Chapter 13: The Research

Damien spent the next few days pretending

he was fine.

That was the first thing he learned about fear.

It wasn't always something that made you run.

Sometimes it made you sit perfectly still.

Sometimes it made you smile at breakfast while your hands trembled beneath the table. It made you go to church on Sunday and bow your head at the right moments. It made you shake hands with men who had no idea what you had seen beneath the waves.

And sometimes, fear made you obsessive.

Damien became all three.

Every night after that encounter on the beach, he dreamt of the ocean.

Not the peaceful oceans people painted on postcards, nor the glittering blue horizons tourists came to Port Haven to see.

He dreamt of the thing beneath it.

The vast ocean.

The eyes.

The feeling that some impossibly old thing had opened them in the darkness and looked directly at him.

He would awake before dawn, his heart hammering in his ribs, drenched in sweat.

He would sit up for a few seconds, his body lying still as if it had not moved at all.

Then he would remember.

Marrine.

The song.

The water rising around her.

The voice that had come up from beneath the waves.

And the enormous shadow that had moved beneath the surface.

Every single time, the thought that always returned was,

she is connected to it.

Damien would sit up.

She belongs to it.

Then another thought would follow, much colder than the first.

And I know.

That knowledge became something like an addiction.

So Damien went looking for answers.

The Port Haven library occupied a thin, stone building overlooking the harbor.

It had been there for more than a hundred years, long before Damien was born, long before anyone in town thought the ocean was anything other than a source of fish, storms, shipwrecks.

It was a quiet place.

Too quiet for what he was searching for.

He started in the history section, then mythology, then folklore, marine biology, then old newspapers.

He stopped caring which section a book belonged to.

He grabbed anything that mentioned strange disappearances, unexplained tides, weird creatures, drowned sailors, coastal legends, or people who had supposedly walked into the ocean and never returned.

He read until his eyes burned, he took notes, he copied names, he marked dates, he drew conclusions between stories that had been written fifty years apart by people who had never met each other.

Most of it was nonsense.

At least, it should have been.

Mermaids.

Sea witches.

Cities of cities beneath the waves.

Singing spirits that lure sailors to their deaths.

Children that are born with scales.

Men who claim they were pulled beneath the sea but came days later, only to not have aged a day.

Damien almost laughed at some of it.

Almost.

But then he found the accounts that were real.

The ones that were not written like fairy tales.

Those were the accounts that made him stop.

Written by sailors, priests, government officials, doctors, military officers.

People who apparently saw things they could not explain.

One account spoke of a fishing village where every person woke up at the exact same time during a storm and walked into the ocean.

Another spoke of a woman who could stay underwater for nearly an hour.

Another spoke of a child that caused an entire school of whales to change directions when she cried.

Damien's fingers tightened around the pages.

Then he found the word.

Hybrid.

He stared at it.

The document was old, yellowed, partly damaged by water.

Someone had written notes in the margins.

Human-sea lineage.

Dormant blood.

Possible inheritance through maternal or paternal line.

Damien's breathing slowed.

He read the passage again.

Then again.

He turned the page.

Another reference.

This one spoke about something called a Deepborn.

According to the account, Deepborns were individuals who could pass as humans while having abilities associated with the ocean.

Enhanced hearing.

Resistance to pressure.

Unnatural swimming ability.

Influence over marine life.

And, in rare cases-

Damien's eyes stopped moving.

He swallowed.

Aquatic command.

The ability to influence the sea itself.

Damien looked towards the library windows.

Beyond them was Port Haven's harbor, glittering beneath the afternoon sun.

He imagined Marrine standing in the water.

Fish circling her.

Birds responding to her song.

The waves bending towards her.

His mouth went dry.

He turned the page.

There was a drawing.

It was a crude one, made with black ink but Damien recognized the silhouette instantly.

A woman standing waist-deep in the ocean.

Long hair.

Arms raised.

A crescent moon above her.

And beneath her-

Something huge, something with horns or fins or maybe both.

Below the drawing, someone had written:

THE KING OF THE DEEP.

Damien stared.

The room seemed to grow colder.

He leaned closer.

The handwriting beneath the title continued.

The sovereign entity believed to govern the Deepborn clans.

Reports indicate extreme territorial aggression toward surface populations.

Historical sightings are rare.

Direct contact is considered catastrophic.

Damien's pulse quickened.

He turned the page.

Nothing.

Another page.

Nothing.

Then another.

A torn section.

He searched the book's index.

The reference had been deliberately removed.

That made Damien more interested.

He spent another hour searching for the same title.

Nothing.

Then he noticed something strange.

The book wasn't as old as it looked.

The binding had been replaced.

Someone had repaired it recently.

Damien closed the book.

His eyes narrowed.

Someone had wanted these stories preserved.

Hidden.

He stood.

The librarian glanced up from behind the desk.

"You found something interesting?"

Damien smiled.

"No."

The lie came easily.

He slipped the book into his coat.

The librarian frowned.

"Those don't leave the building."

Damien stopped.

For a moment he considered arguing.

Then he remembered his father's name.

Everyone in Port Haven knew it.

Everyone knew what his family owned.

Everyone knew which doors opened when his father knocked.

Damien slowly returned the book.

"Of course."

He smiled again.

The librarian watched him suspiciously.

Damien walked away, having already memorized the pages.

That evening, he searched the newspapers.

The library had archives dating back more than seventy years.

He searched storm reports, shipwrecks, missing children, unidentified bodies, unusual tides.

He found dozens.

Most were meaningless.

Then he found Port Haven.

Thirty-six years ago.

A storm.

The same type of storm that had raged the night Marrine was found.

Damien's eyes narrowed.

He read the article.

A fishing vessel had disappeared offshore, three men had been rescued, they claimed something had attacked their boat.

The newspaper dismissed their claims as hysteria.

Damien continued reading.

One survivor had seen a woman walking on the surface of the water.

Not swimming.

Standing.

The article ended with a single sentence.

Authorities declined to comment on the survivor's description.

Damien sat back.

His heartbeat had become painfully loud.

Then he noticed the newspaper clipping next to it.

Another article.

Twenty years earlier.

A coastal town in another state.

Unexplained disappearances.

A family claimed their daughter had been "called home by the sea."

Officials investigated, nothing was found.

Again, the strange phrase appeared.

Authorities declined to comment.

Damien began searching for the phrase.

It appeared again.

Then again.

Different towns, different years, different witnesses.

Same silence.

His excitement turned into something sharper.

Someone was hiding these things.

Someone had been for decades.

And suddenly, he wasn't searching for proof anymore.

He was searching for whoever had been erasing it.

He stayed in the library until closing.

Then he returned the following morning.

And the morning after that.

For days, Damien disappeared into the archives.

He barely slept.

His meals went untouched.

His phone filled with missed calls.

He didn't care.

He found references to creatures with no official name, cases with no police records, witnesses who disappeared from public records, photographs that had been confiscated, scientists who suddenly resigned after studying an unknown marine organism.

And finally-

A symbol.

A small black emblem stamped on the corner of an old classified document.

Three concentric circles.

A vertical line through the center.

Beneath it were four words.

DEPARTMENT OF ANOMALOUS ENTITIES.

Damien stared at the page.

"What the hell are you?"

He searched the library's computer for nothing.

He searched the newspaper archives for nothing.

He searched government records for nothing.

It was as if the department didn't exist.

But Damien had learned something about secrets.

The deeper the secret, the harder people worked to hide them.

He photographed the page with his phone, then he went home.

His father was waiting for him at dinner.

The Rivers estate was enormous by Port Haven standards.

Too enormous, really.

A stone house overlooking the cliffs with iron fencing and manicured gardens surrounding it.

The sort of house that reminded everyone who lived in town that some families had been born closer to power than others.

Damien's father sat at the head of the dining table, a broad-shouldered man with silver at his temples and the permanent look of someone who had spent his life making decisions other people were forced to accept.

He lowered his newspaper.

"You've been absent."

Damien sat across from him.

"Busy."

"Busy with what?"

"Research."

His father studied him.

"Research into what?"

Damien didn't answer.

Dinner arrived, neither of them ate much.

The silence stretched.

Finally, Damien placed his fork down.

"I need to make a call."

His father looked up.

"To who?"

Damien leaned back.

"The Department of Anomalous Entities."

The room went still.

Not quiet.

Still.

His father's hand froze above his plate.

For the first time in Damien's life, he saw something in his father's expression he had almost never seen.

Fear.

Real fear.

Not anger, not irritation.

Fear.

All the color drained from his father's face.

"What did you do?"

Damien's eyes narrowed.

"Nothing yet."

His father pushed back from the table.

"Damien."

"But I'm about to."

His father stood.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I know exactly what I'm talking about."

"No."

His father's voice cracked like a whip.

"You don't."

Damien smiled faintly.

That reaction told him everything.

"You know them."

His father said nothing.

"You know they exist."

"Stop."

"And you know what Marrine is."

His father's eyes widened.

Damien saw it.

The confirmation.

It was almost exhilarating.

"You knew," Damien whispered.

His father walked towards the window.

"Where did you hear that name?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

His father turned.

"Because there are things you don't touch."

Damien laughed softly.

"You're afraid of her."

"I'm afraid of what comes with her."

That answer silenced him.

For several seconds, neither spoke.

Then Damien slowly stood.

"The King of the Deep."

His father's expression changed again.

Damien continued.

"I've read about him."

"Then you've read enough."

"No."

Damien's voice hardened.

"I haven't."

His father looked toward the sea.

"You think you've discovered some fascinating secret. You haven't. People have spent generations trying to understand what lives beneath those waters."

"Then why haven't they captured it?"

His father looked at him.

"Because you can't capture the ocean."

Damien's jaw tightened.

"I can capture Marrine."

His father crossed the room in two strides.

He grabbed Damien by the collar.

"Never say that again."

Damien stared into his father's eyes.

"You're serious."

"More serious than I have ever been in my life."

His father released him.

Damien straightened his shirt.

"Tell me about the department."

"No."

"Tell me."

"No."

"Then I'll find out myself."

His father slammed his hand against the table.

"You don't understand what you're dealing with!"

Damien's eyes flashed.

"I understand perfectly."

"No, you don't."

His father lowered his voice.

"Those people aren't police. They aren't scientists. They don't negotiate. They contain anomalies."

Damien said nothing.

"They study them," his father continued. "They classify them. And if something is deemed dangerous enough..."

He stopped.

Damien waited.

"And?"

His father looked at him.

"They eliminate it."

The word hung between them.

Damien's face remained expressionless.

But something inside him shifted.

Eliminate.

Marrine.

The thought should have horrified him.

Instead, another thought appeared.

If they can eliminate her, they can take her power.

He looked toward the dark window.

Outside, beyond the cliffs, the ocean stretched endlessly beneath the moon.

"You're protecting her," Damien said.

His father frowned.

"No."

"You are.“I am protecting you.”

Damien laughed.

"You've never cared about protecting me."

His father's expression hardened.

" Don't confuse discipline with indifference."

"You told me to destroy Zeke."

"And?"

"You told me to expose his weaknesses."

"Yes."

"You taught me that power belongs to whoever is willing to use it."

His father stared at him.

"I taught you that power comes with consequences."

"No."

Damien's voice became colder.

"You taught me that consequences are what happen to people who lose."

His father didn't respond.

Damien walked towards the door.

"Damien."

He stopped.

His father spoke quietly.

"If you contact them, you may start something you cannot stop."

Damien looked over his shoulder.

"Something has already started."

Then he left.

---

The next morning, Damien returned to the library.

But he didn't search the books.

He went to the librarian.

"I need access to the restricted archives."

The librarian laughed.

"You don't have access to those."

"My father says I do."

That stopped the laughter.

An hour later, Damien was sitting in a locked room beneath the library.

The restricted archive smelled of dust, mold, and old paper.

There was no windows, no computers.

Only shelves.

He searched until he found another reference to the Department.

This time, it contained a telephone number.

Damien stared at it.

His hand hovered over his phone.

He could call.

Right now.

He imagined Marrine.

Her smile.

Her voice.

The way she looked at Zeke.

The way Zeke looked at her.

Something ugly twisted inside Damien.

For years, he had wanted her.

He had told himself that it was love.

It wasn't.

Love didn't make you want to own another person.

Love didn't make you follow someone through the darkness.

Love didn't make you rejoice at the discovery of their greatest vulnerability.

Damien knew that now.

And somehow, accepting it made him feel freer.

He dialed.

The phone rang once, twice, three times.

Then someone answered.

No greeting.

No identification.

Just silence.

Damien swallowed.

"I have information regarding an anomalous individual."

Silence.

"A suspected Deepborn."

Nothing.

"She lives in Port Haven."

A pause.

Then a voice.

Male.

Calm.

Cold.

"Name."

Damien smiled.

" Marrine Child."

Silence.

Then-

" Do not speak that name again on an unsecured line."

Damien's smile disappeared.

"You know her."

"We know of her."

"She is the daughter of the King of the Deep."

Another pause.

This one was longer.

"Where are you?"

"Port Haven."

"Are you alone?"

"Yes."

"Is she with you?"

"No."

"Good."

Damien frowned.

"Why?"

The voice changed.

Not much.

Just enough.

A hint of urgency.

"Because if what you're saying is true, you have already put yourself in danger."

Damien looked toward the library window.

The ocean was visible beyond the rooftops.

Dark.

Calm.

Watching.

"I can give you proof."

"What kind?“I've seen her control marine life.”

Silence.

"She sings in a language I've never heard. The ocean responds to her."

Silence.

"She can walk into the water and stay underwater longer than any human could."

The voice finally spoke.

"Has she been contacted by the Deep?"

Damien's eyes narrowed.

"What does that mean?"

"Answer the question."

"I don't know."

"Has anything unusual occurred offshore?"

Damien thought of the enormous shadow.

"Yes."

"What?"

"A presence."

His voice lowered.

"Something enormous."

The person on the other end stopped breathing for a moment.

Damien heard it.

Then-

" Listen carefully."

Damien straightened.

"You are not to approach the girl."

" Why?"

"You are not to confront her."

" Why?"

"You are not to attempt to provoke a response from the ocean."

Damien's smile slowly returned.

"And if I do?"

The voice became ice.

"Then you may not live long enough to regret it."

The line went dead.

Damien stared at his phone.

For the first time, he felt something close to genuine uncertainty.

Then his phone buzzed.

A message.

Unknown number.

WE ARE COMING.

Damien looked toward the sea.

A flock of gulls suddenly erupted from the harbor.

Hundreds of them.

All at once.

They wheeled through the sky, screaming.

People outside stopped to watch.

Damien's heart began pounding.

One of the gulls flew directly toward the library.

It struck the window, hard.

Damien flinched.

The bird dropped.

Then, slowly, it got back up.

It turned its head.

And looked through the glass at him.

Damien couldn't move.

The gull opened its beak.

No sound came out.

But somehow Damien heard something anyway.

Not with his ears.

Inside his mind.

A whisper.

Leave her.

Damien stepped backward.

The gull flew away.

He stood frozen for several seconds.

Then his fear returned.

But this time, something else came with it.

Anger.

He clenched his fists.

"No."

He looked toward the ocean.

"You don't get to decide that."

The sea remained silent.

But Damien could feel it.

Somewhere beyond the horizon, something was moving.

Something was coming.

And for the first time, Damien understood that he wasn't the only one hunting Marrine.

The government was coming.

The Deep was coming.

And somewhere between them stood one girl who had spent her entire life believing she was simply an orphan from Port Haven.

Damien smiled bitterly.

He had wanted a weapon.

He had wanted power.

He had wanted Marrine.

Now he was going to get something much bigger.

A war.

And Damien Rivers intended to make sure he was standing on the winning side.

Even if he had to burn Port Haven to the ground to do it.