Take me to the Deepest Blue
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Nick!”

The run left Louise panting. They had searched for Narya all over the resort with no luck, and he hadn’t spoken to her since they left the dock. “They can’t be far. Pete said the lab was right around here.”

To her left, she heard a rustling of footsteps, and a figure emerged from the bush a few meters from where they stood. It was Narya, frantically running towards the open sea.

Nick shouted her name. She had her back to them, her long, wavy hair dancing in the wind as her legs raced forward. Without turning back, she dove into the water and vanished among the rolling waves.

As they chased after her, they saw Pete running in the same direction, with Mike lagging behind, struggling to catch up.

Before Louise could stop him, Nick dashed up to Pete and swung a punch at his face that landed him on his hands and knees.

“Damn it, Nick!” Blood streamed from his nose, and he tried to wipe it clean with his hands.

Nick wasn’t done.

“What the fuck did you do to her?”

All the fear he had bottled up, all the angst felt about protecting Narya, all of it was unleashed. His eyes were red-rimmed and blinded by fury. He pulled Pete up by his bloodied collar and punched him again. Still cocky, even in defeat, Pete let out a dry laugh.

“You have no idea . . . what we could achieve, Nick . . .” Pete labored to breathe in between his gasping words. His lips curled into a half-smile as he stared back at his pupil, believing he could be tempted with the prospect.

Nick eyed his teacher with an unreadable expression. His grip tightened and he heard Pete gasp for air. As he watched him squirm, Nick saw the greed that endorsed anything in the interest of fame and money.

“You’re sick,” Nick said. He loosened his grip on Pete’s collar and threw him back on the sand, disgusted by his ambition and reckless drive to succeed.

Mike ran up to them and appeared unsure of what to do, his hesitancy propelled by his innate cowardice. Only when he saw Nick back away from Pete, he ran to his friend and helped him up.

“Don’t tell me . . . that you haven’t thought about it,” Pete said. He wheezed audibly but managed to squeeze out his words.

He shrugged Mike’s hand away and stood by himself, undefeated, his eyes wild and confident. Narya’s bloodwork was still in his possession. Oh, the things he could do. His hands shook as he gesticulated dramatically. “Imagine the discovery of a brand new species.”

Nick didn’t answer right away. He silently held Pete’s gaze before he flinched.

“I admit that I thought about it.” There was guilt in his voice; he knew he wasn’t exempt from the battle between his conscience and their shared ambition.

“But I’d never do it, Pete.” With that, he stepped away from him, sickened by the future that Pete envisioned for them.

Pete scoffed loudly and kicked the sand under his feet, inadvertently getting some into Mike’s eyes. “Sorry.”

And as if remembering her only now, he turned to Louise and winked. “How about you, sweetheart?”

“Fuck off, Pete.” She scowled at Pete, wishing that Nick had thrown a third punch on that arrogant face.

Nick and Louise spent the afternoon in silence, and he acted as though she were invisible. She might have deserved the silent treatment but she hated being ignored; still, she swallowed her pride and tagged behind him. After leaving Pete and Mike, they sat quietly in the lounge. She sipped on a mojito while Nick buried his head in his hands. It frightened her to see him like this, eerily reminiscent of the week Katie died. He didn’t speak, nor did he eat anything, but he drowned himself in anger and unresolved frustrations.

He followed Louise’s gaze to Craig standing nearby at the bar. His left eye was bruised, and there was a small cut near the corner of his bottom lip.

“What happened to you?” Louise asked.

“I’m really sorry about what happened,” Craig said.

He didn’t look the part of the culprit, but Nick felt that he also deserved a punch. He closed his fist and tried to resist the urge to take a swing.

“So what happened?” Louise asked again.

Craig kept his head down as he told them without skimping on any details.

When they got back to their rooms, Nick rested on the couch. Louise sat on his bed, watching his chest rise and fall until he fell into a deep sleep. Listening to Craig’s recounting what happened in the underground lab had taken a toll on him. It only confirmed what they both already knew: Pete was both an asshole and a creep, and it brought to light Narya’s identity as a mermaid and that Pete had her blood sample in his possession. No one knew what Pete and Mike had in mind. Louise could only guess they’d be sending it to a top-secret lab wherever there was advanced enough equipment to analyze the specimen extracted from a live mermaid. Holy shit. Louise envisioned Narya in her mermaid form and shook her head in disbelief..

When she opened her eyes and realized that she too had fallen asleep, she was alone in his room. She jumped out of bed and started for the door.

Outside, the air was cooler, and she felt the ocean breeze on her bare shoulders and legs. The skies darkened, harmoniously blending the vividness of purple and orange to create the perfect sunset. From a distance, she spotted a lone figure walking toward the beach. She ran as fast as she could until she was able to make out his silhouette, the contour of his diving suit, and the oxygen tank that he slung across his shoulders.

“Nick!” She shouted from where she stood.

Unsure if he heard her, she sprinted ahead, but before she could reach him, she heard a loud splash, and he was nowhere to be seen. She felt an urge to run back to her room to gear up and follow him into the water. There was something that made her resist—a sharp reminder that this was how Nick dealt with his demons. He needed to do this alone.

She didn’t know how long she stayed where she was, but by the time he came out, the stars dotted the clear evening sky. She sighed in relief as she watched him walk sluggishly toward her.

“Did you replace her?” she asked, knowing it was a stupid question by the sullen look on his face. But she had to say something—anything to alleviate the deafening silence.

They traipsed silently back to their rooms.

The next morning when they went down for breakfast, the dining area was eerily quiet, except for the sound of glasses clinking as the waiters poured freshly mixed juices at the tables. Craig was nowhere to be seen, his absence in no way missed. Mike and Pete sat at a table in the corner of the restaurant, conversing in hushed tones.

When the two men saw them enter the room, they acted as though nothing had happened and greeted them with a smile. Nick took a piece of bread from the breakfast table then walked outside.

Seeing the lavish breakfast bowls that were displayed on the table, Louise realized she had skipped dinner and was, in fact, famished. She lingered behind, devouring two big plates of breakfast food.

“Anything planned for today?” Pete sat crossed-legged, his eyes smiling as he waited for a snappy comeback from Louise.

Sometimes, she wondered if this actually excited him. Sick sadistic bastard.

“Yeah.” She grabbed a piece of watermelon and took a large bite before shooting him a warning glare to back off. “Your funeral.”

Louise stared at the fins Nick carried under his arms. His gaze was fixed on the open sea. He hadn’t said a word to her since that morning, and she had grown tired of the silent treatment.

“Are you going back in?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you later.” Nick tried to smile with a tremendous amount of effort.

She nodded and tried to be as supportive as she could be by staying out of his way.

“Sure, I’ll see you in a bit.” She stood behind him and watched him put on his diving mask, adjusting it tightly around his head.

He did a quick check of his equipment and tightened the diving cylinder on his back. As she’d seen him do hundreds of times before, he stretched his shoulders in a circular motion and tilted his neck slightly. As depressing as the circumstances were, she actually enjoyed seeing him returning to his old, diving self.

She had three transitions left and was visibly shaken when she got back underwater. At first, the surrounding fishes skittered away, obviously affected by her darkened mood. Her energy seemed to have set off alarms wherever she swam, and she felt like an outcast as she swam deeper and deeper, anxious to replace another mermaid, anyone who could soothe her with the familiarity she craved. She was so close to being exposed, although she couldn’t know for sure what Pete had planned for her. She tried not to think about the details, and focused on where she was going. She needed reassurance.

As she anticipated being reunited with the community underwater, she found her thoughts constantly drifting back to Nick. But how could she resurface now, after what she had been through? But she didn’t want to be exiled from the world up there—not just yet. And she couldn’t possibly go home. Her community would know something horrible had happened and they’d collectively force it out of her, and she would never see land again. She decided to remain exactly where she was until she figured out what to do, but she also needed rest. She gingerly scanned the area around her and decided to venture into an unexplored cavernous area, where only lone fishes roamed.

He was unfamiliar with the area and didn’t want to risk getting lost, so he chose to stay close to the shore. For once, he cherished the thought of being alive.

He couldn’t really justify what he was doing. He only knew that he needed to see her again. She couldn’t have gone far either. What did he expect out of this? Maybe seeing her underwater in her true form would be a wake-up call. They were from different worlds, and surely a relationship so complicated as theirs could never really flourish.

He swam until he was low on oxygen and turned back. Passing a cavernous area, the water became murkier, and he felt disoriented. He’d have to resurface to see how far he was from shore.

As he began to make his way up, he sensed a large being looming above him. A great white shark made its way toward him, its presence non-menacing and triggering no sense of alarm. The shark paused midway and they stared at each other as they as they floated in the deep blue. The shark turned, and Nick saw the distinctive scar on its pectoral fin. Grey.

Elated to have recognized the shark, he was convinced now that Narya couldn’t be too far away. He swam beside Grey then reached out and latched on to his fin, instinctively knowing the shark would bring him back to shore.

As they neared the coral reefs, he let go of Grey’s fin. He swam faster now, anxious to refill his oxygen tank and to devise a plan to replace Narya.

Louise sat on the sand wearing a wide-brimmed hat that shielded half her face. He was still angry with her, but he knew he’d need her for his plan. He took off his fins and mask and settled down beside her.

“I need your help,” he said, keeping his eyes on the horizon.

“Of course,” she said. “Anything.” Her guilt ate away at her.

She had never been so agreeable, and this new side of Louise made him chuckle softly. Still smiling, he turned to face her. His reaction had obviously spooked her, and she stared at him, unsure of what was so funny.

“Did you bring your Bluetooth speaker?” he asked.