The Professor and the Siren

17. Mariana

Mariana

Orly's father was pacing the deck of the Undaunted when I ran up the gangplank. He had his phone to his ear but hung up the moment he saw me, "Mariana? Have you seen Orly?" It confirmed my worst fear right away, Orly had been taken somehow. Possibly by my very own colleagues.

I shook my head, "No... I'm worried sir. I think someone took him. He left the Yerseke hours ago!" Behind me I realized Anita and Neil had both followed me onto the Undaunted, Neil looking super uncomfortable to be there but with Anita holding onto his arm he had little choice.

"Do you know who took him?" his eyes darted briefly from my face to that of my friends behind me and then he raised a single dark eyebrow. I knew what he meant, did I think he'd been taken for what he was? Yes, absolutely.

I looked at Anita and Neil only a short moment and then repeated what Neil had told me he'd heard in the parking lot. "I think we both know why, but we need to figure out where right now."

Thomas McLaren turned to Neil and whether it was the fact that he was older, or simply that he looked so very authoritative, Neil hurried to answer every question. In the end we knew the direction the van had driven off in and that both Hybach and Ted had been in it. Not much else though Anita mentioned that she'd seen Hybach and Ted off whispering together a few times ever since last night.

A sick feeling in the pit of my stomach told me this was definitely my fault. I hadn't even remembered mentioning that I had thought I'd seen a merman that evening in Toni's. Everything after that, meeting Orly, finding out it was real, had overshadowed that. Not to mention the fact that it seemed hard to believe that my confused rambling would have been taken seriously in the first place.

I tried to think about where Hybach could have taken him, had I heard him mention a place somewhere other than the Yerseke? I knew he was an obsessive man, hard to work with and often secretive about half the things he was working on. Demanding data I sometimes didn't even understand what he wanted it for.

Had all this time Hybach been trying to prove the existence of merfolk? Had Ted been working with him? I knew Ted was only a subpar researcher, barely finishing his degree in marine biology. He was nice enough as a guy to hang out with but as a colleague it was sometimes annoying to work with him, lazy and far too intense.

"I think I have an idea," Anita murmured suddenly and we all turned to focus on her. "You know where they took my son?" Thomas demanded. The small woman shifted on her feet, eyed Neil with a fierce look for a moment before she nodded. "Hybach is a lech... But uh... I might have gotten drunk with him a few weeks ago."

Oh, I knew where this was headed. Anita was a terrible drunk, extremely easy to press her into doing anything and I felt bad for not realizing Hybach had gotten to her. "I don't know why they would take him or uh... why we're not calling the police? But he mentioned a warehouse where he likes to go for some of his bigger experiments. Something about tanks with water?"

"Not good," Thomas said, shaking his head. "I haven't got anyone nearby to help me retrieve him. My other son and his friend are a couple hours out." The older McLaren settled his dark eyes on me and the look told me he understood perfectly how I was feeling. "We can't wait that long."

He gestured Anita over to a laptop and pulled up a map of the town, "Can you point out the warehouse or is your info not that specific?" Anita frowned at the screen a while before nodding and pointing out a section of buildings. "There I think. I remembered he specifically said it was in empty area, as he liked the low traffic."

Now that Anita had let go of Neil I realized the guy had slowly been shuffling away, backing up toward the gangplank of the Undaunted. When he saw I was looking at him he raised his hands, "I told you guys what I know. I don't want to get involved with some kind of shady kidnapping and rescue. You guys are on your own!" Then he turned tail and ran.

Anita looked after him with a derisive curl to her lips, "Coward. So... Are we going in to rescue our man or not?" She turned to look at both Orly's father and me, hands on her hips. It actually made stern faced Thomas smirk for a moment, as tiny Anita was not what you'd call a bad ass warrior. Except she had the demeanor down pat.

"You need to stay here girl, in case someone shows up," he said to Anita. And she scoffed again, shaking her head, "Nu uh I'm betting I'm the only one with a gun license here." This time I felt my jaw drop, "Seriously Anita? You've got a gun of all things? Why?" I asked her even though I did feel a little grateful. A gun might be helpful in this case, not that I condoned violence of any kind but they'd already crossed the line by taking Orly.

If they took him for the reasons I thought they had... What were they doing to him right now? My brain was already conjuring up horrible images of vivisection, terrible experiments.

"A gun isn't going to help, I admire your pluck but no. We need to solve this quickly and decisively and we're not doing that by shooting people," Thomas said firmly. Then he demanded her phone, programmed in his number and that of his other son Matt and explained her how to coordinate things.

Anita was not happy to be sidelined but she was willing to man the phone and call in the cops on Thomas's signal. Then Thomas was guiding me down the gangplank, a black duffel tossed over one shoulder, urging me to his truck. "Come on Mariana, we'll rescue our boy."

I had no space to be scared or worried for myself, all I felt was this desperate rush to get to Orly. So I didn't hesitate a moment to get in and demand to know what his plan was.