The Luna's Journey

Chapter 12

Once we made it back to shore we let the other passengers exit the boat ahead of us, hoping that we would be able to catch the crew saying a little bit more but we couldn't hear anything over the noise everyone was making. Annie and I climbed out of the boat first followed by Troy.

"Ye sure you're feeling okay Miss?" The captain asked us.

"Yes, yes perfectly fine, just a little damp." Annie gave him a sweet smile. "Thank you again so much for jumping in and saving me."

"Oh it was no problem at all miss." He said blushing. "Thank you guys for choosing us for your trip, tell your friends."

"Friends? A scallywag like him hasn't got any friends." I looked up and saw that the voice belong to the diver I had drooled over, I nudged Annie slightly to let her know he was a person of interest.

"You know these people Waters?" Captain Sparrow asked him confused.

"Oh yes, him and I go way back, don't we?" Waters smirked at Troy and I felt myself start to panic, I didn't know who this guy was or what his angle was, what if he gave us away?

Troy chuckled nervously at him, "Just my luck, I go on vacation and I run into the likes of you."

"Hi, I'm NaN, Andrew's wife." Annie quickly waved drawing the attention away from the tension that was obviously between the two gentlemen.

A quick flash of confusion swept across Waters face before he quickly recovered and smiled. "A wife huh? Who knew you would be able to find someone to marry you." He said laughing but I could feel my temper start to increase as he insulted Troy and now Annie.

"So uh, how do you two know each other again?" The Captain asked again suspiciously.

"Andrew here used to be a diver like me, if you know what I mean." Waters answered him quietly and I controlled my face to not look as shocked as I felt. Something was going on here, Troy would never be a diver like these people were.

"Oh." The Captain's face brightened and he turned his attention back on Troy. "You did eh? Out on the West Coast then? Did you dive with Frank and his crew?"

"Yes that's right." Troy agreed with him. I was so confused, I had no idea who this Frank person was or Waters or what was going on.

"We had some good times, how is ol'e Frank nowadays? I heard he had cancer." Waters asked seeming to be genuinely interested.

"He passed about two months ago." Troy answered sadly.

"Shoot. I'm sorry to hear that, he was a good Captain." Captain Sparrow said scuffing the toe of his boot against the deck of the boat. "He was the only one of us that got close to catching one, he had a little one in his nets, almost had him pulled onto the boat when the bigger one came and rescued it." He clucked his tongue in disgust. "Frank got him back though, shot the monstrosity right thru the heart with that harpoon, it's a shame the others got there and carried the body away before they could get it."

I looked over see Annie's ashen face, then to Troy, I could see that his eyes were turning black and he squeezed them shut.

"Yes, such a tragedy." He said thru clenched teeth, it was then that it clicked with me. The story Captain Sparrow was talking about, the Mer that had been killed was Troy's brother Andrew. It had been Andrew's bonding day which was a huge celebration in the Mer community, a few of the children had wandered off unbeknownst to the adults and had gotten caught in some fisherman net's, apparently it had been this Frank's nets.

"Well I would love to go get some dry clothes." Annie said interrupting the silence. "Captain, thank you so much for the wonderful trip, we all thoroughly enjoyed it."