Chapter 31

Thirty-One

Mira

She wasn’t sure how long she waited for him. There was another undine swimming around the dome, and she wasn’t quite certain where it was at all times. The male, and it was clearly male, circled her multiple times. Every now and then she would catch a glimpse of his marked face, and the gills along the sides that were so similar and yet so different from Arges.

She could tell him apart from the others without any issue at all. The lighter blue color of this male, the size of it, none of these were the correct features of her undine. But she knew how dangerous all of them were. And she knew how much danger she was in right now.

If the creature wanted a show, though, she wouldn’t give it one. Grinding her teeth together in anger, she sat on the very edge of the bed and remained frozen in place. She didn’t move even a muscle, not to reply to Byte’s questions, not to do anything other than stare at the moon pool.

Apparently, this angered the creature.

The undine smacked the glass multiple times, trying its best to get her to move. She even saw it lift a rock to the dome, but the ancient glass held. Even if a couple places where he had struck were marked by the stone’s dust, it did not shatter. Mira halfway expected it to.

What would she do then? She could swim to the surface for air, but then she wouldn’t be able to see the undines that were hunting her. They were faster, stronger, more capable in every way, shape, and form. There was nothing she could do.

If they wanted her dead, she would die. And her only regret would be that Arges himself hadn’t killed her. At the very least, she would have respected a death at the hands of an undine like him.

This creature? The one who swam in circles above her, baring his teeth like a shark? This was a child who did not scare her in the slightest.

“Mira?” Byte said, hours after she’d first sat on the edge of the bed. “There are more of them.”

She stood a little too quickly. Her heart skipped a beat as she peered out of the parts of the windows that weren’t quite so covered in algae. And sure enough, there were two more undines swimming toward the next. Both she recognized from before. The angry red one, missing an arm and trailing blood from the angry stump. And the yellow one who stayed farther back. But it was the red one who paused right above her.

He glared down, malice on every scale of his body. Mira glared back before pointing to his wounds and giving him a feral smile. “I know you can’t understand me, but I’m glad he hurt you. You deserved it.”

Mira didn’t flinch when he punched the glass, and only watched with mild apathy as the others tugged him away. The three of them left, and only black blood remained in the water. Only then did she sink back onto the bed, her legs suddenly jelly.

“Where is he?” she whispered. “The others came back, but he...”

“Mira?” Byte asked. “There is plenty here for you. If he doesn’t come back, you will not starve.”

That wasn’t helpful. She didn’t want to be alive and stuck by herself for all eternity. It wasn’t living if she wasn’t able to speak with anyone other than a robot. Panic clawed its way up her throat. She could feel it trying to crawl out of her belly, trying to rip her mouth open from the inside with a scream that came from deep within.

She sat back down on the side of the bed. Folding her hands in her lap, she tried to still their trembling before she burst into movement. She needed to get dressed. First, she would wash in the small washroom that desalinated the water so she could actually get clean without being crusty. After that very short shower, she bolted out into the main chamber to see if he was back. He wasn’t. So she got dressed in another pale eggshell colored dress. Boring, plain, but it didn’t matter the color.

She was so scared he wouldn’t come back. Arges had said the other undines were hunting her, but what if they had actually been hunting him? What if they were mad at him for keeping her? What if he was dead?

Thunder and lightning rumbled above her head for what felt like hours. The darkness fell, and small solar lights blinked on in the dome. Their cold white light did nothing to stop the fear in her heart.

But then she heard it. A soft rap against the moon pool door. Clearly a knock, but not what she’d expected to hear. She ran for it, freezing when she heard Byte’s voice.

“What if it’s... not him?”

She didn’t know. If she let another undine in here, they would kill her. Death might not even be quick if they dragged her into the water. They might toy with her, drowning her slowly until she eventually gave in.

“What if it is him?” she whispered, the words feeling haunted on her tongue.

Opening the moon pool wasn’t a choice. It was a necessity. She had to know if he was alive. She had to know if he had come back to her.

At first, the moon pool opened slowly and revealed nothing. Just black water beneath her that the light from her dome didn’t penetrate. Her breath was ragged in her lungs, she felt her heart beating faster, faster, until...

The smallest glow of blue from the sand underneath the dome. Like he was lying there, like he...

“Arges,” she gasped.

Mira plunged into the ocean without another thought. Kicking her feet and spearing into the sea toward him, she hooked her arms underneath his. Mira felt along his body for whatever purchase she could get before she planted her feet on the sand and shoved them both toward the moon pool door. Other undines be damned. She wasn’t afraid of them.

But she was afraid for him.

Together, they struggled to the dome. And once his head came out of the water, he let out a ragged gasp and seemed to come back alive. He reached for the edge, keeping one arm around her as though he was still trying to protect her.

“Stop it,” she scolded. “You’re hurt. Get out of the water, Arges.”

“I can’t... Have to get you...”

He wasn’t making any sense. She clambered out of the pool and then turned toward him, grabbing onto his wrists and helping him drag himself out of the water. It took so much effort for him. Eventually, he gave one massive splash of his tail and threw himself onto the floor. But then his tail was still in the water and she didn’t know if that was safe. So she bent and picked up the massive tail, heaving it out of the water with her whole body until she could finally slam the door shut again.

And then she was in the room with an undine. Again. Just like it had been in the beginning.

Their gazes locked before he made a strange undulating motion with his chest again, and she groaned. “Oh, not that again.”

At least he had the decency to turn away from her as he expelled all the water out of his gills. Thankfully, whoever had designed this dome had put vents on the floor near the moon pool. All the water drained who knows where, but at the very least, it wasn’t all over her floor for her to mop up.

But he didn’t look good. As the water came out of his gills, so did more of that dark liquid. Blood, she knew. And that wasn’t all. The lights illuminated countless scratches, wounds, and torn pieces of delicate fins. His breathing was even ragged, rougher than she’d ever seen before.

It hurt her heart to look at him like this.

“What did they do to you?” she asked as she walked around him to get to the medkit.

“Nothing I wouldn’t have done to them,” he replied, quietly grumbling even though she could see how much it hurt him to even speak.

“For what? Keeping me here?”

Medkit in hand, she turned it on him and clicked a button. It would take a few moments for the device to calibrate to his body, and then she could get to work healing him. Of course, he had no idea what she was even holding. She should explain. She should...

Her stomach turned as she rounded his side and saw the extent of the damage. First, rage swelled in her chest. She wanted to kick someone. To break something so that she might get a little of this aggression out. And then her heart just hurt. Mira felt like she might burst into tears as she sank down next to him, carefully reaching out with her hand and grabbing his.

“I don’t know where I can touch you,” she whispered. “Everything looks like it hurts.”

“This doesn’t.” He squeezed her fingers in his and then drew her hand over his chest. She could feel his heart beating, though it was a strange beat compared to her own. “Neither does this. Nothing ever hurts when you touch me.”

A ragged sob made its way out of her mouth. “Arges. You look awful.”

“I feel awful.” But then he rubbed her hand up and down his chest in a soothing motion, and he sighed. “Less awful now.”

Her heart squeezed and every part of her wanted to weep. He didn’t deserve this pain because she was in his life. Leaning down, she pressed their foreheads together and tried to will her own healthy energy into him.

With his wounded arm, he reached up and cupped the back of her head, holding her a little closer. For a moment, it felt like nothing had happened between their kiss and this moment. She could pretend he wasn’t injured if his fingers weren’t shaking as he tried to hold her to him. “I’m so sorry," she whispered again. “I have a tool that will help heal you.”

“In a moment.”

“You’re bleeding all over the floor, Arges.”

“I know.” He inhaled again, and she watched the torn gills on the side of his neck attempt to flutter. But they were so torn up, it was hard for them to move at all. “I just want a few more moments, Mira. Just let me remind myself that you are fine.”

“I am,” she said. “Thanks to you.”

They stayed still for a while. Just breathing each other in, even as she felt the shudders running through his body every time he breathed. He was in so much pain, and yet somehow this was more important.

Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore. Mira pulled herself away and picked up the medkit. It looked similar to her welder, but this one had a strange goo that healed everything really fast. She had no idea how it worked.

“This doesn’t hurt when I use it on myself, but we have different make ups. I don’t know if it’ll...”

He tilted his head away from her, exposing the wounded gills to her with ease. “I am no stranger to pain, Mira. If it will heal me, then I would rather have it done. It cannot hurt worse than the water did.”

She winced. “I imagine that was painful. If you don’t mind, I’m going to get started. Can you tell me what happened while I do this?”

She thought only to distract him from the pain, but his story made her hands shake. Already she felt terrible as she lifted his torn gills and gently reattached them with the medkit. This time it didn’t use goo like it would have for her. Instead, it seemed to reattach the pieces of his body with a strange, clear, jelly-like substance. But it held everything together, and she knew it would speed up the healing process. At the very least, when she was finished with his gill, his breathing sounded better.

He relaxed a bit into her grip, turning to face her as he told her more of his brother’s anger, and the rage with which he had thrown Arges onto the stones.

He hissed a bit when she reached his ribs, but the worst was when she got to that torn hip fin.

“This looks very painful,” she said, not sure where to start with it. “Should I just...”

“Do what you have to do, achromo.”

Figuring she should just get it over with and not make either of them wait any longer, she grabbed the fin and put it back in place. He arched, his spine coming up off the floor as she apologized repeatedly. The sound of his pain, the deep rumble echoing through his gritted teeth, made every inch of her ache with him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, turning the medkit on and filling the space so the fin would stay in place. “I’m so sorry. I know this hurts, it’s almost done. It’ll be okay.”

And then she was done. Tossing the medkit away from them, she cupped her hands behind his head and drew it up to her chest. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay now, I promise. That’ll fix you, and you won’t hurt anymore.”

But then she realized he wasn’t shaking in pain. He was laughing, his arms already coming around her and holding her a little more tightly against him. He lifted his head, looking up at her with far too much humor for a man who had just been in significant pain. “You are more worried about my wellbeing than I thought you would be.”

“You were in pain!”

“I have been in pain many times in my life. I’ve been bitten by sharks, attacked by squid, even had a turtle latch onto a gill when I was little.” He shrugged. “It’s all something that happens when you live as we do. I have never been cared for so gently, though. I will say that.”

She shouldn’t preen at the words. She shouldn’t be proud that she had taken care of him better than others, but she absolutely was.

Still. He laughed at her when she’d been worried about him. “I should toss you back into the sea, you beast.”

“Why’s that?”

“I was actually worried about you.”

“I know you were.” He smoothed his hand down her back, tugging her a little closer until she had no option but to straddle him. Then he did the strangest thing yet. He arranged her legs on either side of his tail, then snuggled her against his odd heartbeat.

Resting her cheek on his chest, she toyed with his rib gills. “Are you really okay now?”

“I’ll be fine. I just need rest.” He never stopped touching her. Gently moving his thumbs over her spine, sometimes coiling his fingers through her hair. She even felt him touch the lobe of her ear once.

And when she was almost drifting off to sleep, she muttered, “This can’t be comfortable for you. You’re laying on a hard floor.”

“You’d be surprised, Mira.” Then she swore he added, “Having you in my arms is the most comfortable I’ve ever been.”