Chapter 3: Feeding Time

Silas woke up the next day.

The guilt never really left me. If I hadn’t picked Theo, maybe Silas wouldn’t have ended up here, torn up and dumped by the dumpsters.

Lucas’s experiments were horror stories—testing muscle responses by slicing Silas open, no anesthesia, making him watch. The stories made my skin crawl every time they drifted through the break room, whispered over cold coffee and a lunch nobody really wanted to eat. Somebody’s Lean Cuisine sat half-thawed on the counter, forgotten as the stories made their rounds.

I dumped a bunch of restorative agents into Silas’s water. Lucky for him, merfolk heal fast. Twenty-four hours later, he finally opened his eyes.

I tried to say hi, but he just shot me a look colder than winter and shrank back, giving me nothing—no anger, no thanks, nothing.

All day, no matter what I tried, Silas ignored me. Not a word, not a glance.

At feeding time, I tossed a fat, oily salmon in the tank. Only then did he lift his eyelids. Tentacles flashed, and he tore into the fish like a wild animal.

Watching him devour it, I felt a pang in my chest. Lucas never gave him real food—just junk and poison, to see what he could stomach. Spiny sea urchins, jellyfish, even plastic, and worse. The guy probably hadn’t tasted fish in months.

Halfway through, Silas hesitated, then took what was left of the bloody fish and hid it in the corner, like a stray dog with a stolen bone.

I couldn’t help but laugh a little.

I knocked on the glass. "Eat up, don’t worry. You’ll always have enough to eat from now on." My voice echoed weirdly in the sterile room, bouncing off the tanks and metal tables.

He just blinked at me, like he didn’t get it.

It hit me—he probably didn’t know any human words yet.

Theo could already speak some, enough to talk to me. But Lucas? He never taught Silas a thing.

The guilt twisted deeper.

I grabbed another salmon, cleaned and sliced it, then carried it up the ladder to the top of the tank.

The bulletproof tank was capped with carbon nano mesh. Even a merfolk couldn’t break it.

I sat on the ledge, reaching in to feed Theo.

The metal was cold against my jeans, and the lab was dead quiet except for the filter’s hum. Silas, who’d been ignoring me, stopped eating and watched.

Theo swam over, nuzzled my hand, and took the fish gently from my palm. He ate slow, elegant—never nicked me with those razor teeth.

When he was done, I stroked his golden hair. He circled, happy as a puppy, then popped his head out of the water, blue eyes shining.

He called my name: "Morgan." For a second, I forgot the glass between us.

Morgan—that was the first word Theo learned.

I’d taught him so many: eat, pain, sad, happy...

But my name was first.

The tank shimmered, blue and dreamlike. Theo’s tail flickered like fire under the waves.

The beauty of merfolk, so close to human yet so far beyond, always reminded me they weren’t our kind. But their allure kept pulling me in, dragging me under.

Theo began to sing.

For a moment, I was a sailor lost at midnight, adrift and alone. His voice was silk, drawing me closer, tempting me to drown in his world. That massive blue tail waited, coiled beneath him.

I reached for him.

Theo’s claws brushed my hand, gentle, then pressed a cool kiss on my skin—like seawater.

I stared, lost in those blue eyes, full of love and need.

He whispered, "Love."

Theo stammered, but said it again, stronger: "Theo, love, Morgan."

I looked away. In the other tank, Silas had stopped hiding his fish. He just watched—eyes burning, never blinking.