by Ravenna Tate
He pulled out and flipped her over. He loved fucking her from behind like this. Her ass now bore a constant array of healing bruises, and she was so damn proud of them. They turned him on like nothing else did, and she knew it. Liane was the perfect woman for him. No one could take her place. No one.
When he finally came, he made sure to squeeze out every last drop, and then he pulled her into his arms and held her. The hell with the mess. They could clean it up later. These precious moments with her were all that he wanted now for the rest of his life.
If she didn’t want him to go to the surface and retrieve the dagger, he wouldn’t go. It wasn’t worth knowing how worried and afraid she’d be the entire time he was gone. He’d send a team.
Fuck it. The only adrenaline rush he needed was right here, in his arms.
****
Liane was working in Emmett’s office around midnight on Friday. She’d woken from a nightmare in which Emmett had been swept away in a massive flood above ground. She hadn’t wanted to bother him, so instead she crawled out of bed and decided to get some work done, in the hopes it would distract her enough that she could return to sleep in a bit.
A video call came through on his computer, and it was Dominic. “Hi there. Emmett is sleeping.”
“Did you wear him out this early? It’s not even midnight where you are.”
Liane’s face burned with embarrassment. “We had an early night, but I woke up from a bad dream.”
Dominic’s dark eyes gleamed. “Then he didn’t do something right. I guess I’ll need to travel across the country and show him how to keep a woman happy and in his bed.”
He winked, and she laughed. “Should I wake him up for you?”
“No. Just tell him if he wants that dagger, he needs to get a team together and go soon. The ex-Storm Trooper who has it is getting itchy fingers and starting to tell everyone about it. Emmett’s going to find himself out-maneuvered on this one if he doesn’t hurry.”
The hair on the back of her neck prickled. “Okay. I’ll let him know.”
“You know he lives for this shit. I swear it’s in his blood.”
“I know.” She had to hold her emotions in check because Dominic could see her.
“Don’t you worry. He’s had some close calls but nothing he wasn’t able to handle. He’s good at this. Hell, if I needed something from the surface, there’s no one I’d trust more to retrieve it for me.”
“Even above the teams who do this?” She tried to keep her voice casual and hoped it fooled him. Inside, she was ready to scream and cry. Sweat broke out along her hairline.
“Absolutely, and that’s nothing against Addison or his teams. But Emmett is the best. Tell him to call me if he wants more details on what I’ve heard George saying about the dagger.”
“Will do. Thank you, Dominic.”
When the call ended, Liane wrapped her arms around her body and curled her legs underneath. She couldn’t tell him not to go. Dominic was right, and she knew that. Emmett lived for this. She recalled the excitement on his face and in his voice the first time he’d talked about it with her. She couldn’t ask him to not be someone he was.
It was the same scenario as the way he made love, and in the play he loved so much. Those things were part of him, and she couldn’t change that. If she tried, she’d be forcing him to be less of a man than he was, and that wasn’t right.
She sat straight up as a thought came to her. He’d never go for it, would he? Even if he did, could she handle it? What if that was exactly what she needed to be free of her past once and for all? She’d thought she was free, but when Emmett said he was going to the surface again to find the dagger, all the same physical symptoms she’d lived with for six years had come rushing back. Then she’d had that horrible nightmare … so clearly she was not over it completely.
Her Uncle Mack had fought overseas in two wars. She remembered asking him once, before he died when she was ten, how he handled the memories. He gave her a piece of advice she’d never forgotten, but had rarely followed. He told her, Liane, you don’t get over something by sitting around thinking about it. You face it head on, look it square in the face, and deal with it.
That’s what she needed to do. She had to go with Emmett above ground and face whatever came their way. It was the only way to truly put this behind her once and for all. Then she could completely embrace who he was. Liane wanted to do that because she loved Emmett with her entire heart and soul, and that meant loving all of him, including the man who needed those kinds of thrills.
He hadn’t asked her to change anything about herself for him, so she wasn’t about to ask him to change for her. She loved him just the way he was.
She walked into his bedroom and crawled next to him, smiling down at his sleeping form. He was so damn beautiful, but especially like this. There was a vulnerability to him when he was asleep that didn’t show once his eyes were open and that brilliant mind raced at breakneck speed.
Liane stroked his arm with one fingertip until he opened his eyes. He grinned up at her, making her wish this wasn’t so urgent. She could think of about a million things she’d rather do with him right now than have this conversation.
“Dominic called.”
His grin faded. “Oh yeah? What did he want? Did he hit on you?”
“Yes. A lot. But that’s not why he called. He was looking for you.” She told him what Dominic said, and watched the trepidation creep into his eyes. “Don’t worry. You’re going.”
“I am?”
“Yes. And I’m going with you.”
He sat up and regarded her like he suspected she might have been drinking for a couple of hours. “Is that so?”
“Yes, it is.” Liane told him what she’d concluded. This was the only way for her to face her fears once and for all. “I’m not going to ask you give up who you are and what you love to do.”
“That’s a very noble and well-thought out plan, but there is no fucking way I’m taking you above ground with us.”
“Why not? Don’t you think I can handle it?”
“You’re not trained in survival skills.”
She took several deep breaths. She knew what he meant, but one didn’t need formal training to learn how to survive. “Forgive me for stating the obvious, but what do you call losing your entire family and having to barter your body for sex to get help with their burials, and a mountain of legal bullshit?” She kept her voice quiet and never broke eye contact. “If that’s not survival training, I don’t know what the hell is.”
Emmett opened his mouth, and she knew what he was going to say. That it wasn’t the same thing. But then she watched understanding dawn in his beautiful eyes, and resisted the urge to pump her fist in the air. He nodded slowly. “You’re right. I can’t argue with that. You are absolutely correct. But, Liane … seriously … have you thought about this?”
“Yes, I have. I’m going with you. We won’t be alone, right?”
“No, we won’t. We’ll have a team with us that does this all the time, and the man who has the dagger is a former Storm Trooper.”
“Then I’ll have plenty of people around who can help me if I need it. It’s only one day. You said so.”
“One day can turn into a week if storms come up.”
“Then I’ll just have to deal with that, won’t I?”
He shook his head, but it wasn’t a gesture of dismissal. “You’re insane. Beautiful and sexy, but totally nuts.”
“That’s what your employees say about you.”
His soft chuckle warmed her heart. “Yeah. I’ll bet they do. Okay then, but you have to do one thing before we go.”
“Name it.”
“I have articles I need you to read. It won’t take you long, but they contain vital information you need to commit to memory.”
“Agreed.”
He frowned and cupped her face. “Up there, my word is law. You have to do exactly what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it. You can’t second guess anythin
g, and you can’t hesitate. If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to get down and cover your face, you do it. Failure could result in you losing your life. Liane … Liane, I can’t lose you.”
“And I can’t lose you, Emmett. That’s why I have to go with you.”
Chapter Fourteen
They set out on their journey three days later, after Emmett made sure all the Weathermen knew where he was going and with whom. Liane learned that he always did that so there was someone who could take over his work in case he didn’t come back. Since cell service was spotty at best on the surface, he kept in touch with them below ground minimally, if at all.
The above ground shelters were equipped with data lines that ran underground through thick concrete-encased conduit, so if and when he was able to make his way to one, he checked in. Otherwise, they waited for him to return, or not.
Now that she knew that little tidbit, she realized there was no way she could have stayed behind without hearing anything for who knew how long. He had said, after all, that a one-day trip could easily turn into one week above ground. Distance meant nothing when the storms came up quickly and with little or no warning.
Viaducts that used a series of air locks led to the surface at various intervals, and anyone going up there needed special clearance. Emmett was able to obtain that for her in record time because of who he was. Once they reached the surface, a member of the procurement team went first to make sure there were no active storms approaching or ongoing. Once it was clear, he signaled to them.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” asked Emmett. “We won’t come back down until I get that dagger for you.”
She squeezed his hand. “I’m ready.” They were dressed in ski pants, parkas, and had thick gloves and goggles with them. They also each carried a backpack with supplies, and most of the procurement team carried weapons. One of them had their tents and other heavy equipment that he pulled on a rolling cart.
The air felt thin at first, and Emmett told her that was because there were far fewer trees than there had been six years ago. Once she got used to it, she was able to breathe normally, but the physical shock of seeing the surface wasn’t something she’d been prepared for, despite having read all the articles Emmett had sent her, three times.
It looked like old movie stills of what Hollywood had imagined alien planets resembled. Barren, very little sign of plant life, no structures, and no animals or birds. Tears ran down her face as she stood still and glanced around. She pulled back her hood and listened to the hollow sound of wind, soft yet ever-present. The sun was out, but cumulus clouds drifted by, occasionally blocking it out.
How would they stop this? What if they couldn’t? They were able to manufacture air so they all could breathe underground, but what would happen when the air up here was nearly depleted of oxygen? Without plant life, there wouldn’t be any at all, which meant anyone coming up here would need to carry oxygen with them.
“It’s quite a shock, isn’t it?” He asked quietly.
“It’s horrible. Far worse than I imagined.”
He gave her hand a squeeze. “Let’s go. It isn’t far to where we’re meeting George. From there he’ll take us to his place.”
George had arranged to meet them in the closest above ground shelter, and then he would lead them to his bunker. As they walked along, Liane tried not to watch the sky, but the clouds were building at an alarming rate. She’d never seen anything like it except on that fateful day.
The others didn’t seem to be worried, so she tried to stay calm and follow their lead. One of them held a tablet that Emmett said could pick up the weak weather satellite signals, but it wasn’t one hundred percent reliable. Mostly they relied on their five senses to tell them when they needed to run or find shelter.
“Why are the satellites messed up, too?” she asked.
“The program did that when it took on a life of its own,” explained Ken Chunn, the procurement team lead. “The way The Madeline Project works is through electrical pulses that are generated by the earth’s magnetic field. It harnesses them, if you will. The satellite feeds are distorted because of the random and uncontrolled way in which those pulses are now bouncing around the planet.”
She frowned. “That reminds me of a question I had for you weeks ago,” she told Emmett. “I wondered that very thing. What was the source of the electrical pulses.”
“That’s why we can’t simply shut down the program,” said Emmett. “The source is the planet itself.”
“Any attempt to launch new satellites that work on different frequencies is long gone,” said Ken. “We can’t stay above ground long enough to fly a kite let alone launch a satellite into orbit.”
“So the only way to stop this thing is to hack back into it,” said Liane.
Emmett nodded. “That’s what we believe, yes. Only we can’t do that. Whoever set it on this course also coded a failsafe program into it, and we can’t access it.”
“You need the hackers to do it,” said Ken. “When you find them, that is.”
“In the meantime,” said Merrill Taber, the Storm Trooper accompanying them, “we collect data on the storms in the hopes it will give all of you a clue to the hackers, or a way to access The Madeline Project once more and reprogram it.”
Liane’s mind reeled with the entire scenario as they made their way across the plains. She knew they were in what used to be Tennessee, but it didn’t look as she’d expected it to. Middle Tennessee used to be a hilly, lush paradise. The hills were still there, but the forests and flowers that used to exist no longer did. Even the soil had a gray, tired look to it, as though it had been stripped of all nutrients a long time ago.
Pieces of what she slowly realized used to be highways lay at odd angles every so often, as if someone had simply tossed them there at random. She didn’t see any signs of what used to homes or other structures. All that debris must be long gone.
The clouds built to a dark sky, but again, no one seemed worried about that. Connie Oppenheim, the woman holding the tablet had indicated she had a strong signal today, and watched the radar as they walked along.
They stopped once for a quick break, and Liane went into the thick underbrush with the two other women who accompanied them to relieve herself, while the men went in the opposite direction. Then the group sat on a knoll that was half grass, half dirt to eat quickly before they resumed their journey.
“The storm shelter is less than an hour away,” said Emmett. “George is meeting us there, and then he’ll take us to his home.”
“How often do storms come up?”
He smiled at her. “It’s totally random. I’ve been up here and not seen any for as long as two days, and I’ve seen them come up every hour for days on end.”
“This time of year is less active than others for some reason,” said Merrill.
Liane asked if it was summer up here as it was underground.
“Yes,” said Ken. “We didn’t change that when everyone moved underground. It’s the middle of August.”
She frowned. “Shouldn’t it be much hotter and more humid, then?”
“Yes. That’s part of the changes up here. The seasons are all fucked up. That’s why we dress for anything and everything. In two hours the temperature might rise forty or fifty degrees.”
She shivered. It couldn’t be more than fifty degrees now. The only places she knew of where it would have been routinely be this cool in the middle of an August day were the northernmost states, unless a rare cold front had come through. It was far worse up here than she’d realized.
The storm shelter was in sight when the clouds began to build again. Connie’s voice sent hot fear racing through Liane’s body. “Heads up! Rotation in those clouds to our south.”
Emmett took her hand. “Run.”
Liane didn’t need to be told twice, but her legs felt like rubber and it was difficult to breathe. This was more fearful than that day in class because she was outdoors and totally
exposed. She didn’t dare glance up at the sky. Instead she kept her hand in Emmett’s, squeezing as hard as possible, and kept her eyes on the person in front of her.
The wind made it difficult to move as they approached the rise where the shelter sat atop it. She could feel the updraft, and a rumbling sound she hadn’t heard in six years split the air. Liane tried not to panic, but it was obvious from the group’s reaction that a tornado was forming right behind them.
She glanced up at Emmett, and her fear increased. His face was full of both excitement and trepidation, and sweat dotted his forehead. He gazed at her and smiled slightly, but it did little to help. Why the hell had she come up here with him? But if she’d been waiting, it would have been worse not knowing what was going on.
They reached the shelter, and Ken opened the door, which was no easy feat since it required quite a bit of force to do so because of the wind. They filed in, with her and Emmett in the middle of the pack, and then Ken needed the help of two additional men to get the door closed and locked.
Emmett took a seat on a bench and pulled her onto his lap. “You’re okay,” he whispered.
No, I’m not.
She didn’t say anything in response. This wasn’t what she’d expected. Not even close.
One of them lit a lantern, and the room was bathed in soft light. Liane glanced around, surprised by the space inside and all the equipment. Ken and Connie were already at work on the computers, attempting to access the radar.
“Got it,” said Connie. “There’s a debris ball. It’s on the ground.”
Liane didn’t need Connie to tell them that. She could hear the storm outside, and the walls of this shelter were concrete so it had to be massive and strong. She closed her eyes and clung to Emmett as she listened to the muffled sound of the wind, and objects striking the sides of the shelter.
Why weren’t they underground?
Then she recalled reading that because so many of the underground shelters had flooded, the only ones the Storm Troopers and procurement teams attempted to access were the ones above ground.
“Will it hold?” she asked quietly, gazing into Emmett’s face.
