by Elsa Jade
“Don’t like nets.”
She gave him a sad little smile. “Yeah, living underwater, I can see how nets would be a bad thing. But where gravity matters, having something to catch you is nice.”
He nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”
She directed him to pull up just beyond the spill of light from one glass-fronted building. “This is the place,” she said. “You wait here and I’ll be right back.”
She popped open the door on her side and put one foot out before pausing to look back at him. “I’m serious. Stay.”
Without waiting for his reply, she headed for the front door of the shop. If she’d waited a moment, he could’ve told her that underwater things rarely stayed where they were put.
The timing of this arrival of a stranger responding to Lana’s clandestine messages at the same time that he marked an unidentified ship in the vicinity made him suspicious. This had been intended to be a retrieval mission only, not a skirmish, and Coriolis had warned that being caught with weapons would harm Tritona’s intergalactic standing if closed-world statutes were ignored. Which left him at a disadvantage.
Not that it mattered. There’d been many a time when the Tritonyri had no real weapons—but they’d had Sting.
Leaning forward to put his nose nearly to the front protective shield of the vehicle gave him a partially obstructed view into the shop—labeled as “Mr. Evens’ Odds & Ends Shop” in a decorative script that his universal translator had trouble parsing. An Earther male was coming around from behind the counter as Lana entered. The flash of his teeth was clearly meant to be welcoming, as far as Sting could tell, and Lana’s body language stayed loose and unworried except for the inevitable constriction of the protective e-suit under her Earther clothing. Why did she go around in so many layers of cloth that distracted him with thinking of all the ways that clothing could come off but somehow his minimal layers made him a liability?
The Earther male was speaking and gesturing with some effusiveness that was probably intended to convey an emotional reaction that Sting could not translate even with his implant. In response, Lana abruptly stiffened, her shoulders bowing inward. No implant needed to recognize the pained shock in her stance, as if she’d taken a blow to the center of her chest.
Sting was out of the vehicle and standing behind her before she found her breath to ask, “What did you say?”
It was a measure of her dismay that she didn’t respond to his unauthorized presence at her back. But the other male gave him a look—a look where his expression didn’t change, not even a startled flare of his pupils, Sting noted. This one was not surprised by his appearance, no matter what Lana had warned about the sudden appearance of an “alien merman” in Sunset Falls.
Evens returned his focus to Lana. “I’m not absolutely certain, you must understand. But I wanted you to be forewarned, just in case it’s her.”
Sting let out a soft noise of warning when Lana flinched again. Whatever the male had told her would not be allowed to hurt her.
But again she didn’t respond to him, caught up in some internal turbulence where he couldn’t follow, not even if she fell. “She’s here in Sunset Falls? My mother is alive?”
Chapter 8
Her mother, alive and in Sunset Falls. The impossibility spun around her brain like a whirlpool threatening to drag her down.
“What are the chances?” she wondered weakly.
Evens shrugged one shoulder. “High, actually. You were deliberately targeting the very people that Marisol Wavercrest couldn’t reach.” He peered at her. “Am I wrong in supposing that your mother is exactly who you had in mind when you suggested this unconventional alternative?” He half closed one eye. “Or was it just the sort of people who might be interested in…extraterrestrial activities of the romantic kind.”
As he threw in this new wrinkle, Lana straightened up so hard she feared her spine might snap. “You mean, um, extracurricular? Or maybe extraordinary? Or—”
Sting rumbled low under his breath. “He knows about the IDA.”
Lana hissed at him, as if he’d revealed more than way too much alien skin.
But Evens nodded. “I’ve known for some time that there was more going on in this quiet town than meets the unenhanced eye.” He gave her another half wink. “The Intergalactic Dating Agency center on the edge of town brought some…interesting opportunities my way. I was disappointed when it ceased operations. With the recent return of ships, I thought perhaps business was resuming.” He tilted his head. “But perhaps I was mistaken regarding the nature of the business.”
She bit the insides of her cheeks, disturbingly aware that anything she said could be breaking closed-world protocols. She didn’t want Sting or anyone else on Tritona to get in trouble because of her.
Not when that was the reason her mother had disappeared so long ago.
She swallowed hard and croaked out, “We can neither confirm nor deny…”
Evens cleared his throat in a little laugh, tucking his chin even as he flicked his gaze upward—and up and up—to the looming presence behind her. It wasn’t like she’d not noticed or suddenly forgotten Sting was behind her. How could she when his magnetic frequency, his specific gravity, the very charge of his electrons, seemed intimately tuned to her erratic powers?
Also, it was really, really hard to deny that she had three-hundred-something mostly naked pounds of alien standing right behind her.
She tried for a careful smile. “Cosplay accident? Overeager Marvel movie audition gone horribly awry?”
Mister Evens smiled back at her, more gently. “Or a particularly large but wistful off-worlder seeking a loving Earthling bride?”
Wistful? Loving? Even more conscious of Sting’s silent bulk at her back, she shook her head hard. “No,” she said firmly. “None of that, for sure.” She gave her head an even harder shake. Because Evens was definitely wrong—she wasn’t an Earther, not anymore, not entirely, and Sting wasn’t interested in her that way when he was just trying to save his world, and she wasn’t going to let any thoughts like that rattle around in her head. “Listen, I appreciate that you’re letting us use the shop as a relay for information on Wavercrest syndrome. But we really don’t want you to get into any trouble—”
He laughed aloud, and there was an odd note to the guffaw, even stranger than some of objects she’d found while perusing his shop. “No trouble at all, trust me.” His amusement faded as he peered at her. “Although why do I get the feeling that you can’t say the same?”
Before she could come up with a not-incriminating answer, Sting blocked her. He didn’t even step in front of her, he just angled his shoulder and suddenly he was eclipsing her entirely. “The IDA is no more, but you said you would help people seeking Wavercrest answers. Are you still willing?”
Evens inclined his head. “Aligning people with what they need has always been a hobby of mine. No reason to change that now.” He held out a scrap of paper. Though Sting intercepted it, Evens’ gaze remained on Lana. “That’s the information the woman left with me. She seemed as if…as if she’d come a long way. Whether she’s your mother or not, I hope she finds what she’s looking for. I hope you do too.”
Her hands curled into fists, and after a moment’s pause, Sting tucked the paper into one of the many compartments on his battle skin. He squared off to Evens. “Would any of these opportunities you mention include passive scanning for incoming vessels?”
“I assume you mean spaceships.” Evens’ smile flashed again. “I, ah, salvaged some items from the IDA center when it was clear no one was coming back.” When Sting made another warning noise, the shopkeeper shrugged. “I’m sure they didn’t leave the most exciting opportunities for just anyone—like me—to stumble over. But you’re welcome to take a look at whatever I have in the back.”
Although she didn’t move or say anything, Sting stepped back, nudging her behind him. “We will return at a later time. After we see to this newcomer.”
She hesitated, resisting the prodding of his nearness. “We need to find out what other ships are lurking.” If she’d caused more trouble with the Cretarni by sneaking away from Tritona…
But Sting gave her a more deliberate bump. “Your maybe mother is more important.”
Her eyes burned. He was going to delay dealing with a possible threat to his world while she fretted about visiting this…person? She stopped herself from spiraling. Of course he’d be interested in a possible new recruit for Tritonan relocation. His world needed immigrants to reinforce their standing as a sustainable world within the intergalactic community. And it wasn’t like she herself would be welcomed anymore.
Holding back her tears, she forced herself to nod at Evens. “Thank you for letting me know. We’ll be in touch about the rest of it soon.” Though he murmured something in reply, the hollow hum in her ears made it impossible to pay attention as she walked back to the car on shaky legs.
“I told you to stay,” she said when Sting got into the driver’s seat beside her.
“I didn’t.”
She grimaced. In all the ways that the universe was vague, confusing, unclear, and contradictory, Sting was none of those things. He just…was. How simplifying that must be.
Except she was being totally unfair, because he was what the war had made him.
And in one of the rooms in Sunset Falls’ only roadside motel, a woman—maybe her mother—had come all this way, presumably seeking an explanation for her own existence. And yet if the woman was her mother, she’d never sought out Lana.
Sting glanced at her. “I do not know the way to the location we’ve been given.”
“Even with all your alien tech? And your hunter tracking skills?” She bit her lip to stop it from trembling. “I’ll have Thomas call her and set up the blood test for Tritonan genetic matching.”
But Sting did not start the car to head back to the estate. “We should do first contact.”
She slanted an angry glance at him. “Because it could be a bride for some Tritonyri warrior?” A new thought occurred to her. And she opened her eyes wider. “You think this could be whoever’s sneaking around in that unidentified ship? A Tritonan enemy?”
He seemed unfazed by her anger. “Or your mother.”
All the misplaced fury drained from her. “But what if it’s not?”
His silver eyes reflected nothing back at her. “But what if it is? You said she was lost or gone on the Last Tide.”
She let out a shuddering breath. “I thought… I thought maybe she was. Why else would she not try to find me even after…”
He waited a beat. “You never told me why you fear your power.”
Just a statement of fact, not pushing her for details. The breath she sucked in was even shakier. “When I was seventeen, there was a boy in my art class. Jason. He asked me to prom—which is a special dance for young Earthers. It was the first time I’d ever been asked to a dance. Mom and I moved around a lot. It wasn’t a bad life, and she always had work at a bar or wherever. But it never really gave me a chance to put down roots, to get to know anyone. So when this boy seemed to like me…”
Sting didn’t move. “He hurt you?”
“No! No,” she said more softly. “Quite the opposite.”
“Tell me.” In his rough voice, the words might’ve sounded like an order. Instead, they were an offer.
“There’s something of a, um, tradition after prom that the couples might—if they are so inclined—go somewhere else, somewhere private, and, uh…”
“Mate?” Sting watched her.
Her cheeks heated. She couldn’t believe she was telling him this. Still, of all the people to understand what happened next, he might be one of the few on Earth. “Yes, right. Mate. But not for procreation with offspring, just for…”
“Pleasure?”
She definitely couldn’t believe she was telling him this. “Exactly.” She let out a hard breath. “I just wanted to have a lovely night for my first time with a boy who seemed to like me. So we left the dance, parked his car outside a fancy hotel, and he kissed me. But then…”
“Your zaps.” This time it wasn’t a question.
She nodded her miserable reply. “When my mom burst into the car, the electricity was crackling all around the windows. I hadn’t even noticed because I was…so lost in kissing him. She yanked me off him, threw me outside, smothering the flames on the hem of my dress. She told me to run, not to look back, and that she’d be right behind me.”
Her throat stung almost as bad as that long-ago night. “It wasn’t just the car. The whole back of the hotel was burning.” She swallowed the confused horror of the memory. “We were too nervous and too broke to try to rent a room, but there was a courtyard full of little lights that shined over the privacy wall into the remote parking lot and they were so pretty.” She pressed her heels of her palms to the back of her closed eyes, hard enough that she could see the white fairy lights again—pale against the static blue electricity and the rising sparks of scarlet-gold flames. “All the people were streaming out, confused and milling everywhere, so it was easy to get lost. I couldn’t find Jason or my mom, and the fire trucks were coming. And the police. I ran away.”
“You were in danger.”
She let out a forced laugh at the understatement. “We’d had some problems before—with electricity that mysteriously went out in our various crappy apartments, scorch marks on my blankets like I’d been smoking in bed, little fires sometimes, but I never realized…” She raised her miserable gaze. “I think she guessed. Back then, I think Mom knew it was my fault.”
“Not your fault.” This time, his voice was even flatter, no question, no doubt. “If she had suspicions, she should have told you, given you a chance to know what you are.”
Lana grimaced. “And what is that exactly? Fire-witch? I still don’t know what that is, even now.”
“A weapon. Like me.”
“Like a short-circuiting flamethrower without an off switch that I can never put down?”
“Never. So you must get strong to carry it.”
She gave him a sour look. “Oh? Is that why they built you so big?”
But he didn’t bristle back. “Big enough to carry it all.”
She slumped in her seat. “Well, I’m not as big as you, not now, not then. And I didn’t know what to do, so I ran all the way home. Still in my dancing shoes. I waited the rest of the night, but Mom never came back.” She let her hands fall limp into her lap, staring down. “The next morning, someone knocked. From my bedroom window, I saw the police cruiser. I snuck out the back and kept running. I didn’t know who to go to or where. I bought a one-way bus ticket to get as far as I could go. Didn’t sleep for three nights, but that’s when I realized that she’d been protecting me the whole time, moving whenever things got too strange, taking me to doctors and naturopaths and shamans, burning through the savings we had trying to figure out why her little girl was burning. I wanted to leave messages at places where she worked, the few friends we had, but I didn’t know what to say so the cops couldn’t track me down, and I didn’t know how else to find her. I thought maybe she died in the fire. Was in jail because of me. Finally, when I couldn’t take anymore, I turned myself in. It had been almost a year, and the detective I talked to said that the case had been closed. When I tried to tell him it was me who sometimes ignited, he called for a psychiatric hold.” She rubbed her palm her thighs, as if she might kindle another zap. “At least that taught me to keep my worries to myself. I also learned that Jason had gotten out of the fire unhurt. He was too drunk to remember what happened.” She glanced away. “And he never mentioned me at all.”
Sting was silent for so long, she realized that while she’d been venting she hadn’t explained any of the concepts that probably weren’t being fully translated by his tech or his training.
Finally he reached into one of the many pockets of his battle skin and withdrew an object no bigger than her thumbnail. I
t looked like a seashell, but shiny like metal. He rolled it between his fingers. “On one of my deepest dives, when my trainers in the weapons conclave sought to test my bones against the greatest pressures of the dark, I found this.” He held it out to her in the flat of his hand.
She just looked at it, but when he didn’t move, she finally plucked it from his palm. “It’s…small. I suppose most things are at that depth.”
“But unbroken.” Again he waited.
Oh, she got what he was implying, she just wasn’t sure she believed it. She might not be broken, exactly, but neither was a raging wildfire. It was only following its own nature—but it could still kill.
Rather than answer, she held the shell out to him. He didn’t reach to take it, and though she wasn’t as strong as him, she could be as stubborn. When she twitched her fingers as if about to drop the tiny shell, he flinched first and extended his hand. Though the shell looked very crushable against his big hand, the webbing halfway up his knuckles formed a wide nest to hold it.
“I didn’t know what I was back then, and yeah, maybe it was bad. But I know now, and it’s only made things worse.”
“Then maybe if you go back to the source.” He started the car. “So how do I get to this Motel Eleven?”
She gritted her teeth. Maybe he was stronger and more stubborn. More to the point, maybe he was right. Whether the woman who had contacted Evens regarding the Wavercrest syndrome was her mother or not, she deserved to have whatever answers were available. She gestured ahead of them. “Take a left up there. But seriously, this time you have to stay in the car.”
He didn’t answer—she was going to lose this one again, wasn’t she?—and followed her directions to the motel. It was nothing like the fancy hotel where she’d last seen her mother. The Motel Eleven was just a classic single-story, small-town, short-stay motel catering to an itinerant clientele of long-haul truckers exceeding their hours, RVers in temporary need of a bathroom that didn’t move, and the kind of people who paid cash and listed a license plate too shiny for the amount of wear and tear on the vehicle in question.
