(Y/N) POV :

He saw it. The burn mark on the blanket left by my burning hands.
What did I expect? Of course he'd see it! I should have hidden it with frost or something, but I didn't want to get shocked again.

When I realised that he was looking directly at the burnt section of the white cloth, memories of that old man who captured me flashed through my mind.

"TALK TO ME YOU DAMNED FISH GIRL !!!"  He was banging on the glass of my tank again.

That old man always did this. He'd shout and hit my tank begging me to talk to him. I never would of course, I hated his miserable guts and would much rather watch his decent into madness. He'd been loosing his mind for a while now. I'd killed off all of his crew members from his ship and I was the only creature on the planet who could speak. But, since I never spoke a word to him, he'd been losing it. I'd often hear him muttering to himself late at night, having full conversations with himself.

But today, today was different. Something seemed ... off ... about him, well I mean more so than usual. I just turned my back and started massaging my temples, trying to get rid of the headache that all his pounding on the glass of my tank had caused.

I saw him lower his hands and his head in the reflection of the glass, and for a moment I'd thought he'd given up.

I was wrong.

He started twitching and maniacally laughing, suddenly he pulled a knife out of nowhere and started digging into the glass!

Needless to say I freaked out. What was this madman gonna do to me?

The walls of my tank became covered in a thick layer of frost, and the collar on my neck started beeping rapidly before a major burst of electricity jolted through me. There was a loud cracking sound and suddenly I was flung from my tank across the room in a wave of water. I crashed against the wall and hit my head, my vision started to blur.

I could see him getting closer so I sat up, ready to challenge him. "Ready to talk now fishy girl?" I starred him dead in the eyes from my position on the floor.

"I'm. A. MERMAID!!" As soon as the words left my lips, I shot a fire ball and an ice blast straight towards his heart. I was hoping to burn him alive while giving him hypothermia at the same time. I completely disregarded the fact that I'd be electrocuted for it, I just wanted to hurt him.

But somehow, he dodged. He turned and came towards me while my body was consumed in another, more powerful, wave of electricity.

"You shouldn't have done that." (Ben Drowned, anyone? No? Ok....)

He dashed towards me, and the last thing I knew before passing out from all the pain was the repetitive feeling of his knife stabbing and cutting me over and over again, and the feeling of his hands as they beat my already pained body.

I'd always been careful to keep my magic in check since that day, because ever since then whenever I'd lost control he'd always start attacking me with his knife. It was already enough that I had this collar literally frying me, but now I had to watch out for his abusive attacks as well.

In a way, I guess you could say that I've grown to fear myself. I learned that if I don't keep control over myself, I'll get hurt.

I've also come to fear humans because of it. I mean, yea, I'll still kill them and all but I'd make sure to never get too close. What if they'd capture me like that man did?

I could see a bit of anger and surprise in Marks' chocolatey brown eyes. It scared me a little, not knowing what his reaction would be.

I wondered, would Mark be the same as him? Would he hurt me too? What if all his kindness was just a facade so I'd trust him, and then he'd kill me out of revenge for his people?

Was he lying when he'd said that he wouldn't hurt me? Or, perhaps, he'd really meant it. After all, he hasn't given me any reason to distrust him this entire time. Maybe he won't be like that man after all.

I suppose I only had one way to find out. I released my grip on Marks' arms and said one word. "Okay".

In that single word, I put everything on the line. My trust in him, the chance of ever trusting a human again, and my current physical and mental state. If he attacks me, not only would I be heavily wounded, but I'd be broken, even more so than I already was. I don't think that I'd ever be able to speak with or be around another human again.

I'm not saying that I'd actually want to spend time with those awful creatures, but It'd kinda ruin my whole 'revenge' thing if I was scared the entire time.

I still could barely believe that I was gonna let him fix my bandage, but I suppose it was better than having him focused on the burn mark.

I felt his long fingers gingerly slip under the bandage, lightly combing through my (h/l) (h/c) hair as he tried to find the end of the wrappings.

Once he had a firm but gentle grasp on the end of it, he lightly undid the wrappings and removed the whole thing from my head. Instantly I felt a throbbing from the back of my skull.

"Oh fubbernuck!" I jumped at his strange exclamation and tried to see what he was upset about. He quickly took the bandage to the hallway, and I herd water running along with a couple of his weird swear words echo throughout his base.

What does "fubbernuck" even mean?! I had no clue as to what was going on or what all the strange sayings that he was angrily screaming meant, but when I touched the back of my head to investigate what the sharp pains were I felt a warm, sticky, liquid. I pulled my fingers away from the strange wetness and looked at them. They were covered in blood.

Oh God, w-what happened? Why is my head bleeding? I know I got hit by a rock slide but damn, I thought I would be done bleeding by now! So why'd it reopen?! Did Mark do something to me and somehow get by with out me knowing? Is this what his reaction to the burn mark was?!

"M-mark? What did you do? Why am I bleeding? ANSWER ME DAMN IT!!"

He came back into the room, a semi-wet bandage in his hand. "Well I think you reopened your head wound when you fell earlier. It's gonna be ok I just need to reclean it. Then I'll bandage it up and you'll be good."

I noticed that he had a soaking wet rag in his other hand. "Just relax, and let me see the back of your head, okay?"

"Hell no! You're gonna tell me whatever the fuck you did to the back of my head before I let you get anywhere near me!

He raised his hands defensively before giving his reply. "I didn't do anything I swear! I was just gonna check out that strange burn mark, then I noticed your bandage, and the next thing I knew your head blood was all over my hands! Now please let me help you."

"How do I know that your not gonna take advantage of this and hurt me more?!" "Oh my God, we don't have time for this! Look I'm not gonna hurt you I swear! I'm just gonna clean it and rewrap it and then I'll be done I promise!"

I thought about it for a second, weighing out all the positive and negative possibilities in my head. Best case scenario: he does exactly what he said he'd do. Worst case scenario: he strangles me with the cloth bandage and then uses it to clean off his clothes and soak up the blood after he stabbed me to death with the mop handle that's behind him.

I decided to focus on the best case scenario as I tried to calm down. The last thing I needed was for all of my stress to cause a shock from my collar.

"Fine but that's it, I don't want you messing with me too much." "Finally!Geez what's with you?! Why are you so scared?" He came closer and started to dress my wound. "Yeah right like I'd tell you! That's my personal information and I'm not gonna just breakdown and give you my whole life's story when you kidnaped me!"

He pulled away from me with a disgusted look on his face, his skillfully nimble fingers having already finished redressing my wound. "How many times do I have to tell you that I didn't- UGH you know what? No. I'm not gonna get sucked back into that train wreck, it's a pointless conversation that's just one big circle of hate. And I'm not gonna deal with your endless bitchy attitude!"

"Excuse me?!" "Yeah that's right, I said it! You've got the most bitchy attitude I've ever had to put up with! And that's saying something! Geez, it's no wonder you were alone when I found you, who'd want to be around someone with an attitude like yours?!"

It hurt. I don't even know why, I mean I don't even like this dweeb but it was still heart breaking to hear those words spilling from his mouth in his deep voice. I could feel the tears welling up in my (e/c) eyes and I tried my best to hold them back. But one word from his insult just kept coming back.

"Alone "

He was right, I was alone but it wasn't because of the reason he'd said. All it took was that one word to bring back the memories of my family. The family who'd loved and cared for me for so long, the family I depended upon for joyful memories and support with my magic. All of that love and joy was gone now. They were stolen from me, by Mark's kind. He would never know of course, I'd never tell him.

But the pain was still there. The reality that I'd never be able to be with them again just hit me so hard, and all from that one word.

Anger and mourning mixed with the pain, it burned in the depths of my broken heart, and it wouldn't be long before that burning sensation would come to the surface.

My (e/c) eyes had been shut for a while as I tried to down the pain, but it was no use. I snapped my watery eyes up and glared all of my pain at the suddenly stunned redheaded man in front of me.

He doesn't even know how broken I am! He doesn't know how much pain he just put me through, he doesn't care.   A single tear fell from my eyes and I started to lose my composure. My collar starts to beep, warning of the soon to come surge of raw anger and fire that's about to erupt from my body and burn Mark alive.

He doesn't care if I get hurt, so I won't care if he does. I'm about to let go and shoot out the fire that's so threateningly close to bursting from my angry state, I want to see him burn for making me feel so terrible. 'I don't care if he is injured' I repeat in my mind.

'But you will.' A small voice in the back of my mind opposes my angry thought.

"Leave." "W-what? No! You're in my base and I -!" "LEAVE!" For some unknown reason I shout at him, letting loose all the tears I'd been holding back and warning him to get to safety. Mark runs to the door and slams it behind him, and I... I let go.

Finally willing the sobs and powerful surges of fire to erupt from my body and take with them my grief.

I know I will be punished. I always am. I go from one pain to the other just like that. It never ends and no one will ever be able to save me. No one will ever want to save me.

The electricity engulfs me, making my screams of sorrow turn to screeches of agony as my flames briefly intensify before being cut off completely.

It's harder and harder to hold onto consciousness, the light headed feeling and the pain around my neck makes my other injuries about fifty times worse.

I really am fubbernucked!

As strange as my last thought was, I find that I can't help but smile to myself when I realized I was using Mark's strange word.

I drifted off into the endless darkness that awaited my mind, the last muffled sound that echoed through my brain being Mark's terrified screams from outside.

~~~~~~AUTHORS NOTE!~~~~~
God FINALLY!! It's about damn time I got off my sorry ass and updated! I hope you all really enjoyed it and I PROMISE that not the entire book will be you and Mark arguing like an old married couple. I won't update for a while as family stuff happened (see my art book if you're wondering I don't want to get into it)  but I AM working on the next update!