up and up, and her pale eyes blaze into mine, pupils wide and full of desire. “You came back for me, Slate.”
I slide my fingers through the tendrils of hair waving around her porcelain face and anchor them to the back of her skull with my gloved hand. The ring burns hot and radiates into my veins, filling my body with exquisite warmth.
Cadence parts her lips, and every cell in my body buoys as though my air tank’s hooked to my veins. She eases the regulator from my mouth and tilts her head in invitation.
I tighten the fingers that span her skull and tug her head closer.
And closer.
Just before our lips connect, I thrust the dagger into her side, just beneath the ribs.
Her scream nearly rips my eardrums.
The water churns and the walls of the well shudder as if an earthquake has hit Brume. Fake-Cadence’s blue irises morph to blazing orange, and her pupils stretch to vertical slits. The creature lunges at me and screeches, revealing a mouth full of yellow, curved, needle-like teeth.
I don’t expect its strength, and it must sense it because it takes advantage of my lapse of attention, cutting clean through the straps of my BCD with its sharpened nails. The jacket flaps open like stubby wings. The creature bellows out another scream before coming at me again, sending me farther and farther down the well. Sealing my lips to conserve my supply of air, I yank the dagger out and jab it in again. The thing’s jaw gapes, then clenches, then gapes again, like a piranha in a ski cap.
It writhes, breaking my grip on the dagger.
I shoot my hand back down to my thigh for my second weapon. My fingers close around the iron pick just as the siren shoves me into the mound of coins. My hand skitters off my weapon and bangs against the coins, which rise and float around us like glimmering snowflakes. My lungs squeeze as the creature flings itself down on me. I wring my body from side to side, expending precious energy and air, but what choice do I have? I refuse to be slurped down like fish food.
I punch it, the ring making the inhuman thing’s face snap to the side, and it wails like a banshee, its orange eyes flaring with rage. As it lunges at me, I reach for the iron pick again. The siren’s teeth graze my jaw, setting my whole face aflame. I gasp, releasing my meek supply of oxygen. Icy water floods my throat. With one last burst of adrenaline, I snatch the pick and yank it out of the holster, then plunge it over and over into the monster’s neck, chest, waist.
Its mouth pops in a soundless scream, or maybe I can’t hear it anymore. My vision dots, then darkens.
I blink, my lids sluggish.
A black, viscous cloud seeps into the water.
Air. I need air. I wave my arms like a starfish until I feel something long and rubbery . . . a hose. I pray it’s the one connected to my octopus and not to my depth gauge.
Lungs on fire, I swing the hose in front of my face. I think I see something round and black attached to it. I bring it to my mouth and almost faint with relief when my teeth close around rubber and not hard plastic. I suck but swallow water, and my chest spasms.
Choking, I scrabble to remember how to get air. The purge! My fingers graze the button in the middle of the regulator.
The well turns gray then black. Did my headlamp go off?
I press the purge button to clear my mouthpiece of water.
Air . . . glorious air streaks into my lungs.
I breathe in long and deep, lying on the mound of coins like a crack addict sprawled on a dirty couch.
The black shadow sharpens, and I realize it’s the creature liquifying. Dark, gloppy bits curl and bloat like oil in a lava lamp.
Something shines amidst the dirty sludge.
Something gold and smooth, big as my palm.
I reach up and rake through the gunk in slow motion.
When I was a kid, I’d climb onto rooftops to hide from the terrible humans populating my world and stare up at the night sky to wish on its stars. I quickly understood that stars didn’t listen, so I stopped whispering to them.
Tonight, as I lay at the bottom of the black well, and my gloved hand closes over the falling disk of gold, I feel like that