Page 20 of Oceansong
He pushed himself onto the seashore. He was the same one from the other day. The merman clutched at his arm, falling to one side, breaths coming out in long, wheezing heaves. He curled up and tucked his slender tail underneath him, coiled like a muscular snake. Deep crimson scales glimmered beneath the emerging sun while the rainstorm passed. Angie eyed him up and down, chest heaving with worry. Rivulets of thick, red blood trickled down his biceps, forming a spider web around his elbow, and sliding toward his forearm.
She swallowed a gulp, eyes trailing to the gunshot wound at the front of his shoulder.
“Ugh.” The merman put a strong, rugged hand over the wound, applying pressure. The sharks lingered, but did not move too close to the shore.
She slipped off one boot and pulled off her long sock. “What are you doing—” His eyes were as wide as two shiny globes of Tiger’s Eye.
“Stopping the bleeding. I know the sock is wet, but you know, you live in the water. So it should be fine.” She tied the sock tight around his arm and made a knot. “Wait here.” The makeshift gauze would hold temporarily, but blood was starting to seep through the gray sock.
“Where are you going?”
“Getting something that will hold a little better!” she called back. After a quick look around to make sure she was in the clear, Angie ran to the nearest storehouse a five-minute walk away and grabbed a blanket, waterproof bandages, and gauze, and a packet of antiseptic. She could do the bare minimum, at least: patch him up, throw him back to the sea, and quell her guilty conscience that at least he hadn’t died a long, bloody death by her hand. When she returned, he was on his back, tail straight out, tapping his caudal fins on the ground in a staccato rhythm.
The two semicircular fins bordering his hips fluttered with the breeze, a dividing line between his fleshy upper half and scaly lower half.
“I don’t need your help.” Was the first thing he said when they made eye contact again. His shoulders were elevated and arms tensed in a defensive posture.
Was this merman an idiot? She gritted her teeth. “Oh?”
He gave no indication of catching onto the sarcasm lacing her tone.
“Yes, I’ll wait for the sharks to lose interest. Then I can make my way back home.” He rolled to his side, propping himself up with his good arm. “I’ve been cut by coral many times, bitten bykuiyuandshayuwith teeth like knives when I’ve accidentally entered their territory. I will survive and don’t need help from a landwalker.”
“Great for you. I’m assuming you’re talking about viperfish and sharks. Guns are a little different from them. Why come back when I threw the rock at you?” Angie tucked her chin. “You could have stayed out there, tried to survive by yourself.”
“I seized the opportunity. It was better than being torn apart by sharks,” he said, voice softening and eyes downcast. “But I will take my leave now.” He braced his tail as if he was about to launch himself into the sea.
“Uh, no you can’t. You have a giant hole in your shoulder, which I assume is going to affect your ability to swim. You’re bleeding profusely, and you’re shark bait. There’s more coming.” She pointed to the horizon, where two more fins had appeared. “Also, I want my sock back. Let me bandage up your shoulder. Then you can go back, and we can pretend we never saweach other, alright? So, we’ll both be happy.”
The merman cast his gaze over the water and pulled a long face. “Fine.”
She removed the sock and pressed a cotton ball to the wound. “Hold that there?” He did, and she returned her attention to her sock which was now soaked through with thick, dark blood. She wrinkled her nose and turned the sock inside out before bundling it into a ball and shoving it deep in her coat pocket.
Once, she thought of becoming a physician so she’d have an excuse to move out of Creston, but volunteering at a local hospital during her gap year changed her mind. Blood made her squeamish. The metallic smell, its odd viscosity, the way it wouldn’t stop coming out when skin was lacerated.
Her stomach roiled with nausea.
Throwing the blanket around herself to keep warm, she went to work on his arm and held her breath so she wouldn’t have to smell the blood. “Why the Hells did you try to drown me? That was you, right?”
“Yes, it was me, but I didn’t cause the waves to do that. Another merman did, and I was trying to pull you to the surface.”
She didn’t want to meet his eyes, as she dabbed antiseptic on the wound and plastered one bandage over it. He flinched under her touch.
“You could have let him drown me.”
His shoulder twitched when she dabbed alcohol on the wound. “There is no love lost between us, now that your people have started a war with mine. I hope I don’t come to regret what I did for you.”
“Makes the two of us.” She wrapped another layer of gauze over the bandage, finishing it with a waterproof wrapping. Then she sat back and cocooned herself in the blanket so her head poked out, bringing her knees to her chest. The warmth invited her to stay nestled in the blanket forever.
“Thank you.” He rolled his arm around. “The stinging is subsiding.”
“Why did you push me to the surface?” She steeled herself for his answer.
“I can sense you’re not out for our blood.”
“Mer can read minds?” Angie cocked an eyebrow. “I shot you. And I almost shot you before. In the face.”
“No. It is something about you, I suppose. I cannot describe it.” He sat upright, taking in a deep breath and rounding his broad chest.
