“This isn’t your decision to make.”
“You’re going to kill a teenage girl!”
“She’s a mermaid, Reeves. There’s a difference.”
“There’s not!”
The words burst from Reeves’ mouth with such volume that Anderson leaned out the jet door to check on them.
For a long moment, he and Miller stared at each other.
Miller’s lip curled. “And you wonder why you were demoted.”
“Sir—”
“Go home.” Miller pointed eastwards, as though indicating all the way back to mainland USA. “I don’t want to see your face here again.”
Reeves trembled from anger. He clamped his jaw shut, afraid of what might come out if he opened it again.
He watched the officer climb into the jet. Anderson cast him a look of mingled apology and exasperation before the door slammed.
Reeves backed away as the ground crew jumped into action around him.
He couldn’t let this happen. Miller’s words about the mermaid being a former human settled uneasily over him. It drove home exactly what Reeves had been struggling to comprehend all along. The value of a mermaid’s life was no less than the value of a human’s. They were at war like nations around the world had been throughout history—and like all of those wars, there were innocent civilians to protect on both sides.
He had to get to Eriana Kwai before Miller did.
There wasn’t a proper airport, however. Miller and the team must have been going to Seattle first. Would they take one of the big choppers from there? Would they pick up the President, or Secretary of State, or anyone else arriving from the White House? Dammit, why was he so out of the loop?
The only way Reeves could get to Eriana Kwai first was if he went straight there in a helicopter.
He scanned the airfield desperately. How far was Eriana Kwai? 750 miles? He’d never be able to get there in something standard. He needed something long-range.
Then his eyes landed on her, waiting on the flightline in all her glory: the LM-80 Cormorant.
Reeves shifted his weight from foot to foot.
Miller hadn’t officially relieved him of command. He’d only yelled at him a bit.
He’d surely be sent home for real after this—but he could deal with those repercussions and overly supportive but secretly disappointed parents later.
Right now, he needed access to that helicopter.
He pulled out his phone. It rang twice.
“Bagh. I need a favour.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - Lysi
Queen Evagore
The queen who had been missing for so long was here in front of me. Dione and her council, Anthias, Spio, and I remained motionless, staring at her.
We’d spent so long searching, and still, I could not get over the disbelief at having found her. In the back of my mind I supposed I had never expected it to happen.
Or maybe I couldn’t yet process the idea of living under any power other than Adaro.
“Is he really dead?” Queen Evagore whispered.
