If the man had taken the bite anywhere else, he would have died. His screams of pain — which had only stopped when, exhausted and overwhelmed, he’d passed out — still echoed in Aymee’s mind.
Maris caught Aymee’s hand, gently bringing her to a halt. “You and your father saved my husband. I keep thinking about all those what-ifs, and how I haven’t had nearly enough time with him, or how our child would have had to grow up without his father, and I… I just can’t imagine it.” She squeezed Aymee’s hand. “There’s nothing I can give you that would repay what you’ve done for him, but I can tell you this: take what you want. Take it all. Do not hesitate, because it could all be gone faster than you can blink.”
Aymee’s mind went to Macy. Macy, who hadn’t cared what others might’ve thought when she chose what she wanted — Jax.
Arkon’s face rose to the surface of Aymee’s thoughts, but she dismissed it. He was a fascination, a curiosity sparked by Macy’s stories about the kraken. There was no future for Aymee with Arkon, especially when he was unwilling to emerge from hiding.
She’d laugh at herself if it wouldn’t make her look insane; of all the men on Halora, the only one who held her interest so strongly wasn’t even human.
“Thank you, Maris.” Aymee gave the woman’s hand a comforting squeeze in return. “My father and I don’t want anything in return. It means everything that we were able to help him. But I’ll take your words to heart.”
Maris smiled and released her.
“We’d best hurry,” Jeanette said. They quickened their steps toward the town center.
The meeting hall was one of the largest buildings in The Watch. It served as a gathering place both for meetings and recreation; because resources were too precious to leave such a space unused, it doubled as a pub.
Dozens of people filed through the open doors, from beyond which the din of a hundred simultaneous conversations spilled out. Aymee kept beside her mother as they squeezed inside. She stood on her toes and searched until she spotted her father, who was waving his hand.
She tugged on her mother’s sleeve and motioned toward her father. Maris smiled and shooed them away, going to her own family.
The heat and noise of at least two hundred people was overwhelming. Aymee clung to her mother’s hand as they wove through the crowd, slowly working their way toward Kent. Whatever the meeting was about, the allure of newcomers had apparently piqued the town’s interest.
The crowd’s palpable curiosity did nothing to quell Aymee’s unease.
When they reached Kent, he leaned forward and kissed them each on the cheek. Aymee took his arm and leaned against him, turning her attention to the front of the room.
Several members of the town council were on the small stage, but it was the unfamiliar faces alongside them that caught Aymee’s eye. One of the strangers stood closer to the councilmen than the rest — a handsome man who looked to be in his early thirties with short, dark hair, a stern expression, and serious eyes. His gaze roved over the crowd as people funneled into the hall, but there was no restlessness in it, only alertness. His clothes were the deep purples and greens of the jungle, and he wore a large knife on his belt.
Six other rough-looking men in similar attire stood behind him.
Culver Hunters.
Though Aymee had never seen a Hunter before, their reputation was well-known in The Watch. The Hunters of Fort Culver fearlessly battled the most dangerous beasts on Halora and always came away the victors. They were said to travel from town to town, thinning out the populations of such creatures to keep people safe.
That they’d come here now, so soon after the events involving Jax and Macy, boded ill.
By the time the influx of townsfolk stopped, everyone was crammed into the hall shoulder-to-shoulder. Aymee had only seen the place so packed once before — the day Jax arrived. Sweat beaded on her forehead and trickled down her back as the air grew stuffy. She wrinkled her nose at the stench of unwashed bodies. Many of the townsfolk had likely just come in from the fields.
Walter Bailiff, the head councilman, stepped forward and raised his hands. A hush spread through the crowd, leaving only the occasional coughs or whispers.
“Thank you.” He ran a hand down the front of his shirt, smoothing the fabric. His cheeks reddened; despite his aptitude for organization and mediation, Walter had never seemed comfortable speaking in front of crowds. “In light of…recent events, we have some visitors who’ve come to The Watch. I don’t want to put my foot in my mouth and explain it wrong, so…”
He stepped back, gesturing to the dark-haired man from Fort Culver. The stranger took Walter’s place at the front of the stage. Despite his serious features, his smile was warm.
“Let me echo Mr. Bailiff and thank all of you for coming on such short notice. My name is Randall Laster. Me and my men have come all the way from Fort Culver, and let me tell you, your town is paradise after that long on the road.”
Laughter filled the room.
“I think most folk call us Culver Hunters, or something along those lines. We call ourselves rangers, but that doesn’t matter much. It’s been a long time since any of us came this way, so I’d like to take a few moments to explain what it is we do, and why we’re here.”
“Excuse me,” someone muttered.
Aymee turned her head to see Macy’s father, Breckett Sinclair, carefully squeezing his broad-shouldered frame through the crowd. He stopped beside her, his mouth hidden in his thick beard.
“This can’t be good,” Aymee whispered to him.
He shook his head. Even if she couldn’t see his mouth, his eyes were troubled.
She took Macy’s letter out of her pocket and passed it to Breckett. “Here.”
He tucked it away, and they both returned their attention to Randall.
“I’m sure, like in most places, everyone here has a job to do.” He paced slowly along the stage, boots thumping on the wood, hands clasped behind his back. “Our job is simple. We hunt the creatures that give people trouble. Doesn’t matter if it’s a snatcher plant taking your babies or a pack of krull eating your crops. We control their numbers so humanity can thrive.”
Aymee grabbed a handful of her skirt and pressed her lips together.
“I got a pemling problem! Want to come deal with that?” a woman called out.
The crowd laughed again. Pemlings were fist-sized vermin that could eat entire silos of food if they weren’t kept in check.
Randall raised a finger, his smile tilting to one side. “That’s a bit smaller than what we tend to specialize in, ma’am, but we’d be more than happy to come take a look. Afraid to say we didn’t come all this way to deal with some pemlings.”
“Then what are you here for?” Aymee asked.
Pausing, Randall turned his head toward her. When their eyes met, she saw an unsettling spark of interest in his gaze. “We’re here to help The Watch, Miss…?”
“Help us how? We’ve been doing well.”
“He’s here for the sea monster,” another person said from the left side of the room. “Aren’t you?”
Aymee looked in the speaker’s direction but couldn’t tell who’d said it. Her stomach twisted. “He’s not a monster.”
“Aymee,” Jeanette warned quietly, catching her daughter’s hand.
The scrutiny — and interest — in Randall’s gaze intensified. “We don’t always follow rumors across Halora, but the story we heard from this town... Monster or not, this thing must be viewed as a threat until we know more about it.”
“He is no more a threat than you or me.” Aymee couldn’t stand and listen to this in silence. “Jax had many opportunities to hurt people, but he didn’t. He let himself get captured. He obeyed every instruction given to him without resistance. Even when he escaped, not a single person was harmed. How could you consider him a monster?”
Commotion erupted in the hall; everyone in town had their own version of those events, though almost everyone in town had been
either in the comfort of their homes or here in the town hall, drinking, when Jax escaped. The only people who knew the truth would never betray Jax and Macy.
“He caused no trouble,” shouted one of the men who’d guarded Jax.
Randall silenced them by lifting his hands in the same manner Walter had. “I don’t want everyone to argue about it. We’ve heard some stories, and we came to sort it all out. We might carry some big guns, but we’re on your side. If this Jax is on your side, too, we won’t have any problems. But until we know that, without a single doubt, we must treat him as a dangerous beast. Because that is what will keep people safe.”
“He’s not a beast!” Aymee snapped. “We’ve lived here in peace for years before he came, and we still live in peace months after he left. You’re here for no one but yourselves!”
One of the other rangers — older than Randall, with short blond hair and a cruel grin — barked a laugh.
“Aymee!” Kent pulled Aymee back, and she stumbled into him.
Randall’s smile faltered, and his brow creased. “I understand emotions are high in the wake of what happened here. I’m not going to take offense. We came to help, and that’s what we intend to do. Our first goal is to determine what that will entail.”
Breckett cleared his throat. “What she says is true. That beast, as you call him, brought my daughter back after we thought her dead at sea. She was badly injured, and he exposed himself to make sure she got the care she needed. The whole time he was locked in that tank, all he did was ask about the welfare of my daughter. He is not a monster.”
“I should very much like to speak with your daughter, sir,” Randall said.
“That’s not possible.”
“So, he didn’t bring her back in time?”
“He did, and thanks to him, Doc Rhodes, and Aymee, my Macy lives.”
Randall’s gaze shifted from Breckett to Aymee. “Me and my men would love to talk with the two of you further over the coming days.” He looked out over the rest of the crowd. “Anyone with information, we ask that you share it with us. Our job is to defend the humans of Halora. That means The Watch, and every other town on this planet. We can’t make a decision that will potentially affect everyone on this world based on some anecdotes.
“Please, rest assured, we’re not here to disrupt your lives. We’re not here to stir up trouble. We’re here to prevent any more of it. If this Jax is truly harmless, we’ll move on.”
The crowd burst into animated conversation as Randall stepped back. It took Walter several minutes to quiet them down enough to be heard. He thanked everyone for their time and wished them a good evening. The townsfolk trickled through the open doors and into the night.
Aymee finally released the fabric she’d held in her fist and stretched her stiff fingers before smoothing the wrinkles out of her skirt. Randall had a certain charm, a confidence and compassion that should have eased her fears.
But even if the men with him looked rougher, Randall had the hard features of someone who’d scraped out a living in the wilds.
She didn’t want to think of Arkon becoming their target, but it seemed all too possible.
“Be careful, Aymee,” Breckett said. “I know you’re trying to protect them. I want to do the same, but we don’t know these men. We don’t know what they’re willing to do.”
“What were you thinking?” Jeanette demanded.
Aymee winced. “I know. I know. I shouldn’t have spoken out like that, but I couldn’t… They’re not monsters!”
“We know that,” her father said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, “but they don’t.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Breckett rumbled, glancing at the stage.
Aymee’s brows lowered as she followed Breckett’s gaze. Randall and his rangers were talking with a few of the councilmen; his eyes flicked to Aymee and held. He smiled.
Aymee looked away. She needed to warn Arkon, but it was another week before the next exchange.
“Just be careful, Aymee,” Breckett said.
“I will. Thank you, Breckett.”
They left the town hall together, saying their goodnights to Macy’s father once they were in the square and the crowd had thinned. When they arrived home, Jeanette went to the kitchen to finish preparing dinner while Aymee excused herself, anxious to read Macy’s letter.
She sat on her bed and reached for the letter, pausing as she lifted the jar of stones. Each of them had been selected and adorned just for her. Heart warm, she smiled. It was a small comfort, but every little bit mattered.
Sliding the paper from beneath the jar, she unfolded it. Macy’s familiar handwriting was scrawled across the page, and though shorter than usual, the letter conveyed an abundance of happiness. Aymee wished they were together to share in that feeling.
One of the lines gave her pause. She read it again, and her lips spread into a grin. Aymee leapt from the bed and ran into the kitchen.
“It’s a girl!” she shouted. “Macy had a girl, and she’s perfect!”
Chapter 2
The Facility was a cluster of huge, familiar patches of darkness set against deep blue as Arkon approached, its exterior lights insignificant in the vastness of the surrounding ocean. The humans who’d once dwelled within these buildings had called this world Halora, and the records they’d left behind claimed more than eighty percent of the planet’s surface was covered with water. For all that he’d learned from those records, such a massive area was beyond Arkon’s fathoming.
His people, the kraken, occupied a sliver of the ocean so tiny that it might as well have been a single drop of water.
He cast aside those thoughts as he neared the main building’s entry door. In the past, such musings could have occupied him for hours or days at a time. But there was only one thing he longed to think about now, only one thing that held his attention — Aymee.
Tucking the supply canister under his arm, he entered the number sequence on the keypad. The red light over the door changed to green, and the entry slid open. Arkon swam into the pressurization chamber.
As the door closed behind him and the water drained, his mind’s eye produced images of Aymee. He’d watched from the water as she walked along the beach, had marveled at her easy grace in the open air, had battled the urge to go ashore and speak with her. What would he have said? The single time they'd spoken, he’d been a stammering fool.
When he had gone onto land and retrieved the container, his hands tingled — Aymee had touched it. His tentacles detected a faint, familiar taste, sweet and light and alluring. Her taste. It was unlike anything in the sea.
“Pressurization normalized,” the computer said from an unseen overhead speaker. The interior door opened after its light turned green, and Arkon moved into the corridor beyond.
The Facility had been his home for his entire life. He knew every hallway, every chamber, knew which lights worked and which tended to flicker. He’d always wondered at the mystery behind it all. Thanks to Macy figuring out how to access the computer’s information, he’d learned much. The Facility was powered by an experimental reactor fueled by halorium — a rare, glowing stone often found on the seafloor. The computer’s records could provide no estimate on how long the reactor would be sustained by its current halorium supply; the technology had been too new when the kraken took control of the place for definitive data to have been generated.
His eyes roamed over the lines and angles of the walls and doors as he made his way deeper inside. Though the dirt and wear of centuries was apparent everywhere, the precision with which The Facility had been constructed was just as noticeable. Everything was even, symmetrical, deliberate. Every overhead light, every doorway, every panel on the floors, walls, and ceilings were exact in size, shape, and placement. There was a certain artistry to it, but he found it somehow cold. Unfeeling.
What about that feeling put Arkon off after he’d spent countless hours seeking balance, symmetry, and precision in his own attempts at art?
He’d never quite managed to satisfy himself in such pursuits, and yet, his works felt unerringly more alive than the Facility. Was it simply his inherent personal connection to his own creations?
He glanced down. A dried clump of seaweed had crusted onto the base of the wall and lay draped partly on the floor. Little clusters of sand were scattered on and around it. Though tiny in relation to the corridor — just as The Facility was tiny relative to the ocean — it served as a break in the otherwise perfect patterns made by the drainage grooves running along the edges of the walkway.
Was that the key? When he looked upon his creations, he held them against unattainable perfection and saw all the little flaws — the very flaws that drew the eye and instilled uniqueness in a piece.
What would Aymee see in these walls? What might she make them with some of her paint and adequate time?
Though he’d only spoken to her once, Arkon had no doubt she’d breathe life into this impersonal structure; Macy had managed as much by her mere presence in the Facility. What wonders might be wrought by Aymee’s talent?
Arkon sought the what-ifs in the unadorned walls as he passed them, but he could not do her imagination justice; anything he might dream up was inadequate, unimportant, unworthy of her.
He crossed into the building marked CABINS, where the Facility’s human inhabitants had once dwelled, and his thoughts again shifted. The design here was softer — abundant curves muted the harshness present in the main building’s perfect angles. It was an illusion, of sorts; everything in this living space was arranged with equal precision, and the repeating patterns were just as obvious.
Macy and Jax used one of these chambers as their den. No kraken had denned in this building before them, and few had reason or desire to do so even now — kraken could breathe and function adequately on land but were more comfortable in the water. The other buildings — either partially or fully flooded — suited Arkon’s people better.
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