And his final request wasn’t tactical. It waspersonal.
Xen’s visual field began to blur—he rerouted bandwidth manually, confused, until he realized he wasn’t crying. But something in him had just fractured.
And then, behind him, Kelly’s body moved.
Just a twitch at first.
Then a jerk, like a marionette with a pulled string.
And he stood—with the tactical chair still lashed onto his back.
Xen watched the Dullahan’s body walk across the room—avoiding the table easily, although Xen had no idea with what sensory organs, to stand against the hull’s far wall.
Subtly tilting downward.
He took a millisecond to reprocess all known data about Dullahan physiology, then opened comms for the last time. “Command is going dark. Reroute to Ellum.”
Then he grabbed the Dullahan’s body and hauled him up to the deck.
60 /SIRENA
Once I’d foundmy grief inside of me, I didn’t think it was ever going to stop.
I shattered the glass to Nex’s pen. Water rushed in, and I let it change me.
I couldn’t undo the handcuffs behind me—or struggle too much, lest I lose my tenuous grasp on Kelly’s head—but I became what I had once been in a heartbeat, a creature half woman, and half glorious tail, and all of me breaking as I dove into the dark ocean outside, needing to hunt Nex down.
I sliced down through the water, surging forward with each stroke of my tail, breathing the water as easily as the air above, searching for him by sight, and with my mind, until I found him.
The waters off Vermeil’s coast weren’t that deep; he was just a hundred feet down. But he was trapped by the Hollows who weighed him like anchors on either side, and I couldn’t feel him anymore.
“No!” I howled into the ocean and swam up to kiss him, hard.
Not because I wanted one more intimate moment with him, but because if I could breathe underwater—maybe so could he.
Through me.
I pressed my warm lips to his cold ones and willed him to breathe, fighting the currents with my tail to keep me there, because my arms were still handcuffed behind me, trying to ignore the way the water around us tasted like his blood.
And then I felt something taking Kelly’s head away from me.
A greedy fish, perhaps. I swatted behind me with my tail—and hit metal.
I couldn’t look back to see what it was, but then something roared behind me—an awful mechanical scream—and sparks exploded through the water on my right. I closed my eyes, my mouth still fastened to Nex’s, praying even as I called out for help—as the right side of Nex’s body was suddenly freed.
Then the sparking and noise began again on my left—as someone took Kelly’s head away for good.
This time though, I felt the brush of a tentacle—and a strange mind.We’re here,an unknown kraken thought.
And then, Cepharius’s mind again.You are doing the right thing,he said, using his tentacles to help push Nex and me closer together against the mechanical commotion.Don’t stop.
Nex’s left side went limp and started to float—then something metal cinched tight around my waist, scraping against my scales—and the ocean tore away.
61 /NEX
I hearda voice in my mind.
You’re not allowed to die! Do you hear me? You are NOT ALLOWED TO DIE!
