by Jessica Gunn
Sophia stood before me. “Why are you shaking?”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “Because it-it’s freezing.”
She looked to Valerie, then the others. No one had answers to whatever silent question she was asking. “No. Chelsea, it’s still in the upper eighties out. And humid.”
Holding up my shaking hand, I said, “Not to me. Why?”
We didn’t get the chance to find out. A massive light swept the front of the tree line, blinding me. Hands shoved me farther into the woods, but my frozen limbs were unreliable. Weyland appeared—probably the person who’d pushed me in the first place—and scooped me up in his arms, carrying my freezing body. I tried not to enjoy the warmth of his body against mine, the way it sort of steadied me.
It was made easier when a swarm of green lights showered in before our group. White City soldiers. We stopped and I, at least, resigned to the inevitable. This mission was a fool’s quest. The stalwart crew out to recover the lost stone.
It sounded a bit too cliché.
Chapter Eighteen
JOSH
I swam through blackness. Only a throbbing in my head guided my mind toward being aware of my body again. The pulsing throttled the spot right behind my eyes and reached as far as my temples before transferring down to an area on my left shoulder. I remembered a dart piercing the muscle there. Shit. Oh god, Chelsea. The panthers and jaguars.
I shot up off the hard surface that had stiffened my back and threw open my eyelids. Bright white lights greeted me, along with the unhappy stare of Major Howard Pike.
“Easy, soldier,” he said, holding out a hand. “We’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”
We’d been left in a room with no doors or windows, just six beige stone walls. Smooth and seamless, giving the illusion of infinity. My head spun. I closed my eyes against the equilibrium imbalance. The air smelled almost sterile, which added to the whole effect.
“Where are we?” I asked.
He shrugged. “God only knows. Somewhere in the city, probably, but beyond that, I have no idea. I’d like to think we’ll be close enough to the temple to warrant being rescued, but... I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
“Chelsea won’t leave us. None of them will.”
He sighed, frowning as he knocked his knuckles against one of the walls. “I’m aware. I’m kind of hoping that’s one of the orders she chooses to ignore, but we all know how that goes.”
I slammed my mouth shut. He and Chelsea had issues with her not following orders. She’d often insist she knew better, and that as a civilian, she didn’t have to listen to him. Chelsea had a set of natural instincts I hadn’t seen in someone in a very long time. But she still needed to listen to him. And on this, she absolutely would. So would Weyland.
“Think they’ve found a way up the waterfall yet?” he asked me.
“I have high hopes Sophia will lift them,” I said. “Do we know how long we’ve been separated?”
Major Pike shook his head. Obviously, he wouldn’t know. Our gear had been stripped from us, and without windows, it was impossible to ascertain a time of day. Only the sudden growling in my stomach suggested it might have been days. I closed my eyes and listened to my body. Dehydrated, yes, but not badly. There was no way we’d been missing and unconscious for more than a day, max.
“There’s no way to tell,” Major Pike said, echoing my thoughts. “My guess is a day, two maybe. I think they kept us sedated for a while.” He rubbed his shoulder where the arrow had pierced. “Are you otherwise okay?”
“I’m good.” A lie. Truth was, I wasn’t sure how I was doing. The more I woke up, the more familiar this place looked. Just like down in the jungle. My time at TruGates after rescuing SeaSat5 was mostly a blur. I remembered Stonehenge and the atrocity that had taken place there, along with leaving Chelsea in Boston, but everything else… Blurry.
“Good,” said Major Pike. “First order of business, then.”
He swept his hands along all the walls and I did the same. If a door existed, they’d hid it pretty well. I didn’t know what was better—if we’d been imprisoned in some random battlement somewhere, or in a jail in the center of the city. At least then we’d be closer to the temple, but possibly farther from Chelsea, Sophia, and the others. If they hadn’t gotten caught…
No. No time for that right now.
Our search of the tiny cell lasted all of ten minutes. With smooth walls that seamlessly blended in with the floor, there wasn’t an entryway or hidden lever anywhere. Trapped and alone, we were probably screwed.
But I’d gotten out of tighter spaces.
“We’ll just have to wait for an opening,” I told the Major. “When they inevitably come to get us, or if they feel generously inclined to bring us food.”
His stomach growled so loudly it nearly echoed off the bland space. “Don’t remind me.”
I grimaced and focused my attention not on our shared desire for a steak, but instead on the walls once more.
After what felt like hours later, the floor rattled under our feet. Major Pike backed up from the closest rumbling and I followed suit. We’d so far been attacked by giant sea creatures and large jungle cats hunting in a pack instead of alone. I prayed to whatever gods might be listening that humans—even super-powered ones—were on the other side of that earth-shaking instead of something else.
My prayers must have been answered because lines formed a rectangle door on the wall to our left, and a slab of the weird earth-like plastic slid into the ground. Not onto, not forward or back, but down into the ground, like it’d been a horizontal sliding door. My fists clenched, though I wasn’t sure fighting was the best option. I’d wait to see what the Major did first.
Three guards appeared in the doorway, laser blasters slung across their heavily armored chests. What did they think we’d do? Somehow beat them to death with our fists?
Powers. They thought we had abilities. If only.
Another woman stepped in through the doorway, a regal air about her. She had long, wavy hair that hung around her waist in a dark brown curtain, and she held her chin up like we were the scum of the earth. To her, I supposed we might have been if she, too, thought we had powers—thought we were from Atlantis or Lemuria. Pike and I were of neither heritage.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” she asked, moving farther into the cell.
Interesting. Despite her guards’ armor and weapons, she wasn’t afraid of us. Perhaps she sensed our relative normalcy in this sea of insanity.
“Tough questions,” Major Pike said. “Does it really matter?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, looking him from head to toe. “Rude, but not arrogant. Not Atlantean.” Her gaze found mine and a single droplet of fear slipped down the back of my neck and along my spine. “And not Lemurian. You. It’s you.”
My breathing stilled, prey caught in the predator’s sights. Why did she give me this reaction? “What about me?”
The woman ignored my question and gestured over her shoulder to her guards. “Take him. How fortunate to find one of the thieves while looking for vermin.”
I blinked—all I had time for before the guards barreled into the room. They pulled my arms behind my back, but I slammed my head back into theirs. The Major jumped into action next to me, swinging at one of the other guards. He wrestled one to the floor while I launched one over my shoulders. I lifted my foot to deal a blow that’d knock him out, but my arm froze in midair, seized by something keeping my muscles still. No matter what I did, I couldn’t break out of this freeze. I looked up and found Major Pike in a similar position.
“Enough,” the woman bellowed. “You no-bloods are so pathetic. So weak.” Again she pointed to me. “Take him and leave the other. I recognize this one.”
“Recognize?” I didn’t know this woman, had never been here before. But that feeling of nostalgia, that tugging… was it possible General Allen had sent us here on a mission? “I don’t know you.”
She scoffed, turning on her heel. “You’ll remember soon enough.” She waved again, and the freeze in my muscles melted away. The guards each grabbed one of my arms. I didn’t fight them this time.
The last thing I saw before being hauled out of the cell was Major Pike’s deadly expression.
The guards escorted me down a labyrinth of beige stone walls I memorized enough to know they were purposely taking me the long way around, doubling back and forth all over the place, so that if I somehow managed to escape, I’d never actually get out of here. It was almost flattering, knowing they thought I stood a chance in hell. But I’d long ago learned that against this supernatural crap, I didn’t stand a shot if I didn’t have a weapon.
They dragged me down the hall and into another room, where the guards hauled me up onto a small dais and let go. A light above me swallowed the platform, wrapping around it like a wall. A shield. I reached out and brushed my fingers against it. Solid, as if it really were a wall instead of light.
“Now,” the woman said. “I am Charon, and we will begin.”
So sound passed through. Presumably oxygen, too, or I’d be dead fairly quickly inside of this tube. That meant it was possible to escape, and that was good enough for me.
“Begin what?” I continued to examine the room. Its round walls had a diameter of at least twenty-five feet. Even if I got out of this container, I’d still have to get across that distance, dodging Charon and whatever guards stood outside, along with their powers. And I’d have to do it weaponless.
I’d been in worse jams. Right?
“Retribution.” Charon circled the container once, then stopped on a square that was made of different tile than the rest of the flooring. She tapped her foot once and a control console sprang out of the floor. Her gaze roamed over it for a few seconds before she hovered a finger over one of the buttons. I was sure most of that had been for show, and if I was honest, it’d worked. My heart rate soared. What did she want retribution for?
“You’ve been here before,” she said.
“No,” I said.
She glanced up, her eyes narrowed and sharp as daggers. “Don’t patronize me. I’d recognize the face of my husband’s killer.”
Shit. My fists clenched, not at her words, but at the truth. I didn’t remember being here, but that in no way assured this whole confrontation wasn’t a gross misunderstanding. “Look—”
She pounded her closed fist over one of the controls. “Silence!”
Electricity sparked inside the light container, tendrils of lightning flying out of the sides and climbing my way. My body seized as the tendrils made contact, burning my skin and setting every nerve ending on fire. I clenched my jaw tight. No way I’d give her the satisfaction of me crying out despite my muscles crawling over each other, tightening.
Charon lifted her fist and the torment ended. “Only I speak.”
“You need to listen. I can explain—”
Her fist slammed down and again she electrocuted me. My heart pounded against my ribcage, threatening to break free on every pump of blood. My teeth jangled together. I couldn’t hold it back. I cried out as the lightning went on for longer this time, an entire thirty seconds of agony.
“Please,” I said, not quite a whisper, but getting there. Charon’s hand closed in on the button again, so I spoke faster. “I was under mind control. I wasn’t myself. The General, he did this.”
She paused, looking up at me as her hand hovered over the pain button. “General?”
“Back in my present day,” I said, “my place-time, I’m bound by military command to work for a General. He’s from here, the White City. He brainwashed a bunch of innocents—including myself—to work for him, to hunt and kill Lemurians under some lie. When that turned out to be a bust, he sent us after Atlanteans. Their super soldiers.”
Charon’s expression rounded, more curious than angered. Thank god. I allowed myself to relax enough to get my heart rate under control.
“You know much for someone whose heritage is as plain as the sky,” she said. “This General, his name Allen, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I answered. She knew him. But did that mean I’d really killed her husband? My gut felt like it’d been sliced open. I knew about the atrocities we’d committed at Stonehenge, something so much worse, but this? She stood right in front of me, telling me I’d murdered someone, and I couldn’t even remember. “I’m sorry,” I choked out as my throat constricted around what my subconscious must have known to be true. “I’m sorry, both for what I did and for not remembering. I’m not like that—that’s not me.”
That was a lie. Not that my entire being was based on killing, but I’d done things in the line of duty that I wasn’t proud of. The accident that had taken my brother’s life, that was how I’d ended up at TruGates. How I’d ended up here, in the end. A pawn and nothing more for three-quarters of my life.
“And yet you were the one who killed him, regardless of Allen controlling your mind,” Charon said as she slammed the button down again. I couldn’t blame her, even as my nerves fried themselves to constricted muscles. When it stopped, I heaved against the light wall, pulling in as many deep breaths as possible before the next round started.
“Was there something you were looking for other than taking pleasure in my pain?” I asked. If the latter, and if it went on for long enough, I’d find a way to end it myself. After what’d happened at Stonehenge, I deserved it a thousand times over, no matter who’d been in control.
“Indeed,” Charon said. She tapped another control on the console and I braced for whatever else was coming. But instead of more pain, the door to the room slid open and admitted another person. No, a child. I peered past the light wall at the thirteen-, maybe fourteen-year-old boy.
“What’s this about?” I asked, knowing she wouldn’t answer while she still had the upper hand. I had nothing to leverage with.
The boy glanced up at Charon but didn’t speak. She nodded to him and his eyes found mine—then the world slipped sideways.
Flashes were all I saw. Of Stonehenge. Of SeaSat5. Capturing Chelsea, then her punching me. Of the aftermath. Of being here in the White City with Eric and Mara on one of General Allen’s missions. An assassination carried out under the blanket of a starless sky.
The flashes ended and my eyes popped open. I was breathless. “What the hell?” I lifted a hand to my head, as if it could hold the weight of all my body had been used to do. Is this what the Greek Atlas felt like, minus all the killing?
“Allen had sent a contingent here to assassinate my father, opening a power vacuum in the high council,” the boy said. “Allen used this one, and not for the first time.”
“I should have known he was behind it all,” said Charon. “And what does he plan now? To rid us of the council altogether?”
The boy nodded.
How had he gotten inside my head? Chelsea and Trevor had had that weird telepathic connection once, but this was something way more. It was like he’d purposely searched my memories for that particular one, fishing about until he’d pulled it forward. Until I’d relieved every single memory as though it were happening for the first time. Even Stonehenge.
The boy said, “Once he’s had his fill of the soldiers’ time energies, he’ll turn his attentions back to us. He’s planning to come here with an army, to take the Lifestone and use it for himself and himself only. He’ll become immortal.”
Charon’s face paled. “If he has the Waterstar map from the Atlantean super soldier, too…”
Chelsea?
“What about the super soldier?” I asked. What would it take for Chelsea to just stop being a target in this crazy war already?
I already knew that answer, though. General Allen needs to die. He’d screwed with her for so long, keeping her within arm’s reach because of her connection to Atlantis, then because he thought she had the Waterstar map in her head, not Trevor. Now, with Trevor gone and working for the White City, it was altogether possible Gener
al Allen had gotten a hold of him and discovered the truth.
Oh, god. Was that why Chelsea had said she’d seen Trevor the night of the accident? Had Trevor honest-to-god rammed his car with hers—to kill or incapacitate her?
And… he didn’t have the Lifestone? That meant it was here somewhere for sure. That meant we still had a chance to keep it out of the General’s hands, even if that meant the White City got to keep it. The Lifestone temporarily staying with them was a hundred times more preferable than that psycho having it.
“Enough,” said the boy. “Your speculation is meaningless.”
“Then get out of my head,” I spit out through gritted teeth.
I had to get out of here, back to Chelsea, to warn her. She wasn’t safe. None of us were. Not because we were stuck here, but because back home, another war was just beginning. General Allen had turned Trevor against us. And if he was out to kill Chelsea, he’d be out to dismantle TAO, too. Without those tools, we wouldn’t be able to stop him. Chelsea wouldn’t be able to fight without us thanks to her powers being gone.
We had to get back home. Now.
“Mother,” the boy whined, “make him stop.”
Charon shoved her fist onto the electrocute button.
Chapter Nineteen
CHELSEA
My eyelids fought the light, wanting to stay clamped down to guard against the brash intrusion. The light seemed to freeze my limbs. My skin hummed, near burning beneath the melting light. My breath quickened, sweat trickling down my neck as my heartbeat thundered in my chest. Caught. We’d been caught, and we were so not going to make it out of here.
The finality of it, the weight of certain surrender at the end of this war, was almost a relief. Almost.
I forced my eyes open and lifted my pistol, aiming into the area behind the wall of light, but didn’t fire. Sophia had command and if she wasn’t shooting anyone, maybe it was totally a lost cause.
