Without waiting for an answer, I tossed the phone back to the crew on deck.
Eriana and I disappeared beneath the surface before they caught it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - Ben
Grouse and Cormorant
Reeves screeched into the airfield and leapt from his truck, leaving the keys in the ignition. Their fastest jet waited on the asphalt, a DH-70R Grouse. It was already running, the engine bellowing its war cry. He smelled the fuel, pungent and toxic on the fresh Alaskan air.
Officer Miller was striding towards it. Reeves sprinted to catch up.
“What do you want?” said Miller.
“Anderson told me my team’s dispatching—”
“Yes. Her team, not yours.”
“Yes, sir. But she said the mermaids want a peace treaty.”
“They do.”
“And you’re sending special ops?”
Miller stopped at the jet. He faced Reeves with crossed arms, as though bouncing the Grouse’s entrance.
“A mermaid has control of the serpent now. She killed the merman king.”
Killed?The merman king was dead? Reeves hardly dared to believe it.
“Who’s this mermaid, sir?”
“Don’t know. Some girl. Used to be from Eriana Kwai.”
“A girl? What, like a kid?”
“She sounded like a teenager. Who cares? She’s a mermaid now.”
Reeves rubbed a hand over his eyes, making sense of this. A mermaid, a former human, killed the merman king, and now she wanted a peace treaty.
“Incredible,” he whispered.
And yet, special ops was going. Why?
“So you’re going to sign the treaty?”
Miller placed a hand on the railing. “We need that serpent. There’s only one way to get it.”
“Wait—you’re going to kill the mermaid?”
“She won’t give it to us. Says she’s going to destroy it.”
Anderson and her team arrived. Reeves kept his glare on Miller as they climbed into the Grouse.
“Isn’t that a good thing if this mermaid wants to destroy it, not use it?” said Reeves.
“You want to destroy the most powerful weapon in the world?” said Miller.
“Sir, think about what it would mean to have power over it. You’ll spend your life with a target on your head, because once word gets out that it’s passed by blood—”
