Sara’s eyes widened as they rose from the ground and rested on the last person she expected to see deep under the ocean’s surface.
Slink.
He was flanked once again by Ettie and Tane. “No,” she said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“Dreams do come true.” Slink ignored her question. His smile widened, showing blackened teeth. His body looked more emaciated than ever.
“How’s your boyfriend?” Slink chuckled. “It looks like he’s doing a great job protecting you.”
“Shut up, Slink.” The deep, baritone voice caught her attention. She looked toward the opposite end of the long, narrow cell. A blond, tanned man strode toward them. His skin was dusted with white (salt maybe). Her defenses rose. There was something familiar about this man.
He sauntered over to her. “Sorry about Slink. I think his mother dropped him on his head when he was a baby.”
The stranger put his hand out to shake hers. She kept her hand to herself, not willing to trust this prisoner yet.
“Don’t worry, I won’t bite. I can’t vouch for those three.” His head jerked back towards Slink, Ettie, and Tane. “My name’s Josh, Josh Talbot.”
Sara’s jaw dropped. “You’re the famous deep sea diver. The one that was lost in a diving accident.”
Josh barked out a laugh. “You heard about that? It was no accident. I made the greatest discovery of this century, this millennium, probably of all time. Too bad you merpeople don’t want to be discovered. Nice to meet one that speaks English.”
“They aren’t merpeople. They call themselves Dagonians.”
Josh raised his eyebrow. “They?”
She ignored his question and looked around, inspecting the cell. It was not overly large, about ten feet wide and twenty feet long. The stone walls were layered in algae. Iron rings were bolted in the wall about every six feet. The floor was bare silt, except for a few rocks, a bowl of dirty water, and a couple of fish bones. The opposite wall was not made of stone, but was a wall of water. Sara couldn’t see much except blue water, grey silt, and a school of silver fish.
“Who cares what they call themselves,” Slink said. “They’re all worthless. They think they can keep us down here. We’re Americans. We have rights. These things don’t feed us. They give us dirty water to drink; there are no beds, no bathroom, and no hope of leaving. And she’s one of them. She’s the reason we’re here in the first place. I say we rip off her arms and have ourselves some seafood. What do you think, Ettie? Tane? You think you’re strong enough to do it?”
Ettie moved forward. “Oh, yeah. I could do it.”
“No one touches her without going through me,” Josh said.
“Back off, Talbot. She has it coming,” Slink said.
“You idiots don’t realize.” Josh shook his head. “She’s not like us. She can escape if we help her. Then, if we do, then just maybe she’ll help us get out of here too. Dudes, there are hundreds of feet of water between freedom and us. And as good a swimmer as I am, there’s no way I could make it to the surface. I’m not seeing any better option, are you?”
“I can’t leave,” Sara said.
Josh turned to her. “Sure you can. That lock doesn’t look too complicated. I know I could spring it.”
“You don’t understand. They have my husband here. If I escape, they’ll kill him.”
“Well, shoot.” Josh plopped down, cross-legged in the sand. “You know, keeping my famously optimistic attitude has not been easy down here.”
“Join the club,” Sara said, eying Slink and his friends. They had strolled away and were whispering enthusiastically amongst themselves, planning something. Slink put his arm around Tane’s shoulder. It was then she noticed Slink’s hand was shaking. Drug withdrawals. That wouldn’t put him into a very reasonable frame of mind.
“Okay.” Slink slipped his arm away from Tane and strolled over to Josh.
Josh stood and Slink sneered at him. “Now that we know she won’t help us, we’re back to my original plan. And don’t try to stop us, Talbot. We out number…” Josh’s elbow slammed against Slink’s nose. Blood exploded from his face as he bent forward. “Augh. What’s wrong with you?”
Ettie and Tane came at Josh from opposite sides. Josh stepped back and Tane’s fist hit Ettie in the forehead. From there, it was an all-out brawl between the three of them. Fists flew, kicks landed, and spittled grunts peppered the sand with blood.
What Sara didn’t see until it was too late, was Slink coming up behind Josh with a rock in his hand. She shouted out just in time for Josh to turn around and get slammed in the face with it. He fell unconscious to the floor, blood running from a gash in his forehead.
“Whoa, that’s a good one, Slink. Now what do we do with him?” Ettie took his jaw and moved it around, as if trying to work out the pain and stiffness from being punched.
“I say we put his head in the water and keep it there.” Slink kicked Josh hard as he lay prone on the sandy floor. “What better way for a deep sea diver to die than by drowning?”
“No,” Sara shouted. “He can’t hurt you now. Just leave him alone.”
“Oh look,” Slink said. “It’s the filthy little mermaid begging for his life. I’d say that gives us more reason to kill him.”
“But won’t the guards be angry with you?” she asked.
“The guards? Like they care. Talbot here already killed two other people just this last week and the guards didn’t bat an eye at it.”
“He killed two men?” Sara didn’t know why that bothered her. She’d seen Xanthus kill dozens of Dagonians earlier today. Maybe it was because Josh was a human, and humans weren’t supposed to kill other humans.
“Oh, yeah. He was thinking he was all tough,” Slink said. “Said he’d been a Navy Seal. The two guys who were here before us weren’t impressed and decided they wanted to play around with Talbot. Talbot didn’t like the games they played and later that night, he killed them while they were sleeping. Yeah, this Talbot is a real winner, killing people in their sleep. He’s a coward, that’s what he is.
“Come on, Ettie, Tane. Let’s put his head in the water and see how long this diver can hold his breath.”
“No, please, just leave him alone,” Sara shouted as they shoved Josh’s head into the wall of water. Josh jerked awake and thrashed around. Sara scooted along the floor and grabbed Tane’s ankle. Tane responded by kicking her arm away.
She grabbed again. “Please stop.”
Tane growled and slapped her hard across the face. Sara felt as if her cheek had exploded. Through the spots of floating lights, she saw Josh flailing as Ettie and Slink held his head in the water.
She covered her face with her arms and began to cry. “Please let him go. Please let him go. Please let him go.” Sara tried to block out the horrifying images. She’d thought she’d gotten over her fear of drowning, but it was all coming back to her. She continued to plead in a tormented rhythm that came from deep inside her. Eventually Josh’s thrashing stopped and still, she continued to plead. “Please let him go.”
Silence surrounded her. The only sound left now was her small keening and low chanting. Josh must be dead. She didn’t know him well, but the short time she had, he’d been kind to her. Her heart broke a little at the terrible way he’d left the world.
Somewhere inside this torment, a part of her expected at any moment to be accosted. Almost without thinking, she wrapped the chain around her fingers, leaving a long loop she could swing if necessary. She knew when it came to physical strength, she didn’t stand a chance against them, but she’d go down fighting.
When a few moments passed without an attack, she took a chance and glanced up. There they were—all of them, including Josh Talbot—staring at her. She squealed in surprise.
“You let him go,” she said in total shock.
Slink eyes blinked, confused. “Of course. You asked us to. Why did we? What in the… Ettie, why did you let Talbot go?” he
asked as he shoved him.
“I don’t know. She asked us to? You let him go, too.” Ettie shoved back.
“It was her voice,” Tane said. “She was singing, you know… mermaids… sirens… they can hypnotize people with their voices.”
Sara thought that was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. But then again, come to think of it, people did seem to lose their minds every time she sang a tune. That was why she never, ever sang around other people. As a child, the attention she got had frightened her. Even Ron had lost his mind when she sang at the concert. Maybe Tane was right.
Sara felt like an idiot knowing what she was about to do, but hey, at this point, anything was worth a try.
Her melodious voice rang out and, to her surprise, it had a greater effect than she ever thought possible.