The Hunted

“Excellent.” The man took a thin instrument out of his white coat’s pocket and flicked it on, a narrow beam of light coming from one end. Dylan obediently let him flick the light into one eye and then the other, relieved when the man—a doctor?—grunted in satisfaction and turned the light off. “Look this way, please? And that way. Excellent. No headache? Very good. Lie back now, and relax. You gave us all quite a scare, Mr. Meridith, washing up like that. Usually by the time the Atlantic gets done with bodies, they go to the morgue, not the emergency room.”

He had been swimming, that was right. Heading for shore. Looking …

Looking for his mate. Yes.

Dylan lay back on the pillow, the memories returning now. Bypassing the other colonies to come here, to where humans lived, this arm of land jutting out from the mainland. Swimming, endlessly swimming: so focused that he ignored the warning signs of the storm, when he should have known better. The storm came. Waves knocking him over, being bumped by something, losing consciousness.

And waking up here.

“I. You found me on the sand.” It wasn’t a question; he remembered that, vaguely. Voices and lights, things being done to his body, bringing his temperature back up. He owed those people his life. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Although I had the easy part, just waiting for you to wake up.” He smiled, and the kind blue eyes sparkled with life and humor. “I’m Dr. Alden, by the way, and I’m the one who says when you get to go home. But first, we need to know where home is, exactly.”

Dylan froze. The name he’d given the doctor had been placed in his memory years ago, just in case, but he hadn’t thought of what to say about his home. He hadn’t even thought to think about it.

He trusted this Dr. Alden, instinctively. Despite that, his voice caught before any words escaped. You never told where the colony was. You never betrayed the kin living there. That was the first training seal-kin got, when they first went out among the human-kin. It was too dangerous.

Sometimes, following instinct was good. Sometimes, it was not so good. What was he supposed to do?

Another flash of memory: someone talking over him, something about debris, looking for debris, of … a boat?

“Daughter of the Sea,”he said, buying time with whatever came to mind. “My boat. Is it okay?”

Since there wasn’t any such boat, he wasn’t horribly crushed when Dr. Alden sadly told him that there was no sign of his boat anywhere, not even debris. But it gave him enough time to come up with a story that would get him out of this hospital.

Because he remembered something else from the night before, after the feel of sand under his face and being wrapped in blankets and bundled into a vehicle. He remembered a warm voice, and a cool hand on his skin, and the reaction he’d had, even mostly unconscious, to her presence.

A woman. The woman he had come to find.

She was here.

He had come to the right place, after all. The sea had not betrayed him.

Dr. Alden excused himself and disappeared beyond the curtains, leaving Dylan to sink into the hard comfort of his bed. She was here.

And with that thought, the urgency returned, a wave that would have knocked him over were he not already lying down. Instead, it sent him bolt upright.

He had to find her. Now.

“Where do you think you’re going, young man?”

The doctor appeared next to him, a firm hand on his arm. Dylan would have protested except that he feared, if the human let go, he would fall on his face like a weanling denied milk.

“You said I was fine.”

“I said you hadn’t suffered any permanent damage. That’s not fine. You were badly dehydrated, battered, and unless I miss my guess, your muscles aren’t responding very well to commands even now.”

“I’ll be fine. I …” This doctor had eyes like Dylan’s grandfather: wide-set, sky-blue and gentle, but still able to see through any lie you might even think about telling. “I mean no disrespect, sir. I know that you mean well. But I don’t like being indoors, especially in a medical facility. I’d do better if I could find a place with …with windows, at least.”

“Humph.” The doctor’s gruff voice didn’t match the understanding in those eyes, and Dylan felt himself relax, even as the older man ushered him back onto the bed.

“I’ll tell you what. You let me run a few tests, make me feel better about turning you out into the street, and I’ll sign off on your discharge papers today. Deal?”

Dylan nodded. “Deal.”

Part of the test involved giving up quantities of his blood, and breathing into a strange device of three tubes with small balls inside. Dylan amused himself by making all three balls rise and fall in unison, until Doctor Alden admitted that his lungs were in excellent shape and took the device away. Then, he had to walk the length of the clinic—ten beds and two exam rooms—without faltering.

A glimpse out the one window in the hallway, a single clear pane of glass, reassured him that he was not far from the sea—set on a rise of land, the clinic looked over rooftops toward the wide expanse of water. Dr. Alden left him there, staring out at the horizon, while he went off to do whatever it was that doctors did. Soon enough the nurse came by and shooed him back to his bed, where a pair of dark blue pants, a white shirt and cheap white sneakers waited. “Your clothing didn’t survive your wreck,” she said apologetically. “We had to guess at your size and the color choices were, well, limited.”

“Thank you.” He had left home so quickly, without thinking anything through, he hadn’t even thought about clothing. Or money. Oh, hell.

He dropped the simple robe and reached for the jeans. The nurse let out a noise that was a cross between a giggle and a squeak, and left him to get dressed.

“So.” Dr. Alden appeared without fanfare as he was lacing up the shoes. “No dizziness? No last-minute headache to crash your escape plans?”

“I’m good?” Dylan waited with bated breath for the answer.

“You’re annoyingly good. If all of my patients healed up as quickly as you did, I’d be out of business and have to find honest work.”

The nurse walking by snickered quietly, then ducked her head when the doctor mock-glared at her. “You can see that I get no respect at all, already.”

Dylan wisely stayed out of the argument. At home, females outnumbered males 3:2 and bossed the younger males around mercilessly, giving way only when males reached what his mother called “the interesting age.” That snicker had sounded reassuringly familiar to a man who grew up surrounded by sisters.

“All right. Yes, you get your walking papers, and consider yourself a lucky son of a bitch. Try to keep on top of the water, not under it, from now on?”

Dylan merely smiled and took the papers the doctor handed him, scrawling something on the line for his own signature. His people spent almost half their lives riding underneath the waves. But he appreciated the concern.

Dr. Alden put his own signature on the papers that made his release official and tucked them into his clipboard. “There you go. I want you to check in with your own doctor when you get home, though, just to be on the safe side. All right?”

“I had actually planned on staying in town for a little while,” Dylan admitted. “It seems like a nice place. From the little I saw of it last night.”

Dr. Alden laughed. “Watery and dark, you mean. It is a nice enough place, yes. We avoid the worst of the tourist invasion, and I certainly like it here, but I can’t imagine there’d be much to keep you occupied, unless you’re here for the beach or the views. Still, if you’re going to stay, welcome to you. And feel free to stop by if anything at all feels odd or uneasy.”

“I will. Ah.” Dylan suddenly felt awkward again. Free. Nothing in the human world was free, and he had no money. Nothing at all, except. The weight on his ankle was a sudden, reassuring shock—the anklet, a gift from his sister years before, was so familiar he had forgotten it was there. He could sell that, maybe. Sell it, and settle his debt.

“Don’t worry about it, young Dylan.” Dr. Alden’s eyes were kind again. “Men who show up stark naked on our beach, and don’t immediately ask for a phone to call their family? We don’t expect you’re going to pull out a platinum card. Fortunately, you weren’t exactly a financial burden, not needing much more than a bed and treatment for mild dehydration and exhaustion.”

“Still, I …”

“Someday, when you can, you’ll make a donation. Yes?”

“Yes.” He would. Even if he had to swim all the way back from the colony with the funds clenched between his teeth, he would.

“Do you have somewhere to stay? Tourist town, Nantucket’s become. No decent place cheap anymore. But you go to the Blue Anchor. I’ll call ahead, and Brandt will take care of you for a few days, until you figure things out.”

Seals were communal, and so by default were their kin. But they tended to care only for their own, and strangers were not welcomed. Humans, it seemed, were different. That pleased Dylan, even as it confused him slightly. If they knew how very much a stranger he was, would they still welcome him? Or would they drive him out?

Instinct warned him to stay silent, to try to fit in as quickly and quietly as possible. There was so much he didn’t know, so many ways he could do the wrong thing. He wasn’t used to being uncertain. It pissed him off, both the sensation and the hesitation.