Submerge by Tobie Easton

Author:Tobie Easton [Easton, Tobie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781946700278
Google: Q-EkDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1946700274
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC
Published: 2017-09-11T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

She glides in on her ice-blue tail, and all the air rushes out through my gills.

What is Ondine doing here? Ondine who said she was disgusted by Melusine’s crime and who is working so hard to distance herself from her immoral, udell family.

I float behind the rock wall, open-mouthed, as she swims through the porthole I just vacated. Into Melusine’s rooms.

What is she doing in there?

I should leave. They’re family, and Ondine’s reason for visiting isn’t my business. But I don’t. I stay put. Because, in the time we’ve spent together, Ondine has started to feel like family. She listens like family, accepts like family. Has all of that been a lie? The only reason I let her into my life was that she claimed to be different from the Havelocks, said she rejected everything they stood for. But if she’s visiting Melusine in secret …

Minutes drag by like hours as I wait behind that wall, concocting version after version of the conversation happening within those rooms. Am I being paranoid? Maybe suspecting the worst is part of the … the darkness Melusine mentioned. Are the thoughts I’m having now evidence she’s right about me? My stomach curls in on itself.

With a creak, the porthole opens. Ondine and Melusine swim out, hands clasped together like they’re the best of friends, and head down a side tunnel where they disappear from view.

Without thinking, without planning, I follow them.

Where are they going? Melusine isn’t a prisoner, so she’s allowed out to previously sanctioned locations. Surely, the guards can see her on their monitors and wouldn’t let her go anywhere unauthorized. But … seeing her moving about freely after everything she’s done makes my breath come in quick, shallow pants that send my gills fluttering.

I creep along behind them, hanging back and moving my tail and arms as little as possible so the flow of water won’t give me away. Luckily, they’re moving so quickly themselves, any movement I do make goes unnoticed.

This side tunnel is narrower, dimmer, little used. At the end is another porthole, this one standing open. Melusine swims into it. But as Ondine swims up to its entrance, she hesitates.

I freeze. Does she sense me? Will she turn around? What will I say?

Her back muscles tense, as if she feels something amiss, but the next instant, she too lets the porthole swallow her.

Now I float at its rim. I could turn around, go home. That’s what I should do. But the questions nag at me. Where does it lead? Why is Ondine going there with Melusine?

I flick my fins and cross the threshold, surprised when the water drains away on the other side and I find myself lying on my stomach on wet stone with only a thin layer of remaining water rushing underneath me. And flowing downward.

I now lie on the mouth of a downward slope, like a dark, dripping waterslide tube made of stone. It’s one of the express passages, not used by the public. I’ve never used one before, and I don’t know where this one will take me.

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