Now came the hard part.
How do I show sincerity to someone who has every reason to doubt it?
Just coming down here with the demon already cost me. I knew that. The moment my boots hit the lower deck and my eyes adjusted to the gloom, the merman had seen me for what I must've looked like—another one of them. Another monster, another collector, another bastard who stood by while horrors played out in front of him.
And I had stood by.
I hadn't done a damn thing when the demon yanked his hair, paraded him around like a beast on a leash, like a fucking trophy. I hadn't flinched. I hadn't intervened.
I'd been cold.
Calculated.
Not because I didn't care. But because I couldn't afford to break the plan, not yet.
But to him? That didn't matter. Intentions didn't buy trust.
Not here.
Not now.
So if there had been any sliver of credibility in his eyes when I entered this rotting hellhole of a cell, it was gone now. Trampled underfoot. Torn apart by silence and inaction.
And the worst part?
I couldn't blame him.
I wouldn't have trusted me either.
So what now? Pull the trigger? Kill the demon right here, right now, and hope the merman sees it as some kind of righteous act?
No. Too risky.
I'd die before the barrel cooled, and the merman might not lift a finger to stop it. For all I knew, he'd help the demon finish me off, just for stepping into this room with him.
So I needed another way.
Not to earn trust—that ship had sailed.
I needed to corner him.
Give him no other option but to help me.
Hate me, despise me, curse me to the ocean and back—I didn't care.
Let him think I was filth. Let him dream of gutting me later.
I didn't need his love.
I just needed his teeth pointed in the right direction.
I took a breath.
Slow. Deep. Measured.
Then I looked at him.
Not at his chains.
Not at his bruises.
Not at his shimmering skin.
At him.
Right into those golden eyes.
And he looked back.
There was nothing soft in his gaze. No curiosity. No question. Just iron and fire and barely-contained rage. The kind of fury that makes a man look immortal even while chained.
I held that look.
Pushed everything I had into it.
Not words. Not pity. Not apology.
Just meaning.
Intent.
"Watch closely," I said in my head. "Because this is where the game changes."
Whether he understood or not—whether he read the shift behind my stare or saw it as more noise—it didn't matter.
Because now… now it was the demon's turn.
I shifted my body. Turned slowly. Met the demon's gaze like we were equals—like I hadn't been bleeding in his shadow since the moment I climbed aboard this cursed ship.
And he looked back.
That damn laugh of his still echoing through the room like some broken music box.
Until I pointed.
Past the merman. Past the chains. Past the rage and the blood.
I pointed at her.
At the figure in the shadows.
The girl.
Chained. Hidden. Silent.
And just like that—the laugh stopped.
Dead.
He tilted his head. Not angry. Not afraid.
Confused.
Like someone just changed the rules of a game he thought he wrote.
It wasn't that he didn't know she was there.
Of course he did. She was his. Just like everything else down here. She was another name carved into the roster of horrors he'd built with his bare hands.
No, his confusion wasn't about her presence.
It was that I pointed to her.
That I acknowledged her.
That I looked past the merman, past the performance, and put the spotlight on the one thing he hadn't expected me to care about.
And for a second—just a second—his smile faltered.
Not fear. Not guilt.
Irritation.
Like I'd just reminded him of something he was trying to ignore.
A loose thread in his show.
Something ugly that didn't fit the narrative he was building.
His eyes flicked from me, to her, then back to me again.
The giggle came back, but it was wrong now. Hollow. Less joy, more twitch. A sound made out of habit, not pleasure.
He was re-evaluating.
Me.
The situation.
Maybe even the merman.
I didn't break eye contact.
Not with the demon.
Not with the merman.
I just held that stare, long and sharp, and let the silence stretch.
He didn't like it.
The second I pointed to her—the girl in the back—the mask slipped. Not all the way, but enough to see the crack beneath it. His lips twitched into something sour. His brow lowered just slightly, and the giggle that followed had more bite than music. A twitch of irritation wrapped in mockery.
But he played it off.
Laughed again.
Like it didn't matter.
Like I hadn't just struck a nerve.
And yet, he moved.
Toward her.
Not me. Not the merman. Her.
Because he understood. He wasn't stupid—twisted, yes, but not stupid. He knew control was bleeding from his hands, and he needed to tighten his grip before it all spilled out. She was the key. The tether. The anchor holding this charade together. If she was calm, if she was chained, if she was silent—then maybe, just maybe, he could still pretend he ran this stage.
But he made a mistake.
He turned his back on the merman.
Because in his rotted mind, the merman didn't matter. Not really. Not in chains. Not in a cell. Not in a world where monsters laugh and no one dares interrupt.
But the merman's silence wasn't submission.
It was patience.
And that patience had just expired.
The second the demon made his move, the merman did too. No sound. No roar. Just motion—violent and sudden.
He pulled.
Harder than before.
Chains that had once dragged him like a beast now trembled with the effort. The bolts anchoring them into the rotting wood shook. Groaned. Screamed.
Cracked.
Not fully.
But close.
One more tug—maybe two—and they'd be loose.
The demon stopped mid-step.
I saw the shift.
Saw the swagger vanish from his shoulders. The ease bleed from his frame. He turned slightly—just slightly—but his feet didn't move. Not forward. Not back.
He realized what we all did.
He wasn't in control anymore.
The show had changed.
The audience was armed.
And the cage was no longer closed.
His eyes darted—me, the merman, the girl. Pieces on a board he no longer understood.
He took a step back.
Prepared himself.
No more theatrics.
Now he was bracing for a fight.
Good.
I laughed.
A short, sharp bark of a sound. Ugly. Raw. Honest.
The kind of laugh you let out not because something's funny—but because something broke.
Not in me.
In him.
He heard it.
And that did what nothing else had.
It rattled him.
I saw it in the way his fingers flexed. In the way his jaw locked too tight. He wasn't used to being laughed at. Not by prey. Not by the thing he thought he could break down here, piece by piece.
But I laughed anyway.