Of Poseidon 02: Of Triton

pulse hits me like a physical blow. It saturates the water around me, choking off my chance for escape. It’s so strong, so close. Too close. In fact, because of my Half-Breed status, if I can sense anyone, they’re too close. If a pulse is this strong, they’re way too close.
    The scream, loud and terrified and desperate, comes from the direction of the pulse. I can tell it’s a female’s scream. A female Syrena.
    I already know it’s something I can’t turn away from. I’m cursed with proximity. Close enough to help, too close to escape with a clean conscience. “Goliath. Take me toward that sound. Hurry.”
    He swoops down. I grasp his fin. The fact that I’m being chauffeured by a whale is not entirely lost on me, but whoever has been screaming does it again and I decide to be impressed by this phenomenon later. Goliath seems to sense the urgency; we glide through the water faster than I realized he could travel. It helps that each swipe of his fin pushes us about three school buses ahead at a time.
    But even at this speed, we’re too late. The pulse disappears as quickly as it came. Is she dead? Please no, please no, please no. I don’t even know this person, but I do recognize the sick feeling swirling in my stomach. It’s the same feeling I got when I realized that Chloe had been attacked by a shark. It’s the feeling I got when I knew she was dead.
    Then I see it. The belly of a boat bobbing in the water ahead of us. A boat. Humans. The relief lasts for only a second. Sharks were not the worse-case scenario after all. Yes, sharks are an immediate threat and dangerous and deadly. But shark attacks only impact the person being attacked. They might maim, they might kill, and it would be sad and horrible. But when it’s over, it’s over. The shark leaves. Humans, if they capture a Syrena, will keep coming and coming until they harvest every inch of Syrena territory.
    A human attack impacts all Syrena.
    “Let’s go up, Goliath. But not all the way. You stay down here.” It’s silly for me to whisper, but it helps me feel stealthier.
    Goliath eases me upward and I quietly break the surface, allowing only my eyes to peek over the waves. I hate what I see.
    A young Syrena female, maybe nine or ten years old as far as I can tell, writhes in a net by the side of the boat. Two men. They could be twins with their matching camouflage overalls, sunburned faces, and curly hair escaping in all directions from under their sports caps. Except that one has gray hair and the other has black. Probably father and son.
    Dad and Junior are frantically pulling the rope to bring her in, seemingly taken aback by her screams. I’m not sure they realize what they’ve caught—maybe they mistook her for a human and thought they were saving her. Which could work to her advantage, if she were to calm down and think about it. But she’s too panicked to change into human form. Even now, she uses what little water the net soaked up to try to Blend. Her body looks like a puzzle of net and skin and fin and long sopping black hair. It’s unsettling to watch.
    Especially because it’s much too late to hide what she is. Even now, the older fisherman begins to realize their fantastic luck, though the disbelief is still fresh on his face. “A mermaid…” It sounds more like a question than a statement. “Look, Don, it’s a real live mermaid!”
    The one called Don is so dumbfounded that he forgets to hold on to the rope. His new shiny mermaid splashes back into the water entangled in fear and net.
    I decide that’s the best chance I’m going to get. I duck under and call for Goliath. “Take me to the boat!”
    When the girl sees me—another human, in her eyes—she screams again and forgets how close she was to freeing herself from the suffocating grid that is the net. Goliath stops us a few feet under her and I hold up my hands.
    “It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’ll help you. I’m … I’m Syrena, too.” Oh, Galen is going to kill me.
    My confession is enough to halt her exertions. Her eyes just might pop out of her pretty little face. She readjusts quickly though, tearing her glare from me to concentrate on the task at hand. “No, you’re not!” she says, tugging at the rope too erratically to make progress. “You’re just tricking me. Tricky humans.” But she pauses again, studies the water between us. I’m about to ask if she can sense me like I can sense her.
    All at once, the net is jerked back