Page 8 of Echoes of the Tide

She nodded. He had her by the throat and he knew it. She would never let anyone take her sister away from her. Never.

“Good. Now that key unlocks a vault in the main tower. The one where all the security is. We can get to that tower if we want to, but the key still stands in our way. According to the logs in the maintenance area of our tower, there is a key that unlocks it. The last known person to have it was in the medical pavilion. That’s where you’re going. His name was Doctor Kraus. Get in, get the key from his office, and then come back here. Got it?”

“Doctor Kraus’s office in the medical pavilion, look for a key. Got it.”

“It’s not...” Jacob hissed out an angry breath and then seemed to pull himself back together. “It won’t be a door key, you idiot. It’ll be something like a chip or a card. They didn’t live like we do. So figure out what the key is, get it, and your sister stays alive.”

She nodded again, her mind fraying at the edges. He was too close. Too big. Too angry.

And then he lunged even closer, pressing his forehead against hers and grinding the back of her skull into the wall. Rusted metal bit through her hair, and she could feel the thin skin shredding open with the movement.

“I need you to understand the risk, Ace. You fuck up one time, and your pretty little sister is mine. Let’s just say that. I’ll kill her, but I’ll make her wish she was dead long before I hand her a knife.”

She felt her entire body go numb as he leaned away from her. Fear made her knees weak, but she remained standing. Because there was nothing else for her to live for other than her sister.

CHAPTER 4

That could have gone worse. It could have gone better as well, but Maketes preferred to think on the bright side. They had gotten somewhere with the achromos. He knew what they wanted now, and he was able to at the very least make a deal to spend more time with them to get answers out of that... female.

Ace was a female.

It was still hard to reconcile the voice in his head with what she looked like. He’d been so certain he’d been talking to a male, and to realize that it was a rather odd looking female? His mind simply couldn’t match the words with the person.

Agalma stayed back as some of the others returned to their home. She watched them all swim away, and he had the feeling that he was about to get scolded.

Maybe if he just swam slightly to the right, he could sneak past her. All he had to do was move his hip fin a little more, and then he was facing the correct direction to dart forward before she would even notice.

“Stay right where you are, Maketes,” she snarled under her breath.

Right. Staying where he was. Because he knew that tone and it said she would not handle any of his shit even if he rushed forward and darted away from her.

“You always take things so seriously,” he muttered.

“Yes. I do. Because everything is rather serious right now, Maketes. You don’t seem to understand that we threatened one of the achromos’ cities, and then we destroyed another. We are on the brink of war if we are not careful and here you are, antagonizing them. Making deals without getting approval from the person who is supposed to be in charge.”

“Oh, so you’re mad I took your job?”

She glared at him. Her hands flexed at her sides, and he wondered if she wanted to throttle him for saying those words. “That is not what I’m angry about.”

“I can handle this. I’ve been talking to Ace for quite a while now. I know what she’s like.”

“You thought she was a man!”

He shrugged, a motion he’d picked up from Mira. “I was wrong.”

“You do not know this person. Therefore, you cannot trust this person.” Agalma slapped his back with her fluke. “Stay the night, if you must. But get this over with soon, Maketes. I fear you may not realize just how much danger you’re putting yourself in.”

Well, when she said it like that, it sounded bad. He watched her swim away and felt the wriggling of doubt in his mind. Had he underestimated Ace? If he was swimming into a trap because he’d thought she was more of a friend than she really was, that wouldn’t be ideal. But he’d learned a long time ago that worrying only wasted energy.

So he threw the emotions out for the sea to take care of, and every other worrying thought that might follow. He wasn’tinterested in the anxiety, and he sure wasn’t interested in the headache of feeling.

There. That was better. Life was so much easier when he just didn’t care.

Floating on his back, he wrapped a long strand of kelp around his waist and tried to get some rest before the trip with Ace. But his mind was still racing with all the possibilities. He’d never explored the achromo homes much outside of Beta. He’d been born in deeper waters than the others who were now his family. There were few people in his pod at all, and those that did exist didn’t travel far. Other than him.

He’d always traveled.

Halfway through the night, a clawed hand grabbed his tail and yanked hard. He’d just about fallen asleep, so when he turned with a growl, he was ready to rise to whatever fight this other of his kind wanted. He wasn’t big, and his claws were smaller than the others, but he could still do some damage to whatever beast thought they could chase him away.

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