Page 36 of Echoes of the Tide

“I thought we weren’t talking about that,” Maketes replied in a sing song voice. “Now just help me find the crack in the wall so I can get back in and make sure no other achromos get ideas around my own.”

“That will be a problem.”

“Is that so? Did you see that in a vision, or did you use your worthless eyeballs?”

Fortis just pointed. And that was when Maketes realized there was, actually, a crack near her. She’d been right. There was a small area of filtration that was likely used for drainage. It just wasn’t wider than his arm.

Groaning, he slapped his forehead with his hand. “You’ve got to be kidding me! How small does she think I am?”

A fish might swim up that. Or a crab. But a full-grown male of his size wasn’t going to get through. He might be able to fit an arm, but that was it. The filtration system wasn’t what Alpha’s had been, but then again, Gamma was individual towers. These weren’t at all what he needed to get to her side.

Swimming up to the glass, he slapped at it hard. “Ace!”

She whipped around, that glare on her face sending a tingle all the way down to the tip of his tail.

“What?” she hissed, stomping up to the window in that adorable way she always did and slapping it in response. “I’m busy!”

“I can’t get in.”

“I don’t care! I’ll meet you back where we first came in.”

“What if you need me?”

She bared her teeth in a little snarl that might have been terrifying if he didn’t see how blunted they were. “Maketes, I am trying very hard to be polite to you. But I do not need you. No one knows I’m here. I have not been attacked. Stay out in your giant ocean with all your wide open space and let me work.”

“You said I could join you.” Did she not want him with her? That thought stung a bit.

“I know I said that, but plans change. You’re just going to have to roll with it. I’m this close to getting the key. This doctor kept a journal, so-” She pinched her fingers together and moved them over her lips. “Zip it, fish man.”

He had no idea what that meant, but she’d already moved away from the window and back to the desk. He had a mind to slap the glass again and again until she was annoyed enough to come back, but Fortis cleared his throat behind him.

So Maketes would wait. Even if it was killing him to be out here while she was in there.

CHAPTER 15

There weren’t any obvious clues, and that was annoying her. This key was supposed to be easy to find. Jacob had made it seem like it would be right here in the doctor’s office. Considering what he said, she had a feeling other people might even want to find the key, or know where the key was. If this Doctor Faust was the one who had it, then surely he would have some record of having it.

Right?

But she’d torn his office apart. From the front to the back, every piece of paper that still existed in this room, she had read it. She’d torn up the pages that she’d already read, knowing there wasn’t much use for them anyway. It wasn’t like any other doctor was going to read this man’s boring notes on what it took to repair vein ruptures. No one in Gamma had those kinds of skills.

And then, of course, Maketes had to come and distract her. He didn’t understand how hard it was for her to focus when she knew his eyes were on her. Because she didn’t want to do this. He made her want to be a better person.

He made her want to go back to Jacob and tell him to go fuck himself. She had an undine on her side and he wouldn’t let anything terrible happen to her or her sister. Some part of herwanted to swim off with him into the sunset and just trust that he would take care of her.

In contrast, reality was a real slap in the face. There wasn’t a chance on the face of this earth that she could do any of that. Her reality was a hard one. Her sister wasn’t safe, she wasn’t safe, and she was surrounded by criminals. If they wanted to hurt her or her family, they would. Jacob likely had already. She knew he’d killed that one massive crowd of people, but he’d probably done it before as well.

People in Gamma didn’t talk about body counts, and not in the fun way. If she had asked, though, it wouldn’t have surprised her to hear that any of the people she dealt with on a day-to-day basis had killed more people than they had fingers and toes.

So she returned her focus to the task at hand. She ignored the feeling that she’d been lied to, that the key wasn’t here at all. Jacob clearly wanted the key. He wouldn’t have created this elaborate plan just to have a reason to kill her sister. He wasn’t that good.

Ripping the last drawer out of the desk, she tossed it onto the ground a little too hard. Tera rolled in circles at her feet, trying to get her attention, likely because the sound had been far too loud. Someone would come to investigate if she kept throwing drawers around, but at this point, her anger had gotten the best of her.

Because for fuck’s sake, this was a waste of time. Obviously, the key was gone. Someone had taken it with them when they were evacuated or, likely, Doctor Faust had been caught in the flooding when Gamma was first destroyed.

She could see the hints of it now, and she slumped in the desk chair as she looked around. “Tera?” she asked, letting her head rest against the back of the chair. “Did you notice there are barnacles growing above our head?”

Tera rolled in a circle again, cracking the beads together and then rolling in the opposite direction. It drew her attention to the back of the room, where she could see there were even hints of dead coral growing in the back. This whole room had likely been underwater for a very long time for all of those things to grow, which meant anything that was useful was gone.

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