The stress of holding back from Rylie released with each mouthful of gore. Netto sank his teeth into the monster’s flesh, imagining it washer. The heady taste of it only made him hungry for more.
His control was gone. And he didn’t care.
***
“JANET! TAKE HIM,” RYLIEyelled over the thunder of gunfire and roars of the battle going on at the shore. Drones flew overhead, dousing chemicals over the nearby fires. That cleared up the smoke enough for her to see the pier and all of its destroyed beauty.
“I've got them,” Janet breathed out as she locked her arms under the unconscious man's shoulders. He was the third one she had found amongst the nearby wrecks, and she knew there more people out there, stranded on ships that were on fire and sinking.
For survivors, they could take chances on their boats and pray for rescue, or could jump overboard and pray that they weren’t attacked before they made it to shore. That's if they didn't drown first.
Janet disappeared from view as she hauled the man onto the watership’s floor. She was covering first-aid while Rylie retrieved the survivors from the water. Da drove the boat as close as he could to each wreck, and helped those that were able to get on the ship from the surface.
Rylie pulled herself up, her hands wrapping around the railing, and looked at the survivors they had saved. There was a dozen of them at least and those who weren't hurt helped her family in aiding others. Many had been stranded for half a day or more.
She flinched and jerked, an explosion ringing in her ears, followed by the terrified screams of some of their passengers. The smell of burned chemicals wafted over her, and a heavy wave of heat, before she had the chance to duck down. She peeled her fingers from the railing and looked back toward the pier as a giant wave hit the watership.
Rylie was thrown back into the pod, a gasp escaping her lips.Netto?
The monster attacking the beach had fallen limp. She blinked her eyes and braced as another giant wave hit them. The water sluiced over the glass shield. Her palms were sweaty on the dashboard.
When the waves lessened in strength, she lifted herself back up and peered at the colony. Her throat burned from the smoke.
“It’s down!” a passenger yelled.
Her eyes found Netto’s blue form in the distance. Even from where she hovered, Rylie could make out the blunt, overly large, unusual shape of his head and the pointed tip of a nose; a thick dorsal fin speared out of his back. He looked her way.
He sees me.She shivered with excitement. Rylie didn’t wait despite the drones in the air but closed her pod and dropped back into the ocean with an intense need to be back by Netto’s side. She drove the vehicle straight onto the sandy shore and he was outside her pod by the time she sprung open the hatch.
Her arms flew around his shifted form and she buried her face into his chest, uncaring of the scum that clung to him.
“I was worried.” She pressed her ear against his chest, needing to hear his heart. Her hands slid up his back as his muscles shifted under her fingers. They opened up before closing again into a seamless patch of skin.
“Zeph got himself another head.” The smell of smoke and ash burned her nostrils; it watered her eyes. At least that was what she told herself as tears sprung up.
Rylie laughed, finding one small sliver of humor in this disastrous situation. “Of course he did. For Janet?” she asked. A smile rose on her lips before it vanished.
“Who knows?” He released her and she looked up at him. “There’s something wrong with the water.”
She shivered and looked back out at the ocean and the burning ships in the distance, her watership moving between the debris. The shapes of more serpents threaded through the waves and she bit back a shiver. “There's a lot wrong with the water,” she responded, numbly. “We found a lot of survivors. They need medical attention as soon as possible. Real medical attention.”
“We’ll do our best to save more.”
Rylie nodded.
Netto continued, “But that's not what I mean. The water is poisoned with phosphates, it's thick, so thick it makes me ill.”
Her heart sped up.If it could make a Cyborg ill?“What does that mean?” she asked.
“It means we need to find the source and stop it.” He turned from her and called for Zeph. The Cyborgs shared an unreadable look. “We’re going to follow its trail.”
“Okay.” She straightened her back and headed for her pod. Netto placed a hand on the hatch and stopped her from opening the door.
“You’re not coming.”
“Yes, I am.” She pulled at the door again but it didn’t budge. “I promise I’ll follow your orders,” she conceded.
His eyes flared again as he caged her against the hatch. For a moment the world vanished and it was only the two of them. She swallowed and wished it were true. She wished for another time where it could only be the two of them and no one else.
