Page 17 of Call of the Fathoms

“I believe I’ll get the more honest and factual answers. But I do ask that you be completely honest with me. No hiding the truth.”

He was right. With fewer drugs going through her body, she certainly was more likely to answer everything he asked. And it seemed like he wasn’t going to decommission her for having them, at least not right now.

She leaned back in the chair, pressed a hand to her aching side, and nodded.

“How did you feel when you were in the water with him?”

Alexia thought back to those moments, floating there and realizing he was going to continue hitting her out of the darkness. There was nothing she could do. Even if he decided hewanted her dead, there was absolutely nothing she could have done to stop him.

“Small,” she replied. “I felt very small, and scared. I didn’t know if he was going to kill me or not.”

“And when you were faced with him? I assume there was a point where he stopped attacking you?”

He’d spoken to her. She wasn’t going to tell the Doctor that, but she was still shocked that the undine had spoken directly to her. Everyone here knew theycouldtalk, but she hadn’t thought he would be so bold.

Still, there was something about that experience that had... stuck with her. He had been a warrior, unlike any creature she’d ever met before. A male unwilling to back down, even when she’d pointed a gun at him.

“He was fearless,” she replied quietly. “And I suppose I can respect that. It is what you have all designed me to be, and what I have striven to be my entire life. To see a creature without fear and without the help of so many drugs... I’m not sure. It is not an emotion I have a name for.”

“Jealousy?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Something more like... awe, I suppose.”

She had wanted to learn from him. Seek out what had made him so fearless. She wanted a drop of that in herself, because she’d been terrified.

She would not admit there was a healthy amount of intrigue as well in looking at him. She’d never been so close to an undine, and she wanted to know what they felt like. Were his scales rough? What would happen if she tugged one of those glowing tentacles? He’d reacted when she’d sunk her fingers into his gills. No matter how good of an actor he’d been at pretending it hadn’t affected him, it certainly had. She’d felt his shiver and seen the goosebumps rise on his more human-like skin.

But it was unnatural to be so interested in an undine beyond the usual scientific curiosity.

Doctor Barker nodded. “Right. I suppose that makes sense. Now, why did you go after the reborn?”

“It’s my job to bring her back.”

“That’s not what made you go after it.”

She cleared her throat. “I was angry that a creature bested me. I wanted to get her back to prove a point.”

His brows were still furrowed, though. And she had to admit, it didn’t sound convincing to her either. At the moment, that was exactly what she had wanted. She was enraged that the undine had bested her. She wanted to prove a point to herself and to the creature that Alexia was not someone to fuck with.

And yet... The longer she was out of the water, the further she was from the situation, the more she thought maybe she was wrong. It hadn’t been rage that had fueled her.

Doctor Barker moved the needle between his fingers. “You continue throughout this conversation to use pronouns such as he and she for both the undine and the reborn. I find this interesting terminology to use for creatures we do not consider to be... people.”

She sighed and looked toward the door. The more she talked, the more uncomfortable she became. And the more she looked at that needle, and wanted him to inject her. “They look like people. Both of them talk, too, you know. I was in the room where someone didn’t give the reborn the right amount of drugs to keep her quiet. She woke and tried to speak. I didn’t think they were intelligent enough to do so, but she did. She looked right at me and asked me for help. I had to step back and let them continue on with the procedure even though I knew she was in pain.”

“Was that the first moment when you started feeling emotions that were outside of your normal range?”

Alexia shrugged. “I have no idea. It wasn’t like there was an instant where I suddenly knew that everything wasn’t the same. It’s been a gradual change, and now... I’m here. Looking at reborns with sorrow and at undines with intrigue.”

Doctor Barker wheeled closer to her and reached for her arm. He smoothed his thumb over her bicep, which was bruised where she’d been grabbed and thrown on the sparring mats. “These are highly unusual emotions for one such as yourself. I wish to understand, before I... well.”

The needle came closer to her skin, and she knew exactly what he meant. Before he took all those emotions away again. Before she returned to that numbing state she was beginning to hate more and more every time she came out of it.

But it was safer for her to be numb. She would remain alive a lot longer if she wasn’t emotional like this, and was able to do her job without questioning what she was ordered to do.

Barker hesitated. The needle was poised right over her skin, and then he looked up at her with an expression of concern. “Stay safe, Alexia. I worry the longer you bury these emotions, the more you will feel them.”

She placed her hand over his and stuck the needle a little too far into her arm. Her hand was so much larger than his, so it was easy to put her thumb over the depressor and inject herself. Emotions drained out of her quickly as she stood. Mere seconds and she was back to herself.

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