Page 108 of Song of the Abyss

Clearly he was thinking the same thing she was. He had time to get it. If he was quick. But he had just as much blood and dirt covering him, and it wouldn’t be all that easy for him to do so.

He said something, but he was too far away for her to read his lips. Daios’s hand wrapped around her ankle, and when she looked down at him, he signed something close to, “He wants you dead.”

She knew. As much as it hurt, she knew.

The General stood there, his lips still moving, but she had no idea what he was saying. Part of her didn’t want to know. He was spewing out words of hatred and absolute honesty that he didn’t want her. He never had.

He’d already told her everything that he needed to say. The General believed she was less because of her mother. He had always thought of her as nothing but a replacement. A figurehead that should have been just like her mother, but she’d not been easily controlled either.

He had taken her from her mother in the hopes that he would create a tool that he could do whatever he wanted with. All the memories of her childhood were suddenly tainted.

They’d never gotten along. He wasn’t a good father, but she had always thought, at the very least, he had some pride in her. Now she knew it was all brainwashing. All of it was just a way for him to control her. To manipulate her into the little doll so he could move her limbs at will and puppet her to say the words he wanted her to say.

She’d been a fool to ever trust him, but she couldn’t change her past. All she could do was continue moving forward in a way she was proud of.

“Shut up,” she shouted, squeezing her belly so the words came out as loud as she knew how to make them. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say anymore. I’m leaving. You can stay in your crumbling city to save what little there is left. I broke my cage. And now I’m going to fly free.”

As if everything moved in slow motion, she watched the General grab the gun so close to his feet. He lifted it and pointed it directly at her, and she knew there was a part of him that wanted to see her in pain. He didn’t aim at her head. He aimed at her chest, as though he knew that was where it would hurt the worst. Right through her broken and bleeding heart.

She hadn’t heard loud sounds for a very long time. Especially not a gun shot. She’d heard them when she still had her hearing, and when she was just a child.

But she knew what this one sounded like. Anya could imagine the sound of it leaving his gun, and the ricochet of noise that came after. Squeezing her eyes shut, she waited for the pain to join the rest that had already burned through her entire body.

But that pain never came. Not in the slightest.

Peeling her eyes open, she was astounded to find Daios in front of her again. His teeth were bared, those black eyes seeing right into her soul as he became a living shield. He jerked again, leaning into her with a puff of breath that feathered over her face.

He said nothing. Perhaps because he wasn’t sure if she could hear him. All he did was lift his hand and touch his middle and ring finger to his palm.

“I love you,” he said, and she hadn’t taught him how to sign that. Where he’d learned it from, she couldn’t even guess.

“Are you okay?” she whispered.

At his quick nod, she said, “Get rid of him, and then take me home.”

He stared down into her eyes with a softer expression than she’d ever seen on his face. Like he knew how horrible that was for her to ask, and how much she had to fight against herself to say the words. Anya never thought she would be the person to order another life to end. But she also knew the repercussions of letting the General live.

It was the one thing none of them had talked about. And as Daios tucked her behind one of the mangled metal tables and then slipped into the water, she repeated all the reasons why this was the right choice.

If they let the General go, then he would find his supporters amongst those who made it to the life boats. He would be given a grand entrance to any of the other cities where he would just continue what he had been doing, and nothing would change.

The General started shouting. She could see his lips moving and his chest heaving with the words as he pointed the gun at the water. It kicked back, jerking with a violence that mirrored his rage. A small part of her was afraid that Daios would get hit, but she also knew her undine had done this many times. Fighting her people was what he did.

If the General got to the other cities, then they would have even less of a chance to work with them. She knew Beta was already quiet considering the undine attack, and her father hadn’t sent them any help afterward. They wanted nothing to do with Alpha or the people in it. Which only left Gamma, and that was a problem. For all that she’d been friends with Ace for a long time, Gamma was still dangerous. The people in that city were convicts, the ones that were thrown to the wolves and to a city that ran entirely on its own.

No government, no one to police them. It was a lawless place.

The water rippled behind the man she used to call father. He stood there, legs braced as though he was prepared for anything that attacked him. But he was just a human.

And Daios was so much more than that.

A metal arm appeared out of the water. She watched each finger settle on the remains of the floor before it flexed and suddenly all the bulk of her undine moved like a snake striking its prey. His tail lashed, muscles bunching, every bit of his strength on stark display. One moment, all she could see was the barest hint of his head and then he was on her father.

The large, metal hand had her father’s wrist in his grasp. Then the bones were... wrong. The gun dropped from the General’s grip, but he still fought with the other unbroken hand. The General struggled even as he fell onto the ground with the heavy weight of a massive undine on top of him.

Daios bared his teeth and all his fins rose. They shook, vibrating with his anger as he glared down at the man who had caused so much pain and hatred for his people.

She knew he wanted to make this slow. He wanted to take his time peeling off the skin of the man who was responsible for so much heartache and pain. But as Daios looked up at her, catching her gaze through the haze of smoke and fire, he jerked his chin as though telling her not to look.

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