by Joss Ware
Fence stared at the new development in growing frustration and felt the edge of panic threatening once again. This time, however, the panic wasn’t for him.
It was for Ana.
Ana.
He drew in another deep breath and thought some more. He knew how to remain calm in emergencies, and this was the height of emergency.
Think, Bruno Paolo, fucking think.
If he could disrupt the force field in some way, he could get through.
For some reason, the image of a bird sitting on a wire popped into his mind, and he thought about . . . energy takes the path of least resistance. What would disrupt the flow of electricity?
He wasn’t certain that the force field was made of electricity, but with nothing else to go on he forced himself to think clearly and logically. Rubber . . . glass . . .
Rubber.
That was it. He took off back to REI, surging through the ocean like a fierce submarine. Due to the fact that he’d already surveyed the remains of the store, he knew exactly where to find the self-inflating rubber rafts.
He had a bad moment when he could only find one . . . but then spied a second plastic-wrapped dingy yellow package and snagged it, hoping and praying this would work.
If not, he was fresh out of ideas.
Fence returned to where the safe passageway had been because he had to follow Ana’s trail. It took only a few moments for him to inflate one of the rafts by pulling its cord, but immediately it began to float toward the surface. He had to waste precious moments locating a heavy piece of metal to lash to it, but once he accomplished that, his plan moved along readily.
A few moments later he had two rafts, each lashed together on one end. Then he bent them at the ties to make a sort of inverted vee, weighted down and ready to shove into place in the center of the force field.
One, two . . . three.
He maneuvered the shield into place, suddenly worrying that the rafts weren’t wide enough to cut through the force field . . . but they seemed to be.
When he saw that the shimmering curtain was disrupted by the bright yellow vee, he had a surge of real hope. But did he dare try it?
He was just about to dart through, taking his chance, when he felt something move behind him.
Spinning in a cyclone of bubbles, he saw a large, sleek fish cruising toward him. Perfect.
Fence waited impatiently for the creature to come closer, then chased it through the vee and watched in relief as it traversed the passage without hesitation.
He followed, shining his light around in search of the trail Ana’d left, his heart leaping every time he saw a new spot of gray sparkle. She’d done an amazing job of leaving a trail of bread crumbs for him.
He was looking so hard for the gray sparkles that he almost missed it, but a cloud of something dark and inky wavering in the water caught his attention as his light shone past. He swung the flashlight back and saw with a horrified start that it was red ink . . . blood?
His insides plummeted and cold fear rushed through him as he dove toward it.
It was the man, Darian. He was dead, his neck slit, crystals sliced from his abdomen, his skin white and ghostly in the darkness. His eyes stared at nothing.
Fence’s heart raced. Ana wouldn’t have done that . . .
Then he turned, desperation rising inside him again, and caught the flash of something else pale and white. His insides plummeted as he darted closer to see.
It was Ana, pale and limp, lying on the ocean floor. A large boulder rested on her arm to ensure that she’d have no chance of making it to the surface. My God, those fucking bastards.
And blood . . . it rose in little red spirals from the four neat, empty places in her rib cage.
Her crystals were gone.
Fence turned to ice for an instant, then shot into action. Ana.
Her crystals were gone. She was bleeding.
And, oh God, she can’t breathe down here without them.
He shoved the boulder away and gathered her up, terrified when she didn’t move, when she hung limply in his arms as he propelled himself back through the makeshift tunnel in the shimmery barrier, then shot up like a rocket: up, up, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty feet . . .
Until he burst free into the clean air.
“Ana,” he gasped, choking and out of breath as he waited for his lungs to catch up with the change from gill to nose. “Ana!” He shifted her sharply in his arms, getting her face out of the water, terror shuttling through him.
They were so far from shore—it would take forever to get her there. She needed CPR . . . he had to get her to land . . .
Even as he realized it was too late, that she had to have been down there too long, he was kicking with powerful thrusts, orienting himself toward the land he knew was south and west.
He paused and bent over her there in the water, his legs fanning back and forth, breathing a deep gust of air into her mouth, wondering if this was how to give CPR to an Atlantean—if it would even help.
As he blew the breath into her mouth, blood spurted from the holes where her crystals had been. He froze, his body going numb.
He was literally blowing air—and blood—into and through her.
Oh God.
Shaking with terror, Fence stared down at her, his feet working madly to keep them both afloat. Elliott! I fucking need Elliott!
He closed his eyes and hovered for a moment, pressing his powerful hands against her wounds while horribly aware of the blood oozing from her side, slick and warm on his skin, drifting into the sea.
And then something warm and rubbery bumped his leg. Fence whirled in the water and saw the silhouette of a dorsal fin less than a foot away.
For an instant he was sure it was a shark, attracted by her blood . . . but even in his blinding fear for her, he realized a bloodthirsty shark wouldn’t have wasted any time attacking.
Was it possible it was one of the dolphins she’d petted? What were their names?
The bump came against him again, and though Fence couldn’t see many details despite the full moon, he reached for the animal.
Then something else bumped him from behind and he felt the second dolphin nosing against him. Stunned, he wasn’t certain what to do, flanked as he was by the animals. But they seemed to want something.
When they made no attempt to move and instead seemed to be along for the swim, Fence did something he’d never imagined doing. He grabbed the jagged dorsal fin of one and lifted Ana on top of the animal, using his arm to hold her in place, then curved his other arm around the other, letting his legs sag into the ocean.
The dolphins shifted, moving close together and holding him in place so he could use himself to cover the wounds as well as he could, pressing her body hard against him in the front and positioning his hand over the four spots on the back of her torso to try and stanch them.
And then he gave her CPR.
Breathe . . . pump, spurt . . . breathe . . . pump, spurt . . . breathe . . .
Was he doing her any good? Frustration and fear trammeled through him, and his eyes stung from something other than saltwater.
Then all at once she stiffened, jerked, and began to cough. More blood, and now water, oozed from her wounds, and Fence didn’t have time for relief as he flipped her over so she could spit up the water lodged in her lungs.
She coughed, shuddering violently and expelling more blood. Then he felt her body shift into a ragged rhythm of breathing.
“Ana,” he said, and then Thank God in his head. She was shivering now, bleeding harder, and he knew that though she was breathing—at least from one lung—he had to get her to land. Find something to wrap her up, to stop the bleeding.
Desperate to try anything, he shifted her position on the smaller dolphin, the one with the ragged fin, so she was lying on top of it with her hands positioned around the fin, and he climbed onto the other dolphin. Holding Ana in place, he gripped around the neck—if a dolphin had a neck—of the one he was
on and then climbed onto the other creature.
Neither of the dolphins seemed to object; in fact they seemed to communicate with each other, using hollow clicks, and started swimming off in tandem. They were in perfect synchronization, neither moving ahead of the other, staying exactly together, nose-to-nose, dorsal fin to dorsal fin, streaking through the water.
The wonder of the moment was tempered by cold fear, however, as he held Ana in place, trying to read through the press of his fingers against her whether she was still breathing, whether she was getting warmer or shivering or reacting in any other way. The full moon revealed the dark trails of blood trickling down over his hand, onto the dolphin and into the water.
It seemed too much time had passed when dark land at last loomed ahead of them and Fence stumbled off his ride and gathered up Ana, slogging to the shore.
“Ana,” he said, gently shaking her as he leaned over her on a debris-strewn beach.
She moaned, coughed, and began to shiver violently, though it wasn’t cold at all. Blood covered her torso and clung to her hair as he huddled her close, curling around her in a seated position and settling her on his lap.
“Turns out,” she said in a wavery, rough voice, “it wasn’t me they wanted.” She coughed, more blood gushed out, and he stroked her back, horror turning him cold and empty. “It was my crystals.”
She shifted, and he felt her move as if to touch her torso. “They’re gone,” she whispered, her chest moving raggedly as she pulled away a blood-streaked hand. “They’re all gone.”
He felt her weakening, growing limp and chill, and he shook her. “Ana! Ana! Don’t leave me!”
Hearing a soft splash, he looked up, tensing, ready for yet another blow to his world: zombies or some wild animal of prey.
“How the hell did you get back here so fast?” Zoë demanded, stepping out of the ocean next to him. “We could hardly keep up.”
For the first time, Fence looked around and realized he was back on Envy’s shore.
“I need Elliott,” was all he said.
Chapter 22
Ana opened her eyes.
She was in a dim room. A line of white light around a curtained window indicated that it was day. Her body hurt, her head felt light. She sensed that she wasn’t alone, but whoever was with her neither spoke or moved. In fact, she thought she heard the soft sound of a snore.
That was fine. She needed a moment . . . She remained quiet, trying to sift through the vague images of what had brought her here. The last thing she remembered was—
All at once it came back in a rush of memory. The pressure of hands, holding her down . . . violent tugs, slicing pain, the heaviness in her chest as the sea weighted her, smothered her.
Her crystals were gone. Gone.
She closed her eyes. No.
Her hand moved slowly beneath the covers to her torso, her fingers brushing cold against her abdomen. She felt along her rib cage, over warm skin: the little ridges of her ribs, the give of elastic skin between them. It was smooth and soft.
Unmarked . . . where her crystals had been.
As if they’d never been there.
A terrible chill rushed through her as the realization set in.
No.
Had she dreamt it? Dreamt those years of life under the sea?
She must have made some sort of sound—a gasp, a choked sob—for he erupted from the shadows.
“Ana.”
It was Fence, suddenly next to her, jolting the bed as he sat.
She was glad it was dark so he couldn’t see the tears streaking her face, and she squeezed her eyes to blink the rest back.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, reaching to open the curtains next to her.
Rays of warm light filtered into the room and she could see his face: beautiful and haggard in its concern. Something glittered on his chin and cheeks—little unshaven hairs.
“They took my crystals,” she said. Her voice was rough and scratchy. It burned when she tried to swallow.
“I know,” he said, and his hand settled over her forehead. “Ana, I’m so sorry. I’m so—”
“They took my crystals . . . and left me to die.”
His full lips tightened into a flat line. “The bastards put a boulder on top of you, Ana. To hold you down at the bottom. To make sure you died.”
“Atlanteans. Every one of them . . .” She swallowed, trying to catch her breath, keep her voice steady. “They’re evil.”
He covered her hand with his. “Not all of them.” He tightened his fingers.
She shook her head against the pillow, squeezing her eyes closed as another tear leaked out. They were all evil. Her family, her people.
Not one had ever done anything good.
It saddened and frightened her to know she carried that in her.
“Ana,” Fence said, as if to pull her from her morbid thoughts.
“How could I have survived?” she asked suddenly, as dullness settled over her. Her life had changed irrevocably. “Without my crystals, trapped at the bottom of the ocean?”
Fence brushed the tear away with his thumb. “I don’t know how long you were there before I found you. Elliott thinks you managed to continue to breathe water for some time, even though your crystals were taken. He saw remnants—little specks of crystal—in your lungs. He thinks they must have settled in there over time, flaking off from the bigger studs you wore. They must have enabled you to ingest just enough oxygen to keep you breathing until I found you.”
Ana closed her eyes, a little wing of hope fluttering inside. “Does that mean I can still . . .”
She felt him shake his head, his fingers closing over hers once again. “I’m sorry, Ana. You weren’t breathing when I found you. Whatever those little flecks were able to do, it was temporary.”
Her wave of hope evaporated and the black despair returned.
“Why aren’t there any scars? Why aren’t there any marks?” she said, abruptly sitting up. Terrified. Had she lost days, weeks, years? “How long have I been asleep?”
“Only since yesterday.”
“Since yesterday?” Her voice rose. “What happened to the scars? The holes, and where they cut me?”
She felt the hysteria rising in her voice, in her breathing, in her mind, and could do nothing to keep it at bay. Tears spilled from her eyes and she felt as if she were going to start screaming . . . and not be able to stop.
There’d never been a time that she felt so dark and empty. Even after her leg was damaged, she hadn’t felt this depth of despair. For even then she still had the sea.
Now she didn’t even have that.
She couldn’t ever swim deep and long and low, she couldn’t explore ruins, scavenge for treasure. She couldn’t play hide and seek with the dolphins or watch the graceful bounce of shrimp as they scavenged for parasitic food.
She could never be free and elegant and graceful again.
Now all she had was an earthbound body hampered by a limp and a hitch. Bitterness welled in her heart.
“Ana.” Fence’s deep voice had a note of command to it, and it penetrated her consciousness as she started to spiral into confusion and pain. “Open your eyes.”
When she did, not even realizing she’d closed them, she found him there, filling her vision. His gaze was soft and concerned, and overflowing with some intense emotion.
“What?” she said, trying to bat away the gentle little flutter in her belly. Fence was here.
But she didn’t want to feel happy or warm or cared for.
She wanted to be angry.
And to feel violated.
And to know that her life was wrong now.
“I love you, Ana.”
She shook her head, angry tears spilling forth. She wasn’t Ana anymore.
“Look at me,” he said firmly. “Please.”
She wiped her tears away. “I’m never going to be the same.”
He nodded. “I know, Ana. I know. But you’re still the woman I
love. Every part of you.”
“It’s not fair!” She felt as if she’d lost a limb.
Hell, she’d lost half her life. Half her body.
“No, by God, it’s not fucking fair.” His face looked murderous—darker and more frightening than she’d ever seen it. “But you’re alive, and safe. And I’ve never been more grateful for anything in my life. You almost died . . . and I don’t know what I would have done if you had. I love you.”
“But how can I not have any scars?”
He tilted his head just a bit and his gaze held hers as he replied, “Elliott healed you.”
Her heart stopped and her breathing caught, and before she could think, really understand what he meant, her fingers slipped down along her left side, toward her awkward hip . . . over the mottled and striated scars of her leg.
And then her hand sagged.
Nothing there had changed. She was still crippled and mangled. That leg still only felt half of what the other did.
And her foot was still curled up into a vee.
“You were bleeding to death when we got back here, hemorrhaging from the holes in your lung,” Fence continued. “Elliott healed you. He saved your life. That’s why you have no scars.”
It took a minute for the words and their meaning to penetrate. But they didn’t make sense. “How could he have healed me so quickly? How can I not have scars?”
There was silence for a moment as he hesitated. Then . . .
“For the same reason that I have gills,” he told her. His eyes were fastened on her, and even through her despair she recognized apprehension and hesitation.
He drew in a deep breath, and she realized she was holding hers. He was about to tell her something . . . big.
“We were trapped inside a cave during the Change, and the best we can guess is that an energy center—what do you call it, a flash row?—was inside the cave. And when the Change happened, with all the energy being conducted, we were altered as well. There’s no other explanation.”
She stared at him, once again trying to comprehend his words . . . but it was almost as if he were speaking in a foreign tongue. Ana grasped one piece of information. “The Change. But that was . . . almost fifty-one years ago.”
