Page 21 of Unmoored

“I…” I started. “I couldn’t take it anymore. They were abusing me in that horrific excuse for a hospital, and I had nowhere else to go.”

“And?” He asked, now gripping my shoulder. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

I closed my eyes, blowing out a long breath as I tried to form the right words.

“Yes,” I whispered. “But Draya, I’m positive that I’m mad. My father must be right, I’m suffering from hysteria. How do I even know any of this is real? For all I know I could be hallucinating in hydrotherapy treatment again!”

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s a large tank full of water,” I said, shaking my head. “They’d hold me under until I stopped breathing, waiting to see if I’d pass out, then they’d pull me out, question me, and plunge me under again.”

“That’s… torture for a human,” he growled, clearly agitated by the idea.

“I realize that now,” I said, breaking our gaze and staringdown at my hands in my lap. “But I never passed out, nor did I drown. So they would dunk me in and out forhours. It was awful.”

“And you still didn’t think something was… strange when you refused to drown?” he asked. I shook my head. “Hazel,whydid you jump off that jetty?”

“They killed my only friend,” I blurted out, no longer caring about how badly the story would hurt to tell, nor how utterly insane I was going to sound while telling it. “I had a nurse, Bucky, who was the only person in that entire establishment who treated me like a person, and not some sick, delusional animal. When I was under his care, he’d help me sneak out to the beach late at night, and it was the only time I felt peace and solace in that wretched place.”

“Why the beach?” Draya pressed, and I shook my head.

“It calls to me,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “At first, I enjoyed the small taste of freedom. They didn’t start hurting me until I’d been there for a few months, and I simply enjoyed my moments by the water, the only time I wasn’t being watched and analyzed. But as the abuse worsened and my mental state… deteriorated… I found a sort of comfort in the ocean.”

My voice trailed off for a moment, and I was unsure if I wanted to admit the next part out loud. Draya waited for me to continue, his hands now gently caressing my shoulders. He was clearly trained in coaxing information out of people, but by this point I was too exhausted to care.

“I never told them about you, the entire time I was there,” I said, and he sucked in a breath. “Because I thought I’d hallucinated it. I thought I’d dreamt you up in somedesperate attempt to justify my survival and compartmentalize the trauma of being thrown overboard.”

Fury flashed across Draya’s features at the mention of those wretched sailors on my father’s dilapidated ship, but it was gone in a second as he schooled himself back into indifference.

“When I woke on the shore of Akala, I made up a story of how I survived the shipwreck and swam to shore. They never believed me, but I figured it was better than trying to explain that I’d been rescued by a mythical creature. Then I convinced myself that, in the trauma of it all, I’d hallucinated you. But on those nights when I’d sneak down to the beach, I was able to let myself believe it was true.

“During the years I spent in that wretched place, the idea thatmaybeyou were real, and that the ocean was calling me home, kept me alive and fighting. Every time I went to that beach, every time I sat on that jetty until I was soaked in the essence of the sea, I dreamed of you and what would happen if I just allowed the water to take me home.”

We sat in silence for a moment as Draya absorbed my words, and his face softened before he spoke again.

“I can’t be sure until we get you tested by a healer,” he said. “But I’m almost positive one of your parents has Talassi blood. We have an innate calling to our home, the sea. And it grows stronger when we’re in distress.”

“The call of the void,” I said slowly. “That was why I jumped off the jetty. They’d killed my only friend, and when I tried to escape to the beach that night, my new nurse beat me. He’d even tried to…” my voice trailed off. “At any rate, in that moment, the only answer I could think of was that the ocean was calling me home, and I assumed that meant mytime was up. I thought I was being called to my death, because in reality, I would rather have died than continue living in that crumbling disaster of a place.”

“You’re lucky I was there,” he said, turning away and standing up.

“Why didn’t you come back?” I asked, tears now streaming down my face. “Why did you leave me there to deteriorate?”

“I didn’t know!” He exclaimed, walking a few steps away. “Your father is an enemy of my people, and I didn’t know if you were dangerous or lying. Clearly I was wrong, and I never should have left you there. But I can’t change what’s done now!”

I said nothing, trying not to feel hurt by his words. I wanted him to care about me as I cared about him, but he only saw me as something to study and learn. He’d saved my life twice now, kept me alive when I should have been dead, only so he could figure out how I could be useful to him and his people.

“I’m sorry,” he said, exasperated as he slipped into the water and shifted back into his Talassi form. “I’m sorry for leaving you there. And I know this may not come as any condolence, but I did check on you from time to time. That’s why I was there when you jumped.”

“So you’ve been watching me all this time, but never thought to let me know?” My heart hurt, and I didn’t know how much more my body and soul could take before they finally gave out.

“I’m sorry, Hazel,” he said again, his voice defeated. He looked terrifying again, his dark black hair and sharp whiteteeth reflecting the light of the moon as it danced over the water.

“So what now?” I asked, shivering again.

“I want to take you to the Talassian Capital, my home,” he said, his tail swaying languidly under the water. “I’m honestly not sure what will happen when we arrive, but I cannot in good faith take you back to that island, nor can I leave you here.”

“How are you transporting me underwater?” I blurted out, suddenly wondering how in the world I was still alive.