Chapter 3

Three

Mira

Of all the times to be late, Mira had to pick the one time red lights flashed through the halls. The ones that meant, “Seriously. Get the fuck out.”

She’d been deep in the tunnels, though. Hermon had told their boss that he’d warned her about the crack in the glass and she said it wasn’t a big deal. Sure, she’d pointed out the giant scratch marks from the inside. She’d told them all about the monstrous undine that had attacked the glass and then blasted its way into their home.

Did anyone believe her? Of course not. They laughed right in her face and then sent her off to do grunt work that was a waste of her talent. But what did they care? She was now a liar on top of taking too many risks. An employee who wasn’t worth investing in.

She was going to scratch someone’s eyes out. It wasn’t too much to ask for a little god damned respect around here.

Careening around a corner, she swore under her breath as the air got even more thin. She wouldn’t be able to keep running if they ran out of air. She only had a few minutes.

Where were the crowds of people? Only engineers lived in this wing, but no one was so crazy that they would just ignore the blaring lights. And they’d all been taught from day one to not be a hero. Red lights? Run and leave your friends. Everyone for yourself.

She was going for the elevator. That was the quickest way to go, and probably everyone had gone the same way. Which meant there would be a line, but the elevator was quick. It always made her stomach bottom out when she rode it. That had to mean it could get them all out in time. Right?

Right.

Except then she saw the elevator at the end of the hall and her fucking boss was the last one in. She couldn’t mistake that giant for anyone else. And the red light at the top of the elevator meant the heartless fucker had turned the emergency on inside the elevator.

“Wait!” she shouted. “I’m almost⁠—”

The doors shut, and she was stuck down here.

“That mother fucking, god damned, bitch ass... Ugh!” Kicking the floor, she had to think about what to do next. The engineering wing was intentionally difficult to get out of, considering they had the most mishaps.

There was another elevator. A glass one that was definitely not repaired enough to ride yet. But it would have to do. She might have to hold her breath for a while, but she’d get to the upper levels.

The damn thing was outside.

Hissing caught her attention. Another leak? That would explain the emergency protocol, but... She turned just in time to see the massive black tail that hit her in the chest and sent her skidding across the floor. Her hip hit first, sending a bright spark of pain up her spine until she slid to a stop ten feet away.

And her jaw fell open as she stared at the massive undine crouched on the floor. His clawed hands scraped the metal, the screeching making her wince almost more than the glare on his strange features.

“You,” she hissed.

It was the same damn undine. The same one who had ruined her first dome work and then tried to kill her.

She couldn’t mistake him. That black tail and vibrant blue edges had to be uncommon in his species. Besides, his strangely handsome face mottled with anger and those black eyes glared at her with so much hate it could only be him.

And then he made a noise, deep and booming in his throat. She swore it was the same word she’d just said.

You.

They stared at each other, and she wondered if she’d have to fight him. Mira had the upper hand. This wasn’t underwater, after all, and he didn’t seem to be moving all that well. But then she saw him make a strange gulping motion with his entire body.

Was he... holding his breath?

Oh shit. Her eyes widened as she looked him over. It made sense that he’d be holding his breath. But she had the strange feeling he should be able to breathe like her. He had a similar face to hers. A kind of nose and a familiar shaped mouth. A chest that rose and fell outside the glass, but apparently not inside here.

No one had ever gotten their hands on an undine, dead or alive. No human knew how they actually functioned. They’d always thought undines were like fish. They had to be in the water to breathe. So… how long could he hold his breath?

It shouldn’t matter. He’d shattered her first big project, and somehow gotten himself stranded inside their building. He could rot like the rest of the fish for all she cared, but... it felt wrong.

This wasn’t just a fish. He was an intelligent, thinking being who had bested her even though she’d given him the damn answer. Letting him die felt like she was letting a person die, and that wasn’t who she was.

So now she had to get both of them out of here. Without either of them dying.

Because that was the easiest option, apparently.

Sighing, she coughed into her sleeve to clear her lungs before rolling onto her hands and knees. “Okay, big guy. I know you can’t understand a word I’m saying, but we need to work together to get out of here.”

His black eyes followed her every move, tracking her. He clearly didn’t trust her.

He had no reason to. Their kinds had been fighting against each other for centuries, if the legends were true. Undines killed humans out in the ocean. Humans killed undines whenever they got the chance.

Tit for tat, she supposed. One person hurt, so did the other. It was their way of life.

He could get her to that elevator outside these walls, though. And she could get him out of here. Her boss would probably fire her for it, but, hey. Maybe he wouldn’t figure it out.

This whole plan would require her to touch the undine, however, and he was looking rather sickly. Or that the sight of her made him want to vomit. Whatever it was, he was definitely more pale than he’d been just a few minutes ago.

Damn it, she had to stop worrying about the fish in front of her and figure out how to save them both. Okay, plan. Plan, plan, plan.

Mira frantically looked down the hall where she’d come from. If she flooded this area, none of the engineers would be able to return. All their things would be destroyed, and that meant, unfortunately, that the entirety of Beta would struggle to fix anything. They really needed better city planning.

So first things first...

Bolting back the way she came, she ignored the undine as it swiped at her legs with an ugly growl. The thing really hated her. Feral beast.

The end of the hall had one of the blast doors. It had never been used, because why would anyone seal the engineers into their home? Skidding around the corner, she slammed into the wall and hit the big red button. And then darted underneath the blast door back into the tunnel.

It sealed her in with the undine, with less air than before, so she was really running out of time.

Mira sprinted back toward the undine. He’d coiled around himself, hacking and coughing until he finally seemed to... leak? Water gushed out from his ribs and she was certain that he’d died. Maybe undines turned into goo when they passed and that was going to make this whole thing difficult.

But the water splashed out of him, rolling over her feet, and then he didn’t collapse. The opposite, in fact. He stood up straighter and those sealed nostrils flared as he took a deep breath of the limited air still in the tunnel.

“Oh,” she whispered. “You have two sets of lungs.”

Considering the dark glint in those black eyes, she had a feeling he was going to use the limited air he’d just gotten to murder her. He lifted those clawed, webbed hands, coiled his tail underneath him like a snake, and she only had a few seconds to convince him to stop.

“Hold on!” Mira shouted, holding up her hands as though that might give him pause. “Wait, wait!”

And for some strange reason... he did. He paused right where he was, his head cocked to the side, watching for her next move.

She backed toward the nearest panel of glass and pointed at it. Gesturing with her hands as she mimed what she was saying, Mira tried to explain her plan in the best way possible. “I’m going to break through this glass. The room is going to flood with water, and you’re going to pick me up and carry me to that glass box over there.”

Pointing to the elevator wasn’t going the way she wanted, because he didn’t really seem to understand what she was saying. The air was so thin now, already used up by too many people. And she’d sealed off the rest of it, which wasn’t...

Damn it, she was going to start hallucinating if she didn’t hurry up.

Adding a frantic, “Please don’t kill me,” Mira turned her back on the undine and put her attention on the wall in front of her.

The glass paneling was attached by industrial grade metal. It was almost impossible to break the glass this deep into the ocean, unless it was weakened by repeated strikes as the monster behind her had proven. He’d busted through the crack easily enough, but she thought it was probably a massive stone after an earthquake that had originally caused that crack.

Her only option was to melt the rivets. They would give, and then she could hit it hard enough to pop the panel.

Firing up her welder, she started on the bottom ones. It took a bit to melt them. They were damn thick beasts, but she got the bottom done quick enough. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck and into her eyes, blurring her vision. Speed was of the essence, though, no time to wipe it away.

Hands grabbed onto her waist, lifting her to the higher rivets.

Mira gasped and looked down at the massive, clawed hands suddenly spanning her entire stomach and hips. “Fuck, you’re big,” she muttered, before turning her attention back to the remaining bolts she had to get through.

Just a few more, and she’d be done. Just a couple more, and then she could slam her feet into the panel and knock it free.

The air was gone. All of a sudden, just gone. Every breath she took was a struggle, like she was trying to breathe underwater. There just wasn’t enough oxygen because her fucking welder was using it all up to spark the fire.

The last rivet was almost melted. Almost, and suddenly, her welder went out.

“No,” she muttered, slamming it against the glass as if that would help. She sparked it again and again, but there wasn’t enough air to get the flame going. Nowhere near enough.

They were dead. Goners. They’d find her body floating with the undine’s. Or maybe he’d still be alive, eating her flesh in a tank of his own creation.

Fuck. This was bad.

She went limp, her lungs heaving as she tried to suck in what little air there might still be. But she was getting a little sluggish now. What had her father always said about breath? She exhaled something that wasn’t oxygen, that’s for sure. And she always had to be real careful to not use her welder in areas that didn’t have enough oxygen.

Mira just couldn’t remember why, as her brain struggled to keep her heart beating.

Heavy thuds broke through her thoughts, and she watched as the undine coiled his body and struck the panel. Again. Again. It had to hurt. His shoulder already hung awkwardly out of the socket, but he kept going. Hitting the panel over and over until a little water came out from the bottom.

She was delirious enough to giggle at the sight. If she’d had more air to speak, she might have even said, “Oh look, now I’m going to drown.”

But he didn’t stop at the sound she made. The massive, powerful tail of the undine did a lot of the work as he slammed his upper body on the panel so many times that it eventually bent back like the top of a sardine can. Peeled back and jagged too, just like she’d seen some of the engineers eat out of.

The water rushed in, sweeping her body back against the wall and pinning her there until the entire world turned into slow motion. Everything floated. Her welder, her hair, the undine who glided toward her with so much grace it made her eyes sting with tears.

Oh, wait. That was the saltwater.

He moved closer to her, those sharp teeth flashing, and she wondered if this was when she would die. It would be nice to not be awake for whenever he took a bite out of her body.

Instead, he moved closer and then sealed his lips over hers.

Oh, he was cold. That was her first thought. And she was surrounded by deep, icy ocean water that already squeezed her chest and made what little air was in there come out. Mere minutes and she’d go into hypothermic shock, if she somehow managed to breathe. Somehow, his lips were colder than all that, but smooth as they slid over hers.

His tongue swept out, licking at her lips and she was so shocked that she opened them without thinking. Maybe he was giving her some kind of mercy before she died?

His clawed hand came up and pinched her jaw, forcing her to open wider, and then he breathed into her. Her lungs sucked up the air, and she scrabbled at his arms, his shoulders, anything she could hold onto to suck in that air she desperately needed. Again he exhaled, and she inhaled even more before wrenching away from him, coughing into the water as her lungs tried to remember what to do with air.

She was drowning. Oh, she was drowning.

But the undine drew her face back to his and breathed again into her mouth. Mira had the delayed thought that she was pinned to the opposite panel, glass at her back, icy water surrounding her, making out with an undine who had just tried to kill her.

Inhaling again, she held her breath this time as he slowly drew away.

She could only barely see his face now that all the halogen lights had blinked out of existence. There were only the lights outside the tunnel illuminating his unimpressed expression.

Then he gathered her up against his chest and swam out of the hallway with her. Into the wild ocean.

The cold started settling into her fingers and feet. She couldn’t move them. Couldn’t even hold onto him as he swam toward the glass elevator she’d indicated.

And somehow, even though she was almost blacking out, she saw the depths flash before her eyes. So vast and dark. Never ending space that was both overwhelming and so freeing.

She’d spent her entire life trapped inside Beta. She knew every hallway that she was allowed to go in, every room where engineers were allowed to walk. But this? Oh, this was so much bigger.

The undine wrenched the elevator door open and threw her inside so quickly that water only filled it about halfway before the door slammed shut.

Mira took a few seconds to blink at the horrific amount of strength that took before she lunged toward the controls.

“Push... buttons...” she chattered through her shuddering teeth and managed to push one. She didn’t care which one, just any level.

The glass box heaved, clanking and shuddering, but it moved. She dropped onto her knees, freezing in the icy water as the box moved up.

Through the glass that fogged with her breath, she saw the undine watching her. He hovered in the water, his brows drawn down in confusion or anger as he watched her go up and up outside of the city. His long hair floated around him, all those electric blue flashes glowing up and down his beautiful body. And then, with a flick of a tail, he was gone.

Just in time for the door to open behind her and spill her out onto a very expensive floor.