Page 129 of House of Lilith

Thanks to my fox, I don’t attract any attention. I just start swimming, slowly, scanning my surroundings and scrambling to remember all the things they told me about mermaids when I was a kid.

Whatever you do, don’t make any sudden movements.Check, I think to myself.

Try not to attract any attention at all.Probably won’t be possible.

If you do, swim for your life.

Now, that probably won’t get me any closer to finishing the Game. But there are no ways to deal with a mermaid underwater and get out alive.

So what the fuck am I supposed to do?

I turn my eyes upwards, at the shadow that is the bottom of the island. But it’ll take me a while to get there and if I just keep swimming…

Well, not like there’s anything else I can do right now. So I start moving.

But it’s at that exact moment that I see a shape start forming in the water ahead of me. It’s Romanov’s brother and he’s swimming in my direction, furiously and without spotting me.

He’s too busy trying to get away from a shadow darting around him.

My heart tightens in my chest when I see the shadow block his way, its back turned to me as the slow wagging of its enormous fish tail keeps it in place.

And it grabs him by the wrist and makes him open his mouth in a silent cry of pain as it slowly twists the arm into an unnatural position.

For a second, I just keep swimming in place, staring at the creature’s tangled hair falling down the scaly back and the muscled arm finishing in a clawed hand that’s gripping Nikolay’s wrist.

The next thing I know, it’s tilting its head, revealing its spiked teeth to me as it lowers them to his neck.

Fuck. But just as instinct pushes me to move to help, I see Nikolay grimace and the mermaid snatch her hand away, its body starting to jerk left right, as if it got broken somehow.

Mind Magic, it occurs to me. He’s trying to use Mind Magic on her.

Good, I think as I start swimming, making sure I’m leaving plenty of distance between myself and the ongoing fight.

And I keep heading straight for the island, making sure I never stop scanning my surroundings.

But it’s so dark and blurry, that I don’t realize where I’m headed until I’m literally entering the cave.

My heart skips a beat and I move to back the hell up, but there’s already a pair of eyes watching me from the darkness ahead.

The next thing I know, I’m being slammed back, the mermaid already hovering above me, its cold eyes boring into mine.

It makes all the muscles in my body tense up in preparation. Then I grab her by the arm and I swing her around, making her fly through the water and the hell away from me.

And I start kicking upwards like crazy, feeling myself starting to lose my breath.

Near the surface, to my left, I spot something, a man in a tattered uniform,Ricky, just floating in the water with a smile on his face, his eyes gently closing, despite a mermaid making its way to him.

But I can sense the creature I’d just fought off as she closes the distance again and I power through the last of the water separating me from the surface.

I escape the mermaid, but I find myself grabbing the edge of the bridge again.

And I pull myself out, gasping for air, and I hoist myself over and throw myself on my back, panting and feeling disoriented from all the light and the noises.

I know I don’t have a lot of time before the fog starts seeping into my brain again, so I turn my head to the shore, and there I see that a lot of the people are already out of the Game, including Nikolay.

But when I turn my head to the island, there’s Ricky, dragging himself out of the water.

The very next second, I hear the gong mark the first point being scored.

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