Chapter 2

Isabelle came to visit me the morning after Aris's final, cruel words. She floated into the lab, a vision in a white dress, holding a small plate with a piece of cake. She sat in the chair Aris used to occupy, right in front of my tank.

"Aris and I are getting married, you know," she said, her voice dripping with a sweet poison. She took a delicate bite of the cake. "We're going to honeymoon in the Maldives. He says the water there is almost as blue as your tail. Isn't that romantic?" She smiled, a perfect, predatory smile.

Rage, hot and sharp, shot through me. I slammed my tail against the side of the tank. The impact sent a shockwave through the water and a jolt of pain up my spine. I winced, a soft grunt of pain escaping my lips. A few of my deep blue scales, already weakened by stress, scraped off against the rough inner sealant of the tank. They drifted down, catching the light like fallen jewels.

"Oh, be careful, little pet," Isabelle cooed, her eyes wide with fake concern. She leaned closer to the glass. "You wouldn't want to damage the merchandise, would you? Aris would be so upset." Her gaze was ice cold, a clear threat.

Suddenly, a piercing alarm blared through the lab. Red lights flashed, casting a hellish glow on everything. The water in my tank began to heat up rapidly, the pleasant coolness turning into an uncomfortable, then painful, warmth. A display on the wall showed the oxygen levels plummeting. I couldn't breathe. My gills worked frantically, but they only pulled in thinning, useless water. Panic seized me as my vision started to blur at the edges.

Aris burst into the lab, his face pale with alarm. "What happened?" he yelled.

"I don't know!" Isabelle cried, rushing to him and burying her face in his chest. "I was just talking to it, and the alarms just went off! It must have done something! I was so scared!" She looked up at him, her eyes brimming with tears.

Aris looked from her to the frantically blinking control panel, then at me, gasping in the tank. He quickly typed a code, and the alarm stopped. The water temperature began to fall, and the oxygen bubbled back in. He believed her. Without a single question, he chose to believe her.

He approached my tank, his hand reaching out as if to touch the glass. I recoiled, pulling myself into the far corner, away from him. The look on my face must have been one of pure hatred, because he stopped, his hand falling to his side. His expression flickered with something-was it hurt?-but it was gone as quickly as it appeared.

That night, he came back alone. The lab was dark, except for the soft blue glow from my tank. He stood there for a long time, just watching me.

"I'm sorry about what happened," he said, his voice low and trembling slightly. "The system has some bugs. I'm working on them." It was a weak, pathetic excuse. He knew she had done it. "I am trying to protect you, Lyra. You have to believe me."

I didn't answer. I just stared at him, my heart a cold, heavy stone in my chest. To show him how I felt, to show him what he had done to me, I slowly, deliberately, brought my hands together. My nails, which had grown long and sharp in captivity, dug into the soft flesh of my own palms. I clenched my fists tight. There was a sickening crunching sound as my own scales, the beautiful, iridescent scales he once admired, cracked and shattered under the pressure. Blood, dark in the blue light, bloomed from my palms, tainting the water around me.

His breath hitched. He took a step back, his face a mask of horror.

Before he could say anything, Isabelle swept back into the lab. She saw the blood in the water and the broken scales floating near my hands. Her eyes lit up with a greedy fire.

"Oh my," she said, her voice a purr. "Look at that. Aris, darling, you should collect those. They would make a wonderful centerpiece for the Institute's main exhibit. The 'Vance-Thorne Collection.' Has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Our very own museum piece."

Aris stared at her, then back at me. I could see a war raging in his eyes. But it was a war he had already lost. He walked to a supply cabinet and came back with a pair of long, metal tweezers.

He opened a small, sealed port on the side of my tank. "Hold still," he said, his voice flat and dead. "Just... hold still. I need to get the broken ones out before they contaminate the water."

His hands, the same hands that had once touched me with such tenderness, were now cold and clinical. He reached in with the tweezers. He didn't just pick up the floating pieces. He grabbed one of the half-broken scales still attached to my hand and pulled.

An explosion of agony ripped through me. It was a pain so sharp, so deep, it stole my breath. I couldn't even scream. I just convulsed, my body rigid with shock. He didn't stop. One by one, he ripped the damaged scales from my bleeding palm. "Just a few more," he muttered, almost to himself. "Just bear with it." His voice was a detached, meaningless drone against the roaring agony in my mind.