Warren Carmichael was furious. He had Holmes dead to rights, and still she taunted him while claiming to be in control. He seethed, clenching his fists in impotent rage as he watched her too-calm face through the camera feed on his laptop. It wasn’t a proper command center but between it and his headset he was able to monitor the mission and keep apprised of the situation in real time, even on the boat he currently found himself on while they tightened the net on Holmes, the mermaids, and the mercs.

One of the squad leaders was worried about hostiles potentially hiding amongst all those trees and foliage, but Warren didn’t want to divide his forces when they might be needed to subdue and capture Holmes if she put up a fight. Besides, that was probably precisely what she wanted, to draw his men into traps set up by her mercenary friends out there in the trees. They probably had the whole area booby-trapped, waiting for an opportunity like that.

He would have the choppers running spotlights over the forest in case anything moved down there, but the squads not directly involved with Holmes at the moment would guard the perimeter around the villa in case she tried to escape or one of her friends attempted a rescue. He wanted them to watch the water as well, in case that yacht anchored in the cove attempted to make for the shore or attempt to break through his blockade, or in case those mermaids were somewhere close by.

Holmes’s smug assurance that she had him right where she wanted him was enough for him to consider ordering Captain Benson to play the video. There was the possibility that it was a trap of some sort, possibly the computer was rigged to explode, but would she be willing to kill herself just to take out some of his men? He didn’t think so, but he also knew very little about whatever type of creature Holmes was. Perhaps she was banking that she could survive such an explosion while his men couldn’t. No, he didn’t think that was the case, but it couldn’t hurt to have her be the one to open the file, just in case.

It was also entirely possible that she was bluffing. That seemed the most likely possibility, that she was trying to buy time because he had her right where he wanted her. He decided to call her bluff. Even if she wasn’t bluffing, he needed to know the situation if he was going to turn the tables on her and get everything he wanted.

Captain Benson had her play the video and the situation was far worse than Warren ever could have expected. The mermaids were far more intelligent than Pierce and Harris had ever suspected, those who had been human remembered their past lives, and not only did they claim to have evidence of what had been done to them, but they also had the files from his own laptop that linked him to Harris and showed that he was shielding him for various three-letter agencies who already wanted him for questioning.

They had revealed everything on a goddamn activist’s livestream and sent the evidence to major news and media agencies all over North America. Even if he could manage to hush them all up before anyone got a good look at those data packets, it had already aired on the internet hours ago. Some people might believe it was a hoax, until those media vultures got involved, but the image of that child sobbing while the other mermaids comforted her was going to have the damn activists circling like sharks if their evidence proved to be as damning as he feared.

Even if their evidence wasn’t ironclad, this had been made public and there would be inquiries, and he knew that if his superiors had to burn him to save face, they would. As much as it infuriated him, backing off, leaving the mermaids be, and turning Dr. Harris in might be the only way to salvage his career. The mere thought had him clenching his fists until his knuckles were white.

The mermaids were a landmine that he could no longer risk stepping on, but Holmes wasn’t a mermaid, was she? He could still salvage something valuable from this situation, and once his superiors saw what Holmes was capable of, he might be able to turn things in his favor. It galled him to give up on one of his prizes, but he wouldn’t come away empty handed. “Benson, get the girl on a chopper and come pick me up so we can return to base, but be careful, she’s dangerous.”

It was as he thought about the very painful ways that he would bring Holmes to heel that he heard a cold feminine voice say over their comms, “We told you this was your last chance, Warren. You’ve brought this upon yourself, and your men will pay the price along with you if they don’t drop their weapons immediately.”

“Looks like we’ll be doing this the hard way, get ready to make a break for it, Luiza,” Naiya’s voice spoke through Luiza’s earpiece as the squad leader looming over Luiza hauled her to her feet. Five seconds later, that same squad leader took a bullet to the head, punching through his ballistic helmet and dropping him to the floor in a dead heap, almost bringing her down with him before she managed to shake his grip.

“Sniper! one of the other men shouted. As they all tried to find some kind of cover, the other man who had been watching her met the same fate as his leader and Luiza made a break for the open window, diving through and really hoping that she could trust Natalie. She had heard of trust falls before, but never through a second story window and counting on magic to save her ass.

Seconds after she started falling, Luiza felt the cool wetness of water surrounding her. It formed a cocoon around her and gently eased her to the ground before losing cohesion and splashing to the ground. She quickly got to her feet and ran to the shore, where Nat was waiting to swim her to the agreed meeting spot. Luiza had done her part, and the others had promised that she wouldn’t have to personally kill any of her former comrades, except in self-defense.

She had barely gotten to the shoreline when she and Nat were spotted by one of the squads that was coming right for her and the Naethari. The guys in the bedroom must have let the others know about her escape attempt, but the house exploding and one of the choppers being hit by an RPG and rapidly losing altitude gave their enemies other things to worry about. Whatever worries they had were no more as the minigun fire that eviscerated the foliage it had emerged from did the same thing to them.

“Let’s get out of here,” Nat said, encouraging Luiza to get a tight grip on her waist as she entered the water, “the others can handle this.”

As expected, when we returned to the lagoon that hosted our villa, Carmichael had boats in position to cut off any chance of escape by water. Those boats were also starting to drop nets and using sonar to scan the water beneath them, probably watching for us. ~ Stay here, ~ I warned the others. ~ I’ll slip in using my dolphin form. I will call if we need you.. ~

Jenny looked worried and was still a little bit emotionally worn out after our little interview, while Kieshala nodded, trusting me to do what needed to be done. Kara held me close for a moment though, wrapping me up tightly in her arms and kissing me fervently enough that I very much wanted to come back to her once this was done. ~ Be careful, Babe, don’t do anything that will risk your life, or the baby’s. ~

I gently caressed her cheek, allowing all the love that I felt for her to bubble to the surface of my thoughts. ~ I won’t take any more risks than are necessary to keep us all safe and free. See you soon, my love. ~

After one last kiss before parting, I shifted into my dolphin form and hurried into the cove, chasing a school of fish to let those watching from above believe there was nothing unusual going on beneath them and slipping under the middle boat which had yet to drop any nets. Once past their blockade, I made for our small yacht, where we had dropped anchor almost a mile from the shore. The boat was unoccupied, save for Maddie, who was lying on the deck and obscured by a tarp that had been secured overhead and that matched the color of the deck to hide her from those helicopters. Both her sniper rifle and her new toy were set up in front of her, waiting to be used.

I quickly shifted back to my form with legs and joined my sister on the deck, inquiring, “What’s the situation, Sis?”

“They’re still watching the video,” she replied as she kept watch through the scope of her sniper rifle. He’s got six strike teams there, one in the house and the other’s patrolling the beach and grounds, they have the choppers keeping an eye on the woods, and occasionally one makes a pass over the cove.”

“And how is the view?” I asked.

“Boring, but I have a good view of them through the window. Watching them watch a video is not how I was planning on spending my night. Where’s the gunfire and explosions?”

“This is real life, Sis, not a Michael Bay movie. Hopefully Carmichael will decide to back off once he figures out what we have.” With that, I headed for the cabin, where I took the two earpieces awaiting me and placed one in each ear so I could follow the situation in the house with Luiza. One was obviously using our new frequency so I could communicate with the others, but the other was to listen in on our enemies. When I was harassing Carmichael, my goal wasn’t just to drive him insane, I had also been gathering intel from the men that I got some alone time with before making them forget all about me.

Not only had I been keeping track of his increasingly paranoid security measures, but I had also taken one out of his own playbook and gotten the frequency for their comm channel, or rather, the rotation of frequencies that they were using or planned to use. It took a few moments, but soon I was quietly listening to their radio chatter. I continued to silently listen for several more minutes before I heard Carmichael say, “Benson, get the girl on a chopper and come pick me up so we can return to base, but be careful, she’s dangerous.”

That idiot. He had been given multiple chances to back out, but he just wouldn’t take us seriously. I tapped the mic on the earpiece for his comm channel and said in my iciest tone, “We told you this was your last chance, Warren. You’ve brought this upon yourself, and your men will pay the price along with you if they don’t drop their weapons immediately.” Then I removed the device from my ear, crushed it with my bare hand, and activated the other to warn the former soldier, “Looks like we’ll be doing this the hard way, get ready to make a break for it, Luiza.”

Seconds after my warning, Maddie fired a shot, followed quickly by another to give our new friend the chance to get away. Moments later, there was an explosion as the house blew, followed by another as Aunt Carmen showed what a menace she could be with an RPG launcher, by taking down one of their choppers. That was around when Natalie’s voice slipped into my mind. ~ I’ve got Luiza, and I’m taking her to the meeting spot. ~

We were tearing our enemies a new one, probably in part because they didn’t expect us to be so heavily armed. Between Dad emerging from the trees with that minigun I got him and the explosives we rigged in the house, we had managed to take down two of their strike teams fairly quickly. A third squad that had been close to the house at the time had been battered by the explosion, making them easy targets for Mom and Maddie with their sniper rifles as well. -= Max, you’ve got a squad approaching from the west, they’re circling around the house, =- Mom warned Dad.

-= I copy, Honey. Maybe they’re coming to say hello to my little friend. =- A moment later the distinctive sound of the minigun wreaking havoc and other gunfire sounded over our comms.

“Are you okay, Dad? It looked like you took a hit there,” Maddie asked in concern, causing fear and nausea to bubble up in my stomach as a second chopper erupted in fire and began to fall from the sky.

-= He just grazed me, Maddie, I’ll be fine. How many do we have left on the ground, Clara? =-

-= I have a group of three pinned down and taking cover behind Naiya’s car, =- Mom reported. -= That should be the last of them. I don’t have an angle on them from here, does somebody want to flush them out? =-

“My pleasure,” Maddie said with a grin as she looked down the scope of her anti-materiel rifle. “Sorry about this, Sis, I know how much you liked that car.”

That grin on her face said that she wasn’t sorry at all and, as she fired, I said a solemn goodbye to my car. It had served me well, but it wasn’t like I could take it with me where we were going. It was probably already damaged from all the gunfire and explosions anyway. She fired two more shots before she was satisfied, and our mom called the area clear of enemy ground forces.

-= Now that we’ve cleaned things up down here, we should help Carmen with… =- Dad was saying before he trailed off. -= The remaining choppers are making a break for it… wait, one is heading for those boats blockading the cove. =-

“Carmichael,” I spat. Every instinct that I had was telling me that he was on one of those boats. ~Sis, don’t let that chopper reach those boats, and if you want to keep your new toy, you better get it put away in its waterproof case in record time when you’re finished. Plan C is a go. ~