A few times she jerked, her mouth opening, shrieking like a banshee. The first time it happened I heard Ajax fall to the floor, his abilities forcing him to experience most of the agony along with her.
It wasn’t until we removed the last of her clothing that I realized why she had been so adamant.
Her body was covered in scars. Several large ones graced her torso, a bullet wound, slashes from a...knife. Her forearms had dozens of small nicks, no doubt caused by self-harm. There was a surgical scar that ran down her right thigh, not too far from where my scale sat, forever embedded in her skin.
I couldn’t take it, and neither could the others as I heard several swear words and something being smashed to pieces. It was Theseus who broke away and wrapped her up in a blanket. His eyes were as red and full of tears as mine, his hands shaking as he made quick work of wrapping Atalanta up.
Unable to stand her being out of my reach for a moment, I scooped her back into my arms, rocking her back and forth. The others huddled around me, rubbing her blanketed body, stroking her hair, hoping to give her as much warmth as possible.
I begged, I begged whatever gods or god that she made it through the change. She had a 30% chance of survival, perhaps even lower because of the circumstances. If she didn’t survive, I knew I would be haunted by last thing I said to her for the rest of my unnaturally long life. Because I knew that if it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t have been out on that boat. I would have warned her in time. She would have believed me.
“Someone needs to go get her father.” Percy whispered, his tone urgent but soft, yet no one moved an inch to do so.
If my stomach could sink any further. I hadn’t even thought of her dad, too worried about the flickering life in my hands. He would be a goner as well if we left him in this storm. If the boat hadn’t already capsized, it would soon.
Atalanta let out another agonized scream, her body arching upwards, eyes wide and skin as pale as its natural mocha color could be. Ajax slumped again, hand clutching his chest, tears streamed down his cheeks. He focused his multi colored eyes hard on her face.
I reached out to touch his shoulder. “Ajax, maybe you should.”
“No. Please. I can’t.” He shook his head.
Percy spoke up, trying to back me up. “She’ll be in even more pain when she comes out of it and finds out her father is gone too. So please. You know she wouldn’t want you to go through this with her.”
He looked at Percy, looked at all of us desperately.
Hip was the brave one, though. He stood up and tugged at Ajax’s arm. “Come on, big guy. We will be more useful to her if we went and saved her father.”
At a hurried pace, Hip pulled Ajax out of the cabin, rushing back into the storm to go rescue Atalanta’s father.
We sat in semi silence, the three of us huddled closely to Atalanta as she infrequently spasmed from the pain of the change. Thesis continuing to hum to her, keeping her calm. But she was incoherent, I doubted she concisely heard his song.
“Did I do the right thing? Do you think I could have saved her any other way?”
Percy looked up from Atalanta to meet my eyes, his expression somber. “I don’t know.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Theseus
The room was quiet. Well, it was always quiet to me, but I didn’t see anyone speaking as we all huddled close to Jason as he held Atalanta. For the moment, her writhing had calmed down as she seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep. I continued to hum anyway, pushing energy into the tune with the hope that it would keep her calm.
It was odd. I knew I often hummed to myself as I worked, but it was moments like this, when it was on purpose and I could feel the vibration in my throat, not hearing the sound, that it felt weird.
I stroked the top of her head and then paused. Holding the strands between my fingers, I couldn’t help but notice that the once coarse strands were becoming softer, the tight curls almost turning to loose loops before my very eyes.
I didn’t know that the physical changes from Jason’s scale would go that far. I couldn’t help but think that I was a little upset about it; the changes seeing it fit to make everything more attractive to lure in prey more easily.
Merfolk hadn’t been the cold-blooded creatures that hunted humans in generations, and I liked her hair the way it had been.
We sat there inside the rundown cabin, Jason, Percy and I close together. Not speaking to each other. Every once in a while, she would wake up, her eyes wide, mouth open in a scream I could not hear. Although I could not hear them physically, I felt those shrieks go right to my heart.
When it happened, my hums would turn into full-on song as I used my gift to try and soothe her back to sleep.
Eventually, perhaps hours later, Hip returned. He told us how he and Ajax found the father alive. The boat hadn’t capsized, but her father was in rough shape. Evidently, he had hit his head pretty hard while the boat was tossed about.
The two of them navigated the boat back to the dock and got some of the dock workers, some of our people, to help Hip and Ajax take him to the nearest hospital.
Ajax was with them now.
Hip came closer after telling us everything, crouching down where the three of us sat. He gently stroked her cheek with the back of his hand.
‘How is she?’
‘She’s,’ Jason began, but his lips stayed open not forming words for a few moments, ‘she’s past the worst of it, I think. I don’t know too much about the transition outside of what my parents told me.’
Hips brows shot up. ’Is that what’s happening? She’s becoming one of us? I didn’t know we could do that.’
‘She will be a little different from born Mer, but yes,’ Percy said.
‘It’s not something we often do. Normally only to those we hope to have as prospective mates. My father was turned by my mother.’ Jason added.
I watched as Jason snuggled Atalanta close to him and kissed the top of her head. There was a small part of me that was jealous, seeing his open affection for her. This jealousy wasn’t born from insecurities, but more from my own need to be that close to her. To have her in my arms. I settled for reaching out and entangling my fingers in her limp ones.
‘Why not more often?’ Hip asked. ‘From what I’ve heard, our numbers are down.’
Percy nodded. ‘our female to male ratio is 1 to 6. The elders believe that turning people willy-nilly could expose us.’
“What Percival is neglecting to mention is that the survival rate is extremely low. Even more so for women. Most don’t want to needlessly kill innocent people just to increase our numbers.” I snorted.
The three of them looked at me. Hip looked a bit scared while Jason and Percy twinned a deadpanned annoyed look.
“Not helping, Theseus.” Percy signed.
I shrugged. "It’s true.”
It was still a bit of a shock that he knew sign language. In the years since my accident, he had never once spoken to me this way. It was almost insulting that he was doing it now.
I ignored him and looked directly at Hip. “She’s doing really well. So, unless she takes a turn for the worse, I think she’ll be one of the ones to make it through.”
Looking relieved, Hip nodded. Instead of sitting down with us he moved throughout the cabin. He was as curious as the rest of us. I hadn’t seen past the little living space of the cabin, but what I saw was bare and run down.
I watched as Hip went back and forth between the back rooms and where we sat, checking in on Atalanta before going back to snooping. The others had gone back to being eerily quiet, their mouths in perpetual frowns.