Mira shook her head. "We landed on a helipad, but I got completely turned around in here. It's like a maze."
"Then I'll show you."
He started to open the stairwell door, but she grabbed his arm.
"You make it sound like you're not coming with me. What's that all about? We're getting out of here together, aren't we?"
Dane looked her in the eyes, his gaze serious and calm. "No. I'm gonna do what I should've done when I escaped two years ago. I'm going to free the prisoners who are kept in this place."
DANE
Mira's facewas a picture of dismay, but in front of Dane's eyes, it firmed up into steel. "Then you're not doing it alone. One way or another, we're getting off this island together. If you can't leave until you do this, I'll help you."
Mingled frustration and admiration made his words jam up in his mouth. He'd never been good at explaining things, and now it seemed even harder. "Mira, I can shift and swim away. You can't. I'd feel better if I see you safely on a chopper and then—"
"No. Together or not at all."
The set of her jaw was unmistakable. It was evident that nothing was going to sway her short of throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her to a helicopter, but even then it wasn't like he could make her fly it. And every moment they argued in the corridor made their risk of discovery greater.
"All right," he said. "We'll have to be quick. Stay with me and do what I say."
Mira nodded.
The alarm siren continued to wail as they ducked down corridors and stairwells. Dane's orca had a near photographic recall of three-dimensional spaces, and he found that he had an almost perfect map of the facility in his head.
This was helpful at finding their way around, but it didn't tell them where the guards were, and Dane knew that most of the other mercenaries would have senses as sharp as his own; he couldn't rely on being able to hear them farther away than they could hear him.
The siren cut out abruptly, leaving a ringing hush in which he could clearly hear boots clattering up ahead. He pulled Mira into a side corridor, and they waited until there was silence again.
They couldn't go on like this without being shot or caught; there were simply too many of them. Dane blew out a breath. "Mira, I need to echolocate ahead to find us a clear route to the lower levels. This is going to involve shifting," he added, in case she didn't understand the problem.
"Can you do it on land?" she asked immediately. "Will it hurt you?"
"Not if I don't do it for long. But you'll see me as—me."
"I already have," she said quietly. "You saved me after the storm."
Dane gave her a shocked look. "I didn't know you remembered that."
"I thought it was a dream. I didn't believe a whale could truly have saved me. But then you told me about your—er—tame orca, and I started to think it wasn't a dream after all." She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Do whatever you have to do. It won't shock me."
Dane quickly stripped and went down to all fours. "Stand back," he told her. "I'm large."
Holding a bundle of clothing and weapons, she flattened herself against the wall, eyes wide and curious. Dane did a quick mental calculation to make sure he wasn't about to crush her, and then he turned into a killer whale.
Abruptly the corridor felt tiny, and gravity painfully oppressive, dragging him down to the unreasonably hard floor.
This is very uncomfortable,his orca groused in his head.Land is dry and heavy and terrible. I hate it.
It's just for a minute. We need to scout ahead.
He was aware of sudden movement in his peripheral vision and rolled his eye back far enough to see that Mira had come out of hiding. It was harder to read human expressions as an orca, but she seemed fascinated rather than afraid. She transferred his bundle of clothes to the crook of her arm so that she could lay a hand on his black-and-white side, and despite the thickness and resilience of his skin, he felt her. A responsive quiver passed through him, twitching his long body.
Internally, his orca was doing some kind of metaphorical backflip, which was a deeply weird feeling when the rest of his body couldn't follow through with it.
"You're smooth," she said in surprise. "Smooth and kind of rubbery."
She's so soft,his orca enthused.And she thinks we are too!
