Page 25 of Song of the Abyss

Another grunt. Let the achromo try to stop him. He was not afraid of Mira.

A small current kicked up, as though Maketes was leaving. But then he heard one last thing from the yellow finned brother.

“There is an abandoned facility nearby. The achromos never go there anymore. I explored it a while ago, and there is still air if she needs it. Of course, there are only so many pockets that I’ve seen but... Well, I think it will be a good enough spot. It’s closer to the ledge. Big drop off. You can’t miss it.”

He knew the general area of which his brother spoke. It was easy enough for him to find, even if it would be a terrifying swim for her.

He had to shake the thoughts out of his mind. Why did it matter if she was afraid? He was taking her away, and this was about getting rid of these urges. Not indulging them.

At least, that’s what he told himself.

A mask thudded onto the sand near his shoulder. “Mira left this for her. I almost didn’t give it to you, since I think you should at least try to make a connection with something else living. Still. I’d feel bad if you drowned the poor thing because you refused to breathe for her.”

He waited until Maketes was gone before he curled his fingers around the straps of the mask. He wasn’t doing this to convince her to be his mate. He hadn’t tried to do that in years and had told himself he’d never do it again.

But he couldn’t make himself let go of the mask.

10

Anya

She’d never had so many panic attacks in a row.

Her father had put so many people around her house, she felt like she couldn’t breathe. Anya had only seen this many people all constantly walking by her door when there was a festival going on in town. But now? It felt like every time someone walked by her door they were pausing to listen in on what she was doing.

The cameras kept moving. Even when she was sleeping, she would hear them shift and creak as someone constantly monitored her.

Bitsy had to fix the ones in the bathroom almost constantly. She didn’t want anyone to realize that she could tamper with the cameras, which meant every time she went into the bathroom, Bitsy had to go first. They had to make it believable that she was still moving around.

She couldn’t talk to Ace.

She couldn’t do anything other than try to pretend she had a routine that didn’t involve everything else she usually did. All she could focus on was that they were watching her. And that no matter what she did, she had to suffer through that.

No one was coming to save her. Not the undine. Not Ace. No one.

And now, Anya couldn’t even save herself.

The operation that she and Ace planned had already fallen through. Just a few days ago, she’d gotten the message through Bitsy that the agent they’d chosen to hide out in Alpha while their ship left had failed. Her father’s guards were so amped up about this stupid undine coming in and out of the city that they’d made all the other security measures intensely heightened as well.

The young man had been caught and executed on the spot. Anya couldn’t help but feel like that was her fault.

She had no control over the undine, but she might have stopped the creature from coming into the city. Maybe. If she had been with her father when they’d discovered the unregistered young man, maybe she could have begged for mercy.

Not that it would matter. Her father had no mercy to give.

“You need to breathe,” Bitsy said, the words flashing bright blue on the screen. A small drop of water, cartoonized, so she knew it was Bitsy, followed the words.

She did need to breathe. But really, the only thing that would make her feel better was getting out of here. She didn’t want to stay like this anymore. She was being crushed.

Every breath slowly calmed her, though. Wandering into the bathroom, she sat down next to the pool. Soon enough, someone would be knocking on her door to remind her that the pool wasn’t safe to sit next to.

There was always someone watching the screens now. Even if she had Bitsy change them over, someone would come over to fix the cameras. They’d done it twice now. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to have to... to...

“Is that a crab?” she whispered, so the cameras might not pick up on her question.

Bitsy circled the rather large crab on the bottom of her pool and surrounded it with red exclamation marks. “A crab!”

“A crab,” she repeated, leaning a little closer to the water. “What is a crab doing in my pool?”

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