Riptide

by Jessica Gunn

  Table of Contents

  About Riptide

  Chelsea

  Trevor

  Also by Jessica Gunn

  About the Author

  Riptide

  Atlas Link Series Book Three

  Jessica Gunn

  Copyright © 2017 by Jessica Gunn

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Art by Eugene Teplitsky

  http://eugeneteplitsky.deviantart.com

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Contents

  About Riptide

  1. Chelsea

  2. Trevor

  3. Chelsea

  4. Trevor

  5. Chelsea

  6. Trevor

  7. Chelsea

  8. Trevor

  9. Chelsea

  10. Trevor

  11. Chelsea

  12. Trevor

  13. Chelsea

  14. Trevor

  15. Chelsea

  16. Trevor

  17. Chelsea

  18. Trevor

  19. Chelsea

  20. Trevor

  21. Chelsea

  22. Trevor

  23. Chelsea

  24. Trevor

  25. Chelsea

  26. Trevor

  27. Chelsea

  28. Trevor

  29. Chelsea

  30. Trevor

  31. Chelsea

  32. Trevor

  33. Chelsea

  34. Trevor

  35. Chelsea

  36. Chelsea

  37. Trevor

  38. Chelsea

  39. Trevor

  Also by Jessica Gunn

  About the Author

  ABOUT RIPTIDE

  War is just beginning…

  SeaSatellite5 and its crew have been rescued, but no one is safe. Broken in the wake of TruGate’s betrayal and terrified by the White City’s resurgence, Chelsea, Trevor, and Valerie struggle to set aside their differences to keep the station—and the world—safe. The war is coming to a head and if the crew of SeaSat5 have any hope of stopping it, they’ll have to bring the fight to Atlantis.

  But when Lt. Weyland reemerges, also beaten and exiled by TruGates, the truth he brings about the General’s plan turns everything on its head. SeaSat5 might have some new allies on its roster, but all of their most feared enemies are already within its walls.

  Can Chelsea and Trevor stop their enemies before Atlantis strikes?

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  1

  Chelsea

  Hot sunlight scorched the bare skin on my shoulders. Wet, sticky air caught in my throat, leaving behind a salty ocean taste. As inconspicuously as I could, I beat a hand against my chest. The last thing I needed was to interrupt the return ceremony for SeaSatellite5 by choking on air.

  Fantastic, Chelsea. Way to go.

  Trevor stole a quick peek my way from three seats over. You okay? he asked in his thoughts.

  Peachy, I answered, wishing our telepathy would disappear already. In the best of times, it was mildly annoying. Now…

  Will that always be your answer? he asked.

  I coughed one last time to satisfy my lungs. Yes.

  I still didn’t understand why he cared so much. The last time we spoke before everything went to hell, we’d fought. Badly. Then for some god-awful reason, I’d called him. I’d called Trevor when I’d woken up alone on Castle Island. I didn’t deserve this good-natured person, and I sure as hell didn’t deserve whatever Trevor and Major Pike had said that’d made Captain Marks want to take me back.

  Admiral Dennett’s voice held strong despite my interruptions. “Today we celebrate not only the return of a Captain and his crew, but the start of a new age in oceanic research.”

  It’s possible he hadn’t heard me. Trevor and I sat two rows from the front, behind the military staff of SeaSat5’s crew and a good portion of TAO officials. The Ancient Operation and SeaSatellite5 military elite—though not as responsible for SeaSat5’s return as Trevor and me—appeared to be more important. Probably for the best. Chances were I’d lose my lunch if I sat in the front row, with nothing between the Admiral and me. Pretty sure he wanted nothing to do with me after what happened with TruGates.

  The humid haze around me spilled between my thoughts, spacing them too far apart to focus. The Admiral said Trevor’s name and mine, but I didn’t catch the context, and honestly, Pearl Harbor was so damn blistering that I was three seconds from teleporting myself to Antarctica. At least then I’d be free of every poor decision I’d made recently.

  Well, except the decision to teleport to Antarctica. My luck, I’d get stuck there.

  Chelsea, Trevor’s thoughts swam into mine.

  My fists clenched in my lap. Stay out of my head.

  You’re screaming.

  Our telepathy still hadn’t gone away, but it’d only been a few months since we’d gained it. In retrospect, not as much time had passed as I thought, even on the good days. My heart ached for a man I shouldn’t have given the time of day to, and my body screamed with the exertion it had taken Sophia and me to bring SeaSat5 back to its home-time. All of that happened just weeks ago, when the people I’d trusted at TruGates had air-dumped me on Castle Island in Boston from somewhere in the Mid-West like a delivery drone. When Josh had drugged me via hot cocoa and ruined everything.

  To be fair, I’d ruined stuff too. The flames that had scorched Truman’s remains beyond recognition still burned endlessly in my mind and haunted me in my sleep, right alongside the minty flavor of that hot cocoa.

  I had tried finding Josh and Weyland. Once every few days, I’d attempt to make my connection to Josh work once more. It never did. So, eventually, I’d given up. It was like they’d simply never existed to begin with. If only. But something deep inside me, buried beneath my feelings for Josh and my guilt over what’d happened to Truman, wormed its way through my subconscious. It whispered that I’d only dented the surface of the TruGates mystery.

  Up at the podium, Admiral Dennett kept talking. My skin prickled and itched. I scratched near the hem of the dress Julie had picked out for me. The blue color fit me well enough, but the fabric irritated my skin.

  Why did it have to be so hot out?

  Julie and some other members of the science staff around me stood and it took me until everyone else did to follow suit. I wasn’t on my game. Normally that would bother me. It should bother me. But it didn’t. I had nothing left to game for, except the end of this Atlantean-Lemurian war.

  Someone clapped and the applause grew. I forced my hands together into the joyous motion. A few more minutes and maybe I could slide out and skip the reception, with no one any the wiser. By the time anyone knew I was missing, I’d be ten songs deep into a solo jam session on my guitar, amp blasting to drown out the world.

  The thunderous applause subsided and people shuffled out of their aisles, some shaking hands or clapping shoulders as they went.

  Julie turned and wrapped me in a hug I didn’t fully reciprocate. “How awesome is this?” She pulled back, face lit up with a smile and light blue eye shadow. “We’re back, we’re about to go to a reception, and for once in our lives, things look good.”

  We’d told the SeaSat5 crew about Link Pieces and time travel, about what we’d really found in that outpost two and a half years ago, and about what a glorious situation we now found ourselves in. They’d had the decision to stay on or to leave. And with nowh
ere else to turn to and with Michael’s memory to honor, Julie had been one of those who decided to stay.

  To me, Michael had been placed in the same column as Truman: causalities of war lost by my hand. If I’d never met Trevor, if I’d never gone to Phoenix a few months ago, both of those men would still be alive. But they’re not, and now I was alone.

  “Come on.” Julie tugged on my arm. “Cheer up.”

  “I’m cheery,” I returned, a forced smile on my lips.

  She scoffed and slung her arm through mine. “Right. Cheery. Let’s go grab a drink.”

  I cringed. “That’s not a good idea.” Alcohol wasn’t my friend so much as my crutch—when it worked. When SeaSat5 had disappeared, it was bad. But it’d been worse after the hijacking two years ago. I’d mixed painkillers and alcohol and managed to push past the super soldier toxin-resistant threshold. This time around I had forced music to take its place, which in turn put Phoenix and Lobster farther into the spotlight. If I gave in now, I knew I’d spiral as low and fast as the other times.

  She studied me, frowning. “Then dessert. Something. Anything. You need to snap out of it.”

  Ever since I’d been abandoned and betrayed by TruGates I’d tried to get Julie to understand. She knew Josh had drugged me and left me alone. She knew I’d called Trevor for help, and that he’d come when he absolutely shouldn’t have had a reason to. He was the last person who should have given a damn, yet he’d trekked to Logan’s to get me.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Julie smiled triumphantly like she’d gotten through to me despite my mood. I let her believe it. “Awesome. I hear there are amazing apple pie and crème brûlée inside.”

  A low grumbling rolled through my stomach to spite me. I clutched my middle. “Maybe I am hungry.” With any luck, she’d buy that as an excuse for, well, me, and then I could eat lunch and ditch the ceremony without further explanation.

  I loved Julie, and I was so glad we’d found her and brought her home, but no matter how much I wanted—needed—a good friend right now, I kind of wanted to be alone.

  That wasn’t a luxury I’d been given lately. With SeaSat5 back, upgrades were needed, and TAO had to figure out how to realign itself with the Lemurians since, after decades of assuming the opposite, Atlantis had been proven the enemy. Atlantis had been behind SeaSat5’s kidnapping, and the root cause of everything associated. All because SeaSat5 was a Link Piece.

  Julie and I walked across the short mezzanine to the reception area, well enough ahead of the guys. Freddy hung back with Trevor. I hadn’t heard any of his thoughts in a few minutes—a small victory lately.

  The reception building consisted of a domed-off structure with glass windows across the entire ceiling. Sunlight bounced off the reflective surface, creating a glare from which I had to shield my eyes. Julie pushed open the doors and we entered the air-conditioned, carefully decorated space. The Navy’s colors graced the walls in banners, the tablecloths, and flowers in the center of each table, anchored by tiny blue stones inside the vases. A small stage area sat at the far end, filled with the bare minimums for an orchestra. A few flutes, strings, and other instruments sat unoccupied atop the dais. My fingers called to the string instruments, desperate to take all my unspoken feelings and thoughts and transform them into something more easily understood.

  To my left sat an open bar that sang a siren’s call my way, and to my right a long buffet table of appetizers had been laid out. Where a dance floor might have been at a wedding reception, the Navy had set up an empty carpeted area, a place for people to mingle without tables and chairs getting in the way.

  “Think it’s assigned seating?” Julie asked, gesturing widely at the room.

  There weren’t name tags on any of the tables, but I assumed the closer to the dais that you got, the more important you’d better be.

  “Not sure,” I said. “Can we sit toward the back, though?”

  She flicked back her dark blonde bangs with her fingers and narrowed her eyes. “And give you an easy escape if you see an opportunity? Don’t think so.”

  I chewed the side of my cheek, eyeing the doors. “I won’t.”

  “Mmhmm.” She tightened her hold on my arm. “How about we sit with Freddy and Trevor instead?”

  It was my turn to shoot her a look. “No.” The last thing I needed was to be so close to him we’d converse without actually speaking.

  Thankfully, the telepathy wasn’t an all-the-time thing. Trevor and I had to be in close proximity to each other, although it seemed the intensity of our thoughts determined how far that limit reached. Sometimes I could only hear him if we were in the same room. Other times, like at the Juxe shows, I heard him from a quarter mile away if his thoughts were emotionally charged enough.

  Julie’s brow furrowed. “You hate him that much?”

  I frowned, wringing my hands. “No, I don’t hate him, Julie. I screwed up and we both know it. We said things to each other, did things to each other, that we can’t take back.”

  It was stupid, really. The fact that he came to get me from Boston should mean we’re even, that we’re on good terms, but for whatever reason, my brain had since latched on to the feeling that I needed to handle things alone, especially without Trevor’s help, and it refused to let that go.

  “Look,” Julie said, eyes searching the room for the guys. “I won’t pretend to know what happened. I can only understand what you tell me. But you and Trevor, you’re it. I saw it before, on SeaSat5. You make each other whole.”

  I laughed bitterly, unable to see it. “Funny, because we’re also aces at tearing each other apart.”

  Her fingers tightened around my arm. I tensed, memories of General Allen’s assault flooding my senses.

  This is Julie, chill out.

  Screw General Allen and all he’d done to me and others.

  “You’re only that good at it because you let each other in,” she said. “Maybe it’s about time you stop ripping each other to shreds and start working on getting back what you had two years ago. He’s the yin to your yang, even more so now that you can hear each other’s thoughts.”

  I didn’t know how to begin processing that. I’d never really thought about us that way, and hearing someone evaluate our situation from the outside struck me odd, clenched my chest and yanked tight.

  Julie tugged on my arm and pulled us farther into the crowd. My gaze found Trevor at a table with Freddy, Christa, and Sophia, chatting and laughing like old friends home from college for Thanksgiving.

  We continued to the table and… Lord in heaven, help me, please. Trevor looked damn good and that didn’t help things at all. Someone had dressed him in a dark suit that hugged him in all the right places, although the black jacket must have sucked outside in the heat. Trevor was now wiping his brow and neck with a napkin, his dark, sandy blond hair buzzed short to be more presentable to the press. No more small curls. The haircut hardened his cheekbones and jawline, and I couldn’t not watch as he shrugged out of his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his blue shirt underneath. He looked every bit the soldier as Freddy did beside him, done up in his formal Navy dress-wear.

  How much two and a half years could change someone.

  I resisted the urge to look down at myself. I knew well how much had changed in that time, how fully one could transform. And through it all, through the good and bad, Trevor had remained.

  Maybe Julie was right. Maybe it was time I let it all go. The time travel war still raged around us, but having Trevor at my side instead of yards away, hurling my own verbal assaults back at me, was more favorable. I needed him, and not because of the war or our connection to it. I needed him to breathe, to live; he needed me too, in some capacity. I knew that now.

  Maybe it was time I accepted it.

  2

  Trevor

  “And then,” Dr. Hill regaled to our table, uncharacteristically intoxicated—due, I suspected, to a combination of the open bar and Major Pike’s penchant for
celebratory liquor. “We found out that the tyrannosaurus rex remains in the National Museum of Natural History was a Link Piece. A Link Piece.”

  Chelsea giggled, a hand over her mouth. She leaned over to Julie and said, barely loud enough for me to hear, “Trevor fanboyed. It was fantastic.”

  It wasn’t exactly fantastic—in fact, that mission was one of Chelsea’s worst life decisions to date—but that she laughed about it was a good thing.

  Chelsea looked amazing today, though I didn’t want to say it to her face because I wasn’t sure how’d she react. Julie had helped her pick out the dress, but the way it hugged her hips with a thin belt, the way it dipped low on her chest and swung an inch above her knees—it was the most put together, most gorgeous she’d ever looked. She wasn’t overdressed like some of the women here, but she wasn’t in concert gear, ready to take the stage either.

  Still, I didn’t want to tell her. She already snapped once today. I’d cut my losses and enjoy the dress for her.

  “Never figured you a dinosaur kind of man, Trevor,” Julie quipped.

  I pulled my gaze from Chelsea and regarded Julie. “As a kid, yeah. I thought it was cool the skeleton was a Link Piece.”

  Julie nodded and sipped her wine. “That is pretty neat. All of this is when it’s not terrifying.”