Echoes of the Tide (Deep Waters #3)

Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

“ I don’t like it that she’s in there alone,” he muttered, yet again. He hadn’t been able to stop saying the words since she’d basically begged him to leave her alone.

“Yes, Maketes. I believe you’ve made that very clear.”

“What are you even doing here?”

Fortis shrugged. “I am meant to be here.”

“That is not very clear, and I don’t appreciate the prophetic tone.” Maketes spread his hip fins wide, glancing toward the building again. They were far enough away that the achromos wouldn’t be too nervous or try to go to the higher window where Ace was. But that also meant that he couldn’t see her.

And he wanted to watch her. He wanted to stare at her every move just so he knew she was all right.

Fortis had coiled himself around a neon light. The bright purple of the sign only made his own color seem all the more prominent. With his tail looped through one of the words and his upper half hanging down over it, he looked like a strange serpent rather than an undine. But his hair floating around his head helped a bit to make him look more like their own kind.

Maketes couldn’t stay still. He had circled that same sign more times than he wanted to admit, and was on yet another round of circling when Fortis reached out and grabbed his tail. Claws dug into his scales, and he hated the feeling so much that he lashed out. With a hiss and a swipe of his claws, he found himself face to face with the massive depthstrider.

“What?” he hissed.

“Tell me why it’s her,” Fortis said.

The words were confusing. “Why what is her?”

“Mira and Arges. Daios and Anya. You and this criminal who has been locked away by her own people. I wish to understand what it is that calls you to her.”

“That’s stupid.”

“It’s the truth. And the moment you admit that you have been called to her side is the moment you will stop fighting against yourself. What is it about her, Maketes?”

He wanted to swim again. He did better moving when he was angry, not staying still. But he could feel his gills fluttering just at the thought of her, and again, he couldn’t help himself but talk when someone brought Ace up. “I don’t know. I like her. I genuinely like her. Even when it was just a droid reading me her messages, I found her funny. She’s dry, in a sarcastic kind of way, and that always made me chuckle. I like making her laugh too. Even if it’s because she’s annoyed with me. It’s a battle to get her to show any kind of reaction and... Well.”

He was rambling.

Clearing his throat, Maketes waved his hand through the water. “I just like her. I can’t explain why. It’s just all there. Every time I’m around her, everything falls into place. It just feels right.”

And he didn’t know how to explain that in better words. There should have been a way for him to say that she meant far more to him than just a friend. That he wanted her to be with him all the time, and when they were apart, he felt strange. He wanted to listen to her talk, collect all of her smiles, and all the other things that were probably too clingy for him to ever say to her.

Fortis nodded. “You are here because you are supposed to be here, Maketes. I wish you would let the sea guide you in this.”

“And what would the sea do? She is an achromo. I know that. You know that.”

“The others are making it work.”

“But what if they are an anomaly?” He ran his fingers through his hair, watching the strands billow around his head. “Mira and Anya wanted to leave their homes. They had people to fight for, but not like Ace. She has a sister, a young woman she would do anything to keep alive. I can’t take her away from that. And she would have to leave it all behind. Her own people are not likely to allow her to stay in touch with her family when she’s with someone like me.”

He would not be the reason she lost her sister, and he would be if he continued down this path. He had to throw all of these thoughts and feelings to the side.

“Perhaps you have thought too long and too hard on this reasoning, and you have moved away from where the sea wishes you to go.”

“Since when were you anyone’s guidance?” Maketes grumbled. “I still don’t understand what you’re even doing here.”

Again, Fortis shrugged. That stupid movement where he lifted his shoulders and held up his hands like he, too, had no idea what he was doing here. “I go where the sea bids.”

“You are the most frustrating person in the sea, you know that? I wish I could throw you into the abyss and feed you to the ancients.”

“Someone else has tried. They would not eat me.”

Bubbles of anger erupted from his rib gills and filled his vision with gray specks of air. “Of course they wouldn’t! Even the ancients wouldn’t eat your fat head. They probably worry you would infect them with whatever madness it is that gives you the right to be such a... a...”

Fortis tilted his head to the side. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you at a loss for words.”

“Algae sucker!” He was at a loss for words, though. He was so angry, so filled with rage that he couldn’t control, and he didn’t know what else to say. Instead, he just pointed at the depthstrider.

Amused, Fortis gave him a little nod. “I understand.”

“Do you?”

“Quite well.”

“Good, because I don’t understand what this is supposed to mean, but at the very least, you get the threat.” He took his jabbing finger away and blew out another bubble net of breath. Then he looked up at the building and grumbled, “What is taking her so long?”

“I do not pretend to understand the nattering of achromos, but I believe she was trying to find something in that room.”

He couldn’t stand another second with this depthstrider who said things like he was the first person to come up with the words, when in reality, he was just repeating what everyone else said.

“That’s it,” he muttered, flicking his tail and heading back to the building. “I’m going to check on her.”

“I thought you said nothing could happen between the two of you? That Mira and Anya were just anomalies?”

“Maybe they are!” he shouted back.

“And?”

“And what, Fortis?”

“And what are you going to do about that?” The big male suddenly swept in front of him, stopping his progress with the sheer mass of his bulk. “Are you going to sit around and decide that the sea is lying to you? That you found this woman for no reason at all, and that you are unworthy of her? Or are you going to do something about it?”

“What would you have me do? I can’t steal her away like in the old days. I can’t take her, hide her, feed her, gift her all the things that I desperately want to give her. I can barely flutter for her, Fortis!”

The depthstrider placed a webbed hand on his chest, the massive clawed hand nearly as large as Maketes’s entire pectoral muscle. Tiny, sharp points of nails dug into his skin. “Barely fluttering is still fluttering, Maketes. It may not be the display you always wished you could give someone, but it is still a display. You are showing her your need, and that is more than you ever have for anyone else.”

Of course it was. Of course, he fluttered for her because she was the best person he’d ever met in his entire life. And probably was the best person he ever would meet in his entire life.

Fortis seemed as though he could tell what was happening behind Maketes’s eyes. Because he gave him a little shove, letting him float a small distance away. “You’re the only one holding yourself back, little brother.”

Maketes hated how right he was. They had only been holding each other back in these moments. Both he and Ace. They’d looked at each other as friends for such a long time, it was hard to be anything else. But maybe, just maybe, they hadn’t allowed themselves to be anything else.

“What if I ruin it?” he asked, his voice wavering with fear. “What if she doesn’t want to be more and then I lose both her and my friendship with her?”

“It is a risk you have to take. What is your future without taking that risk, Maketes? You remain her friend? You watch her find someone else, because she eventually will. If you do not give her another option, then she will never know that option exists.”

Even though this was terrifying, it gave him some sense of purpose. It felt right to swim down this stream. If he could just tell her how he felt, then maybe she would listen. Maybe she would understand that all he wanted was just her attention, even if that attention came from when she was angry.

“Right,” he muttered. “No time like the present.”

He’d never get a talk like that again, which made him actually want to tell her his feelings, so he might as well capitalize on it. Maketes pushed his fins, speeding through the water until suddenly he realized there was a bloody handprint on the window where he had left her.

His stomachs dropped. His hearts thundered in his chest. He couldn’t get enough oxygen in the water because he was so terrified that he had made a mistake he could never come back from. He’d left her alone.

Leaving her alone had been a bad idea. He knew it. She knew it. And he’d still left her, anyway.

“No!” he shouted, swimming up to the window and slamming his hands upon the glass. Through it, he could see that his little kefi was still alive. But such was meager comfort when he surveyed the scene before him.

There were males and females in the room with his achromo. They surrounded her, all of them holding weapons in their hands. He’d feared the blood on the window was Ace’s, but now he wasn’t so sure. There was another young man holding his side where red blood oozed out from between his fingers, and Ace held a bloodied weapon in her hand. His little achromo had more bite to her than he’d thought.

At the sound of his strike to the glass, everyone in the room froze. They stared at him, the shock in their expressions only making him wish to harm them more. Did they really think she had come alone? Was it so much of a stretch to imagine he was the one protecting her?

Then he heard the words that made his blood boil.

“You have an undine for a pet?” One of the women said, the scar on her face making her stand out far more than the others. “How interesting. I’ve never heard that one before.”

“He’s here for me, and he’s not going to let you get away,” Ace hissed.

“Oh, what a pity that he’ll have to watch you die. He’s out there. You’re in here.” And then the woman had the audacity to draw her finger across her own throat and laugh at him.

That one would die first.

He felt the massive wave of Fortis approaching. The other male was larger and slower, but he brought a tsunami along with him as he moved through the water. On his face was an expression of glee unlike anything Maketes had seen before.

Fortis let out a booming laugh that had all the achromos covering their ears at the thunderous sound. “I know why the sea brought me here!” Fortis shouted, and then he was swimming away. Moving so quickly that Maketes marveled at his speed before he realized what the depthstrider was doing.

Casting one last look at Ace, he promised her with his gaze that she would be safe. “Get yourself in a corner, kefi.”

“What?” she cried out, lashing out at one of the men who lunged for her. The scalpel was sharp, it seemed. The man flinched back with blood on his hand.

“Get to a corner now, Ace! And hold on to something!”

He could already feel Fortis coming back, this time even faster. All nineteen feet of bulk rushing through the waves. He would hit this building harder than any storm ever could. The movement of his purple tail became a blur, the undulation of his body spearing toward them, every inch of his form power and control and then...

Sound was muffled underwater. Maketes saw the glass crack and then shatter before he heard the painful crack that echoed throughout the water. In one moment, he was next to the glass, and the next, he was sucked into the building.

Maketes hit the wall hard, feeling it crumble under his weight the moment he struck it. A giant thud soon reached his ears, but he thought that was he who had made that sound. Air bubbles obscured his vision, but he could taste her in the water. All he had to do was fight against the current that ripped at him.

“Brother!” a deep voice cried out, full of glee and insane happiness. “I found this one for you!”

Suddenly an arm parted the bubbling water, fins somehow flared against the pull of the water and holding Fortis in place. In his grip was the woman who had taunted Maketes. The same woman who had likely harmed his kefi.

“I need to find my own achromo,” he said, staring into the woman’s frightened eyes. “So I will make this quick when I wish for you to have a long and painful death.”

He didn’t have to do anything. Because at the sight of him reaching for her, the woman opened her mouth and screamed. A sharp inhalation came next, one that would surely drown her. But he still took her writhing body in his arms and squeezed. Hard. He squeezed until he felt her ribs break, until she became slippery in his grip and then her torso and the bottom half of her legs drifted free. They were sucked into the rest of the building, where many of her other men had likely disappeared.

Where her remains ended up didn’t matter. It only mattered that she died while he could still watch.

Maketes breathed in, trying hard to find Ace in all this mess. He’d told her to get to a corner, and she was smart enough to find one. If he could get there...

Fortis grabbed him by the back of the neck and tossed him out of the greatest current. There he found her. Huddled in the back corner, pressed there by the weight of the water.

Maketes immediately placed his hand between her breasts, seeking the sensation of her heartbeat. It was wrong, beating erratically, but it was there. So he didn’t think. He just... reacted.

He grabbed her, yanked her toward him, and plunged the tentacle into her neck. He would breathe for her. Even if he had promised that he would ask any achromo permission first, Maketes did it out of necessity.

Keeping her alive was all that mattered.