Page 25 of Prima (After the End #8)

She sits down and pats the spot next to her. He realizes belatedly that he’s shot to his feet. He lowers himself, glancing warily at the device to her other side.

“Why are you wearing this collar?”

She touches it, a tentative gesture, as if it were a poisonous snake wound about her neck. But she says, “Don’t you want to know how I know Eighteen?”

He does, but not as badly as he wants to rip off the collar and throw it into the waves, for once not remotely caring about the cardinal sin of waste.

He clenches his fingers together so he won’t do just that. “How do you know Eighteen?”

She wraps her hand around his fist, as if she too senses his violent desires.

“I met him in the war zone ten years ago, not long before I met you.

At that time, he was just a lieutenant who served under General Duval.

Three years ago, he came as part of a diplomatic mission to New Ryukyu and we met again.

That was when he pulled me aside and told me that he was once Prince Eighteen of Dawan.

“Even though he’d been an exile for most of his life, he never forgot those who were kind to him in the Potentate’s Palace. When he heard that your mother and your sister disappeared at sea, he harbored some hope that they might have ended up in New Ryukyu and wanted to pay his respects.”

She wraps her other arm around his shoulder.

He craves the contact—he has lived for so long without physical proximity to anyone—yet even the comfort and reassurance of her embrace cannot lessen the frantic revulsion he feels at the sight of the collar.

She might as well have put a noose around her neck and asked him to carry on as usual.

“To Prince Eighteen,” she continues, “I said that I had no idea if these specific refugees came through the Disputed Waters. But I passed on the request to your mother and eventually arranged a meeting because she did want to see him.

“I’ve been in touch with him since. Five months ago, I finally rotated off the Secretariat.

When I still served, I couldn’t do anything to help you get out of Dawan—it would have been considered an abuse of office.

But now I’m a private citizen again. I went to see Eighteen off the Southern Continent.

“Prince Six was already making waves but his divorce was still months in the future. Eighteen was pulling his hair out over the logistics of Five’s exit.

You know most of the rest. I did go before the Secretariat because I needed special expedited sanctuary status for you, permission for three Dawani vessels to briefly enter New Ryukyu territorial waters, and limited one-time authorization to deploy off-duty border patrol boats and personnel.

The last of which you are paying for, by the way, from your royalties. ”

Half of him wants to thank her profusely; the other half is still completely distracted by the collar and won’t be able to concentrate on anything else until she has removed it and put it out of sight.

She looks to the east. “The sun is rising.”

The sea is still an inky color, but there is a glimmer of scarlet on the waves. He glances at her. There’s a frown on her face. She is strained, more strained than she has been at any point since she boarded The Blue Sampan, which only unnerves him further.

He pivots to the north right before she cries out, “Look, it’s Old Friend!”

At the sight of the orca in the distance, joy wells up—a similar emotion, minus the shock, to what he felt upon first seeing her face, except at the time he wasn’t able to recognize it as joy because he’s felt it so seldom in his life.

Yet even that surge of buoyancy isn’t enough to dispel his misgivings. It seems too much of a coincidence that they should meet Old Friend, who could be anywhere in the world, right here, right after he escaped the clutches of the new Potentate.

He sets the manga aside—he’s destroying the cover with the force of his grip.

When the orca and the raft at last converge, the woman next to him vibrates with tension but pastes on a big smile. “Hello, Old Friend.”

She kneels down at the edge of the water and touches her forehead to the orca’s. And then she stands up. “Let’s high-five.”

The orca shoots up. He can’t believe his eyes: On Old Friend’s right fin, there is a nerve gun.

Nerve weapons have been banned. Banned!

“No!” he yells.

His beloved glances at him, as if to say, What’s the matter? Everything’s okay here. And then she collapses to the raft, shuddering.

His first instinct is to jump with her into the waves, but the orca is still there, standing up at the edge of his vision, as if waiting for more high-fives. He falls to his knees and pulls her up. Her head rolls back. Her pupils have lost focus. Her limbs twitch involuntarily.

He cradles her nape in his hand, lifts her head up and presses their foreheads together.

Immediately pain slices through him, a white-hot edge prying open his skull to liquefy his cerebrum.

It scalds his nerves, down through his spine, then out into every limb, every muscle, every fingertip.

He is being burned alive, staked alive, flayed alive.

His eyes are scraped out with broken glass, his gut corroded with acid, his flesh torn apart fiber by fiber, tendon by tendon.

He wants to scream, but can’t open his mouth; wants to pant, but can’t breathe. He can only hold on, shaking convulsively, trying not to die.

Don’t look back. Don’t come back. Do you hear me?

It is bright and sunny, but his mother and Nin shiver.

They are frightened of what would happen if he were to fail—and if he succeeds.

He speaks now to their loyal maid. I’ll try to get them into the sub if I’m still conscious.

If I’m not, have Old Friend help you. The course is already programmed.

The motor is on. And you’ve practiced how to close the hatch and take the sub to cruising depth.

You’ll be fine. We’ll meet again someday.

It is dark. The girl and her raft have disappeared into the shadows.

Lanzhou, he murmurs, Lanzhou. There is nothing but pain where his heart used to be.

All he wants is to relive every moment of the last few days, but he has to think about the future.

We might have enough time to move the sub out of the way and sink it to the ocean floor, he says to Old Friend.

Nobody else knows it’s there. If we can hide it from the rescuers, we can come back for it another day, before too long.

And then I won’t have to steal the prototype for Mom and Nin.

Let me go to him. Let me go to Eighteen! he shouts. His mother cries. Are you sure, sweetie? Are you sure? He’s on the verge of crying too. I don’t know. But I have to go to him. I can’t let him die. He’s my brother.

Lump purrs. How he loves the sound of Lump’s purring. Let’s go see Nin? Yes, let’s go play with Baby Nin. Wait, is that Nin crying? It is Nin crying, her chubby little hands tugging uselessly on the hem of Mom’s tunic. And Mom is lying on the ground, convulsing, foaming at the mouth.

Someone is pushing him. It’s Lanzhou—her name has come back to him! These have been such long years without you, Lanzhou. Take me home. Ever since I first saw you smile, I’ve wanted to—

But why is she pushing him away?

He holds on ever tighter. I won’t cling. I’ll cook. I’ll garden. I’ll occupy only a small corner of your house. But I must see your smile once in a while.

The next thing he knows he’s splashing into the waves, falling, falling.