Page 41 of Call of the Fathoms (Deep Waters #4)

Forty-One

Fortis

L ife is a funny thing.

Sometimes, it is lost far before it is meant to be lost. Sometimes, it is given back when it shouldn’t be.

Lights blinked in and out of existence. Wasn’t it supposed to be a void of darkness? Instead, the glimmering lights appeared to be caused by the power grid of a city turning on and off. As though they had... won.

Was he dreaming? Or perhaps his soul had returned because he needed to know the end before he left to greet all his ancestors. Fortis knew it was to be expected that his spirit might want to linger, but he could still feel his body.

He could flip his fluke. He could feel the bruising where she had injected him, and he knew there was far more strength in his body than there should have been after she’d poisoned him. Surely that wasn’t right. He had died. That was his destiny.

But as he felt life fill his veins and reality hit him hard, Fortis understood that he had not, in fact, died.

Sitting up, he pinned his gaze to a man in the corner. The human was a weak-looking thing, shivering the moment Fortis’s gaze caught him where he stood. He lifted his hands as though begging a monster to not hurt him.

“Please, please no. She sent me. Alexia sent me.”

Why would Alexia send anyone to greet him? She should have made certain that he was really dead before she left, because that was his fate .

“What happened?” he snarled.

“My name is Doctor Barker. I have been a friend of Alexia’s for many years. When she approached me after returning and told me about you, I thought she was mad, but the more she talked, the more I believed.” He twisted his hands together in a move that betrayed how nervous he was. “She asked me to be here when you woke, and told me to tell you that the future is never concrete. And that sometimes, we have to choose our own path even if someone else told us what to do.”

“That makes no sense.”

“She said you would say that.” Doctor Barker seemed to hesitate before adding, “She also said to tell you that whatever future you saw might not have been the whole truth. That maybe you saw her, but she never killed you after all.”

That dastardly woman. She’d changed his fate.

He didn’t know whether to be furious or joyful. Because he hadn’t wanted to go yet. He wanted to stay alive. With her. Fortis wanted to spend an entire lifetime dedicated to learning every sound she made. To explore the world that she had never seen and to see all the wonder in her gaze every time he showed her something new.

And he wanted to make her happy. He wanted to see her smile more often. He wanted to hear that horrendous laugh and watch as she experienced new things. He found her amazing and wonderful and he’d never told her that.

This doctor was now standing in his way, though. Fortis rolled off the table, landing on his forearms hard and wincing at the impact. Maybe he wasn’t entirely at his best, but soon enough, he would be. And then he would find her.

Leveraging himself upright, he looked the doctor in the eyes and growled, “Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then why did she send you here?”

“To make sure you were alive.” The doctor swallowed with clear nerves. “She wanted to... well, she wanted to make sure you were taken care of. The others would have experimented on your body and they would have realized very quickly that you weren’t, in fact, dead. That’s why I took you here.”

Here? He looked around and realized this wasn’t even the same room he’d been in before. That complicated things.

“I was awake when they took me into the other room. I knew where they had taken me and how to get back.” Frustrated now, he crawled to the wall so he could lean against it and pull himself higher than the doctor. Glaring down at the man, it did at least ease his anger to see the man’s trembling begin again. “How do I find her?”

“I don’t know that either. She didn’t tell me anything of her plan, but there has been sounds of fighting out there for hours now.” To punctuate his words, a resounding bang echoed outside of the door, as though someone had fired a gun and then a loud silence that came after.

Of course they had been fighting. Fortis had missed all the fun.

He headed for the door, only to pause and look back at the doctor. “If she’s hurt, how do I fix her?”

“You bring her back here. I have everything I need to make sure she doesn’t die.” A troubled expression crossed his face. “I hope she isn’t hurt, though.”

So did he, but he also knew Alexia and knew all the choices she would make. She risked herself every single day to make sure that others were well. He wouldn’t be surprised to find her injured, especially if everyone else was fighting.

With a sharp nod, he headed out into the hallway and closed the door behind him. Hopefully, the doctor would remain in there. He doubted any of his own kind would harm the man, but he would spread the word as soon as he found the other People of Water.

It didn’t take him long.

He headed down one blood smeared white hallway to find his first depthstrider. The female was bloated with rage, her spines all lifted and her body larger than it would be when she wasn’t so angered. She turned toward him with a hiss, and he could see that a blast had caught her across the face, cutting through her lovely pale lavender cheek.

“All is well,” he said as he crawled past her on his forearms. “Where is my human?”

“Fortis?” the depthstrider breathed out. ‘But you’re meant to be dead."

“I did not die.”

“But fate said...”

“The vision was wrong. I did not die. I was meant to be here, and the sea saw to it that my soul did not yet flee. Alexia saved me, regardless of how my future was interpreted.” And he would never forget that she had saved his life even when he told her not to.

“I have not seen her. But there are others roaming the halls. Some of the achromos still fight us, but their numbers have dwindled. Soon, they will all be dead but those we have chosen to spare.”

He found that he didn’t care. There were bad people here, yes. He wanted them dead just as much as anyone else, but he wanted... Her.

Alexia had become so much more important than getting his revenge on these people. He’d spent his entire life wanting to harm this city, to destroy them for what they would do to him, but now he just wanted to be with her . Who cared what his people did to this city now?

Nodding, he went in the direction the depthstrider pointed, quickly finding familiar faces. Mira stood at the end of one hallway, a gun loosely held in her hand while she talked with Arges. He was surprised either of them were standing around when anyone could have attacked them. Was the battle really that close to finished?

She caught sight of him and her eyes widened. “Fortis! I didn’t know you were...”

“She didn’t tell you? The damned woman didn’t kill me.”

A slow grin spread across Mira’s face. “I didn’t think she had it in her to lie to you like that, but look at her, surprising me at every turn. Welcome back to the land of the living, I guess.”

“Where is she?”

Arges moved into his line of vision, the gills on the sides of his neck flat with serious emotion. “We were just talking about that. We’re not sure where she is, Fortis. We expected to find her at the last open hatch, but she must have moved on to the next.”

“And someone was sent to retrieve her?”

The other two looked at each other before Mira winced. “No. We’ve been fighting for our lives here. Tau had more people in it than we thought. Most of them are holed up in the same room at this point, but we can’t get into it. We’re not sure if there’s an escape pod attached to it, but there’s about fifty people in there.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“No one has looked for her, Fortis.”

His gills flared wide with an angry hiss. “Fine, I will go.”

“We could use you here, brother,” Arges said. But there was no real emotion in his voice. Clearly Arges expected him to go.

So he did. Fortis headed down the nearest hallway, following the path she should have taken. There was so much blood on the floor, he slipped as he moved. He ended up crawling through the red streaks on his forearms, only reminding him just how much he hated not being in water.

The first five hatches were all open, and the sound of the water splashing against the edges was the only thing he could hear. But then he came to the sixth, and he smelled her blood. There hadn’t been many people here, or if there had been, they were all inside. So now he could follow her blood on the floor, only hers. She’d been dragging her feet as her life force spilled out.

Here she had slipped. There was a smear of blood down the wall where she’d fallen, a pool of it where she’d rested for a moment before she continued going.

Hearts pounding in his chest, he finally found her on her hands and knees past the seventh hatch. She was nearly at the eighth, crawling her way towards it.

Alexia didn’t even look at him as he approached. All her attention was on her labored breathing and words he could just barely make out. “One more. Just one more.”

He made it to her side and gathered her up in his arms. She fought for a few moments, but then stilled when he pressed his lips to her forehead.

“You brave, stupid woman,” he breathed against her. “What did you do?”

Her entire body went limp in his arms. He took all of her fear, her exhaustion, as she dropped her head onto his shoulder with a heavy thud. “I saved you because you wouldn’t save yourself.”

“You saved all of us, Alexia. The fighting is over. The battle is done.”

Her breath hitched. The sound was so similar to a sob, he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“Good,” she whispered. “I’m glad.”

“We need you with us.” He grabbed her jaw, forcing her head up to look at him. “What were you thinking, letting me live?”

Her features were so pale from blood loss. There were multiple smears of blood along her jaw, like she’d touched her hand to her face while trying to keep herself going. A bruise was already forming along her cheekbone and there were strands of red in her eyes. But she was alive. She was still looking at him, still fighting as he had always known that she would.

She lifted a shaking hand, still covered in blood, and gently touched his cheek. “I freed you from your prophecy, Fortis. No more expecting death. No more waiting for the end to come. I just want you to live.”

He leaned forward and kissed her. His people didn’t do this, but he now knew how badly he needed to kiss her. Her lips still tasted sweet, even if there was a metallic hint.

“You should have left me to die,” he murmured against her skin. “They would have killed you if they found out that I was still alive.”

“I figured they’d do that anyway.”

“Alexia…” he breathed, before he pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “I never got to say how you fill my soul. Every day with you has proven to me just how valuable you are. I’ve heard other humans say I love you, but the words simply don’t feel like enough.”

She hummed against his skin. “I love you too. I just hope it’s not too late.”

Then he realized she was worse off than he thought. To him, Alexia was always a strong pillar of a warrior who could not be stopped. But now he could see how weak she was. She’d been crawling to the next hatch, not even realizing she could stop fighting.

But now he was here.

“I’m going to take care of you,” he said as he lifted her more firmly with one arm. “Doctor Barker is waiting for us.”

“Oh good, he survived.” Her head lolled against his shoulder as he started dragging her back the way he came. “I didn’t think he would, to be honest. He’s not a fighter.”

“He was there in the room with me when I woke.” Fortis frowned as he maneuvered her over some bodies that had been left in their way. “How did you not poison me? You asked for the neurotoxin.”

“I didn’t give you the neurotoxin. I hid it underneath your arm. I stole a different drug from them, one that I knew would make you sleep and seem like you were dead.” She sighed, but the sound rattled concerningly. “Doctor Barker should have it now. I’m sure he will use it to protect himself if he needs to.”

“You dastardly woman.”

“I always have a plan,” she whispered, her voice growing far too quiet. “Always. That’s who they trained me to be.”

Her cheeks were far too pale. They were white as a pearl, and he didn’t mean that as a compliment. He was concerned she had lost too much blood, but if there was anywhere in the sea that could save her, it was this place.

So he brushed his hand over her head, dragging her a little faster and a little harder. “Rest now, Alexia. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

At the first sight of another person he could trust, he called out for help. Two of his own people and one human ran for him. The young man he had seen in Mira’s village before, although he’d never interacted with him. Between the group of them, they moved Alexia much faster.

Doctor Barker was waiting, and if he lifted a needle when they entered, Fortis ignored it. Together with the others, he laid Alexia on the table he’d just been lying on and then turned to the doctor with a snarl on his face.

“Save her,” he demanded.

The man had already dropped the neurotoxin and was putting gloves on his hands. With a snap that filled the room, the doctor nodded. “I’ll do my best.”