Page 17 of Echoes of the Tide

“No. There aren’t any windows on that side. I couldn’t see anything more than you could. This was the first crack in the pavilion we saw, but it won’t be the last.”

That didn’t settle well with her. Already she could feel the ticking time bomb going off that was her sister’s life. She didn’t have time to just sit here and wait for things to get better.

“All right, well... That’s not ideal, but we’ll figure it out. The diving suit is still wet, but that’s okay. I don’t mind being cold.” She stood and turned to see him in the water where she’d expected him. But then he gave her a little frown that made her freeze. “What?”

“We can’t go anywhere right now.”

“That’s stupid, because we are going somewhere right now.” She wouldn’t take no for an answer. “You’re swimming me to the top of this tower to see if maybe there’s another entrance. Or we can bust through a window and make a crack of our own, if we have to.”

“We can’t, Ace.”

How could he sit there all calm and looking at her like there wasn’t any rush at all? Even though he didn’t know about her sister or Ace’s reasoning for being here, he had to know that there was a time limit on him working with Jacob and his gang. This wasn’t a game. They couldn’t wait here and chat, or get to know each other, or whatever it was he was expecting.

“I don’t care what your excuses are for staying here, we have to go.” She’d just tell him. What pride did she have left, anyway? “If I don’t come back with that key, and I mean like tomorrow, Jacob knows where my sister is. He threatened to kill her. He said he was going to bring her to Gamma and ‘make use’ of her before he killed her. I think you can understand what that means.”

His expression darkened the more she spoke. She was used to Maketes’s face looking rather roguish and handsome. He always had a grin on his face, that much she had learned since meeting him. Even while he was speaking with Jacob, he’d been grinning like a lunatic.

But now? Now she understood why he was so terrifying. Now she saw only the intimidating expression of a monster who lurked in the deep and hunted beasts much larger than she was. He looked like he wanted to tear apart the world and she almost didn’t hesitate to think that he could.

His hands clenched on the metal edge of the floor and she swore there was black blood on his palms. “This is the kind of person you keep company with?”

“I didn’t exactly have a choice, now did I?” She shook her head, then slashed a hand through the air. “None of this matters at all. I need to go to the top of this tower. Right now.”

Ace reached for her diving suit, ready to yank the wet material on over her clothing—who cared what it felt like—only to freeze as Maketes grabbed her hand.

There was something visceral about his touch. All she could focus on were the claws that wrapped around her wrist and how massive his hand was compared to hers. He could palm her entire face in one of those giant mitts. He could easily squeeze and break every bone in her hand while she writhed on the floor in pain, but he was so gentle holding onto her.

“We can’t go anywhere,” he said, gently this time. Almost as though he didn’t want her to think he was joking. And then he pointed at the glass.

She’d just been looking out of those windows and there was nothing there. He was trying to distract her, to get her to focus on something other than the churning fear in her belly. But she still looked, and then she saw them.

The creatures on the other side of the glass weren’t like any of the undines she’d seen before. Maketes and his people were the blueprint for what she knew an undine to look like, but these creatures were monsters. They were almost twice Maketes’s length and so dark she hadn’t noticed them the first time. Their skin was nearly black, deep purple lining their much more eel-like tails. Bright yellow bits tipped their thin fins, but they weren’t like Maketes’s in shape. These fins had globes at the end, like an angler fish. And those yellow lights flickered now and then, clearly trying to call something to their sides.

One swam so close to the window that she could see a flashing of sharp edged teeth filling its mouth and then it turned those black eyes to her and for a moment, she swore she saw something in her own mind. A vision. A flash of blood on the floor and searing pain in her wrists. A moment from her past when she had tried to...

“No,” she whispered, yanking her gaze away from that monster who had seen too much.

But in whirling away from one monster, now she stared at another. A bright yellow and orange creature, who watched herwith pity in his gaze. “Sorry. I should have warned you they do that.”

“Do what?” she gasped.

“See into the future, sometimes the past. Anything that can happen, will happen, or might have happened.” His gaze flicked to the window and his welcoming expression changed to one of disgust. “We call them depthstriders. And you, dear Ace, happen to live right in the middle of a nest of them.”

“A nest?” She tried to clear her mind of the memory that she hadn’t wanted to relive. “I thought you said you came from a pod? That’s what a group of you are called?”

“Yes and no. My kind of the People of Water live in a pod. We tend to be more similar to what you would consider whales and dolphins. The depthstriders are unusual and different from all of our kind. They live in a nest. A grouping of them that all twist and churn in between each other. It’s as remarkable as it is disgusting.” His black gaze flicked to hers. “Unfortunately, that means we are stuck here. These are their hunting grounds, and they come out at night to feed.”

“What? For how long?”

“As long as they decide to eat.” With a few ushering movements, he made her back up and then hoisted himself out of the water.

Ace was momentarily distracted by the massive tail that he flipped out of the sea and into the waiting room. It was surreal to see a creature like him in a room like this.

She’d been in a waiting room identical to this one when she was little. She remembered her dad bringing her in and arguing with the receptionist about the price of her glasses. In that moment in time, there was no way she ever would have guessed she’d be back here with a massive fish man flopping onto the floor and then dragging himself toward the glass.

He made some gurgling noise and then water rushed out of his gills. She side stepped the mess. Her eyes widened in shock as he did it again, almost as though he was vomiting before he settled and then took a deep breath in. His gills didn’t move this time, only his chest.

Like a human breathed.

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