I awoke from nightmares several times that night and had trouble getting back to sleep after reciting my mantra and calming down. I kept dreaming about what had happened in the lab and waking up in a panic. I woke Kara up every time and I felt terrible about it as she held me close and whispered reassurances in my ear while I tried to get ahold of myself. I felt so… damaged, and some remnant of Jon wanted to keep it all bottled up inside to avoid appearing weak.

I was Naiya now though, and Naiya was giving that remnant of Jon the finger. Kara and the others were well aware of what I had been through, Kara had seen the damage personally, so what would be the use in trying to hide that and pretend that everything was okay? These people cared about me, and I cared about them. They wanted to help and to be there for me, and not letting them wouldn’t be fair to them, or me.

Still, I didn’t think that I would be getting to sleep anytime soon, so once Kara had drifted back into slumber, I extracted myself from her embrace. If I was going to be awake anyway then I figured that I might as well make use of the time. With that in mind, I began exercising my tail and fins and attempted to practice using my magical abilities. I couldn’t really practice my Soulsinger ability with nobody awake to sing to but I did work on my voice exercises while I practiced my shapeshifting.

First, I focused on tapping into the weave of my magic, drawing out that tingling sensation and pushing it toward my tail and fins. Once I felt that tingling sensation settle into place, I pictured myself with legs and thought about what it felt like to walk, run, and feel the ground beneath them. Suddenly the tingling sensation intensified and my lower half shifted to that of a human woman, long slender legs kicking in the water.

Unfortunately, I was only able to hold the transformation for a few minutes. It was a start though, and if I kept working at it I might just be able to get a handle on at least one of my aetral. I switched back to my tail and fin exercises and vocal work for a few minutes before drawing on the weave of my magic once again. I continued like that until Natalie arrived with our breakfast and it was time to wake the others, switching between shifting some part of my body and working my voice, tail, and fins. When our time came to escape, I wanted to be ready.

Over the next few days, we didn’t have any visitors other than Natalie and fell back into a pattern of spending time with her and training hard to improve our swimming and master our new magical abilities. I continued to have trouble sleeping and kept putting in extra training before the others woke up and Natalie brought our breakfast. As a result, my abilities were steadily improving.

For one thing, we were all getting much better at swimming since having tails and fins was starting to feel normal and we were starting to be able to use them without thinking about it consciously. I was almost as quick and agile as Kieshala now and Kara and Jenny weren’t far behind, we just needed to work on our stamina now. We were also beginning to understand the Porpoise language better and were slowly starting to speak back to Kieshala in it, even if it was a bit haltingly.

With all of the extra time that I was putting in while the others were asleep I was getting progressively better with my aetral too. I was able to call on the weave of my magic more easily, shift more easily, and hold the shifted features slightly longer, even if I hadn’t had any success yet with my Soulsinger abilities. I wasn’t about to let my limited success make me lazy though, I continued to work hard every spare moment that I had so that I would be prepared when our chance to escape arrived.

Despite my progress, the others were concerned about me. I was barely sleeping and I was jumpy, especially if anyone happened to touch my tail. Kara was getting a lot of practice using her empathy with me, especially in the projective aspect. Whenever I got flashbacks she would project her calm and her feelings for me and usually, that would bring me out of it enough that I could start mentally reciting my mantra and calm myself completely.

Those feelings that Kara projected were amazing. There was this fierce protectiveness, worry, affection, awe, and a giddy warmth that seemed to infuse me and matched the warmth I felt bubble up inside me whenever I looked at her, talked with her, held her hand, and especially when we kissed. Was this love? I knew that I was passing far beyond crush territory with her and it seemed like she was feeling the same for me.

I felt bad for worrying her, for worrying all of them. My fear was controlling me, and I hated that, but as much as I wanted to I couldn’t just get over it. Kara’s empathy, distracting myself with training, and even my mantra were all temporary, and their effects were fleeting. I needed some sort of resolution before I could start to put what I had gone through behind me.

We were just finishing lunch three days after my torture session with Miss Hart when we heard footsteps outside the room, a lot of them. My breath caught in my throat and I started to tremble as the door opened. I took deep breaths, trying to get control of myself but that only ended up bringing a variety of scents into clear focus. One scent stood out from them all though, a mix of too much perfume and cigarette smoke, and it only made my shaking worse as I hissed in the general direction of the doorway and dove into the pool to get some distance.

“Miss Hart,” a familiar voice was saying in barely disguised hostility as the group entered the pool room. “You can’t seriously expect me to believe in mermaids. Is this some sort of practical joke? I don’t appreciate having my time wasted. If Mr. Pierce was so damned eager to hire me, then shouldn’t he be the one showing me these animals that I’m supposed to be working with?”

I only barely caught part of a response from the bitch, something about being busy with meetings, as the others watched me and Kara’s concerned voice entered my mind. ~ Naiya, what’s wrong? Oh shit, that’s her, isn’t it? The bitch who tortured you. ~

My mind and heart were both racing too frantically for me to respond as Hart approached the pool with eight guards and a young woman who sounded suspiciously like Maddie. “Dr. Emerson, this is Erica Winslow, one of the trainers that you recommended to Edward. She’ll be training these beasts to perform.” I could taste the hostility in Hart’s scent as she said Natalie’s name, as much as the cigarette smoke on her. I knew that Nat reporting my torture was going to cause issues.

“It’s nice to finally meet you in person, Erica. I’m glad that Mr. Pierce decided to take my recommendation and that you accepted his offer,” she said, smiling at Maddie and completely ignoring Miss Hart. Then she gestured to each of us Naethari in turn and added, “These are our mermaids; Lorelei, Marina, Nixie, and Melody. It seems Melody is a bit skittish right now though.”

~ I wonder why? ~ Jenny remarked acidly as she and the others glared at Hart and started hissing.

“It’s… umm… nice to finally meet you in person as well,” Maddie replied with a stunned expression that she didn’t even have to fake as she stared at Kieshala, who was closest to Natalie. It was one thing hearing about the Naethari or seeing my new face on Skype, but seeing actual Naethari and seeing that we really were what we had told her was another thing entirely.

I was surprised too though, I barely recognized my sister. She was dressed casually in a pair of jeans, a dark green t-shirt, and sandals but that wasn’t unusual for her. She looked completely different. Her hair was long and dyed electric blue and I figured that she had to have gotten extensions, Mom and Dad said that Maddie complained constantly whenever she had to wear a wig as part of a disguise. I thought that she was wearing makeup too, and it subtly changed her overall appearance. If I hadn’t heard her voice, even I might have had a problem recognizing ‘Erica Winslow’ as my sister.

Hart spoke up with barely concealed hostility. “I’m afraid that I can’t stay long, I have other things to do and the mermaids don’t appear to like me very much.” As much as she was bristling at being ignored, her fear was spiking from three very angry Naethari looking ready to pounce on her as she backed toward the goons who weren’t quite sure what to do.

“It could be something that you’re wearing or the fact that you’re a bitch. Probably both,” Natalie snapped back, not even bothering to try to hide her dislike for the woman. That was when I noticed what Hart was wearing. Along with her black silk dress and pumps, she was wearing a necklace and matching earrings, their magenta color standing out against both her bleach blonde hair and black dress. That fucking bitch was wearing my scales as a trophy, flaunting what she had done to me.

My fellow Naethari weren’t the only ones who looked ready to kill her where she stood. Maddie had to visibly remove her hand from the cattle prod she had been issued as she took a couple of deep calming breaths. Natalie’s fists were clenched tightly by her sides and she took a deep breath of her own before assuring the guards, “They’re not going to attack unless provoked, they’re just warning Miss Heartless away.”

The guards eyed the Naethari uncertainly and backed off for the moment, though they continued watching Kieshala, Kara, and Jenny warily with their hands on their weapons. I was still shaking as I watched from the pool, my heart threatening to burst out of my chest as the situation got tenser and Hart shouted, “How dare you speak to me that way! Do you have any idea who I am?!” Every word from her shrill voice set me further on edge, reminding me of her taunts when she tortured me, her calling me ‘Jonny’, and just how much I hated her. She just loved the sound of her fucking voice, loved taunting and torturing those who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, talk back.

I was barely aware that I had started humming as Natalie snapped back, “No, how dare you! Coming in here after torturing one of these poor girls just to flaunt it by wearing her scales as some sort of sick trophy! Yeah, I know exactly who you are, bitch! You’re a slut with delusions of grandeur, sleeping your way to the top. That doesn’t make you important, just pathetic!”

Hart was furious but I wasn’t paying any more attention to the vitriol that was spewing from her pretty little maw. I was lost in the song, humming The Sound of Silence as the tingle of my magic settled in my mouth and throat. As Natalie and the blonde bitch shouted back and forth, nobody but the other Naethari and Hart seemed to notice my humming. Hart’s eyes were locked on me now as I felt the magic connect my mind to hers and time seemed to stand still.

I was lost in the magic now, using it instinctively. I was so focused on making her pay for what she had done to me, and probably others who couldn’t stand up for themselves as well, as I hummed the last bars and focused my desire on her now pliant mind. ~ You think that you have power over others while you torture those who can’t speak in their own defense. Let’s see how much power you have when you can’t speak for yourself. You have lost the ability to speak, you will never utter another word again for the rest of your days. Communication is beyond you; you can’t use any form of language, but you can still understand them. You can’t write, but you can read. You can’t speak, but you can hear. That is the price for my scales that you now wear. Enjoy your silence, I know I will. ~

I blinked in surprise as the last note of the song left my lips and I could sense the geas taking hold. Natalie still hadn’t finished yelling at Hart yet and the guards looked like they would rather be anywhere but where they were right now. Hart’s eyes fluttered and then locked on to stare at me as our caretaker seemed to finally realize that Hart wasn’t yelling back anymore. Hart tried to speak but nothing came out and she glared at me in fury and realization as she left her guards and stormed toward the pool.

She found herself cut off by Kieshala and Kara, who hissed angrily at her and bared their fangs. Maddie seemed to have gotten enough control over her own anger to turn to the guards and snap, “She’s upsetting the mermaids and their caretaker, get her out of here! Don’t let her come back either! We can’t work with them when they’re this upset!”

The guards seemed to realize that if they didn’t get Hart out of there that somebody was going to get hurt. Likely Hart, and possibly some of them as well, if things were allowed to keep escalating. Hart was still glaring balefully at me as they escorted her from the room, with her fighting them every step of the way.

In the silence that followed, the other three Naethari were staring at me as I swam back to the edge of the pool. They had sensed the magic, just like I was starting to whenever they used theirs. Kara broke the silence as she asked, “Naiya, what did you do?”

“I… think I shut her up. Permanently. I was… scared and angry, and I wasn’t really thinking about what I was doing. I just… wanted her to pay for what she put me through, I didn’t think that it would actually work. I took away her ability to speak, to… communicate at all in any meaningful way. Fuck… I’m a bigger… monster than she is.” I stumbled over the words as I felt suddenly sick to my stomach, tears filled my eyes, and I started shaking again. It wasn’t just what I had done that made me feel that way, but now that the situation seemed to be over for the moment everything was catching up with me all at once.

As I closed my eyes against the tears I felt myself being pulled out of the water and wrapped up in a strong embrace. A finger reached out to wipe away my tears and Maddie’s voice spoke softly next to my ear. “You are not a monster, Naiya. I don’t know much about this magic stuff but you’re my sister and I know you. You wouldn’t harm anyone who didn’t deserve it and believe me, she deserved far worse than what you just did. You feel bad about what you just did, while she tortured you for her jollies and probably slept just fine at night.”

“You’ve been severely traumatized, Naiya, we can all see it,” Kara said as I felt a second pair of arms wrap around me. “You haven’t been sleeping, you’ve barely been eating, and I can’t see those flashbacks that you’ve been having but I can feel what they’re putting you through. Fuck her. Don’t give her that kind of power over you. That bitch doesn’t deserve your remorse for something that you did while terrified and stressed out from the trauma that she put you through. I was having trouble not killing her while she was in reach.”

~ As was I, ~ Kieshala added gently, having understood at least the last part of what Kara had said. ~ Do not worry yourself so over her welfare, she would not do the same for you. ~

“Hell, I was ready to electrocute the bitch, but you all need me and Nat on the inside with you and that might have gotten me fired,” Maddie grumped in response to Kara.

It took a while for everyone to calm me down but, in the end, I figured that they were probably right. I had given that bitch what she deserved. The weight that I had been carrying for days seemed slightly lessened, though I feared that it would never be completely gone. I also worried that this would not be the last we saw of Hart. Even without the ability to communicate, I had seen in her eyes the hatred that she felt for me and a thirst for vengeance.

When I was calmed down, Nat encouraged me to try to finish my lunch and Maddie sat there and made sure that I did while Natalie handled the real introductions between her and the other Naethari. As I ate, Maddie put her arm around me and pulled me close. “Damn, it’s weird seeing you like this up close and knowing that it’s you in there, Sis.”

“Same here, Mads. I love the hair,” I teased, managing to smile honestly for the first time in days.

“It’s too long but we were worried that Pierce might have former mercs as guards and I didn’t want to risk anyone recognizing me,” she replied with a sigh. “Nobody is going to look at me and think of Maddie MacArthur. It’s worth it though. I’m here for you now, Sis, and I won’t let anyone hurt any of you again.”