Page 106 of Oceansong
“How do you know what this Kaden will and will not do? You’ve known him for what, three months? Two months? I don’t even know when you met him.” Bàba lifted his head, and an angry flush colored his face and neck.
Bàba’s desk phone rang, vibrating on the desk. The sudden sound broke the silence, and he picked it up, listening to whoever was on the other end. “Okay, give me ten minutes.” He dropped the receiver with aclang, hanging up the phone. “Trouble at the warehouse. Some supplies are missing. Now we have a thief. But we’re not done yet. Both of you will come with me.” He motioned for them to follow, and they did. Bàba continued once he had locked up his office. “Angela, I don’t think we can trust you to be around here.”
Her fingers gripped hard at her cargo pants, bunching them up.
“You’re fired.”
Two words were all it took for the blood to drain from Angie’s face and a ghostly fist to punch the wind out of her. The air around her turned to piercing ice, ripping and numbing her skin.
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I need these last thirty hours or they won’t let me start my grad program. These last couple hundred so I have enough to pay off my entire tuition. I have a few weeks left, there’s no way I can find another job and make that much that fast. You know that. Can’t you—”
“You put us in danger.” Bàba’s authoritative tones carried over her protests. “Our people Nick sent to check on you reported that you told the mer-prince about us. Meeting him here, at the docks. Who knows what he’s learned while in our docks? What you told him of our plans?” The vein in his forehead engorged. “And you broke my trust. You knew where the fish were, and you kept it to yourself.” Bàba shook his head. “I expected better from you.”
Angie drew her head back, speechless. In the course of hours, she lost the man she loved, her job, and her family’s trust. To her, it was everything.
He continued. “Actions have consequences. You know that. And we were about to finish this once and for all. We know where their palace is.”
“How do you know that?” she whispered, fearing the answer even as she knew what it would be.
“Divers used the mer’s magic to investigate. Saw their palace. Reported it back to us,” Nick answered for Bàba.
Angie’s feet went cold.
“Oh, come back, and you’ll never see Rosie again, and I’ll make sure of it.” Nick’s self-satisfied smirk returned; his glare fixed on her.
“No, you can’t.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Mia won’t allow it.”
“You’re concerned about what Mia will think? She’ll do what I ask her, and she’ll do anything to keep her family together. Whose side do you think she’ll be on? Her deceitful sister who bailed out on the family as soon as she was old enough, and can’t even be bothered to return her calls the last few days while she worried sick about you?” He put his hands on his hips, fingers tightening and forearm muscles bulging. “Or her husband, who’s been by her side this entire time?”
Angie bit back tears. “She wouldn’t,” she said, trying to convince herself more than Nick.
“And I will not allow it. Nick, she’s been punished. Leave her alone.” Bàba’s authoritative tone shut Nick up.
Nick grumbled, “Yes, sir.”
Bàba turned back to Angie, and his angry glare pierced into the corners of her heart. “They are starving us. Killing our men and women. Killed themayor’sson, killed more innocents with that reckless wave they caused, and you ran into their arms?”
Not theirs. Just his. Kaden’s. Yet protesting it would make no difference, she was sure.
The slow, controlled inflection when he spoke struck Angie with dread. Bàba walked away silently, leaving her alone with Nick.
Nick folded his arms and puffed out his chest.
Angie straightened up. “What the hell is wrong with you? Threatening to never let me see Rosie again? Not telling my dad the truth about why you wanted to come with him and look for me? How about stealing that mermaid’s magic, and that your buddies shot her husband right in front of her? Also, you cheated on my sister, you piece of shit.”
“It wasn’t what it looked like with that fishy chick. And I’ll talk to Dad when he’s calmed down.” He waved her off.
“You’re not talking your way out of this.”
“Yeah, I will. And what does it matter to you, now that you can’t go anywhere near those goddamned fish, anyway?” Nick’s foot made a rhythmic tap, tap, tap against the concrete. “I could ask the same about you. The mer have killed men and women I call lifelong friends. They killed Eva, who wasyourfriend, and left her daughter an orphan. Still, you went, what, gallivanting around with one of them?” He closed the distance between them, his upper lip curled and exposing his top row of teeth. She held firm in her stance, even as his next words sent a sickening wave through her limbs. “But it doesn’t matter now. We’ll hit them right where they live, and show them who the dominant species is on this Earth.”
Forty-Two
After sending her paystubs toher personal email for her records, Angie moved her mouse cursor to the “Off” button on the public-use work computer. She didn’t click it yet.
“You’re fired.”
It was surreal, and she covered her face with her hands.
