Chapter 39

She couldn't touch her face. Anya wasn't sure what had happened, but she had a feeling her mind wasn't entirely with her yet. There had felt like shards of glass in her cheek, and she wasn't sure how they'd gotten there.

All she knew was that she had woken up a little too warm with arms around her that were sturdy and safe. She'd known who was holding her. How could she not?

Daios was always the dream. She wanted to feel his arms around her, so of course she had dreamt of them. Snuggled into the muscles of his body and the steady thuds of his hearts, nothing could hurt her.

In some part of her mind, she had known she was hurting. She had felt it. And when she'd woken enough to realize maybe this wasn't a dream, she'd felt the glass in her face. She could also feel the strange feeling of pressure in her skull. No, on her skull.

That panicky feeling started rising in her chest again. She didn't want to think that the feeling was Bitsy, but... What would she do if her droid was destroyed? She couldn't hear anything at all. Not Daios. Not the groan of the building around her. The explosion right beside her had only made everything all that much harder. It was just a pressing silence that weighed down on her.

She couldn't breathe. She couldn't stay in his arms either because there was something else she was supposed to remember, but her mind was so scattered.

Anya couldn't sit still like this. She couldn't stay in his arms when she needed some air. Some space to process that everything she had relied on was just stripped away from her. Struggling, she ignored his frustrated sounds until she could stand up beside him and just... breathe.

But the damn air was full of smoke because she'd just destroyed her entire home and she was bleeding.

Drips of warm blood trailed down her arms. She couldn't stop staring at them as they raced down her skin. For the first time since she'd woken, she wondered if there was something seriously wrong with her. Anya couldn't put any weight on her leg, but she remembered getting stabbed there when she'd been trying to set the undines free and then...

A cold sensation traveled down her spine as she remembered the other important part of all this. The most important part, she realized, considering he was now standing on the opposite side of the room.

Somehow, impossibly so, the General was still alive. He stood on shaky legs, just like her. Two pillars on either side of the room that was crumbling, but somehow they were holding all of this up with their mutual hatred of the other.

She could see the gun on the floor right in front of him. He saw it the same time she did and cocked his head to the side as he looked at her and the undine beside her.

Clearly he was thinking the same thing she was. He had time to get it. If he was quick. But he had just as much blood and dirt covering him, and it wouldn't be all that easy for him to do so.

He said something, but he was too far away for her to read his lips. Daios's hand wrapped around her ankle, and when she looked down at him, he signed something close to, "He wants you dead."

She knew. As much as it hurt, she knew.

The General stood there, his lips still moving, but she had no idea what he was saying. Part of her didn't want to know. He was spewing out words of hatred and absolute honesty that he didn't want her. He never had.

He'd already told her everything that he needed to say. The General believed she was less because of her mother. He had always thought of her as nothing but a replacement. A figurehead that should have been just like her mother, but she'd not been easily controlled either.

He had taken her from her mother in the hopes that he would create a tool that he could do whatever he wanted with. All the memories of her childhood were suddenly tainted.

They'd never gotten along. He wasn't a good father, but she had always thought, at the very least, he had some pride in her. Now she knew it was all brainwashing. All of it was just a way for him to control her. To manipulate her into the little doll so he could move her limbs at will and puppet her to say the words he wanted her to say.

She'd been a fool to ever trust him, but she couldn't change her past. All she could do was continue moving forward in a way she was proud of.

"Shut up," she shouted, squeezing her belly so the words came out as loud as she knew how to make them. "I don't want to hear anything you have to say anymore. I'm leaving. You can stay in your crumbling city to save what little there is left. I broke my cage. And now I'm going to fly free."

As if everything moved in slow motion, she watched the General grab the gun so close to his feet. He lifted it and pointed it directly at her, and she knew there was a part of him that wanted to see her in pain. He didn't aim at her head. He aimed at her chest, as though he knew that was where it would hurt the worst. Right through her broken and bleeding heart.

She hadn't heard loud sounds for a very long time. Especially not a gun shot. She'd heard them when she still had her hearing, and when she was just a child.

But she knew what this one sounded like. Anya could imagine the sound of it leaving his gun, and the ricochet of noise that came after. Squeezing her eyes shut, she waited for the pain to join the rest that had already burned through her entire body.

But that pain never came. Not in the slightest.

Peeling her eyes open, she was astounded to find Daios in front of her again. His teeth were bared, those black eyes seeing right into her soul as he became a living shield. He jerked again, leaning into her with a puff of breath that feathered over her face.

He said nothing. Perhaps because he wasn't sure if she could hear him. All he did was lift his hand and touch his middle and ring finger to his palm.

"I love you," he said, and she hadn't taught him how to sign that. Where he'd learned it from, she couldn't even guess.

"Are you okay?" she whispered.

At his quick nod, she said, "Get rid of him, and then take me home."

He stared down into her eyes with a softer expression than she'd ever seen on his face. Like he knew how horrible that was for her to ask, and how much she had to fight against herself to say the words. Anya never thought she would be the person to order another life to end. But she also knew the repercussions of letting the General live.

It was the one thing none of them had talked about. And as Daios tucked her behind one of the mangled metal tables and then slipped into the water, she repeated all the reasons why this was the right choice.

If they let the General go, then he would find his supporters amongst those who made it to the life boats. He would be given a grand entrance to any of the other cities where he would just continue what he had been doing, and nothing would change.

The General started shouting. She could see his lips moving and his chest heaving with the words as he pointed the gun at the water. It kicked back, jerking with a violence that mirrored his rage. A small part of her was afraid that Daios would get hit, but she also knew her undine had done this many times. Fighting her people was what he did.

If the General got to the other cities, then they would have even less of a chance to work with them. She knew Beta was already quiet considering the undine attack, and her father hadn't sent them any help afterward. They wanted nothing to do with Alpha or the people in it. Which only left Gamma, and that was a problem. For all that she'd been friends with Ace for a long time, Gamma was still dangerous. The people in that city were convicts, the ones that were thrown to the wolves and to a city that ran entirely on its own.

No government, no one to police them. It was a lawless place.

The water rippled behind the man she used to call father. He stood there, legs braced as though he was prepared for anything that attacked him. But he was just a human.

And Daios was so much more than that.

A metal arm appeared out of the water. She watched each finger settle on the remains of the floor before it flexed and suddenly all the bulk of her undine moved like a snake striking its prey. His tail lashed, muscles bunching, every bit of his strength on stark display. One moment, all she could see was the barest hint of his head and then he was on her father.

The large, metal hand had her father's wrist in his grasp. Then the bones were... wrong. The gun dropped from the General's grip, but he still fought with the other unbroken hand. The General struggled even as he fell onto the ground with the heavy weight of a massive undine on top of him.

Daios bared his teeth and all his fins rose. They shook, vibrating with his anger as he glared down at the man who had caused so much pain and hatred for his people.

She knew he wanted to make this slow. He wanted to take his time peeling off the skin of the man who was responsible for so much heartache and pain. But as Daios looked up at her, catching her gaze through the haze of smoke and fire, he jerked his chin as though telling her not to look.

But Anya thought she should. She should watch and know what he unleashed because she was the one who had asked for this. She told him to take care of her father. No, not her father. Her thoughts were so jumbled and her heart was racing in her chest.

Then she saw Daios lift his hand and palm the General's face. The muscles of his chest and back flexed, his tail coiling as though to give him significantly more power and she knew...

She knew what he was going to do.

She turned her face away from the sight, squeezing her eyes shut even though she knew she wouldn't hear what happened. Her mind, though, it played through it for her. The massive undine who had always protected her had just crushed her father's skull in his hand.

That shouldn't make her breath race or her heart thud in her chest. Or maybe it should. She told herself that this was the first time she'd seen him actually act like a monster, and shouldn't she hate him for it? Shouldn't she be terrified that he had the capability of doing this? He could do it to her whenever he wanted, and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

Anya didn't know how long she stayed where she was, frozen behind that dented table as though it was the only shield protecting her from the world. Everything had changed. Yet again. Her face and head were on fire, and she didn't think there was a part of her body that wasn't bruised. Every time she inhaled, there was a distinct pinching feeling that she was a little terrified might be a broken rib.

All of that was so overwhelming. She couldn't think about all of it at once or she might break. Or maybe that was the head injury. How was she supposed to know?

Cool hands slid up her legs, and she opened her eyes to see him in the water. Waiting for her to look at him. Those black eyes were filled with so much patience and kindness that it made tears prick in her own.

He looked at her like she had hung the moon. Like he knew what he had just done would scare her and he would patiently wait for her on the other side.

And now they could barely even communicate. She couldn't ask him for reassurance because that had been so terrifying. Because she'd almost died and maybe they never would have come back together again if she hadn't just gotten lucky. She wanted to hear him tell her that he was all right too, and that she was going to be all right. That together, they were going to get through this.

Instead, all she heard was the faintest ringing in her ears and all she saw was that his lips were moving. But she couldn't quite read them on those cracked lips. Maybe because they weren't actual words to her. She couldn't see where the syllables started or ended. She couldn't read his lips and she couldn't tell what he wanted her to hear or say or...

He lifted her hands from her knees, cradling them as he pressed a kiss to her knuckles. So gently. Like he knew she was fragile right now, and that she felt as though she could shatter into a thousand pieces of what used to be herself.

She broke. Anya reached for him, tears sliding down her cheeks as his hands slid around her back. There wasn't a hint of blood on him because he'd swum to her side and soon, there would be no blood or ash on her either.

He connected them through the breathing tentacle, and even that was more gentle than she had realized it could be. She barely felt it slide into her neck and when he breathed for her, it was like he took so much of the weight off her shoulders.

With him, she didn't have to do anything but stay in his arms and let him take the burden of it all for her.

Daios sank into the water with her, his hands never stopping as they smoothed up and down her spine. The warm one counted the vertebrae down her back, holding onto her ribs as he felt her breathing while clutching her to his hearts. The cold metal one cupped the back of her head and held her face against the side of his neck.

She wasn't warm enough to swim with him. There were no wetsuits. Nothing for her to keep herself safe in.

But then she felt his fins fold over her hips. He curled himself around her, tucking her fingers into his gills that were warm with every breath he took for the both of them. He wrapped himself around her so tightly she didn't even feel the cold chill of the ocean.

And then she felt his lips press to her head, and she knew nothing bad was going to happen. He was taking her home.

It was done. All of it was done.