Embers in the Sea

by Jennifer M. Eaton

  “It was amazing,” Not-Maggie said. “He could hear my thoughts, just like I was speaking to my own people. And it wasn’t muted and simplistic like your thoughts. It was clear, intelligent. He had no problem understanding that I was trapped.”

  Silver nodded. “I realized she was from below, but I couldn’t leave something so wondrous for the crabs to devour. So I helped her, even though contact between our species is forbidden.”

  How crazy that must have been, seeing a glowing creature when he’d become used to darkness. She must have shined like a ruby in the sand.

  Ruby. That kinda worked for her. Better than constantly thinking of Maggie every time she looked at me.

  “Is there a reason you’re telling us all of this?” David pointed at Ruby. “She’s terrified. Every word out of your mouth frightens her more. Like she’s waiting for … ”

  David gawked as Silver stepped closer to Ruby, placed his arm around her waist, and pulled her closer. She hunched her shoulders and dropped her gaze.

  No. Way.

  “Oh,” David said.

  Ruby kept her face down. “I continued to travel through the rift any chance I could, and he was always there. He’s taught me so much.”

  “And I have learned not to fear those who dwell below us.”

  David folded his arms. “You want something from us. I can feel it from both of you. What?”

  They took each other’s hands. The area where Silver’s eyes should have been twitched. “Take us with you.”

  “What?” David and I said in unison.

  “Your ship can hold water. Take us from these seas. Bring us to where no one judges you or fears you just because you are different.”

  I held up my palms. “I hate to pop your bubble, but that’s not what it’s like up there. I mean, we’re not all that different from you in that respect.”

  “Yet the two of you are together. You share a connection. Surely if both your species allow this there must be … ”

  “No one allowed this,” David said. “What happened between the two of us was an accident.”

  Ouch. That hurt.

  David’s face paled. “I mean, not an accident, but it’s not something that should have happened. It’s complicated, and the few who know have not made it easy on us.”

  “You keep your relationship a secret just as we do?” Silver asked.

  David sighed. “Yes, I suppose we do. No one seems to understand.”

  “Then help us,” Silver said. “We don’t care where we go. We no longer want to be separated by miles of sea.”

  “But you can’t live without water,” David said. “Besides, there’s about to be a huge fight on the surface. You don’t want to be anywhere near there when my people come.”

  Ruby raised her eyes. “And that is why you need the source?”

  David nodded. “If I can bring kinetic energy to Mars, my people might agree to leave Earth alone. I have to give them a viable planet, or they’re going to take this one.”

  She turned to Silver. “This sounds like a cause that would behoove our people as well.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Silver said. “We discussed traveling higher—evading both our species. Not—”

  She took a step toward David. “You told my friend that your new planet has oceans almost as vast as our great sea. Take us there.”

  “I can’t just take you there. Aren’t you listening? My people are coming. I need to make it rain.”

  Ruby stood taller. “I can make it rain for you. I am the source you seek.”

  14

  I gaped. “Hold the farm. What? What do you mean you are the source? I thought we were searching for energy?”

  “Kinetic energy,” Ruby said. “It is part of our biological process. I’ve given off the life energy only once, but I can do it again.”

  “What?” David stepped forward. “That’s impossible. The energy is like an explosion. It shoots out through hydrogen and oxygen molecules.”

  She nodded. “Gaining in intensity during its journey. We are told that the energy travels to the place where the ocean touches the air, and gives the water mobility, sustaining life for all.” She folded her hands and lowered her gaze. “I can do this for you.”

  David flinched. “I thought I was searching for some kind of manifestation in the planet’s crust—volcanic or something. I never dreamed … ” He rubbed his face. “I can’t take you to Mars. The ocean’s salinity isn’t the same. The PH could wreak havoc on your bodies. There are just too many variables. I have no idea how that will affect you.”

  Silver caught Ruby’s gaze. She nodded, and Silver turned back to David. “This is a risk we are willing to take. We are tired of hiding. And if you need the energy to stop a war, the only way to manifest the power is through a rift dweller.”

  David held out his hands. “Did you catch the part about you maybe dying? And I don’t even know if I can keep the pressure in the ship long enough to get all the way to Mars. What you’re asking hasn’t been done before.”

  Ruby tilted her head to the side. “Interesting, that you are not grabbing quickly when offered what you seek. This is unlike a land dweller.”

  David closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I need to make sure you understand the danger.”

  “We appreciate your concern.” Silver wove his fingers between hers. “We are willing to take the risk.”

  “Do you think we can do it?” I asked David. “I mean, all that water would make the ship a lot heavier, right?”

  “We’d probably lose some maneuverability until we reach open space. As long as no one is chasing us, we’ll probably be fine.”

  As long as no one was chasing us? Had he forgotten that someone was always chasing us?

  Silver appeared beside us. As in *poof* all of the sudden he was there. I jumped, grabbing my chest.

  “Sorry for startling you.” He turned to David. “May I speak to you, privately?”

  David squeezed my shoulder before he and Silver moved toward my dresser.

  I sat on my bed and massaged my temples. How crazy was this? We came all the way down here, and ended up getting captured by the very energy source we were searching for. How stinking convenient was that? Maybe too convenient.

  Ruby settled beside me. “I regret not being forthright from the beginning. I was not here when they captured you. I was with the one you call Silver when my people took you from your vessel. He told me what had transpired between you. I needed to trust you before I offered myself.”

  Her golden curls wound in perfect ringlets beside her face, covering that small scar on her temple from the one and only time Maggie tried riding her bike with no hands. This girl really was Maggie to the very finest detail.

  I perused the soda stain on the carpet. “I don’t know why you trust us so much. Not that you shouldn’t trust us, but … ” Yeah, I’m just an idiot. “You know what I mean.”

  A soft smile crossed her lips. “When I look inside you, I see an incredible devotion to the one you call David. This is beyond the link that seems to bind you.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, well, I really lov … l-like him.” I balked at my hesitation. All I wanted was to let my emotions flower and burst and scream to the world. But I couldn’t. No one would understand.

  “You deny your feelings. You lie, even to yourself. Why?”

  I was starting to hate being surrounded by all these telepathic people … aliens … fish … Whatever.

  “I’m not really denying it, but we’re from different planets, and he keeps going home. We’re never together, and when he’s gone—” I shook my head. “It just hurts too much.”

  “Does it hurt so much that it outweighs the pleasure he gives you when he is near?”

  Did it?

  Years of agony. Waiting. Disappointment.

  When he’d finally come back, I was happy for the first few seconds, but then all the pent-up frustration
came out in a giant fist-flinging ball of rage. Damn, I was mad at him. He didn’t even seem to understand that he’d been gone for a long time. It would happen again. I was sure of it.

  David leaned close to Silver. He nodded, his eyes focused, his expression hard. He was going to save Earth. Again. I had every confidence in him. Two extra passengers and a million gallons of water wouldn’t stop him. And the only reason—the real reason, was me.

  If we hadn’t met, Earth would have been toast by now. He’d given up so much, toiled so long—just to save my home.

  Well, not just to save my home—to save me. David and I shared something more powerful than anyone could understand. I’d tried to fight it, tried to forget him, but how do you forget someone that’s already part of you? And the more I was with him, the less I could lie to myself.

  This wasn’t the mental mojo everyone thought it was. I loved him. I needed him. And no matter how much he frustrated me, I wouldn’t be able to escape the pulsing energy that drew us together. We were linked. What had he called it?

  Connected.

  And I never wanted to cut the string.

  A trickle of exhilaration flashed away from me before I could reel in the joy I felt from simply looking at him. Across the room, David’s eyes widened. He smiled and a mischievous glint sparkled in his gaze. I could sense something building within him, and I shivered. Part of me ventured out and ran invisible fingers over the shimmering twines connecting us.

  My breath hitched as the energy I’d sent to David returned to me in a super-charged flood. Our tether heated, burning my stomach for a second, until the spinning warmth shot out, swirling and sparkling, inserting pure delight into every part of me that could feel. I took several struggled gasps of air, each one harder than the last. The burning bordered on painful, before easing back and blanketing me in a comforting pressure that surrounded me in waves.

  Holy Hell. How could he inject something inside me like that, and so easily, like it was nothing? He glanced back to me, ignoring Silver’s whispers. His smile broadened, seeming almost smug—or was it satisfied?

  When I thought of how much I loved him, had I sent him the same jolt? Could I possibly make him feel the same crazy sensations he sent to me?

  My heart skipped a beat. More than anything, I wanted to make him happy.

  “You most definitely did,” Ruby said.

  My cheeks heated. I lowered my eyes.

  “Why does this embarrass you?” Ruby asked. “You are already connected. There is no reason you should not be together.”

  Easy for her to say. Her father wasn’t in the Army, or in charge of a fleet of spaceships Hell-bent on making Earth their own. It just wasn’t that simple, no matter how hard I wanted it to be true. God, I wanted the fairytale—for it all to iron out easily like in the books. But it wasn’t going to happen, and the sooner I believed that, the better.

  Time to deflect. “What makes being red so special that they’re treating you like a china doll?”

  She shifted her weight. The mattress moved beneath me, just like it would if we were really back in my room. Star Trek’s holodeck didn’t seem so out of this world anymore.

  “Reds are larger and bear more heavily than the other colors.”

  “Bear more heavily?”

  “Reds bear three to five young at a time while the other colors normally bare only one.”

  “Oh.” I had the feeling she was young—maybe younger than me. It could be that my brain thought I was talking to Maggie, but her whole vibe screamed kid. But that didn’t stop her people from looking at her like a baby machine. No wonder she wandered away. I would have, too.

  “My mother is red. I have dozens of brothers and sisters in many wonderful colors. So far, I am the only lucky one.” Her lips tightened. “Our species is dying out in this sector of the ocean. Fewer and fewer are born every season. It is my responsibility as one of the few remaining reds to even our odds of survival.”

  Whoa. My dad only wanted me to go to West Point, not breed my own little army. That was way too much pressure to place on one girl.

  She closed her eyes, and her lips trembled. She was her family’s crown jewel. The only one born to privilege. It sounded so much like a princess story—Jasmine all locked up in her palace, dreaming to get away from her suffocating life and falling in love with a beggar boy in the market. I highly doubted her people would be all too happy about their precious prize hooking up with one of their blobby neighbors from above.

  Ruby folded her arms, hugging herself. “Eight of my siblings were like Silver. Plain, round, and uncolored. Two of these abominations came from my own birth brood.”

  “Wait, what? Are you saying Silver and you are the same species?”

  She nodded. “Nearly half of our births hold the defect. They’re sent away, up through the rift with the Uptiders, before they can spread their repulsiveness further.”

  “So, half your babies are pretty and colorful, and half are plain—and you get rid of the plain ones?”

  A jagged pain sliced from the base of my throat to my stomach. I had taken a tour of a goldfish farm when I was a kid. When the babies were large enough to see their colors, they were divided between the pretty ones and the ugly ones. The pretty ones were moved to large tanks so they could get bigger. They never said what happened to the ugly ones.

  That wasn’t natural selection or survival of the fittest. It was just … wrong.

  “That would explain why you and Silver could speak telepathically. You’re the same species.” I glanced at the guys. “They can’t do that. I mean, just because they’re not pretty? It’s cruel. It’s horrible.”

  “I never thought so, but the more time I spend with Silver, the more I wonder.” She shifted closer to me. “He makes me—feel things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She hunched her shoulders. “A few moments ago, when you and David looked at each other, it was stimulating to you. Pleasant.”

  Pleasant really didn’t cover it, but, yeah.

  She peered in the guys’ direction, and back to me. “The one time I gave off the life power, he … did something to me.” She folded her hands and stared at them. “We were conversing, and I enjoyed the sensation of letting my tendrils slide over his form.” A smile lifted her lips. “He quaked when I touched him. I think he liked it, too.” She paused, sucking in her lips and biting. I wondered what she was doing in her real body. “That’s when he did it.”

  The tiniest part of me didn’t want to know. Her confession felt like a total invasion of privacy. But hey, she was doing the talking. I was just listening. No harm in that, right? “What happened?”

  “My center, where my coils meet … opened … like I had a void within me.” Her apparition faded before darkening again. “I was frightened at first, but something about Silver’s presence made it all seem so right.” She stared past me, as if a million miles away. “He twisted himself into something like a cylinder and … slid into me.”

  Okay, yeah, this was waaay too personal. It almost sounded like they were having … Eww. I turned away from her.

  “Is this upsetting you?” she asked. “I don’t want to offend, but I thought you would understand.”

  Wow. She guilt-tripped better than Dad. But who else would she talk to?

  I smiled. “I’m okay. So when did the energy-thing happen?”

  “When he was inside me he relaxed and his form tried to spring back to his normal shape. It hurt at first, very much so.”

  I bet it did.

  “But then I felt—I’m not sure how to explain it, but there was all this pressure and it kept building, and all of the sudden the life energy flared around us like an explosion of yellow light.” Her hands swayed at her sides. “It was horrible, terrible, and wonderful all at the same time. It burned, but in a good way. Does that make sense?”

  I nodded. “It makes perfect sense.”

  “But it was too muc
h. The power kept exploding, over and over. I couldn’t stop it.” She hunched her shoulders. “The truth is I didn’t want to stop. It felt so good, like nothing I’d ever experienced before. But Silver ripped away from me, caught in the energy surging from my core. I reached for him, but everything went black.”

  My eyes widened. “Seriously?”

  “We woke up floating next to each other. I don’t know how long we were dormant.”

  Wow. It seemed like they were attracted, and acted on instinct, like any guy and girl would. Maybe this was natural, maybe this was just how they did things … but if they got rid of all the round ones, how would they … Holy. Crap.

  I inched closer. “Can I ask how you would normally let out the power? I mean, you sounded like everything that happened between the two of you was strange.”

  “It was. The release of the life energy is part of the reproductive process. The power never should release at another time.”

  My stomach twisted. “And what, exactly is the reproductive process?”

  “It takes a great deal of energy. When my time comes, I will need to alter half of my organs to a new form so I can impregnate myself.”

  “Impregnate yourself?”

  She nodded.

  Oh, God—like frogs changing sex in a single sex environment. Her kind threw out their males, and over time, they adapted so they could still reproduce. Like Amazons of the deep. Freaking creepy.

  Jess, David’s voice exploded in my mind. You won’t believe what Silver and I just figured out.

  I straightened. Maybe I would. She’s a girl, and he’s a boy, and they’re from the same species.

  Confusion and excitement trickled through our bond. Does she know?

  I don’t think so. Ruby shifted her weight, twirling her fingers in and out of one another. It doesn’t seem like she’s reading my thoughts.

  The air in front of us shimmered with a million droplets of water, like rain frozen mid-fall. They glinted before smashing together, forming Silver. He fumbled for Ruby’s hands. “We need to talk.”