by Joss Ware
A flash of misery crossed Zoë’s exotic features, then morphed into stubbornness. “He doesn’t know. I’m not even five damn months along.”
“And you don’t think he’s noticed that your boobs are getting bigger?” Fence shot back.
“They are— How did you fucking know?” She glared at him.
Fence gave her a look. “I’m a guy, Zoë. We notice that sort of shit like we notice whether it’s sunny or raining.”
“Well, don’t be sayin’ ass-crap shit like that to him, okay? Or I’m going to have to hurt you.” She stomped ahead of him, leaving Fence with his own thoughts.
And giving him a chance to watch Ana limp along from behind.
Normally, that was a natural thing for him to do—enjoy the rear view. And while she had a long, lean torso ending in a very nice ass, one he’d really enjoyed pressed up against him when he was showing her the mirror, her labored gait made him feel tight and nervous inside.
It wasn’t that her long legs were imperfect, one of them marked with horrible scars and rippling, uneven skin that bulged in the wrong places like a lumpy pillow. No, he hardly noticed it—except when she tried to hide it, or got all tense when he touched her there.
What bothered him was that she couldn’t move with the grace and ease that someone who looked like she did should be able to do. He wondered if there was anything Elliott could do to help her. Maybe he’d ask. He knew that Elliott had the ability to heal people in some circumstances . . . although there was a limit to what he could do.
Fence found himself slowing his normally speedy, fluid walk so he could remain far behind Ana and Quent.
A few minutes later, as he took a seat on one of the computer chairs in the underground computer rooms, he realized his whole body was tense and annoyed. He shook his head mentally and put away his issues to listen to what Ana had to say.
Though her fingers curled together in her lap and her face was a little pale, she spoke quickly and concisely. “I’ve learned some information about what’s happening.”
Fence was about to demand how and from whom, but Quent spoke first. “There is a threat, then.”
Ana nodded. “Yes. You were right—it’s to come from the sea. And it’s going to be a great wave that will destroy Envy.”
“We’ll have to evacuate,” said Quent calmly, smoothly, in that stiff British accent. “Everyone. Do you know when it’s going to happen?”
“What about all of this?” Sage, who’d pulled off her earbuds for once, gestured to the room. “We can’t leave this. And how in the world would we get it out of here? There’s too much . . . so much. Everything we know, everything we’ve collected . . . it’ll be gone. I mean, Vaughn could get the people out of Envy—if we have time. How much time do we have? Do you know?”
“It’s tied to the moon phase,” Ana replied. Fence noticed that her eyes seemed to scan the ceiling and walls every so often. Almost nervously, as if she were expecting them to cave in on her at any moment. “In this case, the full moon. Which means we have one or two days until it reaches its fullest point.”
“One or two days? Bugger it. We need to be talking to Vaughn right now about getting everyone out of here,” Quent said, looking at Zoë.
“There might be a way to stop it,” Ana said. Her eyes seemed a little weary. Perhaps sad. “I think there is a way to stop it, it’s just a matter of whether I can get to it in time.”
“You know how they’re going to do it?” Fence asked. “And you know how to get there?”
“If my information is correct, yes, I’m pretty certain I know that.”
“And who is the source of your information?” he said. Not terribly nicely.
When her eyes shifted just a bit down and to the right, he had a bad feeling. “A friend,” she replied smoothly. “An Atlantean—”
“You said you hadn’t been in touch with anyone from Atlantis since you left,” Fence said, taking no care to hide his disbelief. Has she been feeding us lies all along? Something unpleasant curdled in his belly. “And within a day of telling us who you are and what your people are like, you’re now telling me you somehow got in contact with an old friend so quickly and easily? You expect me to—”
“Is your source trustworthy?” Quent interrupted. He gave Fence a quelling look.
“In this case, yes, I think he was telling me the truth. I can’t think of a reason he would lie about something like this.”
He.
“The Guild wants me to come back to Atlantis, and Darian is certain I could convince them to stop the wave. I—”
What the fuck kind of name is Darian? Fence couldn’t control a derisive snort. “Yeah, right, and once you’re back there they’ll just do whatever the hell—”
“I’m not an idiot,” she said, fixing him with a sharp look right out of his mama’s playbook. “I’m not going to go back there, especially on such an uncertainty.”
Fence relaxed a bit, which allowed Quent to interject, “But you think there’s another way to stop the wave? Tell us what you know.”
“You already know how powerful the crystals can be. And as you might have realized by now, there are different ones with different properties. There’s the Jarrid stone, which can be used for communication—I told you I think I’ve figured out how to use the one you have. But that would be dangerous, because once they realize where this piece of the Jarrid stone is, they’ll be after it. Or they will definitely want to destroy it. So either way, not a good idea. And it could already be too late.”
Quent nodded. “Right.”
“There’s also what they call the Mother crystal, which is the primary source of the energy for the Atlanteans themselves—their body crystals. It’s an orange crystal, about this big,” she said, and showed them a circle with her thumb and forefinger about the size of cherry. “A part of it’s been missing for a long time, and without it the energy reserve is dying out. If the Atlanteans don’t get the missing piece back, their crystals will die and so will they. It’s possible that the Mother crystal, wherever it is, was also activated when my crystals came into the same proximity as that of the Jarrid stone. Like I said, these crystals are all connected by energy and they can sort of recognize each other.”
“So what the hell do they need you for? Didn’t they put the crystals in you in the first place?” Fence demanded. He did not like the way this was sounding. “Does this mean your crystals are going to die out too?”
“Remember, I have normal human blood too. The Atlanteans have used their crystals and procreated among themselves for more than eight thousand years, and their blood’s been changed—tainted, even—by the crystal energy. They have little gritty pieces of it in their organs and blood. The crystals that are in their lungs grow there from birth; unlike mine, which were implanted. As I told you before, that energy gives them strength and helps keep them youthful for longer, as well as help them to live underwater. But since I’m what they call a demiblood, my blood and body reacted differently to the crystals. They aren’t a part of me.”
“So they want to study you,” Quent said. “Like a bloody lab rat.”
Ana nodded soberly. “Now you understand why I didn’t want that Jarrid crystal near me. If it helps them to find me, they’ll take me back there.”
“So, knowing that you’re in danger of being forcibly taken back, you went out into the ocean for three hours today—and met up with an old Atlantean friend, who just happened to be hanging around?” Fence said.
She turned a frigid look at him. “What choice did I have? No one would go in the water with me.”
Yeowch.
“Then you shouldn’t have gone,” he fired back.
“If I wouldn’t have gone,” she replied in that patient voice his mama had used just before he got his ass grounded, “I wouldn’t know what they were planning.”
“And when you’re ready to actually tell us what the fuck they’re planning,” Zoë cut in, “we’d all be a lot fucking happier instead
of going batshit crazy. And then maybe we could actually fucking do something to fucking stop it.”
Ana cast the other woman a steady look. “As I was saying, there are different sorts of crystals with different sorts of energies. There’s a collection of them, about the size of that chair there,” she gestured to a computer chair, “called the Goleths. Their particular force draws energy—and in this case water, around them in a great circular motion. If they’re lined up in a row—there are fewer than a dozen of them, from what I understand—the pull will be incredible. And it will cause the water to circle and surge around them, gathering up along the line, and then expel it in a great force.”
“Creating a huge disturbance in the ocean,” Quent finished.
“A tsunami,” Sage added.
Ana nodded. “Yes.”
“So how do you think you could stop them?” asked Fence. He didn’t like the direction his mind was going, and so he put it on pause.
“If one of the stones is moved out of the alignment, it should disrupt the energy flow and cause the process to fizzle out and abort. I’d have to find the stones and move one of them.”
“You said they’re the size of this chair,” Fence reminded her skeptically. “How in the hell are you going to move it, and what are you going to do with it once you do?”
Ana looked at him, her expression blank. “I don’t know. But I guess I’ll figure that out when I get there.”
“Do you know where these big-ass stones are?” Zoë asked. “And how deep in the ass-crack of the ocean they are?”
“I don’t think they’ll be that difficult to find, now that I know what I’m looking for. In fact, I suspect—although I’m not happy about it—that they, too, might be connected to my crystals. I might be able to find them by using that connection somehow. And, yes, they’ll be on the ocean floor, probably deeper than any of you can swim.” She wasn’t looking at Fence.
“We could rig something up to help move the stone,” Quent said. “Zoë’s brilliant at that sort of stuff.” He flashed her a hot smile that made Fence glance at Ana, remembering the slant-eyed look she’d given him before he turned into an asshole.
But if she hadn’t pushed him . . .
“We’re going with you,” Zoë said.
“And in the meantime, Vaughn can start to evacuate the city,” Quent said. “I saw him this morning. He said there’d been a couple guys in the restaurant yesterday asking questions about me. Probably those gits you saw in the Humvee,” he added to Fence. “But Simon sat down, chatted them up, and put out the word that I hadn’t been seen here for a couple months. And then he made sure the bounty hunters left without talking to anyone else, and he’s following them for a bit to make sure they don’t come back.”
Fence nodded. “Good for him. Wish I’d been around to see if I recognized them, but it doesn’t really matter. They’re deflected and redirected.”
“Too bad we can’t deflect and redirect the threat of a tsunami quite as easily,” Sage said. Her eyes were scanning the room and she looked as if she were ready to cry. “I’ll see what Theo and Lou want me to try and save.” Then she sat down at the computer and began to type with rapid fingers.
“Simon, Elliott, and Jade will help you get as much equipment out of here as possible,” Quent said. “Too bad Wyatt’s not back from Yellow Mountain yet. Fence—”
“I’ve gotta come with you,” he said without hesitation. “You can’t go without a guide.”
Quent nodded. “Probably right, but we could use the manpower here—”
“I’m going. You can’t afford to get yourselves lost, or in some other mess. Besides, if we have to haul up a big fucking rock from the bottom of the ocean, you’re gonna need some muscle.”
He just wished to hell they were going to be traveling on land for most of the way.
Chapter 16
“Ana.”
She paused at the top of the circular stairs, relieved to be out of that crushing space and back on the main floor again, and turned.
Fence was striding up with fast, smooth steps, skipping every other stair with his long legs. “Could I talk to you for a minute?”
“Yes,” she said, keeping her voice and face emotionless. She moved out of the elevator and into the deserted corridor, giving him space to maneuver past her.
Despite the fact that her heart was pounding, and, when he walked by, the brief brush of his warm arm made hers tingle, she really didn’t want to talk to him.
Try as she might, she could think of no reason for him to have gone so berserk earlier today. And so quickly. It was as if he were a coin, and flipped from one side to the other.
She did know, however, that it would be a lot easier to just keep her distance from the guy, especially since he seemed so . . . unstable.
Even though . . . jeez, he just looked so big and solid and strong. Like a rock himself. With all these things going on in her life, she really would have liked to have someone hold her.
Someone she could talk to.
Ana blinked hard. She got so damned tired of holding it all inside.
“Do you have any idea where these stones might be?” Fence asked.
Ana had to admit to a stab of disappointment that he wasn’t groveling at her feet, apologizing for being an ass, and instead was only worried about finding the stones.
And saving a city of hundreds of people.
Oh yeah.
Focus, Ana. This is not the time for a lovers’ spat to murk up your thoughts.
She sighed and tried to answer his question. “I really don’t . . . but I’m sure that once I get back in the ocean I’ll be able to figure it out. I’ve sensed for some time that something’s wrong, changing in the water, and I’m pretty certain this is what it is. The other aspect I didn’t mention—because there are so many tangents and it’s all so complicated—is that the stones will have to be situated on an energy center as well. So if I can find the closest one to Envy . . .”
“An energy center?” Fence frowned. “You mean, in the earth?”
“Yes, right. There are centers of energy all over the world, and they’ve used those in conjunction with the crystals in order to—”
“Cause the Change,” Fence said, looking down at her, comprehension dawning in his dark eyes with those long, curling lashes. “They used them to cause the Change, didn’t they?” That’s what Theo and Lou had suspected.
She swallowed hard, thinking about the horror people must have experienced when the world fell apart around them. All of the terror. All of the loss of life. Mothers, children, families . . .
She looked at him and the same stark, horrified realization was reflected in his eyes. Ana nodded in acknowledgment. Yes, that was how they’d caused the Change.
This was the other reason she would never return to the Atlanteans. How could she be part of a group of people who’d caused such widespread genocide? The Nazis had nothing on the Atlanteans and the Elites—the latter of whom were even more guilty and despicable, for having killed off their own families and friends.
Ana shivered.
“When you say energy center . . . ?”
“The way I understand it,” she said, “there are countless lines of energy that band the Earth. Whenever there’s a place where several of them cross paths or connect, that’s what’s called an energy center. The more lines that intersect—some people call them ley lines, we call them flash rows—the stronger the energy center is.”
“Whoa,” he said. He seemed to be nodding to himself as if finally understanding something. “Yeah, I know all about fucking ley lines and their intersections, and what they can do. And so you’re saying they—whoever ‘they’ is, the Elites, the Atlanteans, whoever—used crystals placed at these energy centers to what? Cause massive earthquakes and tsunamis throughout the world? Yeah, that’s what did it. Once they all started, it was a chain reaction,” he continued, half talking to himself. “Earthquakes, tidal waves, crazy storms, everything. Caused t
he whole damn Earth to change, with all those plates moving, crashing against each other—Jesus Christ.”
When he looked at her again, gone was the cool-eyed, remote, postberserker Fence. And also missing was the flirtatious, charming, happy-go-lucky guy who’d lured her into his arms.
Instead, she saw the same bleakness she felt at the realization of what one race had done to another. Not to mention to countless other innocent creatures.
“I can’t think of a goddamn bad enough name to call them,” he said, his jaw tight. He blinked hard and smashed a massive hand over his bald head, causing his forehead to crease. “My God.”
Ana nodded soberly. “I know. So, if my crystals can help lead me to the energy center that they must be using, it’ll be a lot easier. But if I can’t, it’ll be a lot of hit or miss.”
“The way the shoreline is . . . I wanted to talk to you about that. I know my way around pretty damn well, and if we look at a map, maybe we can figure out what makes sense for the direction the wave’s gonna originate.”
Ana nodded, but before she could speak, the elevator door opened again to reveal Sage. She looked as if someone had just lit a fire under her—or maybe it was just her brilliant red-gold hair. “I was just on the network with Lou and Theo. We think we’ve got it figured out!”
“What?” Fence asked, turning in obvious surprise. Then he glanced around the corridor as if to make sure no one was around and looked at Ana. “I know you don’t like it down there, but we can’t have this conversation here.”
She drew in a deep breath, surprised he’d even noticed her discomfort. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” She joined them in the elevator, and once again the doors closed to whisk her down into the deep, dark earth.
Perhaps she was getting used to it, but this time the enclosed space didn’t bother her quite as much. Or maybe it was because Sage had some interesting information to share, and Ana found herself absorbed by it.
“A few months ago, Simon and I found an old flash drive—a computer thing,” Sage explained when Ana raised her brows in question, “that had belonged to Remington Truth.”
