Echoes of the Tide (Deep Waters #3)

Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

I n her dreams, she saw her sister.

Ace was back in Beta, like she had been as a child. Only this time, she was grown. She was the same size as she was in her waking mind. An adult in all ways. And still, people walked by her and muttered behind their hands.

They always had, though. They knew what she’d done. Everyone always thought she was the odd one out in her family, but now they had proof. There was something wrong with her mind. What kind of person thought they could make a droid that would steal anything she wanted? They’d known something was off about her, and now? Now they knew they were right.

The discomfort bubbled in her chest. She’d thought she’d grown past this feeling, but it was the same as when she was a child. She didn’t want them to look at her. Oh, they could think whatever they wanted. If they wanted to pretend that she was a terrible person, that she was ugly, that there was a broken thread in her mind, so be it. But she just wanted them to stop looking at her.

That pain and ache were the same as always. It made her feel like she was less than they were. Like she was the problem, when in reality, she knew it had nothing to do with her. They felt better tearing other people down. It meant they weren’t at the bottom.

She was just the unlucky one who lived there.

Ducking down a familiar hallway, she felt a bubble of heat burst in her chest. False bravado melted away into comfort as she moved down the halls where she’d grown up. Her cousins had raced down these steps, and suddenly, there they were. The children she remembered them being. Pattering feet echoed as they called after each other, certain one of them had stolen a toy that wasn’t theirs to have.

She spun, watching them race by her and disappear into a faint fog at the end of the hallway. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she knew this was a dream. But the feeling of her family being so close by... It made her want to linger.

Ace trailed her fingers along the wall. She knew this smooth, cool texture with the pattern of rivets that bumped against her fingers every five heartbeats. She could count them in her sleep and use them to find her room, even in the dark.

“One, two, three, four, five,” she whispered. Over and over, until the numbers brought her to the room, she wanted to see the most.

Already she could smell it. The heat of growing lights and the loam that surrounded countless vegetables. Their garden was the best producing in the entirety of Beta, all because of her sister.

“Laura,” she whispered as the door appeared in front of her. Immediately, her chest squeezed in pain and tears built in her eyes. Not because she was upset or feared what was on the other side, but because even in her dreams, she missed her sister so much, it ached.

Pushing open the door, she walked into the sanctuary her sister had built herself.

Plants grew in abundance here. They toppled over the tall tables, spilled out onto the floor where their father had built structures to keep the dirt in. Giant monstera leaves butted up against the glass over their heads, reaching for the grow lights that lined the ceiling. It smelled so good. Like greenery and food and life that nowhere else on Beta could replicate.

And there, in the center of the garden, was her sister.

Beautiful, beautiful Laura. The best of both their parents. She was lean, like their father, with glorious dark hair that spilled over her shoulders in a cloud of waves just like their mother. She wasn’t the kind of pretty most people noticed. Sometimes she faded into the background along with Ace, but there was something delicate about her. Maybe not in her body or form, but in the soft way she saw right through a person to the soul underneath that they hid from everyone else.

Maura and Laura. Her parents had thought it was hilarious at the time, only to realize how frustrating it was to try to scold Maura when Laura was also in the room.

Tears in her eyes, she walked toward her sister and tried to tell herself that this was just a dream. She shouldn’t get too attached. She shouldn’t feel like the world was ending just because her mind had conjured up an image of the sister she missed so much.

Laura was wearing the same brown smock she always wore, dirt smudged across the front and her hands. There was dirt under her nails, and a smear of yellow pollen across her cheek. When she looked up, her soft brown eyes lit up with happiness.

“Maura!” she said, wiping her hands off on her thighs. “I didn’t know you were coming today!”

It was the same thing she’d said the last time Ace had seen her. The same moment, too. This was where she was supposed to tell her sister that they were taking her away to Gamma, and that they’d never see each other again. But she’d keep Laura safe. She always did.

Instead, Ace took a step closer to her sister, then another. Then yanked Laura into her arms and hugged her hard.

They stayed like that for a while. Just the two of them. Breathing each other in because that was all she wanted to do.

“Maura?” her sister said quietly. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” she whispered. “It’s just that I miss you so much.”

“But I’m right here.”

“You won’t be. Soon enough, I won’t remember what color your eyes are, or where your ticklish spots really were. All I’ll remember is the need to keep moving forward. To slog through life so that I can make sure you’re safe.”

“Maura, you’re scaring me.” Her sister leaned back, staring into her eyes with a frown on her face. “Everything’s going to be fine. The garden has plenty of food this year, and everyone has been working together wonderfully. I don’t think we should worry about much.”

“I’m going to...” Ace choked on the words. For a moment, she was thrown right back into this moment. The moment when she had known she was going to disappoint the only person who mattered in her life. “They’re taking me away, Laura. For a long time.”

“What did you do?”

And there it was. The end of this memory that was still seared into her entire being. As Laura reeled away from her, bumping into a table full of tomatoes as the red fruit fell from their stems and plummeted to the floor. A few of them burst on impact, red seeping into the drainage grates on the floor.

“I didn’t do anything, it’s just?—”

“Maura! I thought we had talked about this. I thought you were giving all that up because you know how dangerous it is? You’re my only family. We are each other’s only family and for you to risk that...” Laura turned, gripping the table hard.

What her sister hadn’t known then, and likely still didn’t know, was that Ace had seen her reflection. She’d seen the terror in her sister’s eyes as she realized she would now be alone. They’d been together their entire lives. Maura and Laura, the sisters who were inseparable even in grade school. And now? Now they had to walk their own paths, even though it scared them both.

“Listen to me,” Ace said, placing her hand on her sister’s back. “I put the money aside for you. It’s in a bank vault. I already wrote down the numbers and slid the paper into your pillow. They can’t find that money, and they never will. Spend it wisely, and they won’t know what you’re spending is the money I stole.”

“I don’t want the money, Maura!” Her sister spat the words, but then spun and held Ace tightly in her arms. “I just want you.”

Even as she hugged her sister back, she knew it wasn’t the truth. They needed the money more than they needed each other. That was why she’d done it.

Sure, part of that had been because she’d wanted to see if she could do it. There was a level of thrill that came with fooling all those rich people. But another part of her wanted to make sure her sister was safe.

Even after she was gone.

“I need you to know that I love you,” she whispered into Laura’s hair. “I love you more than the morning rays of the sun that filter into our room. I love you more than the shadows of rays on the floor or the songs of the whales in the distance. And I will love you for as long as there is a drop of seawater on this planet.”

“Ace—” Her sister had never called her by that name. “Don’t do this to us.”

She had to. Because she didn’t have another choice.

“I have to go,” she whispered. “They won’t give me another chance.”

But it was more than that. It wasn’t that anyone was giving up on her, it was that unfortunately, she’d given up on herself. And she remembered it now. She remembered feeling so lost and knowing that nothing she did would ever make her feel like herself again. This place, these people, they saw her as an animal.

Laura’s eyes filled with tears. “Don’t.”

There was so much in that word. Her sister begging her to stay, yes, but also the fear of what she would do on her own.

“You’re going to be fine,” she whispered. “I’m going to make sure you’re fine.”

“You can’t promise that. Ace?—”

Again, the name that her sister never called her. No matter how many times she had corrected Laura, her sister never called her by her chosen name. She was the only one who still called her Maura.

Then she was yanked out of the dream, watching her sister fall onto her knees and tears streak down her cheeks. Just like it had really happened. Because people had barged into the garden, guards who stepped on her sister’s plants and knocked over two standing planters as they dragged her out.

Even saying goodbye, all she’d done was destroy. From her sister’s garden to her sister’s life. She just wasn’t any good if she was there. The best she could offer Laura was help from afar, and that was exactly what she’d done.

She lunged upright, awake as though she’d blinked her eyes and now she was back. Back in the control center, draped over a warm man who had wrapped his arms around her in her sleep and now released her, letting her sit straight up and breathe through the memory.

“Ace?” he said again, and this time she recognized the voice. He’d been trying to get her to come out of the dream for a while, she guessed.

Brushing her fingers through her hair, she released a shaky breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m awake now.”

Maketes shifted her on his lap, turning her to look at him. And then he wiped away the tears on her cheeks with his thumbs. Carefully. As though he was afraid she was very breakable right now.

Maybe he was right. She felt like a single kind touch might shatter her into a thousand pieces.

Closing her eyes, she leaned into his touch.

“Bad dreams?” he asked. It was the most real question she’d ever heard from him. Not like he was pretending or annoying her or doing anything at all other than being here in the dark with her.

Breathing in the seawater scent of him, she sighed, “Terrible dream.”

“I can banish it with you, if you’d like.”

“How do I do that?”

His thumb moved along her cheek again, so gentle that it made her feel fragile in his grip. “You share the dream, kefi. You tell me what it means, where it came from, and then I take it into the sea. The next time I am in the abyss, I will leave it there for you.”

Ace opened her eyes, smiling at him even though it hurt to do so. “I don’t think I want to talk about it.”

“Then that’s all right too.” He tried to smile, but she could see the pain in his eyes. “You don’t have to share anything you don’t want to.”

Damn it, those tears burned her eyes again. She couldn’t be weak like this. This was why she’d never gotten attached to anyone. If she was weak, then she would cry, and nothing would get done. She had to bury it all deep inside herself, even if it meant that she constantly had stomach aches and felt like her chest was on fire.

“No,” he murmured, using both hands to frame her face and make her look at him. “We do not hide from hard feelings. You are brave. A courageous woman who pet a shark, rode a whale, and who touches one of my kind without fear. Memories have no power over you.”

“What if they do?” she replied. “What if they are all I can see? My own failure. My own wish to keep my sister safe and yet all I have ever done is put her in harm’s way?”

“That is how your mind wishes to remember your last moments with her. But you need to tell it you did everything you could to keep her safe. And you still fight to keep her safe. That is honorable.”

Nodding, she tried to let the words sink in. Honorable. Brave. She was more than just the thief that the world threw away. She was Ace, the destroyer of Alpha and... lover of an undine. If she could let herself believe that.

Nodding, she framed his face with her hands as well. Dropping her head until their foreheads touched, she let her eyes drift shut. “I don’t know what god smiled upon me when they sent you to my side, but I am grateful for it.”

“I am the lucky one, kefi.”

“No, I don’t think you understand. You’ve been so kind to me. You’ve worked to make me a stronger person in such a short amount of time and I don’t know what I give back, or what I even could. I owe you so much more than just my life, Maketes.”

His breath fanned over her collarbone, and he dragged her closer to his hearts. “No. You owe me nothing.”

“You make me feel seen,” she said, then kissed his shoulder as she let him coax her back down. “I don’t think you realize how long I’ve felt invisible. No one ever saw me. No ever cared to.”

“I have long felt the same way.” His lips pressed to her hair. “Sleep, my achromo. I will guard your dreams for the rest of the night.”

“But who will guard yours?” she murmured, already falling back into that dreaming realm.

So she wasn’t sure if she dreamt up what he replied, or if he had actually said the words. But what she thought she heard was, “You, kefi. All my dreams are of you.”