Chapter 62

chapter 62

CEPHARIUS

My mate and a child were trapped somewhere in a metal tube at the bottom of the sea and I would die before I would let anything happen to them.

I sensed and saw the chaos when they changed direction, realizing they were in danger. I girded myself with all the magic I had currently, took a deep inhale of water, and pushed my entire body through the magical barrier at the dock, until all of me was on the horrible, dry, and less pressured far side. I could taste the chemicals from the explosion and the two-legged blood beneath my tentacles, but I didn't have time to explore—I needed to save my family.

I surged through the dock room's open door, following the path I'd just seen Elle take, while swinging one of the amphibious rifles off of my shoulders. I'd seen them in Elle's memories, and knew they didn't use bullets, but flechettes—strange little darts that shouldn't hurt the habitat's integrity, but would do enough distant damage for me, until I could get there personally. I pulled myself through the engine room, then down the next hall, spotted the soldiers, took aim, and fired.

The first projectile hit the man in his flank, and so I re-aimed the next, going for the more important spine. I hit it, and watched him drop, starting up with another. They tried to hide from me, hiding in the nooks and crannies of the crenulated walls, shooting back—but I was built to withstand the deep. Their bullets were nuisances to me, and nothing more. I pulled out another rifle, operating this one with my tentacles, alternating my attacks between the two guns, pressing them back using both weapons simultaneously, until there was only one left, the one who'd started everything with the accent—and he grabbed Elle, to hold her in front of himself, across her shoulders, with a gun to her temple.

"I'm going to get into this lifeboat with your woman now, and if you try to interfere, I'll kill her," he announced, while pulling her back with him.

Elle's eyes were wide with panic, but her mind was clear. "Shoot him, Cepharius! I trust you!" she thought out at me.

"I can't!" I shouted back at her. I'd already seen him kill one man without compunction—and I knew the darts my rifles shot weren't as fast as the bullets from his guns.

Then I saw Snout hop down from the bench she'd sat him on, running up to bite Hargrave's ankle, with teeth I did not know he had. Hargrave howled—until the metal dart I shot at him tore out his throat, and I surged forward, pulling Elle away from him as he fell back into the lifeboat, bleeding out.

"Elle," I whispered at her. And here I thought I'd never touch her again . She wrestled away from me, and I had to let her; my magic was waning. I watched her close the lifeboat's door and hit the button to set it free, my leaving my mate here, still unsafe, on my side.

"My pearl, what have you done?" I thought out to her—but this time once I broached the 'qa, everything I'd been hiding came rushing in. The pain of being dry, how my magic had now dwindled to its lowest point, and how all of the air in my tissues was trying to expand inside the habitat's much lower pressure.

"Cepharius!" she said, running for me—no, not for me, but past me, to grab me as best she could, to help try to pull me back into the water.

I followed her down the hall and through the engine room, using my hands to crawl in desperation, dragging myself as I felt death nearing, leaving a smear of my own juices behind from the wounds their bullets had inflicted on me, feeling my tissues begin to swell as I was losing control of the magic that compressed me.

"Come on, come on," Elle said as we reached the dock. She was picking up my tentacles and shifting them forward one by one, until some small part of me was through the edge of the square and safe into the deep.

I focused on this and eased myself after it, feeling the pressure I was used to settling all around me again.

"Oh my gosh," Elle whispered, once I was in. "Ceph, are you okay?"

"No," I answered her truthfully. There was a lifeboat out there that she was not in.

I could feel her giving me a bittersweet smile. "Someone had to work the door."

"It could've been you. From the inside."

"Yeah, but," she said softly. "It would've meant leaving the sea."

I thrashed my head back and forth. "This is not how I wanted you to stay, Elle."

"Me either—but the ship needed the battery, Ceph, so I don't really think that lifeboat was going up anymore. Plus, I wanted to see things through."

I breathed roughly, regaining my strength, and stared through the square of water at her, both of us trapped in our own worlds, and both of us in our own way dying: her, from the fact that her habitat was running out of power, and me from a broken heart.

There was only one thing left to say. "Would you like to come out here and watch with me?" I asked, reaching through the water-square to offer her an arm.

She nodded. "Let me get on my suit."