Darkness surrounded Connor. The quiet of the ocean moved around him. He bet the lights had cameras on them. He bet he was being watched right now.
Don’t.
Connor felt Adonis’s presence before he saw him. He wanted to cry out. To scream. To tell him to stay back. But Adonis came out of the dark of the ocean, swimming right up to Connor to take his face in both hands.
Connor shook his head at him, desperate. But Adonis looked at him with eyes widened in worry, in distress. He touched his cheek to Connor’s, and Connor felt the vibration of his hum through his skin.
The world went wild.
Bubbles exploded around them. Connor caught a glimpse of the netting springing high in the water before it snapped closed on them faster than Adonis could escape. Not that he tried. Adonis threw protective arms around Connor as the netting tightened inwards. His body took the brunt of the impact, but Connor still got crushed. His leg pinned to Adonis’s tail, and his body slammed in as the net collided with the equipment at his back. The sharp netting pressed inward, crushing his hip, his ribs, his ankle. Blinding pain took him, disorientating him.
He only knew they were ascending from the way his ears popped.
He thought they broke through the ocean’s surface, but he couldn’t say for sure. Not until he fell onto the hard ground, and the impact wasn’t dulled by anything. The netting was gone, and he lay on his side, shaking.
Connor didn’t know long he lay there. Distantly, he was aware of the tape being pulled from his mouth. His goggles being taken off. His arms loosening, not that he could move them.
“It’s okay. You’re okay,” someone said to him, over and over and over. Eventually, Connor realised that Austin was the one whispering the desperate mantra. Awareness returned to him slowly. And he almost wished it wouldn’t as pain came with it. Connor could barely breathe.
Austin was bent over him, combing the hair at his temple back as he whispered to him. Excited voices spoke over him. A dull noise thudded over and over. Connor opened his eyes, coming face to face with a scene from his worst nightmare.
Adonis was in the cage.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Connor was lying near a corner of the tank, and Adonis was as close to him as he could get. His gills flared wide in agitation, and as Connor watched, he twisted in the water, slamming his tail against the glass in a powerful attack.
Connor swore he felt the impact through the floor and watched the cage flex outwards. But it didn’t crack; it didn’t break. And it gave no indication that it was close to it either. Ben and Arthur stood to the side, watching Adonis. A man dressed in pale orange boat shoes, tan trousers and a crisp white shirt paced in front of the tank. It was him talking animatedly. Connor didn’t need to even guess.
Cessair.
“Connor?” Austin noticed him awake.
Connor stared at Adonis, his thoughts sluggish. Adonis floated to the corner, his gills flaring out, his lips parting the way they did when he made softer sounds. His gaze fixed on Connor; worry and agitation filled his widened eyes.
Connor was certain that terror filled his, not that his body could do anything but lie there, slack. He couldn’t move. A fog drifted across his mind, blanketing his thoughts in a sluggish haze.
Cessair stepped between Adonis and Connor, breaking their eye contact. “We’re here, too, you know,” Cessair said, snapping his fingers in Adonis’s face. Adonis’s expression transformed into anger. He snarled, and his tail once again smashed into the glass with an almighty wallop. That had to hurt.
Cessair set his hands on his hips, everything about his posture radiating annoyance.
“He’s moody,” his voice was nothing but irritated. “I thought you said he was intelligent? He’s acting like nothing but an animal. The last one we had would communicate with us. Why isn’t he?”
Connor would argue that Adonis was communicating with them. Communicating just how unhappy he was about being locked up. Connor’s fingers twitched. Warmth and pain filled his joints as he moved his hands, curling and uncurling his fingers.
“He’s agitated,” Arthur answered. “We need to give him time to calm down.”
Adonis pounded the glass next to the man, making him jump. “And why is he—” Cessair whirled around, beady eyes fixing on Connor. “He’s looking at him, is he?” he strode over to them, his pale shoes stopping a few inches from Connor’s nose as he bent down next to them. “Hm.”
Now that he was this close, Connor couldn’t turn his head to see his face. Even trying to twitch his eyes in that upward direction made his head spin with pain. Even if he hadn’t guessed by now, the way Austin tensed up would have told him who this man was. His dad’s boss. Austin’s stepdad. The man who set Connor up.
Richard Cessair.
“He looks dead,” Cessair said. “Should we throw him into the cage with it? That might calm it down.”
“No!” Austin objected.
Cessair’s attention moved to Austin. Austin’s hands clutched at Connor’s clothes, trembling in either fear or anger, Connor didn’t know.
