by Jessica Gunn
“That’s not necessarily true,” he argued.
I snorted, knowing better. “Whatever you say.”
Mara laughed. “You sure had Josh going, though. For a second I thought he’d forgotten we were on a job.”
“Careful, Mara,” Truman warned.
He speaks!
Truman was this lumbering sort of dude. Huge. All muscles and facial hair and bulky as hell. Not the kind of guy I’d ever want to be on the other end of a fight with. Especially if he wore a helmet and decided to go in battering-ram style.
Mara nudged me with her shoulder. “You weren’t buying into it at all?”
“Into what?” I asked her.
“Josh.”
“Mara,” Weyland said. He probably thought I was still with Trevor. Hah.
“I’m, uh. Look. He used me for a ruse,” I said. “So no.”
A wicked smile crossed Mara’s features. “You’re currently not, but did you?
I looked out the window to hide the satisfied smile growing on my lips. Oh hell yes I bought into it. I could still feel heat where his fingers had held my hips.
Sitting across from Lieutenant Adam Weyland in his new command’s version of an interrogation room felt an awful lot like the first day we’d met on board SeaSatellite5. Only this time, my snark meter skyrocketed through the roof, elevated by the frustration of being under military watch. At least I wasn’t cuffed this time. Maybe Weyland warned them cuffs wouldn’t do them any good.
I sat with my arms crossed and eyebrows raised, waiting for Weyland to tell me something I didn’t know.
“You interrupted a job,” he said.
I shrugged. “I do that a lot when you’re involved, wouldn’t you say?”
He tilted his head to the side as if to tell me to watch myself. That just because he and I were familiar with each other didn’t mean I could get away with everything.
I didn’t care. “Look, I don’t want to get caught up in this. I have enough going on as it is. Seriously, I was out for a drink and that’s it.”
“And now you know Lieutenant Weyland is in undercover work,” came a voice from beyond the glass. I didn’t recognize it, so it must have been Weyland’s commander.
Undercover work? Bullshit. General Holt would have chickens if he knew other people were chasing Lemurians around, much less a once-crewmember of SeaSat5.
Unless they really didn’t know that guy was Lemurian.
Oddly coincidental.
My eyes narrowed. I wish I’d asked what Weyland knew.
Opting for a different approach, I said, “Well that makes two of us SeaSat5 vets doing classified work nowadays, doesn’t it? I won’t blow your cover again, I promise. But I have to go. I’m on leave for two days, then I have to be back for an important briefing. Believe me, I’d much rather be here than at that thing, but alas….”
A sharp chill ran through me at the thought of being in the same room as Trevor after the Altern Device had linked us. And after last night. Had the distance between here and Ohio dulled the effects at all? I couldn’t hear him now. Hadn’t since last night. But once we were back together again, what was the possibility the telepathy would be gone for good?
“Lieutenant, would you join us, please?” came a response, once more, from behind the glass.
Weyland stood and left without so much as an eye roll, indicating I may have taken it a bit too far.
What the hell else was I supposed to do? This situation, while echoing how we met, wasn’t the same. I didn’t teleport onto classified Navy property. I went to a bar for a drink and a good time, and walked out being played by a soldier and seeing Weyland again. No mystery involved there.
I huffed and fell back against my seat. I pushed the thoughts away, but my mind circled back, drifting to memories of Captain Marks in hopes he would suddenly appear and save me from this mess like he had the first time. If he hadn’t been the kind captain he was and allowed Dr. Gordon to talk me into working with her, I’d probably be in jail for espionage or treason thanks to my accidental trespassing.
No one would just swoop in and save me this time, and I knew that. But maybe I could talk my way out of it. Or, worst-case scenario, I’d teleport out. Unless that’d make things messy for General Holt somehow.
A few minutes later, the door opened and Weyland, followed by another officer, entered. I stood when my eyes picked out the General insignia on his pressed and perfect uniform. The insignia also answered one of my questions. This wasn’t a civilian operation, but something told me it wasn’t entirely military-sanctioned, either.
“General,” I acknowledged.
“Ms. Danning.” He nodded at me and then sat in the chair Weyland had previously vacated. Weyland stood behind him. I retook my seat.
“You’re still here right now because Lieutenant Weyland has convinced me an offer extended to you might be better than asking you to outright forget what you saw,” the General said. His nametag read: Walter S. Allen. His head was completely bald and winkles encroached on his eyes.
It took most of my self-control to not look at Weyland when I asked, “What kind of offer?” The last time I took an offer involving Weyland, I ended up on a hijacked research station with powers.
General Allen placed his hands on the table, one holding the other. He was a tall man and built well. A career military sort of guy. “Weyland disclosed some information to me that leads him to believe that you would be a welcome addition to our cause.”
My eyes darted to Weyland, searing a glare into him so deep I hoped it physically burned him. “Oh, really.” Just what kind of details had he shared with everyone?
Weyland cleared his throat. “Your abilities weren’t classified, and given your predicament and the similarities to our first incident together, I attempted damage control without consulting you. For that, I apologize, but you’ll want to hear the General out.”
Asshat. “Well thanks.” I looked back to General Allen. “What exactly is this,” I gestured around the room, “all about?”
General Allen didn’t look pleased by the spat between Weyland. This guy may be in control of my current situation, but he wasn’t my commander. Heck, I didn’t have one. Not really.
“This is TruGates. We’re a paramilitary group that rehabilitates soldiers and officers who come back from appointments too dangerous or otherwise classified to safely reintegrate with most of society,” General Allen explained. “We use those soldiers for other purposes.”
“SeaSat5 wasn’t dangerous—not until the end, anyway. Nor was it necessarily classified beyond reproach,” I pointed out.
“It was classified enough,” Weyland said. “Especially after it up and disappeared. You’ll have to fill me in on that later, Chelsea.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t you think if you were allowed to know, you’d know by now?” He hadn’t been on board when SeaSat5 was taken. He’d left for other work, for this place, a week before.
“I’ve been out of the loop, but not for the reasons you think.”
I shrugged. “Talk to Admiral Dennett then. That secret isn’t mine to share.”
“What happened is a cover story?” General Allen asked.
My gaze moved to him. The cover story rolled off my tongue easy these days, but something about this General Allen made me want to choose my next words carefully. Like if I said the wrong thing, he’d spontaneously combust and take me with him. “SeaSat5 is missing at sea with all hands on deck. I and one other crewmate were in Massachusetts when we got the call. Neither of us are aware of the exact details.”
“So the station is just… gone?” General Allen asked, like he’d expected more from me.
Annoyance tickled the back of my neck. I forced it down so I could properly apply my poker face. “Yes.”
He stared me down for a few moments. Weyland coughed purposely. I didn’t know what the General’s problem was since that’s the only story that ever left the walls of the Admiral’s office.
&nb
sp; General Allen leaned back into his chair and said, “Weyland has informed me of your abilities, and I feel they may help with our mission to stop the violent, insidious mercenaries in our midst. They creep around every corner, waiting to carry out any number of agendas.”
“Like assassination to petty theft and arson?”
Weyland shot me a be careful look. Like I cared.
So they went after mercenaries, but their target had been Lemurian? And Weyland hadn’t made the connection between what happened on SeaSat5 and these guys? I knew he was an asshat, but I didn’t think he was thick. There had to be something else going on.
“Why do you need my abilities to go after plain old mercenaries? I mean, sure, they probably have super access to arms and supplies, but aren’t they just… human, for lack of a better word?” I asked, despite knowing they were really Lemurians. That was the major draw here. At TAO, we knew the Lemurians were running around our home-time, sure. Trevor and Valerie had grown up here after all. We also knew they were after Link Pieces to get to Atlantis. But why would they bother smuggling and assassinating anyone when it wasn’t their main mission? Unless it’s a separate goal. I needed to find out what that goal was and why, suddenly, Lemuria was reaching for it.
“They’re strong like you,” Weyland said. “But not in the same way. And many of them have been foreign military-hired to push around drugs as well as arms.”
So Weyland hadn’t yet pieced together that the guys he went after were Lemurians. I thought back to the hijacking, to what I knew about what happened outside of my own experience. Most of the crew had been locked away on various decks. It was possible, a very small chance, that Weyland hadn’t really dealt with Thompson’s crew. And if that were the case… It was plausible he hadn’t put it together now. He also seemed keen on keeping my Atlantean heritage a secret.
“So what?” I asked. What good did drugs do for the Lemurians? Most would probably screw with their abilities, and arms weren’t really an issue if you could breathe fire. So what was the point?
Money. Money to hire assassins to go after Atlanteans. Money to man missions like Thompson’s quest to take SeaSat5 and every artifact on board. Money to buy artifacts and paintings and other artwork that were Link Pieces at auctions.
“To put it bluntly, you’d even the score,” Weyland said. “Foreign powers have their super-powered soldiers, and we’ll have ours.”
I sighed. A choice hadn’t been handed to me yet, though I sensed it on the horizon. I’m so tired of these decisions. And yet, the offer was interesting. Fighting the Lemurians alongside TAO had its upsides. For one, I had Sophia to count on to back me up without question. We’d also made long strides in the Link Pieces department.
But fighting Lemuria alongside whatever the hell this organization was… maybe I could learn insider information about the Lemurians. Where their hideouts were, their activities in our home-time. Maybe even what they knew about SeaSat5.
Besides, a definite upside to working with Weyland would be the distance I’d get from Trevor. Until this telepathic bond disappeared or we could control it, I wasn’t exactly keen on hearing all of his thoughts. Or having him hear all of mine. We could both work to fight the Lemurians without wanting to kill each other in the process. It wasn’t walking away from TAO and the Waterstar map and the mission, it was working it from a different angle.
Besides, just the other day I’d spent hours contemplating what to do with my life. Join the band full-time for good… stay at TAO… somehow manage to do both. Even if this group had stricter rules regarding leave time, the Internet allowed for video practices. I didn’t need the band in person to play my guitar. It could work short-term.
I looked up from the table and toward General Allen. His hard face was stoic, unreadable, as he waited for my answer. “How long would I be gone?” I couldn’t very well leave TAO forever either way, not now and not to get inside info on the Lemurians. Assuming General Holt would let me go, period. But under the circumstances…
General Allen considered it. “Why don’t we take you on loan from the Army for a three-month trial period, and then reevaluate your standing at the end of those three months.”
Maybe they’re not as para-military as they thought. I wondered if this guy even knew where they stood. I looked to Weyland for any hint of how to answer. His eyes were tight, as if he hoped I’d say yes, but didn’t want to pressure me. Maybe I needed that pressure.
Three months. That’s not long, and if I explained it to General Holt as the excursion being a way to figure out what the Lemurians were up to these days, maybe he’d let me go. To know where their bases were and what their plan might be—that’d be worth it. It’d give TAO an edge over their movements. Maybe we’d learn how close they were to finding a way to Atlantis.
Or even where SeaSat5 was.
“It sounds fair, but I’ll need to get it approved. I’m not something to loan out. The Army is my job,” I said.
General Allen nodded. “Of course. I’ll leave you to Weyland, then.” He turned to Weyland. “Figure out the logistics and let me know.”
Weyland saluted.
I laughed out loud at Weyland as he let me walk, without guard, down the hallway. “You never would have let me do this last time.”
He grinned. “Back then, you were on classified military property without an invitation. And as I recall, Trevor did undo your cuffs.”
I shrugged. “Same difference.”
Footsteps padded along the hallway behind us. We paused to let Josh catch up. My eyes raked the length of his body before I could stop them, and I swept loose hair behind my ear. His dark shirt hugged his arms and torso, and all I could think about was having his arms wrapped around me again, his hands on my hips, his mouth by my ear.
“Hey, Weyland,” Josh said. He smiled at me. “Chelsea.”
I smiled back, chills sparking across my skin. The way he said my name, smooth like caramel rolling over an apple in autumn, sent butterflies scurrying. At least we were on a first name basis now, instead of me calling him Mystery Man.
“You still got that date tonight?” Josh asked Weyland.
He nodded. “Yeah, I was going to get Chelsea set up at the apartment then leave.”
Josh gestured to the door. “I got it. Go get ready. Don’t let this one go this time, yeah?”
Weyland rolled his eyes then turned to me. “Are you okay with this?”
My eyes slid from Weyland to Josh. He’d used me. Even if Weyland trusted him, even if my cheeks had heated at the very sight of him, I wasn’t about to let him get off easy. “Are you sure you’re okay with it?” I asked Josh.
His smile faltered, the corners of his mouth slipping downward. “Look, I know what happened back at Firebolt didn’t exactly leave the best impression. We had to blend in and…” He reached behind his head and rubbed his neck, searching for words while I looked on at him. “I’m sorry I used you as a cover. At the time, it was—”
“Routine?” I finished for him, lest he never get to the point.
Josh cringed. I wanted it to stop. A smile fit him so much better, with his white teeth and dimples that pulled on something in my chest. My heart. Oh God. I was not falling for this guy. No. Attracted to him? Hell yes. But. That. Was. It.
A burning below my belly begged to differ.
“Yeah,” Josh said. “Okay, that sounds bad. Terrible, actually. I’m sorry, okay? I want a chance to make it up to you. Can I make you dinner or something?”
I raised an eyebrow and slid out my phone. “At one in the morning?” The mission wrap-up and following interrogation had taken that long.
He raised both hands in a “Sure, why not?” gesture. “If you’re hungry.”
A grumble in my stomach betrayed me. “Starving, actually.”
Josh grinned from ear to ear. “Great. I know the perfect thing.”
Weyland walked down the hallway, leaving us behind. “You kids have fun. I’ll see you all in the morning.”
“That. Was. Fantastic.”
I’d devoured the chicken parmesan Josh had made for us. Who makes that for dinner at one in the morning? Apparently this guy. Weyland was one lucky roommate. After spending two years on SeaSat5, I doubted he knew how to cook much of anything.
Josh shrugged like it’d been the easiest thing in the world to whip up. “I’ve got some Italian on my mother’s side. She taught me everything she knew.”
“She taught you well.” I could barely cook a sandwich. Grilling I could handle. Actual cooking on a stove or baking in an oven? Nope, not even close. Maybe it’s time I looked into cooking lessons. There had to be something around TAO’s middle-of-nowhere base.
I reached for my wine glass. Wine glass. This man had cooking skills and a small wine collection. Where the hell did he come from? Fling or not, I could get used to this change of pace. Not that I was after a fling. Or a hookup. Or anything. Right? A traitorous flutter of something, a chill that swept up my body from below, offered a different opinion.
Josh didn’t respond to my compliment, just sort of looked at me with that half smile. I couldn’t look away from his gaze. A chill ran down my spine, tickling my skin from fingers to toes. An intensity so bright I couldn’t look away. Didn’t want to. The warmth in his brown eyes drew me in, reminding me of fall nights and fire pits and a good beer. The university hoodie New England kind of night, with marshmallows and dancing and chocolate. Looking at him somehow reminded me of home, of when things were simple. He stared back at me, raking his eyes over my face as if trying to memorize every detail.
Something shifted in his eyes and he stood up so quickly I felt like I had whiplash just from watching him.
“Let me take care of the dishes, and I can set you up in my room,” he said. “I’ll take the couch.”
Whoa. A gentleman, too? Talk about overcompensating for earlier tonight. I stood up with him and gathered our plates. “That’s not necessary. Your couch is more than fine.” As is that ass of his.