“I need a break,” I say. I feel a tickle at my nose, and when I scratch it I find blood on my fingers.
Ghost looks at it and is surprised. “The others do not bleed.”
“Is it hurting her?” my mother says. She’s up on her feet, feeling my forehead.
“It appears so,” he responds, though it doesn’t seem to bother him.
Dinner for the Alpha is fish, pulled right out of the Atlantic Ocean, right near the shipping lanes. I mention how super filthy the Coney Island waters are, and I’m assured by an older Sirena woman that the fish were caught and brought back from many miles away. Luckily, we don’t have to risk it. Terrance brings us sandwiches from the Red Cross volunteers. He also brings Fathom and Arcade. My heart sinks when I see he is holding her hand.
“Will someone tell me what happened out there?” my mother asks.
Ghost sits down with a huge, flopping fish and takes a massive bite out of it. I nearly throw up, but I want to hear this story.
“Certain members of the Rusalka began to complain of headaches. There were those who thought they were trying to get out of their work. They’re barely intelligent. So much of what they said was dismissed, but my grandfather Tarooh agreed to examine a few.
“He discovered that their minds were overactive, filled with energy that was making them ill, so he built them the gauntlets to ease the pain.”
“It had a side effect,” Fathom explains.
“They learned they could manipulate the water,” my mother cries.
“They heard the Voice of the Great Abyss. It was seen as a blessing. Those who wore the gauntlet could create houses, temples, arenas for sport. They could steer fish to us, eliminating the need for hunting parties and the endless concerns about starvation. No longer did the Alpha have to be nomadic. We could build a permanent home for all of us. Palaces rose from the sand and stones at the bottom of the ocean. It was a paradise, and we owed it all to our labor class, the Rusalka.”
“They were slaves,” I say.
“No, not slaves, just lowest in our class system.”
“Let me finish the story for you,” I say, suddenly incensed. “The Alpha treated the Rusalka like crap for a thousand years, and when suddenly they recognized their own usefulness, instead of making things better for them, you fought back, right?”
My mother clears her throat. “Lyric—”
“But that’s what happened, right? And when you refused to give them their freedom, they took it, correct?”
“You think you know something you do not,” Arcade growls.
“No, let’s not do the conversation where you tell me about your people and their ways and honor,” I say. “I think I’ve had enough of honor today.”
I stomp off across the sand and run down the shoreline. There is so much activity: people cooking dinner, others training for fights, children leaping into the water and playing with one another. There’s nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide, but I keep going for what feels like a mile, until the camp thins out. I sit down at the water’s edge, letting it seep up to my feet, and I bury my face in my hands and cry.
“You don’t know everything,” Luna says, suddenly there. She must have followed me.
“What am I missing?”
“The Rusalka asked for better treatment. They wanted to be educated, choose their own mates. They wanted to change laws that were hundreds of years old.”
“And of course your people told them where they could stick it.”
Luna looks at me, confused. “Stick it?”
“You told them no.”
Luna shakes her head. “No, the nation told them yes. Most of the people agreed that change was necessary.”
“Then what happened?”
“I happened,” she says. “I started having terrible pain in my mind, so the doctors put a gauntlet on me, and I heard the Voice too. Ghost was next, then Thrill, then Arcade. It was a miracle, but the Rusalka didn’t see it that way. They worried that if everyone was developing the ability, their demands would fall on deaf ears, and instead of waiting to see how it would all play out, they attacked. They killed Fathom’s mother, right in front of him. Millions died in a matter of days. We fled, hid in every corner of the ocean we could find, but they always found us to continue the slaughter.”
“That’s horrible. I didn’t know.”
“We are not slave traders, Lyric Walker.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Your hostility is understandable. If Ghost was holding the hand of someone else, it would give me a great deal of pain as well.”
“It’s that obvious?” I ask.
She nods. “You dwell too much on what is happening now, Lyric Walker. Today he holds her hand, perhaps it’s for love and perhaps it’s from obligation. Tomorrow? Who knows. But you will never have him if you die when the Rusalka attack. Direct your attention to the battle, learn to listen to the Voice, let your Alpha blood direct your actions.”