Kira looked up at him, catching the serious cast of his features.
"Don't try to protect me by leaving me behind." He caught her chin, forcing her to look at him when she would have avoided his gaze. "I don't care what's coming or how bad it gets."
Kira pulled her chin out of his hand. "Have you ever thought that I don't want to be the reason for your fall?"
The look he gave her made her heart hurt.
"You don't get to make that decision for me. We each decide for ourselves what we're willing to risk and for who. That is what it means to love someone." His lips quirked. "And unlike a certain someone, I've had the honor of being responsible for my decisions for years."
Kira glared, pinching his side at the teasing note in his voice.
He caught her hand, holding it against him firmly. "I will not give you up. Even to death. I've told you before—you're mine. And I plan to keep you."
Twenty
Elena - Tsavitee Planet
Elena snuck through the corridors on sock clad feet. She was a ghost, passing by unnoticed. Or a phantom. She couldn't decide which.
She hummed the theme song to a popular show about a pair of kid spies as she chose a direction at random.
Oh. That reminded her. She needed a cool call sign like Auntie's if she was going to be a proper operative. Something that wouldn't give away her identity.
Tommy liked to call her a harpy. She wasn't a fan of that moniker, though. Maybe something that had less of a negative connotation.
Like Raven.
For one, it was a bird, and like the phoenix, it could fly. If, you know, phoenixes were real and all.
Elena might not have been as good as Auntie on a waveboard, but she could hold her own.
There was something about soaring in the sky that spoke to her soul. Like she was free. For a long time, it had also made her feel close to her mother. That was before she found out what her egg donor was actually like.
In legends, ravens held a variety of meanings. Considered ill omens in some cultures, messengers in others, and to have created light and thus life itself in still another.
So many different perceptions. So many interpretations of one little bird.
It was kind of poetic, if you thought about it.
The thing she most empathized with, however, was the raven's tendency to be seen as a catalyst for mischief and mayhem.
If her current circumstance didn't lend itself to such symbolism, she didn't know what did.
It was practically fate.
She'd have to remember that for later when she tried to argue in favor of her new call sign with Uncle Jin. For now, she focused on her task, choosing a direction at random, careful to make note of every turn she made to ensure she could find her way back.
To her surprise, she didn't encounter anyone during the journey. The silence was oppressive, sending her heart into her throat as she crept into a large room much different than the others she'd passed.
In the shape of a rotunda, the chamber’s ceiling formed a dome. At the heart of the room was a single platform, walkways extending off it. Below it was a pool of luminescent blue liquid that frothed and moved as if something was down there.
Elena moved closer for a better look.
The metal grates were uncomfortable against her sock covered feet as she ventured further onto the walkway that traveled the perimeter of the room’s upper half. Stairs to one side led down to the platform and the network of the walkways below. From this height, Elena had the perfect vantage with which to do a little spying.
Tanks with the same blue liquid in them flanked the walls. Bodies were curled up at the bottom of most of them, wires protruding from their chests, arms, and legs. There were signs of life, Elena realized with some horror. Bubbles floated from the occupant’s mouths, popping before they reached the surface of the liquid.
Large, thick rods protruded into the pool, connected to the base of what Elena had dubbed the control center located on the central platform in the middle of the room. Elena couldn't get a sense of what those rods were for but they reminded her of a channel of some type. Maybe the pool was a power source.
