18. Helsa
HELSA
I had known from the moment the mist cleared. From the pod. From the glass.
There you are.
Before I even understood what I was recognizing.
The memory: a very large, very dark figure. Water. Hands that were not human hands. Me, lifted toward air.
I had walked toward him already knowing. Said the words already knowing. It wasn't a mermaid, was it. Needed him to say it and known, the whole time, that he would.
And now he had.
Yes. It was me. You were not imagining it.
The words were still in the air.
I had expected relief. The click of something slotting into place. Twenty years of a thing finally becoming real.
What I got was a floor dropping away.
I pressed my hands to my sternum.
He was watching me.
I couldn't look at him yet.
He didn't move toward me .
"I need to tell you something," he said. "All of it. And I need you to let me finish."
I said nothing. He took that as permission.
"My species," he said. "The Veth'ai. When we are born — before we are born — there is already someone. Somewhere in the galaxy. Our fated mate. We don't know them yet. We haven't met them. But the connection exists. It's already there, written into what we are."
I kept my hands pressed to my sternum.
"You weren't born yet," he said. "When I was born, you weren't born yet. But the place where you would be — it was already there. Already mine to find."
Mine.
The word landed differently than it should have.
"When you were born," he said, "I felt it immediately. Not gradually. All at once. A lock. Permanent. Irreversible." A pause. "You were four days old."
Four days old.
I stared at the ground.
"It is not a choice," he said. "It is not something I decided. It is what I am. To love you. To protect you. For as long as either of us exists. Every time something moved against you, I had to be there. That is not a burden I carry. It is simply what I am."
I was already looking for the part where he told me what it cost.
"The water," he said. "You were eight. The tide took you faster than you understood and you went under." His jaw moved. "I was in the water before you surfaced the second time. I got you to the beach. You weren't breathing."
I closed my eyes.
"I breathed for you," he said. "Until you coughed the water out. Until I knew you were going to be all right." A pause that had weight in it. "I stayed until your hair stopped being wet against my hands. Then I heard your family. And I ran."
The beach.
The hands.
My mother's voice somewhere above me saying She's fine, she's fine, she's fine.
"It… does not end there," he said, though it didn’t sound like he wanted to continue.
"There was a boy. When you were twenty-two.
I knew what he was doing before you did.
I knew what kind of damage it was causing you.
To love a scoundrel such as him." His voice didn't change register.
"I… removed him from your life before he could harm you further. "
My head came up.
He met my eyes. Didn't look away.
He had found momentum and he wasn’t going to stop now. "And the accident," he said. "Three years ago. At the intersection. You couldn't have seen the other vehicle from that angle." A beat. "I could."
Three years ago.
The intersection.
I had always thought I'd braked early by instinct. But I hadn’t. Somehow… somehow he had stopped that accident from happening.
"And when the Malquarans moved on you," he said, "I had a plan. I had the timeline. I had every variable." Something crossed his face. Just briefly. "They moved the schedule. Still, I tried to save you from their clutches. But I was too late."
He stopped. I sensed he could have kept going. On and on. Through every key moment of my life.
The silence after was enormous .
I stood in it.
The part of me that was always looking for the catch had gone quiet.
It was looking for the price and it couldn't find one and it didn't know what to do with that.
He moved toward me.
I put my hand on his chest.
Gently. Just my palm, flat against him. But I didn't move it and he stopped.
The tears were already running. I hadn't decided to cry. My face had made that decision without me and I was too tired to argue with it.
"I never wanted this," I said.
He was very still under my hand.
"I never wanted someone watching over me. Making sure things went right. Moving the pieces around so that my life—" My voice cracked. I let it. "So that my life would work out the way it was supposed to."
"Helsa—"
"Jerrol. The boy’s name was Jerrol." I dropped my hand. "You removed him. You decided he wasn't good enough and you removed him. But that was my mistake to make. My heart to break. My lesson to learn." Something hot was moving up through my chest. "That was mine and you took it from me."
He shook his head. “Helsa?—”
"And the accident," I said. "What if I needed that? What if I needed to be the person who survived that? Who dealt with that? Who figured out who she was on the other side of that?"
"You might have died."
"Maybe." My hands had found each other, fingers pressing together. "Maybe not. But it was supposed to be my life. My choices."
The tears were dropping off my jaw now. I didn't wipe them.
"I have spent my entire life taking care of myself," I said, "That was the one thing. The one thing I had." My voice was very steady now, which surprised me. "And this whole time you were there. And I never had a choice. Not one. Not a single?—"
I stopped.
There was nothing else to say.
Or there was too much.
He opened his mouth.
I shook my head.
"It isn't like that," he said. "What I did — it wasn't control. It was?—"
"Don't."
"Helsa. Listen to me."
"I have been listening." My voice came out harder than I meant it to. "I've been listening for the last ten minutes and I heard everything you said and I understand what you are and what this is and I am telling you?—"
"I was protecting you."
"I didn't ask you to."
"You were eight years old?—"
"And then I was twenty-two," I said. "And then I was twenty-five. And then I was here." I looked at him. "At what point was I going to get to do it myself?"
He had no answer for that.
"I wanted to take care of myself," I said. "That's all I ever wanted. And you took that from me."
I turned.
I walked and built up into a run .
Not gracefully. One boot stuck in the sand, one bare foot, the rock uneven under both. I didn't care.
Behind me, I heard his footsteps. Faster than mine. Already catching up.
"Helsa."
"Don't."
"There are males on this platform. It’s not safe?—"
"Leave me alone."
"They’re looking for you, Helsa. If you go out there alone?—"
I stopped. Turned. He was closer than I expected, close enough that I had to look up at him, and his face was doing that careful, patient, controlled thing. I could not deal with that right now.
"I know," I said. "I know there are males. I know it's dangerous. I know you know this platform better than I do and I know you think I need you." My jaw was tight. "But I also need time where nobody is controlling my every move for a change. I need space."
Something moved across his face.
He didn't follow.
I turned back and ran.
The bone reef hill was ahead of me — pale and white and the highest point on the platform, bleached formations rising from the dark rock like a place that had never belonged to anyone.
The tide was already coming in and I could see the water would never reach it.
For the first time in my life, I was running toward something nobody had already made safe for me.