Page 15 of Oceansong
Propping himself on his hands, elbows fully extended, the man gawked at her. A lengthy, maroon fishtail flicked up behind him.
Angie staggered back, agape. The merman hadn’t moved. He appeared unarmed, staring at her in return with an equal expression of shock.
She didn’t know what to do. Images and words flashed through her mind. Of the dead merman from earlier. The diver claimed that he had lunged at her. Then, listening to her colleagues on theOdyssey’s screams on the radio as the mer massacred the entire crew. They were all dead.
To her, there was no question about it. The mer were dangerous.
She drew her gun, aiming the barrel between his eyes. Her index finger trembled while inching closer to the trigger.
The merman held up his hands, tail curling to support his lower body.
“Wait, stop!”
Seven
“Y-you talk?” Angie sputtered, heraim unwavering. He spoke, and she understood him. Her mouth slackened.
His eyes caught hers, and he lowered one hand. Angie stepped back, muscles twitching.
If she had to shoot, she prayed her aim would be true.
Nodding, he lowered the other hand, his body still tensed. He hadn’t blinked once, long, thick eyelashes wide open and framing bright topaz-brown irises.
Angie hadn’t blinked either. Her eyes were starting to dry, but she couldn’t blink and have him flee, or strike at her.
“I understand you,” she whispered.
“Evidently I’ve learned to speak your language, landwalker.”
“B-but how?”
“On second thought, I could be making nonsensical noises you happen to understand.” The merman’s upper lip curled into a disdained sneer. “Did you think I communicated with bioluminescence, like jellyfish? Or perhaps I use echolocation like a whale. We cannot possibly be intelligent enough to form words!”
Angie held her body taut, containing the fury threatening to burst forth. “I get the point. You don’t have to be an ass.”
His tail relaxed, resting beside him. Luminous maroon flickered beneath the sun, brightening each scale down to the silver tips of his dorsal fin. “Why haven’t you killed me yet? You’ve killed several of us already.” His silvery voice took on a hard, jagged edge.
“What?” Angie’s tone became as tight as her eyebrows she’d drawn together. Her legs ached from keeping them in a wide base with knees bent, and she straightened.
Her brain hadn’t processed the fact that she was staring a merman in the eye, and that they were communicating.
If this passed for communication.
The merfolk were stealing food, starving her fellow villagers. They weren’t the cutesy, pretty creatures she grew up thinking they were.
She had been so wrong about them.
“You just killed two of ours!” His fingers gripped hard at the sand.
“I didn’t kill any of your filthy kind.” Angie spat the words through gritted teeth.
Shoot him now and think later, Angie.
Her finger wouldn’t cooperate.
“Perhaps not you, but one of your two-legged kind.” He sneered at the last word, voice mocking.
Maybe it was because he hadn’t tried to assault her. Then again, he appeared unarmed, and she had a gun pointed at his face. Her thoughts were a dark cloud in her mind, jumbled like tangled knots in her brain.
