Landlocked (Atlas Link Series Book 2)

by Jessica Gunn

  “Mm,” he mumbled, though last I checked, he didn’t know anything about SeaSatellite5.

  The road ended at a parking lot where everybody else stood waiting for us. They were clad in rock climbing gear. I groaned. Rock climbing was yet another activity Logan participated in that I’d never had the stomach for.

  “Shit,” I mumbled. This wasn’t going to be fun at all.

  Josh chuckled. “Already?”

  “Easy for you to say.” I unbuckled my seatbelt when Josh parked the car and climbed out of the SUV slowly.

  “So great of you to finally join us!” Mara called. Truman whistled a catcall and I rolled my eyes.

  Josh clapped me on the back and handed me a bag of gear from his trunk. “Alarm failed. Besides, it’s Weyland you should be harassing.”

  Weyland’s face flushed, but he reined it in fast.

  Mara rolled her eyes and walked over to me. “Why don’t you come with me? We girls have to rescue each other sometimes.”

  Unease spread through me. Now that I knew Mara wasn’t interested in Josh, it was easier to talk to her. Still, I’d much rather be taught how to use this gear and how to rock climb by Josh than by her. I guess it didn’t matter as long as it wasn’t Weyland. My fear of heights had almost cost him his life two years ago.

  Mara brought me over to her car and took the bag from me. She already wore her gear, so she spent the next twenty minutes telling me everything I needed to know, and getting me outfitted in a harness. “The test itself is straightforward: climb the rock face to the top. However, it isn’t lost on Eric and Weyland, the puppet masters here, that not everyone has gone rock climbing before, or that not everyone is okay with heights.”

  “Oh, Weyland’s acutely aware of my fear of heights,” I said.

  The admission didn’t faze Mara. “Make sure you find solid hand and footholds, and you’ll be set. That’s the main physical key. From what I’ve seen, you have the strength to make it to the top, it’s the endurance and mental components that may trip you up.”

  Hence it being a test. Mara tugged on something and the harness tightened measurably. Like the first time I’d put on scuba gear to swim to the Atlantean outpost all those years ago, I accepted the tightness as a measure of safety and stability.

  “Let’s do this so we can go out for a beer,” I said. I’d need one—or eight—afterward, for sure.

  Eric gave me one last rundown of the goals for the test. With everyone geared up, we approached the rock face. As I listened to Eric, I made the mistake of looking up at the cliff and nearly dropped to the ground in a panic attack right then and there. It was completely vertical, and while there appeared to be a variety of man-made hand and foot holds available, they were spread so far apart I doubted I’d be afforded the chance to use them. I was simply too short to hope for that.

  I gulped.

  “All set then, Chelsea?” Weyland asked me with a wink.

  “Sure,” I said slowly. He knew damn well I wasn’t.

  Eric, Weyland, and Truman started up the rock with ease, and appeared to be making good time. Josh went up next, leaving Mara as my coach. With the rest of the guys out of earshot, I started my ascent. I made it a few feet up before running into my first handhold problem. The rock shifted beneath my grip, but I grabbed onto a nearby man-made hold before I could fall. The early slip-up jarred my chest, sending my breathing into an erratic pattern that failed to keep pace with my pounding heart. I pressed my forehead against the cool rock. Then I made the mistake of looking down.

  My stomach dropped.

  In all reality, we weren’t that high up, but it was enough for me. My breath came quick and shallow. My hands shook wildly. I can’t do this.

  “Take deep breaths. In through your mouth, out through your nose,” Mara said from a few feet beside me. “I’m scared of heights, too. That’s why Eric has me down here with you. You can do this, Chelsea.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Chelsea, you’re on a rope. If you fall, you won’t get hurt. And couldn’t you probably teleport to safety if you fell? Do not worry about this.”

  She wasn’t wrong. I wouldn’t die. Still, the fear of falling made me not want to chance it at all. What if I panicked and couldn’t teleport and fell? Would Josh think less of me if I couldn’t get over my stupid fear? I looked up to find him a few yards ahead of us in height. I was determined not to give him a reason to doubt my abilities or me.

  I forced my lungs to take a deep, steadying breath. Get a flippin’ grip, Danning. You can go on stage and publically shame people, but you can’t pull yourself together for this?

  Jaw clenched, I moved to the next handhold. And the next, and the one after that. At the halfway mark, I stopped. With my fear of heights swallowed, all that held me back was my endurance. I could run, not climb cliffs. My arms and legs felt like they would slide off. “Mara, I need a break.”

  She climbed toward me, breath not even ragged. Like she were a freaking superhero. “What’s wrong?”

  I snorted. “Would it be absurd to complain like a child and say everything hurts?”

  “Yes.”

  Her curt answer cut like a knife. I’d meant the comment as a joke. This was my first time rock climbing, what did they expect?

  I set my jaw hard and glared at the rock above me. The guys had long ago made it over the top. I can do this. I have to. The words struck through me like lightning on a bad summer’s day. Those were the words I’d told myself during the hijacking of SeaSat5. That I had to do whatever was necessary to survive and get the crew out alive.

  Guilt crushed me under the memories of how shitty a crewmate I’d been the day SeaSat5 had disappeared. I’d run, and it had cost the people I loved and cared about their lives.

  My head rolled back and I looked to the sky, begging for help, for a sign that the crew of SeaSatellite5, all ninety-seven of them, were out there somewhere, safe and sound—just stranded.

  I was so lost in thought that I hadn’t realized my grip on the handhold had loosened until I slipped and dropped. An embarrassing screech escaped me before I got a grip, stopping myself by madly grabbing onto the rock slipping by in front of me. Gasps and laughter filled the air.

  Laughter.

  My heart flopped over inside my chest. This was all a joke to them—a joke was all I ever was. To SeaSat5 I was a lab rat. To Trevor, I was a mess. And before any of that, I was an unworthy girlfriend who’d been duped by her best friend.

  “Chelsea, are you okay?” Mara called down.

  “Peachy.” I’d long ago decided I wouldn’t be taken for a fool again. So what changed?

  Determination came to life inside me like oxygen to a fire, renewing strength to my arms and legs. Without so much as saying a single word more to any of them, I pushed myself up the rock faster than before, passing Mara, straight to the top. With one final push of my legs, I threw myself over the edge of the cliff, rolling over onto the top. It took a few moments for me to catch my breath, but once I sat up, the sight took it away again.

  We were at the top of a super high island in the lake. A small forest surrounded us on all sides. Not a plane, military or civilian, was in sight and the morning sky shone bright and blue.

  This view was incredible, and in it I realized what I had done, not in trying to rescue SeaSat5, but in failing to do so. I hadn’t been running for help. Part of me had wanted to run away because it was so ridiculous. Atlanteans and Lemurians. Time-travel. Magical artifacts called Link Pieces. I was the girl from Boston whose only quirky trait was an archaeology degree.

  Then everything changed. Too much. So a part of me had wanted to run. But that other part of me, the part that sometimes surfaced in the face of adversity and anxiety, that part of me was trying to fight back.

  This exercise wasn’t about climbing a rock face; it demonstrated out-climbing your fears. Mastering them. And although I still feared the fantastical surrounding me, and what I did at TAO, I
’d found a temporary refuge in TruGates. It was a refuge in which I could mend and rebuild myself for the final fight.

  t wasn’t that I’d been avoiding seeing Abby… okay, I had. Abby, my older cousin, had been captive to a diagnosis consisting of delusions of grandeur and half a dozen other things since before I went to college. Our parents had never told her about the Atlantean-Lemurian war, never expected her to take an important seat in it like they had with Valerie and me. So when Abby ran into Atlanteans in college, she thought she was going crazy. In fact, I think she even ran into an Atlantean super soldier, not a regular descendant of the city. But I had no evidence to back that up.

  Then my parents had forced me into the war. I’d sketched Hummingbird, got put through school and signed to the Navy. The icing on the cake had been meeting Chelsea in Boston, then again on SeaSat5 three months later. I’d thought myself crazy, that I was seeing the same impossible things Abby had described. When Chelsea had shown up, she’d shone light on everything I’d thought was nothing more than a fairytale. Suddenly all the stories about ancient civilizations at war were true. And then everything that happened, happened.

  I feared that visiting Abby, for the first time since all this started, would break me somehow. SeaSat5’s fate rested on my shoulders, because of how I lied in an attempt to keep them safe. Visiting Abby seemed like finally accepting the war as real. As if until I saw Abby again, I could somehow set the war aside and pretend.

  There was no more time for pretending.

  I took the first flight to Tennessee I could find after Doctor Hanney released me from the Infirmary. I still felt like shit, but the dizziness and chills had stopped, and I’d be home soon enough if my health regressed.

  The taxi let me out on the curb of the Living Well facility. Stupid name. No one here lived well, they lived blissfully unaware of the reality around them, the reality that landed them there in the first place. I knew Abby wouldn’t be an exception.

  I paid the taxi driver and he left. Guess I’d have to call another to go back to the airport. I’d flown a lot today, but I had no one to visit, no reason to be here other than Abby. And maybe Valerie.

  The welcome area was bright and happy. Yellow walls had been coated in summer floral decorations. A sign near the front desk advertised a summer festival being held at the facility next week. Abby must be excited. Summer always was her favorite season when I was a kid. As a teenager, Abby would babysit Valerie and I all the time while our parents were out at night.

  I now knew that those “dinner parties” were really Atlantean-Lemurian war meetings.

  “Can I help you, sir?” asked the woman behind the front desk. She, too, wore bright colors and a warm smile. Meredith was the best at her job. She’d been here since Abby had entered the facility, and seeing her still here warmed my heart. Abby could never be in better care.

  Meredith used to greet Valerie and me with lollipops or other candy, and in the very beginning, she’d watch us while our parents saw Abby. They’d disappear for hours inside the walls of this place, and only now did I realize they were probably questioning Abby on what she’d witnessed while at the same time telling her it wasn’t real. They’d thought her slight psychosis problems wouldn’t allow her to keep their secrets, that her time being taken by the Atlantean super soldiers had destroyed her mind completely.

  We still didn’t know for sure what Abby had seen, or experienced, her freshman year of college, only that Atlanteans had kidnapped her. And that she’d returned broken in mind and spirit.

  “Yes, I’m here to see my cousin, Abby Schuster,” I said.

  “Name?”

  “Trevor Boncore.”

  Meredith, a bigger woman with warm, almond-colored skin, looked up and her smile grew wide. “My word. Trevor, it’s been too long.” She stood and rushed around the counter to hug me. “You’ve been gone for so many years.”

  I nodded. “I know. I’m not proud of it.”

  Meredith pulled back and held onto my shoulders. “Terrible thing, you not visiting. Abby had other guests, though. Kept her spirits up. She talks about you all the time.” She winked. “Think I know more about your childhood than I reckon any other woman.”

  I shook my head, smiling. “Great. Good thing there’s no other woman.” Last thing I needed was Chelsea or anyone else hearing any of the multitude of embarrassing and messy stories from my childhood.

  “Like you expect me to believe that,” Meredith said wryly.

  “It’s true,” I said. “I’m a single man.”

  She shook her head, frowning. “Waste if you ask me.”

  I grinned. “Well, thank you.”

  Meredith wrote me up a visitor’s pass and sent me on my way. “She’s in her room right now, with lunch soon. Do you want me to bring you?”

  “No. I can handle it. Thank you, Meredith.”

  She smiled again. “I’m glad you came back.”

  “Me too.”

  I stopped outside Abby’s door. I’d come all this way and never thought if she even wanted to see me again. After four years, I wasn’t sure I could blame her if she didn’t. Just go. If things got rough, all I’d need to do was ask about Valerie. If things were okay, I’d ask that later before I left.

  I took a deep breath and opened the door to Abby’s room.

  Valerie had been here. Often. It was immediately obvious. Paintings lined the walls, all done in Valerie’s distinct bold style. Scattered between them were others, probably done by Abby. The one place my family would be sure to watch, Valerie risked visiting. Valerie, who’d been in it deeper than I’d ever be. Abby made it worth it. And me? I’d been too terrified, too childish to even stop by. But Valerie had spent hours with Abby. Many hours. As any best friend would. Too bad neither of us could tell Abby the truth without risking what fragile state of mind she had left.

  Abby sat with her back facing the door. She hunched over a canvas, completely lost in thought. I knocked on the doorframe, not wanting to startle her. She turned at the sound and gaped at me with wild eyes.

  Crap, she was pissed. Of course she was pissed.

  But then she smiled and rushed into my arms. She was thinner than I remembered, but just as tall and beautiful. Her hair had lightened in the time I’d been gone, no longer matching mine.

  “Hey, Abby,” I said as I hugged her.

  She buried her head in my shoulder. “You’ve been gone so long.”

  “I know.”

  She pulled away and gestured at the room. “It’s okay. Valerie said you were busy. She’s teaching me to paint.”

  “I see that,” I said. “Valerie’s a good artist.”

  “And I will be, too.”

  I nodded at her. I was so, so glad she wasn’t catatonic anymore. After the string of episodes that’d led to her being committed, she wouldn’t eat or speak. Those visits were the hardest. All over again, the guilt sunk me—for not being smarter, for not being in school with her the semester it all started. If I’d been there, if I’d been three or four years ahead in school instead of two, maybe I could have saved her. If I’d been there, I might not have made Hummingbird at all.

  I smiled at her. “You’ll be an amazing artist.”

  Abby squinted at me. “You’re taller.”

  “And older,” I said. “How often does Valerie come by?” She must dodge Abby’s parents and my own every time she came. So she must have learned their visitation patterns and convinced Abby not to say anything. Dammit Valerie. I understood why she did it. Abby was her best friend. But if our family caught her after the whole SeaSat5 debacle…

  Abby shrugged and plopped down into the chair in front of her canvas. “Every couple days. She makes things better.”

  I snagged a spare chair from the far corner of the room and sat next to Abby while she painted.

  “What do you mean?” I asked her.

  “The days she comes by, things are clear. Good. When she’s gone for too long…” Abby frowned, clouds darkening her e
yes. “When she’s gone for too long, the demons come back. They strike,” she said sharply, jabbing her paintbrush onto the canvas, “and they strike and strike. They make me do it again. Skip my morning classes. Run the woman over. They say bad things. Horrific things, the demons.”

  “But Valerie makes it better?”

  Her smile returned and she painted around the jab mark like it wasn’t even there. “Yep.”

  My heart constricted around her answer. Sounded like Valerie had somehow found a way to help Abby, but the effects weren’t permanent. We weren’t sure exactly what sent Abby into her near-catatonic state. Valerie had long hypothesized she’d been interrogated by Atlanteans after they’d kidnapped her, which was the root cause of Valerie’s initial dislike of Chelsea. No one had proved anything either way.

  “Do you want to paint with me, Trevor?” Abby asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

  I couldn’t paint worth a damn. The only thing my hands were good for were electronics. It didn’t matter to Abby, and that warmed my heart in ways that hadn’t been done in years. I’d always had to be perfect for so long now.

  I smiled at her. “Sure.”

  She handed me a brush and pointed to the canvas. “I want to paint the fireflies, but there’s too many. I can’t do it all. They never come out right. It’s been so long since I’ve seen them, since we were kids.”

  “I was wondering if you remembered that.”

  Her eyes lifted to mine and, in a brief moment of utter clarity, she said, “I could never forget.”

  The moment passed as quickly as it came. I dabbed the end of my brush in yellow paint and added fireflies across her painting. Lunch was brought to her, and Meredith included a sandwich for me. We laughed and reminisced, but it was clearer now than before that part of her mind was gone. Her memories were missing. Valerie’s hypothesis seemed likely, and now that I was old enough to recognize Abby’s condition for what it was, I was tempted to check her out of this place and bring her to TAO. She wasn’t crazy. She was a victim. Of what, I could only guess. But she wasn’t insane, and that was the important part.