Page 13 of Ensnaring the Siren

Blue skies, calm water, and not a cloud in sight. The perfect sunny day in coastal Maine. Cold as fuck, though. It might’ve been summer, but the initial shock of jumping straight into fifty-degree water never went away, no matter how many times he did this.

“Too bad we’re on duty for the next twenty-four hours.” That was when the unit’s second aircrew team would relieve them for a few days of liberty.

“Kruetz, where’s your imagination? I was gonna lay out a blanket in the breakroom, pop a couple bottles of soda…”

“Do you two want some alone time?” A glance up and Reid saw Hatcher miming stepping off the edge, boot hovering in midair. “Should I leave?”

“You wanna swim back to shore?”

“Whatever the lovebirds need.”

“Shut up and get in here.” Reid could practically hear the eyeroll in Perez’s voice.

Tuning out their banter, he swam to where they’d dropped Oscar the training dummy, now floating helplessly several meters away in an orange Type-5 PFD. Coming up from behind and hooking him under his floppy, plastic arms, Reid kicked back and towed him toward the pickup point.

Once Oscar was loaded into the basket lift, he gave the signal, and Hatcher got the hoist going. Water dripped from the metal basket as it rose, climbing steadily toward the helicopter above.

Even though Perez was joking about the picnic, his stomach rumbled with a vengeance at the thought of food. Swimming always made him ravenous, but there’d be several more drill evolutions to run through before they could call it a day and head back to shore. Several more hours until dinner.

A bright bit of orange caught the corner of his eye, something rippling just along the surface about a hundred feet away.

Had they lost a bit of equipment?

He kicked out with his fins, swimming toward the floating object, following its path through the rolling waves, taking him further and further away from the helicopter.

“Kruetz, where are you going?” Hatcher called.

“There’s something in the water.”

“Leave it.”

But Reid couldn’t. Something of theirs or not, it wouldn’t do to leave shit around, polluting the ocean. He cut a straight line toward it, propelling himself forward with smooth, efficient strokes, and watched it rise with the swell of a wave, then dip down, disappearing from sight. He waited for the next swell to bring it back into view.

It never did.

Already icy water grew colder, some glacial current making him shiver, and the back of his neck prickled, each of the little hairs standing on end. He scanned the surface, looking for the lost object when something bumped his leg. Shark, seal, harbor porpoise, he couldn’t tell, but fear dug in its claws when Perez began shouting over the radio, “Kruetz, abort, abort! There’s a…”

Something grabbed onto his ankles with a punishing grip and yanked him under, the rest of the radio transmission lost to garbled static. Water rushed up around him, a pair of glowing amber eyes meeting his, maybe two feet from his face. Jesus, fuck! He lurched away, kicking hard, but the creature had already let him go.

He burst above the waterline, coughing and sputtering.

The mermaid.

She popped to the surface next to him, thrusting something orange and cylindrical against his chest. “I found this,” she said brightly, strangely both proud and mischievous. “Thought it might be yours.”

He caught it—a water rescue throw bag, something he used all the time when working swift water rescue in Michigan. But this one belonged to the Haven Cove fire department, judging by the emblem printed on its side. It wouldn’t have taken much for a current to carry it out here, only a mile from shore.

It wouldn’t have taken much for the mermaid to drown him either. “Why the hell did you yank me under like that?”

She cocked her head to the side, blinking slowly. “I had to get your attention.”

“You could’ve drowned me!”

“Could’ve. But I didn’t.”

He slapped the water. “Dammit. That’s not funny!”

Confusion, then concern pinched her brow. “I’m not laughing. And I wasn’t trying to drown you either.”

---