Page 61 of Fallen from the Stars

“Pressurization complete,” said a familiar feminine voice from overhead — the Computer. She sounded flat and dispassionate compared to Kane.

The door ahead of Vasil opened with a hiss. He moved through, entering a familiar corridor that was bathed in pure white light from overhead. Water dripped off his body and flowed through the grates on the floor beneath him. The place was cleaner than he remembered, undoubtedly a result of humans like Larkin and Aymee living here with their kraken mates for long periods of time. This main building had been used more in the four years since Jax had brought his human mate, Macy, to the Facility than it had in all Vasil’s life prior; the kraken used to keep to the flooded buildings unless they had reason to meet with one another and speak.

Oddly, the cleanliness instilled the Facility with a lived-in feeling. It was being treated as a home in a way the kraken had never dreamed, and that gladdened Vasil.

But coming back had only confirmed his suspicion — this was no longerhishome.

Grunting, he cast those thoughts aside. Only Theo mattered. She was alone, awaiting his return, and he was eager to share the news with her. Though he wanted her to see the Facility, to see where his people had been created, this place was only important to him now because it could provide a diving suit — which she required to travel to The Watch. He didn’t trust the pod to endure another ocean journey.

Vasil moved down the corridor, using the various handles and recesses to pull himself along faster. He took the turns without thinking; well over a year had passed since he’d gone to live in The Watch permanently, but he knew this place as intimately as though he’d never left.

He encountered no one on his way to the Pool Room.

He entered the large chamber, which had been named because of the huge, rectangular, humanmade pool dominating it. Vasil glanced at the water as he hurried past it. Thousands of stones lay on the bottom, their colors and arrangement creating a series of intricate circular patterns. The effect was the illusion of motion, all of it leading to the center — a small, glowing shard of halorium.

Vasil halted and turned to frown down at the halorium. He wasn’t sure how wide an area that little piece could affect — the lights at the base of the pool all seemed functional, but it was possible they were somehow shielded from its effects.

When Vasil brought Theo to The Watch, they’d have to stop in this building; the Facility was on the way and would provide a safe place to eat and rest. Otherwise, they’d be swimming from sunrise to well after sunset. He doubted Theo could make such a journey in a single day, especially as she’d spent much of her life in some sort of machine that traveled between the stars. Even the diving suits, which eased human movement through the water, would not be enough to combat the inevitable exhaustion she’d suffer during such a trip.

She’d want to explore the Facility during their stay, and he’d be happy to show her around…

But this room would be off-limits.

Turning away from the pool, he continued to the lockers and containers arranged along the far wall. They’d served as storage for the diving suits since long before Vasil’s birth — all the way back to the time before the uprising, most likely. He searched them one-at-a-time, frown deepening with each locker searched; though he found several pieces of old human clothing in some, there were no diving suits or their accompanying masks. He growled as he closed the last locker. Theoneededone of those suits. Without it, her departure from that beach would be far more complicated and dangerous.

Sped on by necessity, he searched the other nearby containers. Most held equipment he could not identify — artifacts whose purposes had been lost to time. He doubted that even the humans in The Watch could have given names to all the varied and mysterious objects. His only guess was that most of them served some function under water.

There were no diving suits amidst the items.

Grasping the sides of the last container, he tensed, ready to hurl it into the pool. He was failing his mate during what should have been the moment of his success. Now that he knew the way, he should’ve been bringing her home. He should’ve been bringing her to his den, which he would ask her to share.

Vasil growled, tightening his hold on the container. It groaned under the pressure.

Rage will not help me. Will not help her.

He released a slow, heavy breath through his nostrils and returned the container to its place. He could not recall the last time he’d acted in anger. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d acted out ofanythingbut a sense of duty and obligation to his people — at least before he’d seen a falling star,hisfalling star, streak across the night sky. Since that night, he’d been driven by many emotions — curiosity, lust, compassion, fear, and…love.

That word —love— seemed strange to him. He’d heard the kraken and human couples exchange it so many times that he’d been foolish enough to believe he understood what it meant. But he’d never truly known. Despite his keen eye, his perceptiveness, and his ability to understand why people behaved the way they did, he’d never truly deciphered love. He knew now that it could notbedeciphered, that it eluded understanding. He knew because of Theo.

He knew…because he loved her.

Though he could not fathom everything that meant, it was indisputable.

Vasil was here for her, and he would tear apart every room in the Facility if that was what it took to locate a diving suit. If there were none to be found, he would not rest until he reached another solution. But ripping this place apart room-by-room was not a reasonable next step. Clear thinking would see him further than giving in to frustration and despair.

He exited the Pool Room and hurtled through the corridors, his frenzied pace setting his hearts to a rapid, thunderous rhythm. He darted past more than a dozen doors leading into side chambers for which the kraken had no use — chambers that had long rested in darkness. Though he’d wondered about some of those rooms for many years, he’d never explored them. The urge had never overcome his desire to be a dutiful kraken; searching rooms that were likely empty or functionless would have been of no benefit to his people. His time was better off spent in productive endeavors.

But he would explore them soon — with Theo. He wouldfind a way to bring her here, and they would discover those secrets together. Even if the Facility was somehow similar to the ships she’d lived on for so long, it would be new to her; maybe he’d see it with fresh wonder through her eyes.

He turned another corner and entered the corridor bridging the main building to the Cabins, where the kraken and human couples denned. Broad windows ran the length of the passage, offering a view into the world outside — the gray exterior walls of the buildings, cast in white light, and the ocean beyond darkening from deep blue to impenetrable black. He wasted no time taking in the sight; without slowing, he passed through the corridor and entered the Cabins building.

It was only as he turned into the hallway along which the human-kraken mates kept their dens that his momentum faltered. This section of the Facility had rarely been visited before humans came here again; in many ways, it had come to signify hope, change, and growth. But the last time he’d been in this hallway, it had been in the wake of tragedy.

Neo had led a group of exiled kraken into this hall meaning to slaughter all the humans who’d dwelled here and the kraken who loved them. The traitorous kraken and all his followers had been killed, several by Vasil’s hand. Blood had bathed this corridor.

Now, it looked as it had before that night — clean, empty, unremarkable, and yet somehow warm.

Shrugging off those looming memories, he continued forward. He would not allow the ghosts of kraken who’d sought to harm females and younglings to weigh upon him.

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