Face to Face

​POV: Malia

​The air down in the sub-dock terminal smelled of stale bilge water, hot engine oil, and the sharp, metallic tang of ozone. Every breath scraped the raw lining of my throat, but I didn't slow my pace. Concrete walls wept condensation, dripping like cold sweat into the cliffside cavern's dark shadows. Ahead of us, the cavern opened up into a jagged subterranean bay where the black belly of an escape submarine sat half-submerged in the restless, churning tide.

​And standing right beside the main control console, backed into a corner like a cornered, rabid dog, was Alastair.

​My father. The man who had spent my entire life treating my existence as nothing more than a ledger entry, a bargaining chip, and a disposable asset.

​"Stop right there!" Alastair’s voice bounced off the damp concrete, thin, hysterical, and cracking at the edges. In his trembling hand, he held a heavy marine flare gun pointed directly at a network of exposed fuel lines feeding the sub’s auxiliary tanks. "Another step and I swear to God, I’ll turn this entire cavern into a tomb! We’ll all go up in smoke!"

​Jarrah, moving with the cold, predatory precision of a wolf closing in on a wounded fawn, stopped instantly. His broad shoulders blocked half the tunnel exit, his dark eyes locked onto Alastair with a terrifying, blank fury. He didn't blink. He didn't draw his weapon yet, but his weight was balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to spring across the ten-foot gap of slick metal grating if Alastair twitched a single muscle.

​"Look at you," I whispered, my voice cutting through the damp, echoing the silence of the dock.

​I stepped past Jarrah’s shoulder. The heat of his body radiated against my arm, a solid, grounding anchor, but I moved into the open space alone. I didn't flinch. I didn't tremble.

​"Malia, get back", Alastair shrieked, his finger whitening around the trigger mechanism of the flare gun, spittle flying from his lips. "I mean it! I have nothing left to lose! I'll burn it all down! Everything I built!"

​"You didn't build anything, Alastair," I said, my tone flat, devastatingly calm, and entirely stripped of the trembling fear he expected from me.

​Every step I took toward him felt heavy, rhythmic, and absolute. My leather boots hit the steel grating, echoing like a gavel dropping in a courtroom. I watched the absolute terror ripple across his aged, sagging features. He was looking at his daughter, but for the first time in his miserable, parasitic life, he realized he wasn't looking at a subordinate. He was looking at his executioner.

​"You traded people like cattle," I continued, closing the distance until only six feet separated us. The stench of his panic was thick, sour sweat and cheap cologne. "You sold my mother’s memory for a seat at a table that never wanted you. You tortured Callan until there was nothing left of a good man except ghosts and scars. And now, down here in the dark, where no one can hear you scream, you think a rusty flare gun buys you a miracle?"

​"Stay back, you ungrateful bitch!" he sobbed, tears cutting dirty tracks through the grime on his cheeks. "I gave you life! I gave you a name!"

​"You gave me a cage," I whispered. I stopped just out of arm's reach. I looked down at the flare gun, then straight into his bloodshot, terrified eyes. "And I broke every single bar."

​"Malia..." he whimpered, the bluster instantly collapsing into pathetic, sniveling survival instinct. "Malia, please. We're family. We can take the sub. We can leave Melbourne. Just tell him to put his gun down. We can start over"

​The silence that followed was suffocating, broken only by the rhythmic slap of dark water against the submarine's hull.