Freddy jumped in as well. I stood there, frozen, as Thompson and his guard made short work of the men. Freddy and Weyland both took blows to their faces, chests, and sides before being thrown off the command station’s platform like sacks of feathers.
Thompson drew Michael up and slugged him across the face. Michael grinned. I narrowed my eyes, scanning the command station. What did he do?
Michael laughed and spat blood in Thompson’s face. “Good fucking luck stopping it.”
An alarm from the lead weapons station behind me blared, and what Michael had done snapped into focus. No way. No fucking way he knew how to—
“Torpedo 1, prepping,” the station’s automatic firing process sang.
Thompson jerked the hand holding Michael by his throat. “What did you do?” he spat in Michael’s face.
Michael only smirked.
Thompson’s nostrils flared, his face a deep shade of red. He tightened his grip around Michael’s throat, his knuckles whitening. “Speak!”
“Torpedo 1, firing,” the station announced. “Torpedo 1, away.”
“What’s the target?” Thompson demanded of Michael, but Michael couldn’t form words with Thompson’s hand at his throat. Not that he even would.
“Target destroyed,” Weapons Station One sang. “Torpedo 2, prepping.”
“Sir,” Thompson’s guard said. Somewhere in the course of the altercation he’d manned the lower NANA station. “Sir, he destroyed our sub.”
“What?” Thompson reeled on Michael, who was quickly fading.
Holy shit. Michael had destroyed Thompson’s only way out of here if this went south. Somehow, he’d known the override codes. Weapons weren’t meant to be fired from the command station without Captain Marks’s or the Commander’s override. There shouldn’t be a need for that to happen except in emergencies. Michael had somehow gotten around it.
Weapons Station One chirped. “Torpedo 2, firing at full blast. Torpedo 2, away.”
“Where’s that one going?” Thompson demanded, shaking Michael as he screamed in his face. “Where!”
Full blast? Destroying their sub made sense. But what did he—
“The air,” the guard said. “He fired it straight up into the air. It’s a fucking flare.”
“Hell,” Thompson snarled. His hand moved from Michael’s throat to the front of Michael’s shirt. Thompson yanked him off the command platform and toward the blast doors.
“This ends now,” Thompson practically growled. “These people need to learn a lesson.”
Michael coughed and struggled. I bounded down from my station and tried to block their way. I had no plan, but I couldn’t stand by and watch my friend die.
Thompson drew his gun and pointed it at me. “Back off right now, Trevor, or you’re dead too.”
“You won’t,” I said, taking another step in their direction.
Thompson’s finger closed on the trigger, and I slammed my eyes shut. This is it.
The loud crack of a gunshot echoed in my ears.
I held my breath, waiting for the pain to strike through me at any moment.
It never came.
Christa cried out. I opened my eyes and spun to her. She was hunched over her station, clasping her arm and gritting her teeth. Blood flooded out through her fingers.
“Christa!”
She locked eyes with me to let me know she’d be okay, but dammit the guilt struck anyway.
“Next one’s between your eyes,” Thompson warned. “I’m done.”
I locked eyes with Michael, and he shook his head, eyes pleading with me to stand down.
“But—” I said.
Michael cut me off with a look that shredded me to the core. He knew he’d been marked for death, knew there was no way out, and he didn’t want me to risk my life, too.
He’d sent up a flare the Navy could track, and that had been worth the risk.
Thompson trained his gun on me until the blast doors closed, separating me from my friend as he was yanked to his death.
Chelsea
n my mind, I was at home, playing videogames with Logan. I kicked his ass for once instead of the other way around—my main indication I was dreaming. I held onto it like a lifeline until the vision shifted into something else, into the dream I’d had after I’d plugged the leak at the outpost.
I ran through the streets of Atlantis, through the rain beside the same family, jogging next to the mother. I tried to sooth the toddler with songs and words. She wouldn’t stop crying. She screamed and screamed, and soon I awoke shouting.
Someone’s fingers dug into my shoulder, shaking me. “Shut the hell up.” Georgie.
I startled and clamped my mouth shut, gathering myself. Fear seared my veins and clenched my fists. Why wouldn’t the toddler stop crying?
“Get up.” Thompson’s voice, rough and deep, came from behind me. It differed so starkly from the toddler’s that I jumped.
He jerked me off my bed to stand beside him. The sudden change from dream-state to waking left my brain sloshing through too many thoughts.
“Get the hell off me.” I pulled my arm from his grasp.
Thompson slapped cuffs onto my wrists. Georgie snickered.
“You’re coming with me,” Thompson demanded.
Panic shot through all my remaining grogginess, a strike of lightning in the middle of a stormy night. I couldn’t fight him, and leaving him in full control sent all my mental alarm bells to red alert. He tugged and dragged me along like I weighed nothing at all. My wrists ached where the cuffs dug into my skin.
He and Georgie led me into the Artifact Room. Valerie leaned against the counter, arms across her chest, looking bored. She smirked when her eyes met mine.
Thompson let me go and stomped off toward the shelves of artifacts. He reached for an Egyptian canopic jar and held it out. I cringed. He wouldn’t break it. Would he?
“Tell me what these are,” he said.
“Artifacts.” Drop it. I dare you.
He tutted. “Specifically. This is quite the collection of pieces—texts and art from all over the globe, from different time periods.”
“You know exactly where we found them. SeaSat5’s been researching artifacts and shipwrecks for months.” Why did he care so damn much? I tugged my arms apart, trying to break the cuffs. The metal only dug in harder.
“But you’re only now on-tap as an archaeologist,” Thompson said.
I shrugged, betraying the anxiety throwing a dance party in my gut. “Coincidental. They used to outsource, but they needed an in-house intern.”
He came so close his putrid breath suffocated me. “I am not as stupid as you think,” he said. “Are these Atlantean?”
I jerked back, sucking in fresh air. “Why? Fancy yourself a treasure hunter?”
I shouldn’t have asked.
Thompson looked over my shoulder to Georgie and said, “Bring him in.”
Valerie continued smirking, watching the scene play out as Georgie left and returned with Michael. Georgie shut the door behind them then cuffed Michael’s hands at his back. Dark circles haloed Michael’s drawn eyes, and blood seeped out of his mouth. What had they done to him?
I lunged at Georgie with bound arms, but Thompson tugged on my uniform. Michael’s eyes met my mine, his expression telling me to stop, that fighting wasn’t worth it. I didn’t care. He didn’t deserve this any more than I did.
I spun on Thompson, hands still cuffed behind me, and broke his grip on my uniform. “Leave him alone.”
“Tell me if these are Link Pieces!” Thompson snarled.
I hadn’t the faintest idea what a Link Piece was. “They’re artifacts. What more do you want?”
“He wants the truth, girlie,” Valerie supplied. “You wouldn’t tell me, so now you have to tell him.”
“Fuck you,” I spat. What the hell were these crazies talking about?
“Enough!” Thompson threw the canopic jar onto the ground. It shattered to pieces and dust.
“Bastard!” I shrieked.
Thompson struck me, whipping my face to the side. Valerie laughed. Thompson reached into his pocket and pulled out a leather case. He opened it, revealing a needle and vial.
Nerves bundled in my gut. “What is that?”
Thompson filled the needle in a slow pull. Was it poison? “Tell me the truth.”
“They’re artifacts,” I exasperated. “They’re from all different places. Everywhere. That’s it. I don’t understand what you want from me.”
I cowered away, panic pulsing through every inch of my being. Sweat beaded at my brow and neck. This was the end for me. I’d never thought about death before, or what my death would look like. But now that death stood before me, I couldn’t focus on anything else.
Thompson strode straight past me to where his lackey held Michael. He bared Michael’s throat. “Tell me the truth, or I’ll kill him.”
“I already told you the answer!” Did he want to know if the artifacts were Atlantean, or something more?
“Don’t tell him anything, Chelsea,” Michael said. “They’ll destroy it all. It’s not worth it.”
I knew that. But they’ll destroy you, too. I worried for him, not some cache of artifacts. Why did Thompson have to do this? Why did they all think I knew things I didn’t?
Thompson positioned the needle above Michael’s carotid artery. “This is your last chance.”
He wouldn’t do it, would he? Casualties would complicate things. Someone like him wouldn’t care. But Valerie should. Even if she worked for them, she didn’t strike me as a murderer. I considered her, but she stood there passive, like she and Michael had never even met before.
“You’re gonna stand there let them kill him?” I asked her, my eyes stinging with tears. Why was all of this happening? Why couldn’t this just end?
Valerie shrugged, not the slightest twitch in her face revealing her true thoughts. “Not my problem or my fault. This one’s all on you, Chelsea. All you have to do is tell us the truth.”
“Don’t,” Michael said. “They can’t know.”
Know? Did Michael know, too? Oh god, was Michael as involved in all of this as Trevor and Valerie? My eyes narrowed. No. The whites of his eyes, the fear wrinkling his face—he didn’t know anything.
My eyes snapped to Thompson’s. “Who are you to come onto this station, take over, demand answers, and kill interns? What could you possibly stand to gain from all of this? I do not know what you want me to tell you. Are they Atlantean artifacts? Yes, they are! But I’m pretty sure you already knew that, so let him go.”
“Wrong answer.”
Before my lips could even form a response, Thompson jammed the needle into Michael’s throat. I dove for Michael, but Valerie wrapped a fist around my hair and jerked back, hard. I yelped and cursed. Valerie swung me around so she stood as an extra, traitorous barrier. She tried to hide it, but sorrow sped across her dark eyes. For a split second, the old Valerie showed through.
Michael convulsed in his guard’s hold even as the guard placed Michael’s body on the floor.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I said again and again, begging him to live. I thrashed in Valerie’s hold, but she didn’t let up.
Michael’s body stopped twitching as he took his last ragged breath.
I stared at Michael’s lifeless body, a young bright life snuffed out in seconds. I vomited on Thompson’s shoes as tears spilled from my eyes. Thompson swore and shoved me into a metal folding chair. He pulled up his own and stared, his gun lazily pointed in my direction.
I couldn’t keep my eyes from Michael’s body. I did nothing to stop him from dying. I alone was to blame—because I had something Valerie and Thompson wanted, but I had no idea what that something was.
Anger flooded a well inside me, and I shook, readying to burst like a geyser. I ripped my wrists sideways, pulling and pulling until the metal shattered and my hands came free.
Thompson jerked upright and pointed his gun between my eyes. “Now, now, soldier. Don’t go getting all heroic on me.”
“Screw you,” I spat.
He shook his head, his gun still trained on me. “I can’t believe you’re one of them.”
I had no words for him. I barely knew what being “one of them” meant.
He waved the gun up and down a few inches. “Look at you. So small. So fragile. Yet impossibly strong.”
My jaw set hard.
“You let your friend be killed, you know that? You could have saved him—were supposed to save him. I didn’t want to murder him.”
I looked away.
Thompson leaned forward, his face inches from mine. “I’m your enemy.”
“Well, no shit,” I spat.
He struck me across the face with his gun. I swung at his jaw, but he grabbed my wrist and wrenched it as he stood, tugging me along with him.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Why make it so you super soldiers can pass down the genetic enhancements if it makes you lesser models?”
My face ached. I wanted to rub it, to sooth it, but didn’t want to give Thompson the satisfaction. Super soldier? Genetics? What the hell is he talking about?
His eyes narrowed. “The fact you don’t know also makes me question things. Are you lying about that?”
“No.”
He stepped closer to me. “Are you sure?”
“Oh, absolutely. I knew the whole time I’m some Atlantean freak show and that, hey, I have friggin’ magical powers. Presto chango!” I waved my hands in front of my face. “No, I have no idea what you’re fucking talking about.”
He slammed me against the shelving unit. The metal connected with my back, jarring my spine.
“Fuck off,” I whined through the sharp pain. That fucking hurt. “I didn’t know, and I’m still not interested.”
Thompson pressed his body against mine and breathed in deeply. My skin crawled where his fingers brushed my face. I turned my head away from the touch, wanting to vomit.
“Now you’re getting it right,” he said.
Fight, Danning, my mind sung, urging me toward freedom. I dug my fingers into his shoulders and brought my knee up between his legs as hard as I could. He yelped and his grip on me loosened. I wriggled out of his arms and rushed the door, yanking on the handle.
I pounded on the cool metal. “Help! Somebody help me!”
The damn thing wouldn’t budge. I didn’t even know you could lock this door from the outside. How the hell would you be able to get out? Maybe they’d melted this door, too. Thompson trudged toward me. I yanked on the door handle for all I was worth. I was strong. This thing should have fucking budged. But nothing. Nothing.
Thompson grabbed me by the shoulders and ripped me off the door. I fell to the floor and slid along the tile, pain bursting over my side and shoulders like a supernova. He stood above me with an arm outstretched, palm glowing with fire.
An instinctual need to douse the flames at all costs flooded my system, taking over my actions. I stood, ran to the sink a few feet away, threw on the water, and held out my hand. It wasn’t until the heat from Thompson’s fire scorched the air around me that I remembered my active abilities didn’t work anymore. He aimed a fireball my way and fired. I ducked, narrowly missing it.
My reflexes had never been this fast. Ever. I was not the sporty type. I moved fastest on stage, plucking away at guitar strings. Logan had taught me how to throw a punch years ago, but these ducks and swings were so very different those. Whatever switch had been flipped by Thompson igniting his hand in flames wasn’t one of my own.
My vision narrowed, intensely focusing on Thompson and his fireballs. Like I was another person, someone who could do this, could fight.
Thompson and I traded blow after blow until he managed to reach out and clench onto the front of my uniform and lift me off the ground. He grinned from ear to ear. “There you are, soldier.”
My hands wrapped around his arm, trying to pry myself from his grip
. I’d almost convinced myself his super strength was due to his size. Now, I wasn’t so sure. If normal Atlanteans had only one power, but more than one made an Atlantean like me, what did that mean for their enemies? Was that what a super solider was, someone with more than one power?
Thompson nodded off to the side, some kind of signal, and Valerie and Georgie teleported to me. Each of them took hold of one of my arms. They extricated me from Thompson and dragged me a few feet away.
“Valerie, let me go,” I said through gritted teeth. I fought against them with all I had.
“After what your kind did to Abby?” she growled. “Not a fucking chance, girlie. This is payback.”
“That wasn’t me. I didn’t do whatever happened to her. Please, Valerie.”
Her hand reeled back and slapped me across the face. The sound of it echoed off the walls. Thompson took a calculated step toward me, coming into the creepy range. I wished I hadn’t worn my reaction so loudly the first time.
“Ever wonder why no one knows what Lemuria is?” Thompson asked. “Why they think Lemuria and Atlantis are one in the same, or that it doesn’t exist at all?”
I clamped my mouth shut. No one thought Lemuria was real because the evidence supporting the lost continent was so lame that fire-breathing dragons looked more legit.
“No answer?” Thompson lifted his still-lit hand to my eye level.
I watched the flames jump into the air, mesmerized. What did Lemuria have to do with all of this?
“Lemuria was better at hiding,” he said. “No one who found Lemuria from the outside ever returned home alive. Want to know why?”
“Let me guess, the Lemurians killed them?” I asked.
He chuckled. “They sent them spiraling through time.”
I tried not to let my curiosity sound too eager when I asked, “Spiraling through time?”
Thompson’s gestured to the room at large and chuckled. “You really don’t know, do you?” He paced toward a shelving unit full of artifacts. “Some of these ancient items are tools, keys to a lock that opens pathways through time.”
I snorted and then let out a full-belly laugh. This guy was cracked. They all were! Atlantis and Lemuria? Time travel and powers? What kind of whack situation had I fallen into? Maybe I’d wake up in my bed, or a white padded room, wrapped up in my own arms.
Gyre (Atlas Link Series Book 1) Page 23
