mermaid's parents were there. Don Sertori and Terry Chadwick had been first there on the Saturday morning to help out.

It was fortunate that a few of the men had experience with these areas. With the powers from the mers, everything structurally was finished by the end of the weekend.

The kids helped with painting the interior and exterior walls. They were stoked to choose the colour for the bedrooms.

On the Sunday evening, the mers put on a barbeque. This was for celebrating Eric's 9th birthday (the next day), and it also worked well to thank all those who had come to help.

OoOoO

The mermaids had been surprised that they had not seen Ryan, or Katya for that matter, for the past month. Granted, they had been particularly careful, but they expected to have needed to deal with some threat considering what had happened.

This made people like Bella and Anna optimistic that the worst had passed, and people like Cleo, Rikki and Emma nervous.

However, it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep the children out of the water unsupervised.

Prior to Ryan's involvement, the older children had been allowed to swim alone whenever they wished, as long as they stayed around Mako, and allowed to swim to school alone. Because of the incident with Jenny, this was no longer allowed, and the kids were getting wrestless.

The kids were normally very well behaved and obedient, but recently 8-10 year olds had started sneaking out to go swimming. They didn't get very far before an adult noticed and got them to come back, but the 'stay out of the water' solution wasn't working anymore. Everyone was getting ratty. It made sense, the kids were mers after all. Also, if the adult mers were honest, they missed swimming as often too.

The decision was made to ease up on some of the safety measures. The older children would be allowed to swim without an adult escort after dinner for 30 mins at most. They would start swimming to work and school again a few days a week – but the kids had to stay close to the adults, and they would arrive at a different quiet beach (not the mainland house). The kids accepted the new plan with eagerness.

OoOoO

Two weeks later

Alex, Jay, Andy and Eric were swimming together along the reef by the beach nearest the Mako village. They were 26 minutes in to their alloted 30 mins of independent swimming. Eric had been keeping an eye on his watch.

'Time to head back in' he let the other three know via mindspeak.

The others nodded reluctantly but they started moving slowly, enjoying the last few minutes of their swim.

As they faced the shore, they did not notice the dark figure cloaked in bubbles who was approaching behind them.

Whoosh, whoosh.

Jay and Alex's 'ow!' was bubbles in the water. The twins drooped.

Whoosh.

Andy next. She had seen the twins stop out of the corner of her eye, but she had not reacted in time. Then, she too was unconscious.

Eric whipped around. He saw the figure and the three knocked out mers.

Whoosh.

He was hit. Panicked, he shot ice spikes through the water. Way off. Why was everything spinning?

'Mum!' he called out in desperation as he fell quickly into the darkness of sleep.

What Eric didn't see was that one of his ice spikes had cut the man's arm.

He didn't see employees of the man swimming off with Jay, Alex and Andy, taking them to an unknown location. He didn't know that he had been left behind, deemed as too much trouble.

He didn't hear his Mum, Emma, yelling frantically via mindspeak to him.

He didn't see the mers of Mako running down to the beach, diving into the water.

He didn't see Emma find him, take him into her arms and pull him to shore.

He didn't see the others desperately looking for Jay, Alex and Andy.

He didn't see Rikki and Bella spot a boat in the distance and them speeding after it.

He didn't see the devastation on their faces when they found that it was the wrong boat.

He didn't see the fury on Rikki's face and the despondent look on Bella's as they swam back to Mako.

He didn't see Cleo crying on the shore as Emma cradled her son on the sand.

He didn't see Rikki's fury melt into tears as she embraced Cleo.

He didn't see it. But he would feel the loss and fear, soon enough.

A/N: Dun dun daaaah! Hello everyone! Apologies for the cliffy, but it just is so much fun!

Please let me know what you think! I love reading your comments :D Thanks for reading.

Thanks especially to CrazyHayniac, Guest, Sammiloveschoc and YaleAceBella12 for reviewing.

See you all next time!