Chapter 5 - Brotherly Blood
Arthur slowly lowered the binoculars, his face pale as chalk beneath his yellow hood. His mouth hung slightly open, his sharp, dark eyes fixed on the shimmering blue-green tail peeking out from beneath Thomas’s blue windbreaker.
"Thomas..." Arthur’s voice carried down the cliff, thin and breathless against the wind. "My God... what is that?"
Thomas instinctively shifted his body, shielding the baby from his brother's line of sight. His blood ran colder than the sea spray. He knew Arthur. He knew his brother’s relentless, clinical ambition—the same ambition that had secured millions in military research grants for the Blackwood Station to study deep-sea physiological adaptations.
"Get back, Arthur!" Thomas roared, his voice booming up the rock face. "Stay up there!"
"Thomas, listen to me," Arthur said, taking a cautious step down the slick stone path, his hands raised in a placating gesture. "You don't understand what you're holding. Is that... is that a specimen from the Trench? Is that an unknown species?"
"She's not a specimen!" Thomas screamed, his arms tightening around the child. The baby whimpered softly, sensing the sudden surge of adrenaline coursing through her father's body. "She's Lily!"
Arthur stopped dead in his tracks, forty feet up the path. A strange, disturbing expression crossed his face—a mixture of profound pity and sharp, calculating interest.
"Lily died three years ago, Thomas," Arthur said softly, his tone shifting into the smooth, condescending voice he used when dealing with the mentally unstable. "You know that. Your mind is playing tricks on you because of the trauma. Let me help you. Bring it up here. Let me examine it at the lab. We can keep it safe—"
"I said STAY BACK!" Thomas yelled, reaching into his overalls pocket and pulling out his heavy brass flare gun. He pointed the wide barrel straight at Arthur’s chest.
Arthur froze, his eyes locking onto the weapon. "Thomas, be reasonable. If that thing came out of the Devil's Throat, it can't survive in freshwater or air for long. Its cellular structure will collapse under atmospheric pressure! You'll kill it if you keep it out here!"
Thomas looked down at the baby. Her skin was still moist, but the edges of her delicate scales were beginning to lose their brilliant iridescent sheen, turning a dull, powdery turquoise under the dry wind.
Arthur was right about the biology. She was a creature of the deep ocean; her body wasn't designed for the surface world.
"I won't let you dissect her, Arthur," Thomas growled, keeping the flare gun trained on his brother as he began backing toward the dark entrance of a sea cave at the base of the cliff. "I know about the facility in the basement of your station. I know what you do to the things you catch in your nets."
"Thomas, wait!" Arthur shouted, taking a rapid step forward.
Thomas pulled the trigger.
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A blinding flare of crimson fire exploded from the barrel with a deafening BOOM, screaming past Arthur’s head and slamming into the rock wall behind him. The sudden shockwave of noise and bright red smoke sent Arthur tumbling backward onto his hip, coughing and cursing as the cliff face showered him with dust and loose gravel.
Without looking back, Thomas turned and sprinted into the pitch-black mouth of the sea cave, clutching his daughter tightly against his chest as the red glare of the burning flare lit up the damp stone walls behind them.
