For a moment, Dr. Emerson just stared at me in stunned silence. Then she sputtered. “Y-y-you just spoke…I… what? How? I was beginning to suspect that you were sentient, but to speak our language so quickly…”

“Quiet please,” I told her. “I don’t want to risk any listening devices or hidden cameras picking up this conversation.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” she responded, shaking off some of the wonder and confusion that was showing on her face. “There are none in here. Mr. Pierce told me when I called him. This is part of a converted luxury bunker beneath his mansion. The room where Lorelei was before is just a sauna and plunge pool. The hallway outside, and the rooms that I’m not allowed access to, are heavily monitored, I’ve seen the cameras out there. He never thought to have any put any in here though since there’s only one way in or out, that way out does have security, and it’s not like you’re going to walk out of here.”

“Well, at least that’s one thing in our favor,” Kara muttered.

~ She said that there is nothing in here to watch or listen to us, can I try to heal Naiya now? She looks like she’s in pain, ~ Jenny asked Kieshala.

Our elder Naethari sighed, looking uncertainly at Dr. Emerson for a moment before finally giving her consent. ~ Go ahead, Jenny. Remember to focus on calling your magic to you first. You must control it, not allow it to control you. Even I must admit that this human has treated us far better than the others in this world. She may be a useful ally when we attempt our escape if she can be swayed to see our plight. ~

Jenny quickly swam to the side of the pool and then pulled herself up and along the tiled floor to join us. “I’m going to try to heal her,” she told the human among us as Dr. Emerson looked from me to Kara and then to Jenny in shock.

Her shock only intensified as Jenny started to glow with a bright golden light. The instant that she touched me that light surrounded me as well, along with a numb tingly feeling, like when you have a limb fall asleep. I let out a sigh as the pain lessened and by the time the glow faded and Jenny had removed her hands, I was feeling better than I had since realizing who I truly was. Even my muscle aches from us pushing our bodies so hard were gone. “Thanks, Jenny,” I told her with a smile.

“You… what… how?” Dr. Emerson stammered, seeming to have temporarily lost her ability to speak.

“Magic,” I replied simply. “There is more to us than anyone here suspects, Dr. Emerson. We need your help. I need to contact my family so they can help us to escape, so I would like to borrow your tablet.”

“You… Do mermaids use computers? You seem so knowledgeable about our society.” It seemed that she could speak again, but that look of wonder was back in her eyes.

“Not Mermaids… Naethari,” Kieshala corrected. She was visibly trying to hold back her angst at the human word for us but managed to at least say it somewhat calmly.

“Not all of us were born Naethari either,” I added. “Those rooms that you’re not allowed to access are probably where we were being monitored while we changed. I’m Naiya, that’s Kara and her sister Jenny, and that is Kieshala. Only Kieshala was born Naethari. Pierce changed us by feeding us Kieshala’s flesh. I had terminal cancer and thought that I was being offered a cure.”

“Pierce kidnapped our family and faked our deaths,” Kara contributed. “Our brother and parents didn’t survive the process. And if you thought that Aussie asshole was bad, he was downright sweet compared to how Kieshala has been treated since being captured. She couldn’t even protest because she didn’t know our language so she had to try to fight her way free. She’s still learning to speak English, and teaching us Porpoise.”

“Even if she was able to talk to him; I doubt Pierce would have treated her any differently. Except maybe removed her vocal cords. They would have just regenerated in time though,” I pointed out candidly.

As we spoke, Dr. Emerson’s face contorted more and more in anger and disgust. She had to visibly calm herself as she turned to Kieshala. “I am sorry for how my kind has treated you, all of you. Oh shit! I treated you like animals! I’m so sorry about that! You are intelligent people and don’t deserve any of this. There is so much that we could learn from you, Kieshala.” Then her fists clenched in anger. “That bastard! He experimented on unwilling people, children even! I’d quit right now if I didn’t think that it would make things worse for you!”

“Not to mention what he’d do to you if he didn’t think that he still had some control over you,” Kara pointed out. “Best case scenario, you’d be joining us here on a more permanent basis.”

“If she survived the process,” I added bitterly. “There were close to forty of us in my group and only two of us survived the process. I’m going to bet that any other groups he tried were the same. He mentioned this becoming a waste of resources and Pierce seems like the kind not to give up so I’m guessing that only Jenny and Kara survived from their group, and there was probably at least one other group with no survivors.”

We had been translating and relaying the conversation for Kieshala’s sake and the sunset-hued Naethari sounded even more bitter than me as she said, ~ I was ‘harvested’ five times since being captured. ~

I shuddered to think about that and sighed. “Yeah, Kieshala says five groups. So that means roughly a two percent or less survival rate. We only survived because we were too sick to fight the process and we had some latent magic potential.”

For a moment Dr. Emerson looked wistful before pointing out, “As cool as it would be to become one of you and learn all about you, I would hardly be able to help you then and I wouldn’t do it if it meant being Pierce’s trained animal. I love the ocean and I love learning about the creatures that inhabit it but I want to protect them too. It’s why I became a marine biologist. If anyone needs protecting right now, it’s the four of you. I would assume that if you had any magic that you could use to escape you’d already be gone and not asking for my help.”

“You would assume right,” Kara agreed. “And unless Kieshala can get to some kind of remote natural place with enough mana, and then to a place where our worlds intersect, we won’t be able to get her home to her clan either. Whether we have to arrange a rescue or could somehow just magically grow legs and walk out of here right now, that wouldn’t change. But Naiya has family that she thinks can help us.”

~ Our clan, ~ Kieshala corrected after getting the translation. ~ You will all be welcomed. And there is little left for any of you here. As for finding mana, if we can find a place that is remote enough, even if there is no mana the four of us may be enough to encourage some to form, but it would take time, perhaps many moon cycles. I am afraid that only a Shifter would be able to change their form though, and none of us here has that aetral, that I know of. ~

I think that all three of us who heard her response were a bit confused. ~What do you mean? ~ Jenny asked.

~ And what about this, ‘that I know of’? ~ Kara added.

~ Naethari are bound to the primal magic of the sea. It is why we were created, ~ Kieshala patiently explained. ~ We radiate primal energy to foster life and growth. Were we not in this stone prison beneath a city of humans that has been all but drained of any natural life we would see life around us beginning to thrive, and with abundant life comes mana. Most of the energy that we receive from our meals is converted to primal growth energy, a much smaller portion gives us the energy to swim and go about our daily activities, and the rest powers our aetral. ~

~You haven’t explained the ‘that I know of’ part yet, Kieshala. ~ Kara insisted.

Kieshala let out a sigh that was both physical and mental. ~It is rare, but sometimes Naethari can possess more than one aetral. Kara and Jenny, the weave of your magics are clear to me. You are an Empath and a Healer, I have seen both at least once before so the weave is familiar. I have not seen a Soulsinger before and I am certain that Naiya is one from her voice alone. I am unfamiliar with their weave though so it is remotely possible that she may have more than one aetral. It could be why she is having trouble using hers as well if that is the case. We cannot know for certain until she manifests an ability. ~

While we were all having our little mental confab, Dr. Emerson was off getting her tablet from her deck chair. “Here you go, Mel… Naiya.”

I turned onto my belly and took the offered tablet, which she had already graciously unlocked for me. “Thank you, Dr. Emerson. This means a lot, to all of us. If you’re not sure about this, I don’t have to do this, I can find another way. If Pierce finds out that you’re helping us…”

“I’ll probably wish that he’d killed me,” she finished with a grim nod. “And call me Natalie, or better yet, Nat. That’s what my friends call me. I’m here for the four of you, not Pierce. I have been since I saw the picture of Kieshala. If you have to run, metaphorically speaking, I’ll run with you. It’s not like I have much of a life here. My family wants nothing to do with me since I came out of the closet after graduating last year and my girlfriend broke up with me when she found out that I would be working for that bastard Pierce.”

“You’re going to have to be as committed to this as the rest of us,” Kara warned. “That means treating us the same as before if anyone else is around, and using those ridiculous names for us. Kieshala has said that what you’re feeding us isn’t too different than what our kind usually eat, Naethari supposedly love fresh fruit when they can get it, so that should stay the same too.”

“We wouldn’t mind if you could occasionally sneak in a treat for us though,” Jenny added wistfully before giving a cheeky grin. “Naiya promised to help me distract you if you ever brought chocolate in. And we all could see how much she loved that Chinese food.”

“Noted,” Natalie said with a conspirator’s wink. “I might just have Chinese for dinner tonight. It would be a shame for it all to go to waste if I accidentally got too much. I’ve been having a bit of a sweet tooth lately too, so maybe I’ll stock up on some chocolate. Maybe pizza tomorrow night? I don’t think I could eat an entire large one myself but I could save some for later, maybe enough slices that some overly curious ‘mermaids’ might get their hands on.”

“Oh hell yes! Please no anchovies though. I could kill for a meat supreme,” Kara said with a moan of desire that made my heart do funny things. Then she turned to me. “So, how are you going to do this, Naiya? You mentioned back channels and stuff before right?”

I didn’t realize how close she was to me before, and when I turned my head we were practically nose-to-nose, with her warm breath blowing gently against my face with each exhale. If my heart had been fluttering before, now it was doing an Olympic gymnastics routine. She reached out to brush a stray strand of hair from my face and grazed my cheek and I practically stopped breathing from her touch. Oh my Goddess, why was she torturing me like this? Do all girls act this intimately with their friends?

“I… well… I mean… I … umm…” I couldn’t seem to put words together. That was when she seemed to realize that her fingertips were brushing my cheek and she pulled her hand away as if burned. Noooo! Don’t stop, put it back!

“I… yeah… sorry. I thought your hair might… uhh… be in the way,” she stammered breathily as she looked away in embarrassment. Shit! I’d done it again, I had embarrassed her somehow with my awkwardness.

“I… well… thanks,” I said, trying to look anywhere but at her right then. My eyes fell upon Natalie, who was giving us an amused look that both confused and embarrassed me further. I took a deep breath and focused my scattered brain on the tablet instead. I had work to do. “There are message boards and other places I could leave messages for her but I’ll try logging into my Skype and calling Maddie first. It’s unlikely that she’ll answer unless she’s back in Miami, but I guess it’s worth a try.”

I logged in and hit her number. Oh shit, that was the video call icon, oh well, no worries it wasn’t like she was actually going to… “Omigod! Jon?! You had us worried sick! What… the hell?! Who the fuck are you and why are you calling me from my brother’s Skype account?! If this is some kind of ransom thing you have fucked with the wrong family!” Her pretty face was distorted in fury and almost as red as her short-cropped and punk-styled ginger hair. Her bright green eyes focused on me with a malevolence that I had never seen from her before, even in combat training.