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I skidded to my knees in front of the glass encapsulating Lana, raised my fist, and punched the surface. My knuckles split open, leaving a smear of blood. Too thick.

I hit it again, elbowed it, kicked it, but to no avail. I’d seen Aecora kill before; you couldn’t punch your way through her creations. My pulse pounded in my temples, rang in my ears.

No use. It was no use.

I laid my hand on the fishbowl. I could do nothing but watch as Lana’s wet fists thumped the inside of the dome. The water moved up to her chest, and then it lifted her feet off the ground, filling the container far too quickly.

She gave up trying to shatter the glass as her beautiful face pressed against the top of the dome and she took her final breaths of air.

I was going to have to watch her drown.

She opened her sad, solemn eyes underwater, and they found mine immediately. I swear forgiveness flashed through them.

Forgiveness. For all the killing. For the violence. For taking her. For everything. Because demon or not, her heart was pure.

Lane stopped battling the water. From the other side of the glass she pressed her palm up against mine. And then she simply watched me. I knew that moment; I’d seen it often enough. When someone accepts their death.

Lana had the audacity to give up.

I could feel my face contorting. Good people always died while evil fuckers like me and Aecora got to keep our insufferable lives.

It was the laugh that made me snap.

Aecora let out a shrill giggle, and that, that laugh that mocked my pain and Lana’s life, that made me see red.

I charged the water demon.

She waved her hands again, and I slammed into another glass wall, this one encircling me. It, too, began filling with water. I backed away, my anger now mixing with panic. Lana and I were now both trapped, we would both drown.

Fucked three ways to Wednesday.

Smirking, Aecora knelt to watch, like death was entertaining.

This was why I hunted these assholes.

I splashed back toward the side closest to Lana’s bubble.

As she moved underwater, her heel struck the gun, which settled to rest against the glass.

The gun.

It was our only hope.

I’d shown her how to fire it. The safety was off.

All she had to do was pull the trigger.

“Lana!” I screamed, slapping the glass. Water sloshed over my knees. “Lana, the gun... grab the gun!”

Her brows drew together. She had to almost be out of air. Her hair swirled around her like the plume of an exotic fish, glimmering blue and violet and purple. Under stress, her inhuman side came to the surface.

“Shoot the gun at the glass!”

I made a gun with my hand and shoved it against the glass, then pantomimed pulling the trigger.

She got it. Her eyes lit up with the realization. She swam down to the bottom of her cage and felt around for the gun.

Water bubbled up to my chest.