Page 23 of Whispers of the Deep

The undine lifted something and threw it at her. She sidestepped, avoiding whatever projectile he’d tossed.

“Real mature,” she muttered, looking around for something to throw back at him. “Two can play at that game, you know.”

Maybe they’d left a wrench. It wouldn’t be very smart to waste such a valuable tool, but, oh, it would feel so good to see it bounce off his thick skull.

Then something flopped against her foot and she realized with shock that he’d brought her a fish. A big one, too. With glittering gray skin and a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. But it was food, and there was definitely no food down here that she could still eat.

She fell on it immediately, putting her knee against its gills and reaching for the first heavy thing she could find. Unfortunately, that happened to be a very useful back up screen that she might have needed. She brought it down on its skull a little too quickly to think about it, though.

Waste of equipment in a trade for food. She’d take it.

The fish stopped flopping around, and she let out a relieved breath. The poor thing didn’t deserve to die like this. Some nasty human bashing its head in because an undine had decided it was the one worth being the fodder to keep her alive.

“Fire, then?” Looking at the creature, who for some reason was taking care of her, she wiggled her fingers in the air as she mimicked the movement of fire. “You must have seen us make fire before. Clearly you were a peeping tom for most of your life.”

He tilted his head to the side, clearly confused by her actions.

What else had he seen that made fire?

“Uh...” She looked around, trying to find something that might help her. And then she remembered he’d seen her welder. The torch wasn’t exactly easy to find, but who knows? Maybe she could ask for anything and he’d bring it to her.

Oh, god. Was he keeping her as a pet? Was she some strange science project that he’d brought to this cave to see how long she’d survive?

Grinding her teeth, she mimed pulling her welder off her hip and using it in the air. Just like he’d seen her the first time. “Welder?” she asked, pointing to her hand that was in the shape of the small handheld gun. “This. This is what I’m looking for.”

If anything, he only scowled at her even more deeply before sinking back underneath the waves.

“Right,” she muttered. “That was asking too much.”

She stared down at the fish and every part of her revolted. No one wanted her to work in the kitchens, and she’d never wanted to work there, anyway. Mira had eaten fish her entire life. It was practically the only meat they could get down in the depths of the ocean. Maybe Alpha had some secret red meat animals that they could eat, but in Beta they were lucky to get chicken when the birds eventually died. Even then, it was tough as nails and tasted a little... off.

But she’d never cut into a fish before. She’d never gutted one of the animals, even though she knew theoretically how it worked.

Damn. This was a learning experience, and she didn’t even have a knife.

Mira had no idea how long she stared at the poor creature, willing it to come back to life so she could just knock it back into the water and forget this had happened. And then the guilt stepped in. It had been so beautiful. Who was she to take a life when she wasn’t even hungry yet?

It was a lie. She was very hungry. But maybe whoever had been in this research facility had rations that would last however many years it had been since someone was in here. She hadn’t needed to kill the fish yet. And the undine...

The undine.

He was staring at her in the water again. How long had he been there this time? Watching her stare at the dead fish like an idiot?

She gulped and gestured at the fish. “I don’t know what to do with it now.”

Right, why had she expected any reaction out of him? He just hated her and wanted all of this to be over and done with.

Why had he brought her here?

His long dark arm lifted out of the water and again, he threw something at her. This time it was at her head. Mira had better reflexes than that, though.

With a hiss of disapproval, she caught what he’d thrown without knowing what it was. All she could feel was that it was cold, wet, and very hard.

Frowning, she brought it down to look at the ancient welder that he’d brought her. It was waterlogged, with barnacles growing along the handle. But it was definitely a welder.

She sat down hard on her butt next to the dead fish, flipped the welder onto its side, and yanked the cartridge out. Mira then sighed in relief. The sparker was still in it. Theoretically, all she had to do was clean it out and let it dry. Then she should be able to hit the same trigger, maybe have to fix a few things for that to work as well, and she’d have fire.

That was a life saver.

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