Breaking Through

by King, D. Nichole

  “That’s the plan.”

  “What about food? ’Cause there’s no way I’m wasting another beef jerky stick on you,” he says, removing mine from between his teeth and sticking it under my nose. The impish grin is back in his voice, making me smile too.

  I shove it away. “I’m resourceful. I’ll figure something out.”

  “Like what? Summoning a wave to bring you some fresh-from-the-sea caviar?”

  “I’ve never had caviar. Might be worth a shot. It’s gotta be better than that garbage,” I say, nodding toward the processed meat stick.

  Kray chuckles. He brushes the back of his hand down my cheek. “I’m not afraid of you, Nautia. If anything, I’m honored to work beside you. We started this mission together, and I’d like to complete it together.”

  “Kray, I can’t.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?”

  When I don’t answer, he walks to the door. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  I’m breathing mostly carbon dioxide now, and light-headedness is an understatement for what the lack of oxygen is doing to me. I can’t see straight, think straight, feel straight. The poison infiltrating my lungs is like morphine to my brain, except the pain pressing against my ribs makes me want to scream.

  I’ve resigned myself to impending death at this point. They say you live your life again through flashbacks just before you die, but I don’t see anything. I have no real memories, save for the ones of this tube, and I’d love to not relive this last hour. If it has even been an hour.

  Water seeps into my ears. The click of the surface as it hits my eardrums sounds more like thunder, igniting the headache at my temples. Every one of my body parts is screaming out in pain, and I’m ready for it all to end. To fall into a blissful sleep as I sink to the ocean floor.

  I close my eyes, waiting for the carbon dioxide or the rising water to finish the job. I fill my lungs to the max, to the point where they burn, then let all of the air out. I’m relaxed. I inhale again, emptying my mind. Colorful blobs fade in and out of the blackness behind my eyelids. Wavy lines begin to emerge. They break through the blobs and move closer to me, and I recognize them as the surface of the ocean on a breezy day.

  I smile, taking in the serene scene. I even hear seagulls inside my head, feel the light breeze whip through my hair. Even though my nerves are numb to the ice-cold of the water covering my body, I still sense the coolness of the air tickle my skin as if I were topside. I don’t know if what I’m seeing is a real memory or just my imagination, but whatever it is, I want to be there. I want to melt into this moment in my mind and never leave.

  I inhale again, hoping to breathe in the fresh scent of open air and sea. Instead, saltwater leaks into my mouth and nostrils, yanking me back inside the tube. Now, I hear nothing. Feel nothing. Smell nothing.

  Hope is a shitty thing to lose. Everything becomes bleak with dull colors framing your life. And when what little color remains vanishes, it leaves your soul void of that precious bit of something that gave it meaning. That’s where I am right now.

  Hopeless.

  And then, fear kicks in—

  Because all of a sudden, the tube encapsulating me bolts upward.

  The sound of Nautia screaming tears me from my sleep. On instinct, I grab the Glock I keep within reach under the mattress and point it at the door. Nautia screams again, and I take off.

  I pound on the door. “Nautia?”

  The screaming fades, replaced by loud gasps for air. I open my mouth to yell again, when water spills out from under the door. It breaks in the middle and circles around my feet, leaving me dry as streams trickle down the corridor in opposite directions. I watch, mesmerized, for only a second. The unbridled power emanating from the other side of the door pulls me back.

  Water drains out faster; she’s flooding her room! I twist the doorknob. It doesn’t budge, so I shake the door. “Goddammit, Nautia! Let me in!”

  My pocketknife is on my nightstand. It would take seconds to run to retrieve it, but that’s a few seconds too many. Not if Nautia can’t rein in her emotions.

  I step back, away from her door. Beneath me, the water parts, giving me a dry path. But I don’t fucking care if I’m dry or wet. I have to get to Nautia.

  I slam my foot onto the door. The wood sinks inward and I kick it again. The door slaps open, shards from the frame erupting and falling to floor.

  Nautia’s on her bed. She’s sitting, her knees curled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. Her face is buried in her arms.

  I slosh through the water to her bed. I grab her, collect her up. She shakes against me, crying out. Then she inhales hard like her lungs haven’t tasted oxygen in ages.

  “I can’t breathe,” she murmurs, and I squeeze her against me.

  “You can now,” I say, smoothing her hair. Her skin has a sweaty sheen to it, even though she’s shivering in my embrace.

  She tightens herself against me, letting me hold her. I kiss the top of her head and press her close. One of her arms slinks around my neck, gripping like she’ll never let go. I close my eyes as her touch seeps into me. It’s innocent because she needs me right now, but as her warmth spreads through my veins, my need for her becomes less innocent.

  I won’t act on it though. It would be stupid to. Still, I gently move her hair to one side so I can kiss her neck. Her body stiffens a little before she relaxes into me again, making me want her even more. I need to change the trajectory of my thoughts, or these few inches of water on her floor may become much more.

  “What happened this time?” I ask, and she understands I’m talking about her nightmare.

  “God, my lungs still hurt. I couldn’t breathe. There was no air, and…” She trails off, nestling her face against my collarbone. She frees her other hand from around her knees and wraps it around me too. “Even in my dream, I—Nate—couldn’t remember anything. Do you think whoever did this to him wiped his memory?”

  “It’s possible. The North Koreans have been working on chemical warfare for decades now. They have an arsenal of weapons and technology we have very little information on.” It’s out of my mouth before I register what I admitted to.

  Shit.

  Nautia catches it. Her body straightens, and I can no longer feel the rise and fall of her chest. Slowly, she pushes away from me, her gaze rising to meet mine.

  “The North Koreans? Nate was in North Korea?” She doesn’t seem to be asking me these questions. More like she’s solving a puzzle by speaking out loud, so I don’t answer. She’s smart. She’ll have it figured out in no time.

  “How would Nate have come in contact with North Korean technology if he wasn’t stationed there?” Her eyes search mine. “You told me you knew nothing about my brother’s military excursions. Did you lie?”

  “I didn’t lie to you, Nautia. When you asked me about Nate, I honestly knew nothing. Higher-ups gave me a file with information regarding TorpMissionOne, but the file was paper thin and Nate’s name wasn’t mentioned. I only found out he existed when Cara gave me your student file.” I look her square in the eye as I talk. Her body is tense, her walls up, and I have to make her understand. “After you told me about your brother, I put in a call to one of my superiors. He has a higher security clearance than I do, and even he couldn’t get into Nate’s file.”

  Her ocean blues narrow, and her lower lip quivers. I reach out to touch her face, but she slips off my lap, shaking her head as she does. She backs up against the wall, her gaze not wavering from mine.

  The move guts me, because I’m losing her trust.

  “Is that all?” she asks when I don’t continue. She crosses her arms, holding the hurt in. Her expression works hard to mask the pain I caused.

  “No,” I say, and suddenly pressure expands in my chest at her stance. “The Admiral gave me a set of coordinates where Nate was stationed. It�
��s the same place we’re heading.”

  “So Nate was part of the first mission, and you didn’t tell me!”

  “There was nothing to tell,” I insist. “Coordinates are all I got. Maybe they mean he was a part of TM1, and maybe they mean he was on a different mission. And hell, Nautia, maybe whoever entered those coordinates in the system got them wrong.”

  “You’re justifying lying to me? How long have you known?”

  “I didn’t lie. I just found out a week ago, and I’ve been working my ass off to find more information to link him or not link him to the mission. Until I find that, all we have are assumptions.”

  “Assumptions are better than what I’ve had, Riley,” she says, her voice rising. “I had nothing.” She wipes a tear sliding down her cheek. “You knew for a whole week.”

  I stand up. Walk toward her to gather her in my arms again, but she puts her hand out, stopping me.

  “Don’t,” she says.

  “Nautia, I didn’t want to tell you until I had something solid. Something that will actually help you. I might be close to cracking into a higher security level than my clearance allows, and when I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Now I’ll be the first to know? But before it wasn’t important, right?”

  I won’t win this. In her eyes, I betrayed her. I screwed up, and there’s nothing I can say to fix it. So I go with the only thing I can think of. “I’m sorry. I should have told you as soon as I found out.”

  She nods. “Yeah. You should have.”

  I reach for her again, but she turns away from me. “Nautia,” I murmur.

  “Just leave.”

  Moisture gathers in her eyes again, and it kills me that I have to do what she asks. A dark cloud has formed above her head, letting me know that my error is about to tear up more than just her insides. It also reminds me that I can do shit about it, because this time I caused it.

  As soon as the liar leaves, promising to fix my door in the morning and, for now, jimmies up a sheet for privacy, I dart to the desk. Loaded with new information about Nate, I turn on the laptop the Navy issued me. I’m not a technical mastermind, and there’s a firewall that extends to pretty much every site except for military ones, so I haven’t bothered with it until now. But all of that is about to change. Now, my original mission to find out what happened to my brother fuels me.

  I open the top drawer of the desk, the one I threw Haskal’s crumpled-up note into. Because I didn’t want to owe him after he offered his help, I haven’t tried out the log-in and password he gave me. Trusting Haskal is a worse idea than trusting Riley, and tonight I got to see how well the latter worked out for me. I don’t expect much from Haskal, so if he turns out to be a liar too, at least I won’t be too disappointed. I’ll just have to owe him.

  “I’ll take my chances,” I say out loud as I smooth out the slip of paper so I can read what Haskal wrote.

  I type in the website and pause when the page pops up. When Riley gave each of us our laptops, he’d told us what to use, and in a last-second decision, I enter my own military ID and social security number as my password. Riley had also said, as new recruits, we wouldn’t find much, since this operation is under the table and we’d have the lowest possible security clearance.

  He wasn’t joking. I type my name into the search field, and my profile appears. If you could call it a profile. There’s not even a picture. Just my name and date of recruitment. The rest of the page is empty.

  Knowing I won’t find anything, I search for Nate’s name next. If he was involved in TorpMissionOne, his profile will look like mine. I hit enter.

  “Zero results found,” I read, then blow out a puff as my eyes roam over to the information Haskal provided. I don’t know why I’m hesitating; this is what I came here for. And if Haskal’s log-in and password do the trick, I’ll get what I need: closure.

  I log out and enter the military ID number from the note. Then in goes the twelve character password, and—

  I’m in!

  I don’t bother with checking my own profile. Instead, I type in Nate’s name. I chew on a nail as the engine searches. My gaze follows the three little dots back and forth, back and forth, until—

  “Holy shit,” I hiss out.

  I swallow the lump that’s materializing in my throat. A red ribbon spans the top of the screen, the word deceased stamped across it. Being told from a third party and finally seeing it confirmed are two totally different things. Emotion rises in my chest, and I suck in a breath to force it back down. I have work to do.

  There’s no photo of him either, but the page is chock-full of information. I skim through the first part: recruited in April, two years ago, by Admiral J. R. Frank; specialized training began April 25, and lasted a full three months; stationed on board USS Portland in the Sea of Japan; TorpMissionOne.

  Bingo.

  Nate was a part of TM1. He’s also listed as an aquator and chemical specialist, exactly the same roles Riley recruited me for. My mind runs at top speed as it connects the dots.

  There’s something there, I know it. Something I’m not remembering.

  My conversation with Kray emerges:

  “I’m unstable. Why would Barton recruit me?” I’d asked.

  “Because he was ordered to.”

  Ordered by this J.R. Frank guy?

  I glance up at the wall separating me from Riley. He owes me an explanation, but as much I’d love to storm over to his room, show him what I found, and demand answers, I won’t. I’d fallen into his arms too easily earlier. Let him comfort me because I needed it so badly. Against him, pressed to his bare chest, I’d almost caved on my refusal to continue our relationship. Even now, my skin remembers the warmth of his. How my fingers caressed him, and my body responded to the hardness in his lap.

  Calm down. Breathe. Control your heart rate.

  I squeeze my thighs together to quell the ache. The memory of Riley’s lips on my skin has me imagining things I’ll never let happen. Especially now.

  I exhale, ignoring the fact that all I’d have to do is call his name and he’d be at my side. Nuzzling my neck as I slide my hands over rock hard pecs.

  “Focus, Nautia,” I tell myself. “No more thoughts of Riley.”

  I continue to read the next few paragraphs, which tell me nothing. Just notes about training and how Nate’s aquator powers are exemplary. Whoever wrote this commented that he could actually communicate with water, like a horse whisperer would communicate with his charge. The sea and sky obeyed his every command.

  My brother also seemed to exhibit leadership skills during training. That doesn’t surprise me. Cara told me Nate’s classmates respected and trusted him. Being a leader came natural to him.

  The next section I read more carefully, mumbling bits and pieces out loud as I study the information.

  “Training Nate Olson for an inside job…With his aptitude in chemistry and his abilities with water, Nate is the perfect choice to send into the Wonsan facility…Armed with the correct formulas for hydroplexasma and macrometallium…Will remain undercover for six months…”

  Halfway through, I want to throw up.

  It’s true. Nate was the inside man. The one relaying information back to the Navy. He’s the one who gave North Korea the formulas, though according to this, he gave them the correct ones.

  “But they’re not correct,” I murmur and lean back against the chair. “So who got them wrong?”

  It doesn’t make sense, unless the US military had incorrect formulas, believing them to be correct. However, according to Haskal, they’ve been using macrometallium for years. They’d know if their formula was off. Did the North Koreans not trust Nate? Did they tinker with the formula and screw it up? Unlikely.

  I bite my lip. The only other explanation is that someone screwed with the formula between them giving it to Na
te and Nate handing it over. Did Nate…?

  I tip my body forward again and scroll to the next section. Maybe the answers are farther down on the page.

  Instead, I find the answer I came for. In a summary written by an Admiral M. Mariz.

  16NOV2014: After an accidental explosion inside the Wonsan Weapons Laboratory (cause unknown), it is believed Nate Olson’s supernatural powers emerged, and his identity compromised. The events leading up to his capture remain unknown; however, CIA officials have confirmed his death. The body was never recovered from the Sea of Japan, and no memorial service was held.

  Closed investigation: CIA intelligence

  I squeeze my eyes shut and press my fingers against my lips as shock rocks through my body. Lightning bolts crash behind my eyelids, and suddenly I see myself running down a corridor. My feet slosh through inches of water. On both sides of me are rows of computers, glass tanks, and partial metal torpedo shells. Some lay on the floor, their glass holding tanks shattered. Others hang by suspension cables over their stations. The ones covered in hydroplexasma won’t be visible until the water stops spraying and they dry.

  Shouts echo from behind me. Boots hitting ankle-deep water gain on me. I shoot a hand out and the water beneath me separates, giving me dry ground to run across. The water won’t allot the same courtesy to the guards.

  I throw my other hand behind me, instructing the water to build. There’s not enough of it to flood the guards and, running, I don’t have the concentration I need to extract more from the air. I need to get out of the facility. Then I’ll be able to escape. If I can just make it to the ocean.

  Voices stream in from the south room. Guards flood the corridor, coming at me from both directions. Military training kicks in, and I stop where I am. I can’t outrun these guys, and they’re armed. I’m not.

  All I have are my powers and less water than I’d like.

  Shit.

  The guards yell at me, weapons raised and ready, but I don’t speak North Korean. I’ve gotten by because they gave me a translator, who was gone by the time I came to. Not that he’d stick around right now if he were here.