Landlocked (Atlas Link Series Book 2)

by Jessica Gunn

She looked at me for a brief moment with concern etched in her features, but when I waved her off, she shrugged and left. As soon as the door shut behind her I fumbled through my desk drawers for Butch’s medicine. I rolled it, lit an end, and let the medicine into my lungs. Relief came immediately.

  But how long would it last?

  know this is no chicken parmesan,” I said. “I owe you one when we get back.”

  Josh and I worked our way through the mess hall’s dinner line, picking up some random assortment of food as we went.

  He laughed. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  When we sat down, I couldn’t take it anymore. “It’s okay to be mad at me, you know. I would be. In fact, I was angry when Trevor pulled the same exact bullshit I did. I kept vital information from you guys and Truman died because of it.”

  Josh winced at the sound of Truman’s name.

  That was the first moment I considered myself a gigantic hypocrite for all of this. I would be mad if I were Josh. I would end this. Isn’t that what I’d done to Trevor? Realistically, Josh would be stupid to stay. We’d been together for all of a month and he acted like it’d been two years. He either had more understanding and patience than I’d ever be blessed to have in a lifetime, or his bullshit threshold was so high I didn’t deserve him.

  His expression showed no hint of anger, but there was a spark of annoyance in his voice when he answered. “You really need to stop making yourself the center of needless anger. We all have secrets, and we all have a job to do. I did shady things overseas that would make you disgusted with me, things that’d pale in comparison to what you’ve done, but I don’t flaunt them around because they don’t matter. They’re behind me, in the past. But if you learned them now, I’d expect you to act however you wanted. I’m acting how I want.”

  He sighed. “What happened to Truman wasn’t your fault. Even if you disclosed what we were walking into, there’s no way you could have anticipated what would happen. There’s no way you would have been prepared for a… Lemurian with powers when that’s the first of them we’ve run across that had abilities. All of us might have died if you weren’t there. We lost Truman, yeah. It sucks balls. But we didn’t lose everyone.”

  Anger flared inside me. The chunk of bread I held in one hand crushed beneath my fingers. Why was I so angry that he understood? That he was willing to set it all side? I should accept it and go. Instead, I wanted him to be angry. I wanted him to hold me accountable because no one else ever had.

  “Why are you angry?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I snapped.

  He reached across the table and enclosed my hand with his. “I’m disappointed, and Truman’s death won’t get easier for a while, but I can’t be angry with you and not be angry with Weyland. He knew as much as you and never told us. There’s no reason to be pissed at you both.”

  “Weyland never put the pieces together,” I said and shook my head. I let my expression soften. I was so used to drama in relationships now I guess I didn’t know how to react when they were simple and straightforward, even despite the craziness of the world around me. “I’m sorry.”

  “Let’s not keep secrets anymore. Does that sound like an okay path to you?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Besides, Mara’s mad enough at you for the both of us.”

  A cringe brushed my lips. I couldn’t make that right, not until I confronted General Allen or found a way to let the team know without endangering them. Then again, after stealing them to help take SeaSat5 back, maybe he wouldn’t be a threat anymore. “I’m going to talk to her today.”

  “Might want to wear a helmet and mouth guard.”

  “It’s that bad?” But I knew it was. It was more for Josh’s benefit that I asked.

  “Oh yeah.”

  I couldn’t sleep that night so I wandered the halls of TAO instead and left Josh to our room alone. I’d almost circled back to my quarters when Mara appeared at the other end of the hallway.

  “Why are you awake?” I asked her. Awake and wandering around TAO.

  “Looking for you, actually,” she said, crossing her arms at her chest. “You’re a hard person to find these days.” Her tone was clipped, eyes narrowed. “You need to tell them. All of them.”

  “I will as soon as SeaSat5 is back,” I said. Doing it now, what would that improve? If anything, telling Josh now might break him and jeopardize the mission. But did I have the right to make that choice for him?

  She shook her head. “No. Before. They need to know why Truman died.”

  “We don’t know General Allen is to blame. I never told Truman anything.”

  “But it was obvious from the plane ride to the warehouse that he knew something was up. And dammit Chelsea, that mission was meant to kill one or all of us, not necessarily Truman specifically. The General set us all up.”

  Obviously. The warehouse was in the middle of nowhere, and a simple biologics scan would have revealed no one inside. But really that meant nothing when teleportation was involved. They could have teleported in a whole army in the amount of time we were in there. And besides, the only one General Allen wanted to kill was me because I had information he wanted. He just didn’t know that I knew his ultimate plan. But, neither did Mara.

  Why would he risk an entire team, though?

  The quick answer was there were many more teams out there, all charged with the same mission. The more complex answer was that he knew I’d get most of them out of there, and if someone died, it’d just go farther in making me look like a spy.

  Shit.

  “I’ll tell them once SeaSat5 is back,” I said. “Now’s not the time. Besides, General Allen isn’t here, is he? He can’t hurt us again.”

  Mara’s grip on my forearm tightened. “Exactly why this needs to be brought up now.”

  I held firm. “No.”

  “Hey, what’s going on?”

  Mara and I both looked down the hall. Josh stood there, his forehead wrinkled.

  “I woke up and you were gone. What’s up, Chelsea?” I didn’t respond. “Mara?”

  She let go of my hand and gestured my way. “Why don’t you tell him, Chelsea? This seems as perfect a time as any.”

  I shot her a glare. Two in the morning was not a perfect time for this at all. “Maybe in the morning. We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”

  “And yet you’re awake and wandering around TAO?” Mara asked. More like accused.

  “Not everything is about what happened,” I snapped.

  “Whoa, okay,” Josh said and came between us.

  Mara threw up her hands and backed off. “Tell him, Chelsea. Or I will.” She nodded at Josh then backtracked to her quarters.

  I bit my cheek and refused to look back at Josh.

  “What’s her problem?” Josh asked.

  “Beats me,” I answered without thinking about it. Maybe I could get around telling him until after we went on the mission in the morning. “Can we talk about it another time, after tomorrow?”

  Josh shrugged, but his eyes still watched Mara’s path down the hall. “Sure.”

  As Josh bent down to kiss me, white-hot anger that wasn’t mine flooded my veins. The thought SERIOUSLY? ripped through my mindscape like a cannon ball versus paper, tearing and shredding me. I jerked back from Josh, leaving him confused as hell, and peered past him. Trevor stood there, eyes livid and nostrils flared.

  “What the hell is your problem?” I asked him, pushing past Josh, although he kept a hand on me. I didn’t mind.

  Trevor shot a finger out, jabbing it at the air. “Him, you—all of it, that’s what.” He shook his head. “You break up with me because I gave a shit about you and you won’t let me do a thing for you, and here’s Prince Charming swooping you off your feet and coddling you when everything’s wrong? When Mara basically hands you the opportunity to let him in on your secret in a non-violent way, you brush it the hell off. You’re a coward.”

  Literally every word Trevor
said pushed me an inch backward, like he was punching me in the gut instead of speaking. Wave after wave of anger lit my veins, and it wasn’t mine. Suddenly Josh’s hand on me felt like a disgusting abomination instead of a needed reassurance. I ripped his hand off my forearm and took another step toward Trevor. I didn’t need anyone to guard me, and if Trevor needed proof of that, he could come at me. Was Trevor seriously still pissed because he wanted to protect me and I wouldn’t let him? Or because I hadn’t told Josh about General Allen attacking me when I’d told Trevor? I didn’t need Trevor’s protection, especially considering how well that’d gone the first time. I didn’t need Josh’s either.

  “I don’t know where the hell that came from, but back the hell off. You have no idea at all.”

  “No idea?” Trevor asked. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve done for you?” His face contorted into rage, but a sudden pallor overtook his cheeks.

  “Trevor—”

  “No!” he shouted. “You don’t get to play the damn victim this time. Not when you’ve had every chance to make this situation right.”

  “Hey kid, calm down,” Josh said with hand raised before him in a steadying motion.

  Trevor, can we please take this elsewhere? I asked him in my thoughts.

  “Speak out loud so Josh can hear you,” Trevor spat. “Stop hiding things from him.”

  Josh, bless his soul, didn’t so much as stiffen at those words. It both made this so much worse and made me want to throttle Trevor that much harder.

  “You don’t know what’s happened,” I said. Actually, Trevor did. But there were still things he couldn’t understand. “I didn’t end it with you because you babysat me. I ended it because it wasn’t freaking working. Two years and we couldn’t move past what happened.”

  “No,” Trevor said, swiping his hand through the air. “You couldn’t move past it. Until this guy comes along and magically solves all your problems. How well do you really know him anyway? Ever think he’s a little too perfect?” His glare shifted to Josh. “‘Cause she sure as hell isn’t. Go ahead, ask her what she’s hiding, what she’s not telling you because she knows you’ll lose your shit.”

  I saw red. Bleeding hot, fire engine red. It busted across my vision in streaks of speed and intensity so bright I wasn’t sure whose anger it was. Trevor’s or mine. We were nothing more than a mass of anger and passion and heat and hurt.

  I was across the distance between us in seconds. I trusted him with what happened between General Allen and me. I’d relied on our old system to tell him those things, to ask for help. He’d gone and betrayed all that for this?

  I reeled back my hand and let loose without warning. The slap stung my hand and echoed throughout the corridor. I spun on my heels and charged in the opposite direction, away from Trevor, grabbing onto Josh’s arm as I passed. He followed without saying a word.

  I sat next to Josh on my bed, unable to fall asleep. He was lying down, but his breaths weren’t even—still awake, too. I had a tablet propped up against the tops of my thighs, going through SeaSat5 schematics over and over again. Anything that kept my mind off of exactly how screwed my relationship with Josh was absolutely welcomed, even looking at boring master drawings.

  Josh cleared his throat after another ten minutes passed. So far, he hadn’t said as much as a single word. I hadn’t meant to slap Trevor. His anger entangled us both, and I couldn’t control my actions. That I felt bad about. Still, what right did Trevor have? And to bring it all back to the protecting thing?

  Sophia’s words from a month ago boomeranged to the forefront of my thoughts. Don’t toss him to the wayside because you think his chivalry is irritating. Irritating didn’t begin to cover it, but Sophia was right. Again. And despite what Trevor did, I should have told Josh about General Allen by now. That made me the guilty party, and guilt pulled me deeper inside myself with every passing second.

  I didn’t know how Josh had it in him not to ask me what Trevor meant. He kept quiet, waiting, letting me sit here. He laid there, an ever-present weight on my conscience.

  If the situation were reversed, Trevor wouldn’t have let the silence go on this long. He’d have forced an answer out of me, which wasn’t always the best idea. Josh let it simmer, either as punishment or because he knew pressing me wasn’t going to get him an answer, even if he deserved one. But that was about the only thing Josh wasn’t aggressive about. Josh knew what he wanted and would do anything to get it. He was a leader at heart, but a team player in the field. He’d pushed me to do my best, hadn’t coddled me, and he gave me strength when I needed it. We both had secrets, like Trevor and I had, but those secrets hadn’t torn us apart. Yet.

  Josh cleared his throat again.

  I ducked my head, ready to give in. “Just say it.”

  “Say what?” he asked. The slightest hitch in his voice, his breath, sucked the air right out of my lungs.

  I forced the words past my lips. “Ask the question you’re letting hang in the air.”

  Josh kept his expression so neutral I almost missed the twinges in the corner of his eyes and mouth, the muscle spasms that said he was ripping pissed underneath the cool exterior. At this point, I’d rather take Trevor’s outbursts. His bark was worse than his bite.

  “I’m waiting for you to say it instead,” Josh said evenly. “I already know. I was kind of waiting to see how long it’d take you to say something.”

  My heart screeched to a full stop and sweat pooled on the back of my neck. “Excuse me?”

  “Mara and I don’t keep secrets,” he said, still not breaking eye contact. I was too terrified to look away. “She told me almost right after it happened.”

  It was over. And I deserved it. “Josh—”

  “It’s not that you didn’t tell me,” he cut in, “because we all have secrets. It’s that you thought you could handle it on your own. You can’t touch the General without backup, and you’ve waited so long there’s nothing we can do now short of taking care of it ourselves.” His words were laced with a thick, sticky venom. Josh sat up and faced me.

  They wanted to go on the offensive. Maybe take General Allen out of the picture entirely?

  Josh looked me straight in the eyes, my tablet giving off enough light to illuminate his face and the bed. “Trevor’s right, you know. You think you’re invincible so you refuse help. I can’t speak for what happened on SeaSat5 or in the two years since it’s been gone, but you should have said something about the General.”

  “He threatened you,” I argued. “And the rest of the team.”

  “We can take care of ourselves. That’s the reason we got recruited by TruGates in the first place. He may have threatened you, but we’ve all done a lot worse to other people.”

  “I had no way to know if General Allen had powers—if he was Lemurian or not—or the same of his staff,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “He knows it’s Lemurians that he sends you after, and he doesn’t care.”

  “How would he know?” Josh asked, a snarl sliding up into his voice.

  I pointed at myself. “He knew things about me. About Trevor. About what we found at the outpost, things we didn’t tell the rest of the world. Trevor was in trouble, too. I couldn’t risk saying anything. Not to threaten the General or to you and the team in warning. Especially after Truman…”

  “Truman knew?” the pain in his voice, the anger bubbling to the surface, gutted me.

  I looked away. I couldn’t stand seeing the hurt on his face. I knew he wouldn’t let me go to him to soothe it, and that’s what hurt the most.

  I shook my head. “Truman found me sleeping in the lounge one morning, but no, only Mara.” Why couldn’t anyone wait to let me tell Josh myself? Frustration and betrayal clouded everything, soaking every thought and action in an awkward sense of self-preservation. I’d say just about anything to end this conversation, to keep Josh, to make this all go away.

  “You need to learn you’re not alone,” Josh said, his tone less harsh tha
n before. “General Allen was wrong.”

  “General Allen has an alternate agenda that involves killing my kind as well as the Lemurians.”

  “Even more reason you should have told me.”

  I shook my head again. “Josh, I didn’t know what that agenda really was until we were already at TAO to rescue SeaSatellite5. Did I know he wanted us to hunt Lemurians? Yes. But until a few days ago, I thought they were the enemy, so I went with it. What General Allen wanted was for me to disclose information about the hijacking two years ago, information that would have wrongly incriminate Trevor and myself. I couldn’t let Trevor fall into that. Regardless of everything that’s happened, he was not at fault for SeaSatellite5 being taken.”

  I wanted to save Trevor, to keep him out of trouble even if he did piss me off. But I couldn’t save everyone. In protecting Trevor, I’d killed Truman. My hand flew to my mouth, barely catching a sob. Josh lifted a hand to my face, cupping it. I turned away from him.

  “Chelsea.”

  “No,” I said. “You’re… just stop.” He was too forgiving and I hated it. I lied and schemed, got his buddy killed, then recruited his team to help get SeaSat5 back without explaining everything to them. Was SeaSat5 really the root of all my problems? Losing the station after finding a home there. After finding a safe place after losing what I’d had before. And all I’d lost since then.

  “I love you,” I told him. “But dammit, I don’t deserve you.”

  I wanted him to go away, to get out of the bed and bunk with Eric, but he didn’t. He didn’t freaking move except to place his hands on my shoulders. I fought all the thoughts wanting to take them off of me, to never touch him again.

  “You can’t lie to me anymore,” Josh said. “I understand not being able to say much about the Lemurians before we got involved with TAO, I do. But now that we know, it’s got to stop. You have to stop playing the lone hero, because above all dangers to yourself, it’s not working. You’re not saving anybody.”

  Tears fell down my cheeks. I didn’t move to wipe them away. No one forced me to face any of this before. No one before Josh dared to confront my wildfire emotions. And I was so afraid of whatever he might say next that I couldn’t even speak. Was he forgiving me? Did I want him to? His caramel eyes bored holes into me. His breath was warm on my face. The scent of him overwhelmed me. I blocked it out in case this was the last time I’d ever enjoy him.