The Voice I Was Given.

Right and Wrong

        It took River a long time to get out of the cave in the morning. He was trapped by his pod, who had completely pinned him down overnight. True, it would be easy for him to just sit up and let them all fall to the ground, but he wanted to keep them sleeping. They were acting as though they hadn't had rest in weeks, which they probably hadn't due to their constant search for food. So, River slowly wiggled its way out of the pile and pulled himself out of the cave. River knew that he needed to find something more substantial than fish for his pod to eat, but there was almost no one out on the beach that morning. And there wasn't time to judge of someone was bad enough for him to prey upon. River needed to find food before the entire pod woke up. He didn't want them going off to look for him or go and try to attack the people at the beach by themselves.

Then, he saw it. About forty feet away from him was a full-sized great hammerhead. River knew that it was riskier pray, but he needed big prey if he was to feed all of them. He needed to get as close as he could to the hammerhead before attacking so that there was a better chance that he would have the upper hand. River moved slowly, taking time to be sure that he was always in the dead center of the hammerhead's blind spot. This was easier said than done, seeing as its blind spot was much smaller than any other preys'. There was only one occasion where River had been caught, and that had been almost the most terrifying moment in River's life, other than the dolphins. Thankfully for River, this hammerhead appeared to be blissfully unaware of his presence.

The struggle was sort lived, and River was soon pulling a dead shark along with him with only a single bite on his left hand. Though, River was pretty sure he snapped his tail too hard at some point, as his bullet wound was bleeding again. He wasn't sure how bad, though, since it was barely leaking past the seaweed that was plastered onto his scales. Then, he made his way back to the cave.

...

Hypatia's POV, third person

Hypatia lowered the binoculars that she had been looking through, unable to comprehend what she had just seen. Of course, Hypatia knew that River would be considered an apex predator here in the ocean, but to what it extent? She didn't know what she had expected. He could've killed her so easily if he had wanted to. The same hands she had seen delicately pluck the tips off of flowers just snapped the neck of another very deadly apex predator almost faster than their cameras could pick up. Hypatia came to the conclusion that if River had actually wanted to kill her the night before, he would've done it.

Grace wasn't thinking the same thing. "Tia, don't you get it? It was only a coincidence that he was here. He saw his rival and primal instincts kicked in. He wasn't trying to save you."

Hypatia had now taken to ignoring Grace when it came to the topic of River.

David, on the other hand, was completely fascinated by River and drank in every word of Hypatia's story. "Writing and sign language? He discovered ways to communicate with you? I would love to see this. Maybe we could approach him slowly..."

A thing that confused all of them is what happened to the pod that River had left without an alpha. Ever since River had fought that other male, they hadn't seen even a glimpse of the siren pod. They had their underwater drone follow behind River, and they nearly lost him with how fast he was going. David said that they were lucky that he was weighed down with his kill, or they would've lost him a long time ago. Hypatia had agreed to go and try to get close to River when he reached land, but she was honestly scared. She hadn't forgotten the expression that had been on River's face, how it was both empty of emotion and yet full of rage, and how terrified his roar had made her feel. Something she had tried to tell herself was that sirens were made to manipulate emotions and River could've easily been trying to make his opponent scared. But, as she thought about it, all of River's emotions seemed to be aimed towards her.