Sophie’s heart hammered in her chest and she felt her throat close. Her attempt to speak died with a ragged croak. Devin’s confusion was like a sucker punch to her gut and she twisted to stare at Carson, hoping that perhaps he might know something his sister didn’t. He was just as silent, however, and when she turned to Az, the Mer gave her a shrug. It wasn’t that Katie just hadn’t been brought down yet or hadn’t woken from her sedatives. If they didn’t know who she was and weren’t waiting on anyone else, it meant Katie wasn’t here.

Sophie shook her head as her panic escalated. Katie had to be here. She couldn’t go through this again. There was too much stress, too much fear, and she had finally gotten a pinch of hope that her family was safe and they could move forward together. She didn’t know how much more running and chasing and hiding she could manage. And if Katie was all alone with Lemuria, she couldn’t imagine what they might do to her, especially in light of Riley’s fears.

“Katie,” Riley repeated when Sophie’s voice failed her. “She is part of our pod. Seventeen cycles, purple scales and fin, sail on her back, short brown hair,” she described with a terse hiss. “She has to be here; she was with us!”

Devin’s hand had come up to cover her mouth and her eyes widened as she shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But she wasn’t. We intercepted Lemuria’s transport van on their way to the airport and collected all the transport carriers. There were five of them, four singles and a double.”

“Karina was with me,” Nero confirmed.

Devin nodded. “There was no one else.”

“Katie was one of the original two with Luna,” Lewis responded. “Her stage name was Bailey if you recall. Why wouldn’t she have been with the others?”

There was silence in the conference room as they all waited for a response. Devin shook her head, but it was Carson that finally spoke up. “I know who you mean now. Of course our goal was always to liberate them both but…We didn’t know she’d survived,” he admitted.

“I was keeping a close watch on all of Lemuria’s movements,” Az added. “We saw the reports that she was dangerously ill. It did not sound like she was going to live.”

“Lukshia confirmed it a few weeks ago,” Devin added with a frown. “We weren’t anticipating there being another Mer to collect or we would have reworked our extraction plan.”

“She was with us when we were all sedated,” Riley hissed. Her brows were dipped together and her fangs were bared. Sophie knew how she felt. She was so tired of this game that none of them wanted to play. It made her want to hit something and shout, and she considered herself to have better regulation over her temper than that. She couldn’t stand how helpless she felt or how often strangers were putting her loved ones in terrible danger.

“We have to find her.” Sophie’s chest heaved as she forced herself to speak. She braced a hand on the table as her legs began to shake. “I don’t know what reason Lukshia had to lie – but I already knew she was not trustworthy – but we need to find her. If Katie is alone with Lemuria…I don’t want to think about what they’ll do to her.”

Sophie shuddered, startled from her panic as Luna reached out and curled her slender fingers around Sophie’s wrist. Sophie forced a more neutral expression onto her face and willed her shaking to stop as she offered Luna a pressed smile. She pulled her wrist away and instead gripped Luna’s hand in her own and squeezed her fingers. As horrified as she felt right now, there were still others depending on her composure, so she couldn’t allow it to falter entirely.

“Az,” Devin’s voice cut through the tension. “If she’s been left behind, she has to still be in Lemuria’s system. Could you find her?”

Az clucked his tongue and dipped his head. “Their system is a beast; it might take me some time to dig if they are trying to hide this, but I will see what I can do,” he agreed.

“Okay. We need to get ahead of this now before it gets any further out of control. Go do what you can and we’ll get a plan together. In the meantime, I think it’s high time I had a chat with our partner in all of this because the pieces aren’t adding up and I want some answers.”

“I’ll go with you,” Sophie decided. Lukshia had endangered her family for the last time.

Devin shook her head and held up her hands. “Please, Sophie, I understand your anger and desire for retribution, but I think it’s better if you stay here. Believe me, this isn’t going to be allowed to slide and we are going to find Katie, but I need to keep a level head dealing with this and it’s clearly a sensitive subject for you right now. Stay here, please. Everyone at this table knows you and Lewis far better than Carson and me, and I’m sure they’ll feel more comfortable with you here. Let Carson tell you about the plans that have been set in place. We want your collective feedback on everything before we move forward, so it is important. Try not to fret, we’re going to find her.”

The last thing Sophie wanted to do was sit through a presentation, but Devin made some logical points. She wasn’t in the right headspace to deal with Lukshia and it would only be more work for the others to try to fill her in later. She didn’t want to leave this up to a group of strangers, however. “I need to do something. I can’t sit here while Katie is out there on her own. You have to understand, she’s not a Mer like the others. Not truly, not yet. She’s Lemuria’s pet science project. She was a normal, human girl that they kidnapped and let the world think had died. They used Luna’s genetic blueprint to map a splicing experiment that gave her a tail. The sickness you heard about, was a serious crash her body experienced as a result, and she’s been having a lot of trouble adjusting and understanding her new body and instincts. She shouldn’t be alone, especially not in the hands of people like Lemuria. I have been taking care of Katie since she was eight years old, I cannot just sit here and put my trust in more strangers to save my daughter while forced to do nothing. Please.”

The frown lines on Devin’s features deepened and became more pronounced as Sophie spoke. She pursed her lips and sympathy sparkled in her gaze as she stepped back towards the door. “I understand the urgency, I promise. But the issue with Lukshia is an in-house problem that I intend to deal with promptly. I hear your fears and your needs. Let Az and I gather the information we need to while you get brought up to speed on everything else, and then I promise you, we’ll all sit down and make a new plan that you will be involved in. I won’t expect you to allow people you barely know to continue operating without you. Just give me a little bit of time. I don’t like the idea of a girl – human or Mer – being left alone with the Lemuria Institution, but they’re probably scrambling right now at the loss of all the others. They’re not likely to risk her life and are probably preoccupied right now as it is. We have a little time.”

Sophie swallowed the rock-hard lump in her throat. Her pulse was still racing and she shifted her weight. She didn’t know what to say. She knew she couldn’t just sit here and pretend everything was alright, but she also knew she couldn’t trust herself to be in the same room as Lukshia right now. It was almost worse that Devin was being completely reasonable and it was causing Sophie to feel incredibly torn.

“Sophie?” Sophie jerked her attention to Riley as the girl called her name. Riley was chewing on her lip, but then she held her hand out and beckoned, so Sophie crossed around the table to her side. “Sit,” Riley whispered as she embraced Sophie. “I am worried too, but Devin’s intent smells genuine. If these people were able to successfully steal us away from Lemuria, we probably need their help. I do not like depending on those I do not know or trust well, but in this case; I do not see another option. If they fail us, I will try to track her, but I do not believe our odds are better alone.”

Sophie winced and squeezed Riley tighter. It pained her to see Riley so uncharacteristically level-headed, but she could sense the tension rolling beneath the surface. Riley was far from calm. “Are you alright?” she inquired.

Riley sighed. “It is getting to be too much. My scales itch and I want to fight back. But I do not think we can right now. The least we can do is listen and ensure there is a safe solution and a home for Katie to come back to.”

Sophie sighed and gently untangled herself from Riley’s grasp. She turned to reassure Devin she would stay behind, only to find her decision wouldn’t have mattered; the woman was already gone. Sophie turned back and raised a brow at Riley, who shrugged sheepishly. “You are a brat,” she told the Mer as she took a seat on her opposite side.

Riley shrugged again. “I want to go too. I want retribution and I want to ensure Katie is alright, but arguing just wastes more time,” she pointed out.

Sophie pursed her lips and glanced at Carson, who was still standing patiently at the head of the table. She gestured at him to proceed and he nodded.

He clapped his hands together and both Luna and Karina flinched. He winced and dipped his head at the two of them in apology. “I suppose we should start with where you all are,” he began after a moment. “Sophie, it was one of the first questions you asked us and I’m sorry it’s taken so long to finally give you an answer. This facility is based on the outskirts of Piha,” he announced calmly.

Sophie felt her brows knit together as she stared at him blankly. She coughed and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Carson, I’m not familiar with where that is,” she admitted.

He inclined his head towards her. “It’s in Auckland, New Zealand,” he replied.

“New Zealand?” Sophie repeated with a frown.

“We’ve been based here for a few years,” Carson confirmed. “It’s got the easiest access to the water that we can get, private and secluded, no one asks any questions. But most importantly, Zentiac has no sway here. They have resources and connections all over the world to operate however they like. They’ve greased so many palms it can be hard to move, much less function, anywhere if you have an opposing agenda. But the New Zealand government is rabidly against Zentiac and has no association. Sophie, Lewis, so long as you are inside this border, Lemuria cannot touch you here.”

“But surely we cannot just stay here? We can’t have entered the country legally if Sophie and I were unconscious, and we’re not citizens,” Lewis queried.

Carson shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. Az is working on it. You’ll have full citizenship by the end of the week.”

“And what about the Mer?” Sophie asked. “Lemuria’s not going to just stop hunting them because Lewis and I become off-limits.”

“And we do not wish to remain wherever this is,” Ixion added. “We have a family to get back to and intend to take our daughter home as quickly as possible.”

Carson was silent for a moment as he pressed his palms to the table and leaned his weight against it. “There is always going to be a medium of risk out there in the open ocean for all of you, but there always was. Thankfully, there’s only one of you in this room right now that Lemuria could lay any official claim to, and that’s you, hon,” Carson paused to gesture at Luna, who paled and shrunk down in her seat.

Rebecca’s arm snaked around Luna’s bony shoulders and mushed her hair up against her neck as she pulled her daughter closer and buried her nose in her long, messy hair. Sophie saw Rebecca’s jaw moving, but that was the only indication that Rebecca was whispering something to Luna.

“I resent the implication that anyone can own my sister,” Nero growled. “We are not possessions to be claimed.”

Karina’s mane flicked and she cupped Nero’s far cheek in the palm of her hand while leaning close to press her lips to his other cheek. She hummed and nuzzled him with her nose before pulling away slightly. The moment she did, Nero’s arm moved and Karina jerked to a halt. Sophie couldn’t see beneath the table, but she assumed he’d grabbed her around the waist. He inclined his head, so Karina pulled herself forward once more until she had left her chair in favour of his lap with her head leaning on his shoulder. “Are you alright?” he asked her.

Karina licked her lips and nodded. “Yes. I do not like to see you stressed.”

The tenderness the two showed each other was heartwarming and enough to momentarily distract Sophie from all the other stressors they were enduring at the moment.

Carson remained silent for a moment longer before coughing to clear his throat and continuing. “As abhorrent as it is, unfortunately, it is the way human society functions. When Lemuria brought the existence of the Mer to public light, there was a huge debate over the existence of mermaids – I know it’s a rude term, it is simply how you are known to the general public who don’t yet know any better – and whether or not they should be deemed a protected species or one that can be freely taken and owned. The standing decision in several countries is that if a Mer is accidentally dredged up in a fisher’s net or washed up injured or stranded on the shore, they can be kept, sold, and displayed, but only after obtaining a legal license from the country the Mer will be housed in. Without a standing contract, you’d all be confiscated. Zentiac has to play by those rules as well, but they will have little trouble obtaining as many licenses as they like. But they only currently have two standing licenses, which means the rest of you cannot be reported as stolen and we are under no obligation to return you to them.”

“Except for Katie and Luna?” Lewis clarified.

Carson winced. “Yes. But we have a contingency in place for that. Az has spent the last six years compiling a massive blackmail file against Zentiac. It’s risky to brawl with them, but we have information about every illegal act, every backdoor deal, and enough dirty secrets about their board and several of their resources to not only compromise them, but it would destroy the public image of several of their branches. It’s not enough to kill the beast, but it would be a far more serious wound than they’d be willing to risk over a handful of assets.”

“What does blackmail mean?” Riley asked as soon as Carson paused in his speech.

Lewis twisted in his seat and laid a hand over Riley’s shoulders. “Okay, so blackmail is what we call it when you know a secret someone is keeping and you threaten to tell other people that secret unless the person does something that you want,” he explained. “So in this case, Carson is saying they plan to blackmail Lemuria into letting you all go free because if they don’t, we’re going to tell the world about all the really bad things they’ve been doing and they’ll lose a lot of money over it.”

Riley began to cackle and her pale eyes glistened with unreined glee. Hearing her laugh, Sophie couldn’t hold back her own amusement and she shook her head before wrapping an arm around Riley and dragging her closer to rub her fist against Riley’s scalp. Riley yowled noisily and around her chuckling, she squirmed free. She huffed and pouted as she began to pat down her mussed hair. Then her pout morphed into a scowl with a dangerous lift in her lips and a flash in her eyes that made Sophie’s spine prickle with unease. Riley’s lips split into a gaping grin and Sophie felt one of her large hip fins wrap around her side. She knew they had some power to them, but she hadn’t been expecting the level of strength it must have taken for Riley to yank her sideways in her seat.

In the next moment, she had one of Riley’s corded arms wrapped around her neck while Riley dug her knuckles in to mimic Sophie’s earlier actions.

Sophie winced and craned her neck as she tried to duck out of the teen’s powerful grip, to no avail. Panicked laughter bubbled in Sophie’s throat as she squirmed and patted Riley’s tail. “Alright, alright, you win,” she wheezed. “You’ve made your point. Mercy.” When Riley released her, Sophie sat up with a gasp and shook her head. “You’re ruthless,” she teased.

Riley grinned and winked, but her eyes didn’t quite sparkle the way they usually did when she made mischief. She seemed happy, but it was more subdued. Their banter had been nothing more than a distraction. Sophie knew it too. It was why she’d initiated it in the first place.

She put her arm around Riley once more and smiled brightly as Lewis did the same. When Sophie glanced back up, Carson had a bright smile on his face. It slipped a moment later and he walked around the table to crouch next to Luna’s chair. She twisted to look at him and Sophie saw her wide eyes and tense posture at his proximity.

“I don’t think we were ever properly introduced,” he said as he offered a hand out towards her. Sophie appreciated that he kept his tone soft and steady. “My name is Carson.”

Luna chewed her lip and then hesitantly took his hand. “Luna,” she replied in an airy whisper.

Carson nodded. “Luna, I’m truly sorry for everything you’ve had to endure over the years. It wasn’t right or fair and it never should have happened. Devin and I knew about you back when you were very young, we tried to get you away from the people who first pulled you from the water, even. But Lemuria outbid us and you were gone so quickly…we weren’t as experienced as we are today and your fate will be something we regret for a long time.”

“It is not your fault,” Luna mumbled.

Carson shook his head. “No, it’s Lemuria’s. But that doesn’t mean we’re any less regretful about what happened to you.”

“You are going to find Katie, right?” Luna redirected. Sophie frowned at the hint of panic in her voice. “I am scared for her. Being alone with them is…” she trailed off and wrapped her arms around herself. Immediately, Rebecca embraced her from behind and Ixion placed a hand on her head. That display relaxed Sophie a little. It was reassuring to know that they had a handle on their daughter’s predicament and that Luna wasn’t alone.

Carson reached out slowly – as if ensuring Luna wasn’t going to spook or protest – and laid a splayed hand on her scales. “We’re going to find her,” he agreed. “And we’re going to do everything in our power to get her away from them and ensure that Lemuria cannot hold either of you captive ever again, okay? But Luna, we’re going to need your help.”

“M-my h-help?” Luna repeated. She sighed and bowed her head, but when she lifted it again, her voice was steady. “What do you need me to do?”

“Do you know anything about computers or the internet?” he inquired.

“They have buttons?” Luna offered.

It caused Carson to throw back his head and bark with laughter. When he sobered, he nodded. “Computers do have buttons,” he agreed. “Okay, I’m going to do my best here, so bear with me. Az is pretty amazing with computers and he uses them to watch Lemuria’s movements as best he can. It’s how we’re going to find Katie and blackmail them so they can’t hurt you anymore. And one time that Az was looking into their system for information, he found some videos; do you know what those are?”

Luna bobbed her head. “Like movies,” she agreed.

“Yes. And these movies were of you…when you were a little girl…and most of them are pretty terrible.”

Luna whimpered. The sound cut through the silence of the room. Sophie felt the blood drain from her face and she gulped at the thick knot that tightened in her gut. Of course, those monsters had recorded everything they did to Luna. “I-I do not wish to see, p-please do n-not make me.”

“Luna, I would never make you watch them, ever. Even I have not seen most of them. We only watched a little to find out what they were and make sure they were useful, but beyond that, we wanted to respect your privacy. But I’d like your permission to use them in our blackmail file against Lemuria. It means if they betray us, the world will see, but they could really bolster what we already have. Zentiac will not want those videos leaking out because they would horrify the planet.”

Luna was silent and her shoulders were shaking. She hiccuped softly. “Do what you wish with them,” she whispered. “My past hurts, but if it will help, then at least something came of all the pain.”

“You are very brave, Luna. I know your past is painful and it must be agonizing to relive, but I need to ask you to do it one last time. We want to make one last video to add to it all. We need you to tell your story; all of it.”

Sophie bit her lip as she heard Luna break down into heavy sobs. Despite her parents’ attempts to soothe her, Luna’s pain was raw and guttural enough to saturate the air around them all. She heard Riley growl under her breath and saw Karina and Nero lean closer to the ailing girl. “Oh Luna,” Sophie whispered. She wished there was a way to ease the burden Luna was carrying, but she doubted anything but peace and time would heal those wounds, and Luna was being afforded neither of them. And she never would; not so long as Lemuria sought after her and her loved ones.

Finally, Luna’s sobs sputtered off into weak gasps for air and she nodded her head. “Okay,” she whispered. “I…I will do it, but only to help Katie and everyone else so that no one gets hurt. Then…I think I will be ready to go home; to try to forget.”

Ixion dragged Luna entirely from her seat as she finished speaking and wrapped in a hug that looked like it should be painful from where Sophie was sitting. His small daughter looked so fragile compared to him, but Luna merely nuzzled against him and soft sniffles rose up from the crook of his hug. Rebecca pulled herself over Luna’s chair and leaned against her mate while her hand came up to stroke Luna’s hair. “It would mean everything to us to take you home; for you to meet the rest of your family, to be safe and happy, and to learn who you are. You do not have to carry your pain alone any longer.”

Carson rose silently and stepped away from the group. Sophie did not blame him for retreating from the bittersweet moment. It felt private.

He walked back up to the front of the room and raised a remote at the projector screen. It flickered to life and brought up the front view of a house. It looked massive, with a winding driveway, large windows, and a lovely rock garden out front. There was a single tree stretching up from the ground, and it looked like it was nestled between the slopes of two larger sea cliffs where they faded away in a watery inlet.

Carson began clicking through a slideshow that showed the interior. There were four bedrooms – or rather, empty rooms that could become bedrooms – an office, a den area, a kitchen, and two small bathrooms. It was cute. Strangely enough, there was another room, a large open room with sliding glass doors that led to a deck Sophie couldn’t get a good look at. The room wasn’t normal, however. There was a hole cut into the lower wall and the floor dipped away so that half the room was a deep square basin filled with water. The next couple of pictures took them to the deck, part of which had a partially fenced-in seating area and a barbeque, and the rest that jutted far out into the water of a small inlet cove. The deck had a long ramp that sloped directly into the water at an angle that would make it easy for a Mer to come and go. It was not dissimilar to the home Sophie and Lewis had tried to make for Katie, Luna, and Riley, but it was more refined.

“It’s located a twenty-minute drive from here, and a fifteen-minute drive from town. It’s remote and closed off, and there are about five acres of private property that we own surrounding it, and no other houses in sight. There is a main road that passes through part of the property, but it’s far enough away from the house that there shouldn’t be any noise pollution,” Carson explained. “It hasn’t been furnished completely yet, but we have a team working on that now. We assumed given your situation that at least a few of you would like to be able to come and go from the water.”

“You assumed correctly,” Riley agreed.

Sophie felt a little gobsmacked. “This is for us?” she clarified. “I don’t understand, why would you do this? What’s the condition?”

Carson shook his head. “We did it because it’s what we’ve dedicated our lives to, and there is no condition. There are hopes, but no expectations.”

“And what are those hopes?” Lewis queried.

Carson shrugged. “I’m going back to school. I want to explore psychology to be qualified for therapy and counselling. There are a number of Mer who come here who could benefit from it and I worry that Luna and Katie will not be the last to suffer under the hands of a cruel or misguided organization. We have another experienced doctor with us and Nick is very talented, but there’s always a need for more numbers. We’re hoping, Lewis, that you might consider a job here.”

Lewis shrugged. “I would have to think about it. I think in the immediate moment, I want some downtime with my family.”

“Understandable,” Carson agreed.

He looked like he wanted to say something more, but then his phone began to ring. He frowned as he checked the caller ID, but then placed the phone on the table. “Go ahead, Devin,” he stated.

But it wasn’t Devin’s voice that came through the phone. “We have a problem,” Az said. “Katie is not with Lemuria. According to the Lemuria database, all seven of them were loaded onto that van, and they are reporting all of them missing internally. Someone got there before we did.”

“How is that possible?” Carson inquired. “Can…can you track her anyway?”

“I am trying to look through the traffic camera footage following the van from when it left the marine park, but there are gaps. I…I do not know if I can find her unless the information is publicly released, but I am going to keep trying.”

“Is Devin with you?” Carson asked.

“I’m here,” she confirmed. “I had a chat with Lukshia. She seems to know, but she won’t tell me anything about where Katie is. I’m beginning to think we made a mistake in trusting her and I don’t know how to fix this or how to get her to crack.”

Sophie’s heart sunk like a stone. She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take.

Riley growled low in her throat. “Then maybe it is time I had a turn talking with Lukshia. I have plenty to discuss.”