Daughter Of The DEEP [Book 1]

11. Abyssal Eyes

I sigh with relief as I start to breathe again and turn off the water and step back to hide behind another crate.

"No, no, no," Kitty screams,

"We could take the front way out!" Earl yells.

"I don't think that's an option," I heard a mans voice as he enters the building. "You three are coming down to the station." I look round from my crate to see the police chief, I'm guessing anyway, and several other officers with hand cuffs.

But what had the bang been from. "Lir," I call through what steam's left rising in the sticky atmosphere.

"I'm ok," he says, "she just missed me."

"Where are you?" I call again.

"In here!" He yells from the crate I'm standing next to.

I pull open the hatch and look down on a rather soggy Lir. "Hey, how come you're dry?" He frowns. 

"I guess I just got lucky." I smile at him and grab his hand to help him out. Oops... I rubbed the moister off on my clothes and look towards one of the last crates. "He's in there." I point. "Once we've talked to the officer, we'll get him out."

"Actually, give me five minutes and I'll have the officer gone." Lir winks at me again.

So I did, but I walk straight for the crate and put my hand on it. It's a white tub, a lot like a freezer you get in food stores with a huge door on top rather than the side. I can feel the life inside it. Something's gills moving in cold water. I've the urge just to break it free, let the Merman go, my father or not, in case Lir wasn't as trustworthy as he's seemed. But I know this has to be seen through now.

"It's ok, I know what you are, and I'm going to get you back to the water. I promise." I whisper to the soul inside.

I turn to see Lir coming back to me and the police filing out with their prisoners. Lir smiles at me. "He said we should just go down to the station when we're ready to give our account of the story."

"That's great," I nod, "but, we can't mention this part..." I point at the box.

"No worries, I've given us the time to get our stories straight." He winks again, when would he ever stop winking. It made me blush too brightly to conceal it.

"Are you ready?" I ask, he just looks at me. "Ok," I put my hand on the latches that hold the crate from being easily opened from within and start to undo them. Lir helps me anxiously. As we get the last one unbolted the lid shoots up and open and when we look there is indeed a Merman within the crate. He has silky black hair that had been grown down to his chin and eyes of black, there's no reflection in them, only a void, dark and burning and intense.

He sits up and takes a gasp of real air, he'd probably been re-using what he could inside the almost air tight crate. There had been quite a thick seal on the door that I was amazed he'd battered open from within. He looks at me and smirks, his teeth sharp and pristine, his skin looks as if it hadn't seen the sun in a long while, I'll put it down to being stuck in that box for so long. I wonder, briefly, how long he'd been inside.

"Th-this is amazing!" Lir cheers.

I'm too busy staring at the Merman who's staring back at me. There's a look of danger around his eyes, a look Lir doesn't have, a look alluring but alarming. When I look at Lir I feel safe. When I look at these black voids staring out at me from another of, I guess, my own kind, I feel intimidated and on the edge of a knife point. If this stare was all it took to get my adrenaline pumping I hate to think what my father being mad at me would do if ever I found him... if this wasn't him. I really hoped not. He seems to young to be my dad.