The next morning, I was up at the crack of dawn—of course, before Jayson. I knew the guy wouldn't wake up before me, even if he set an alarm. Which I'm pretty sure he hadn't. In fact, I was already dressed and wrapping up my sprained ankle when he sat up in a daze. I looked sideways at him as I slid my right foot into my black work shoes.

"Thanks for waking me, Jay."

He grumbled, then flopped back over.

Oh no, not gonna happen, buddy.

I grabbed his comforter and yanked, pulling the thing completely off of him.

"Up. He's at the facility because of you, so you're coming with me every single morning."

Jay grabbed his pillow and pulled it over his head, grumbling.

"That's not going to work."

He didn't answer so I grinned and sat on his back, making the guy grunt.

"Nnn, get off, man. Yer heavyyyy."

"You gonna get up?"

"I'll meet you there in an hour."

"Nope."

"Thirty minutes."

"Nope."

"Dammit, Parker."

A smirk formed on my lips, but it was soon wiped away as I was flipped backward and abruptly covered by the heavy comforter, then Jayson... err.

"D-Don't sit on me."

Especially not there.

He was straddling my waist and doing things to me that shouldn't be happening. Not that he was doing it on purpose. It was all me, but still, it was happening.

"J-Jay, get off."

"Nope, you are just gonna have to dea—is something poking me?"

Ah!

"M-Morning wood. God! Get off."

He snickered but thankfully moved, sliding out of bed to head toward the shower. I stayed beneath the blanket until I heard the shower going, then quickly got myself up and into the kitchen. Since he'd gotten off quickly, I didn't have to wait long for my body to relax back to normal, allowing me to focus on making breakfast instead of becoming breakfast... darn gutter mind.

By the time Jay was finally dressed and in the kitchen, I was just loading up plates with eggs and toasted bagels. I heard the fridge door open and smirked as I took a big bite of my bagel—the only one that happened to have cream cheese on it.

"Are we out of cream cheese?" He straightened and let the door close, then eyed me—and more importantly, the cream cheese mustache I now wore.

"Really, Park? You couldn't spread it thin or something?"

I raised a brow and shrugged.

"I 'ought it."

Okay, that didn't sound too great, but I was hungry and thus, took another bite as I spoke.

"Tch, of course you bought it. I gave you money to get stuff since I had to sleep during the day."

He had a point, but as I took another bite, my whole cocky demeanor went poof. Why? Because he'd just walked right over and eaten a large chunk of my bagel while I was still mid-bite. I immediately let go of the food and backed away, stuttering gibberish as he began to chew, catching the rest of the toasted deliciousness in his hand so it didn't fall to the floor.

"H-Hey! That was mine," I stuttered with a grumble.

"Awww, yer blushing."

He poked my cheek, and I promptly bit him, making the bastard yelp as I stomped out of the room with my plate of eggs.

"Parker."

Hearing him shout my name had me stopping in my tracks. The memory of last night, of Callem calling for me, flashed before my eyes. All of a sudden the eggs just didn't seem that appetizing. Instead, I turned and walked back to the kitchen to set the plate on the counter before making a beeline for the door.

"Park?"

Jay cut me off right as I was about to reach for the door handle.

"What, Jayson? You can stay here, okay? I just need to get to the research center."

He looked hurt, though I really had no idea why. He hadn't wanted to get up in the first place, so he could just go back to sleep now.

"Move, Jay."

A plate nudged me in the chest, drawing my attention down to the half-eaten bagel with cream cheese and an egg on the side.

"Sorry I took your bagel. You need to eat, please? I don't want you to make another mistake around him."

Pursing my lips, I hesitantly grabbed the bagel and stuck the end he'd bitten off between my teeth. When he looked back up at me, I raised my brows, silently asking him to move since my mouth was slowly working on chewing at the bagel. He stepped aside with a funny look that I ignored. Instead, I ran around the side of the house to my truck, pushing the button so it was unlocked when I reached for the door.

"Hey, Wait up."

I had half the mind to back out and make him run for it, but I waited until he climbed into the cab before reversing through his lawn, revving the engine a few times just to be sure that some sod went flying to emphasize that I was definitely pissed at him. He wisely kept his mouth shut about his now-ruined lawn, smart.

We arrived at the research facility just as the sun was rising in the distance. It was quite beautiful, what with all the pollution from the city making brilliant colors in the sky, but after understanding why it's caused, it had lost a good amount of its luster. Slamming the driver's side door shut, I quickly got inside, running by my locker on the way through the halls to grab my lab coat and walky-talky. The channel was already set so when I turned the knob, voices rang out bantering back and forth. After I pulled on the white coat, I lifted the device to my mouth and pressed the 'talk' button.

"This is Doctor Ryans. I want an update on the merman."

Everyone else talking through the device quieted for a moment before one person spoke up.

"Good morning, Doctor! We have him restrained and have already taken several samples while he was anesthetized. He has been awake for roughly five hours and has been calling for you, as well as someone named Callem?"

I pressed the talk button and quickly responded as I neared the first set of locked doors, sliding my ID card through the scanner.

"Callem is his name. I gave it to him so put it down on his charts."

"Understood."

"You may run the basic set of tests on what was collected, but that is all you get, so don't waste it."

"Wh-What?"

"I said, that is all you're getting."

I stepped through the second set of doors after swiping my card, then the third and final ones. When they closed behind me, I turned to the left and pushed the door to the first research room open.

"Parker!"

Callem was strapped down with steel cuffs and several ropes to an autopsy table since we didn't exactly catch things that were able to survive out of water for any period of time.

"Why is he not in a tank?"

They were staring at the purple and black bruise on my face, which I had forgotten to cover again after my shower this morning. Probably my black eye as well, but I didn't have the patience to deal with this right now.

"Get him into a damned tank, now."

"But he's incredibly strong, we wouldn't be able to catch him again if we did."

"We have plenty of dart guns, and we can always drain a pool if we need to."

"But..."

"But nothing. Get him into water, now."

The doctors and interns all blanched and ran about, getting the door propped open and pushing the table out of the room quickly. Hmph, they were lucky Callem was in his human form, if they had to push his mer, they'd likely hurt themselves. I quickly followed after them, being sure that Callem was able to see me the whole time since it seemed to calm him down a little. One of my colleagues, Dr. Smithson, walked up beside me with his clipboard out, notes everywhere on the main chart we used to keep track of single animals.

"We got a weight on him when he came in last night, one hundred and thirty-one pounds. He is emaciated and threw up when he awoke, so he definitely needs more food."

"I know, he was stealing from my friend's fishing nets, trying to get food."

"I assume that is because of the injury on his tail and shoulder?"

"Tail, yes, shoulder, no. My friend shot him."

The guy stopped for a second, making me glance over my shoulder but not stop walking.

"Sh-Shot him? He shot a merman?"

When he caught up, I grinned and explained with a shrug. "He thought it was a dolphin, which is perfectly plausible, as I thought the same. We have him now and can get him healthy."

Smithson wasn't happy but pursed his lips and nodded, sucking up whatever he had planned to say about Ken.

Good idea.

We passed by the large study tank containing just about every kind of fish and coral in the local ecosystem. It towered over our heads a good forty feet and was only accessible from boardwalks on the fourth floor. We could have put him in there, but he would have likely eaten another batch of important research fish, and that would not have gone over very well. I was even studying a few of them and would prefer they remained alive. It did, however, make me smile with the hope that Callem would soon be able to return to the real thing and have his freedom.

We ducked inside a room at the far end of the main tank. This one had four large pools, inground, unlike the huge main one in the other room. Each of them were about twenty feet deep with a three foot railing surrounding each individual one, keeping the animals in but giving us just enough room to see over and observe. They also dipped into the basement area, which allowed us to easily look at them through the glass below. In fact, several of the interns were already running toward the staircase that led downstairs.

"Alright, I want him in the second pool."

The group nodded and moved him to the far left pool of water, then hesitated. Smithson eventually turned toward me, his face slightly pale.

"We'll need to dart him to release him."

"The hell? No, you won't."

"He's too strong. He'll hurt someone, and it looks like he already got you."

I stiffened slightly, then glared.

"I'll do it. Get away."

The group jumped back, not used to seeing me angry. I was normally one of the more enthusiastic scientists, and I honestly did enjoy my work, but Callem—he wasn't a damn experiment. Stomping up to him, I began to unbuckle the metal rings around his ankles, then moved to do his wrists.

"Get me a respirator."

I reached back after a moment and felt someone press the small device into my hand. It wasn't very good for long dives since it just fit over your mouth and had two little tanks on either side, but the oxygen would last for at least ten minutes, which was hopefully enough. I knew exactly what the mer was going to do so it was no surprise when my jacket collar was grabbed and I was yanked over the edge of the table, then into the pool with him.

Hitting the edge of the pool knocked a good deal of air from my lungs, but thankfully I managed to keep the respirator over my mouth, inhaling a much needed breath as we descended in the clear cold water all the way to the bottom. My ears popped and pressure built, but as his tail grew back, he suddenly began darting around, jerking my coat enough to pull it off and leave me floating by the observation glass window in the basement. I thought he might be content to mess with my jacket and allow me to swim to the surface, but I was sorely mistaken. Almost the second he took my coat from me, he turned and realized I was no longer in it, then hissed, bubbles leaving his flaring gills in anger.

Oh shit!

I tried to scramble upward but barely got three feet when I felt my ankle, of course my bad one, being pulled harshly downward. Callem didn't hesitate to ramp up his speed as he darted around the pool, slamming me into the glass wall more than a few times. He released me in the middle after a minute, finally allowing me to take a deep breath from the respirator. It was going to run out soon, but that was the least of my concerns because Callem was circling me, eyeing the bubbles coming from the device on my mouth.

He's expecting me to be unconscious by now, like last time.

When his eyes narrowed on me, I squeezed mine shut, waiting for something that never came.

What the...?

Suddenly I felt an arm around my waist, and then I was quickly being pulled to the surface. I blinked my eyes open, surprised to see Jayson by my side, fending Callem off with one of our electric fish poles. It didn't put out enough electricity to travel through the water and shock us, but it definitely packed a punch when the tip hit something. We began spinning as the mer tried to get at his back, darting forward before springing back and slamming his tail to try to stun us with the jet of water it created. Thankfully Jay managed to get us to the surface right as I was beginning to feel light-headed. Several pairs of hands pulled me from the water and dragged me over the barrier, but when I let the respirator drop from my lips and looked around for Jayson—

Where...?

I was incredibly weak, but I could see several people running around the pool shouting, but doing nothing to help Jay. With a good amount of effort, I used the barrier to pull myself up so I could see what was going on. They had turned the lights on, illuminating Callem and Jayson, way at the bottom of the pool. The mer wasn't letting him go anywhere, but when he reached up and yanked the respirator out of my best friend's mouth, I jumped over the damned barrier straight back into the water.

"Callem!"

Diving beneath the surface, I ignored my colleagues' shouts of panic. Jayson looked up, having heard my shout. His eyes widened, and he began swimming to the surface as Callem released him to bolt for me. I scrambled halfway back over the barrier before the mer grabbed my leg and yanked me back under. I saw Jay being pulled out of the pool as I was dragged back down. Well, at least he was safe now. But I had no respirator this time. I was already running low on air when we got to the bottom.

I guess this is it.

If I struggled to get back to the surface, he would drag me back down. I didn't blame him, though. It was just his instincts. Judging from his expression, I had also made him mad by letting him be taken away. So if this was anyone's fault, it was mine. I watched calmly as Callem circled me, nudging my side, probably wondering why I wasn't trying to get away from him this time. He slowed near me, and I chanced reaching out, surprised when he let me press my fingers gently against his smooth chest.

I'm so sorry I couldn't give you back to the ocean.

His head tilted, the anger draining as curiosity replaced it. I wanted to watch him forever, learn everything about him, but my lungs were beginning to burn with need. Bubbles began to slip from my lips as I struggled, squeezing my eyes shut right before I let the last bit of air escape.

What?

Why wasn't water rushing into my mouth?

I allowed my eyes to open hesitantly, but what I saw nearly had me drowning myself.

"M-Mmph?"

The water around us distorted my surprised mumble, but that wasn't the only thing that was responsible for it. Callem's mouth was firmly sealed over mine while dry, fresh air began flowing between us. It was honestly amazing that any animal could generate enough oxygen to allow another to use it, let alone breathe it out instead of mostly carbon dioxide. Even more odd, was that the air he was giving me was extremely quick to refill my pained lungs and reoxygenate my blood. I felt so much better in mere seconds. The scientist in me desperately wanted to study him and see how he was doing it, but I tamped that thought down as he suddenly darted off to the far side of the pool, and when he didn't swim back over, I slowly began swimming upward.

The moment I broke the surface, I gasped in a huge gulp of air, then ducked back under to swim toward the blue floating foam platform. I was extremely grateful when my coworkers hauled me out, my limbs honestly feeling like jelly. I was handed over the barrier from the floating platform and straight into Jay's waiting arms. He then pushed through the group of panicked scientists, bringing me into a side locker room often used for changing during dives into the larger tank. Jayson tore my clothes off faster than I could protest, but when he grabbed one of the heated blankets we kept for hypothermia emergencies and wrapped it around me, I sighed out a moan of contentment. His arms pulled me into his lap as he sat, and I didn't hesitate to curl up right there, enjoying the heat and safety.

"I'm sorry."

My voice sounded terrible from being nearly drowned twice, but he just pressed a kiss to my wet hair and held me tighter, making my chest warm that much faster.