Countercurrent: Book Four of the Atlas Link Series

by Jessica Gunn

  “Speak!”

  My gaze met hers and I tried to look past the fire, past the fear that she could very well actually kill me now because I didn’t look like me, and she’d never know the difference. “Chelsea, it’s me.”

  She growled, tightening her grip on the front of my shirt. “I don’t know you, White City scum. I’ve done a really fantastic job of not being in the middle of this crap anymore. I don’t intend to let everything I’ve gotten back fall away because you found out I’m still alive.”

  “Look… deeper…” If she held on any tighter, I’d start choking. Or maybe her hand would slip and I’d wear the trowel as a new body piercing. “Please, Chelsea.”

  Her eyes narrowed to slits, but I saw the gears behind them working. Something I’d said, something in this confrontation, had reached her, caused her to pause. But what? I had a whole speech prepared, even had something up my sleeve to convince her it was really me, but none of that would be worth anything if she didn’t believe in the possibility of me still being alive. I couldn’t force her memories; she might lose them forever if I did.

  “Your eyes,” she said slowly. “Do I know you?”

  Yes! I’d forgotten about that. The glamour changed everything about your appearance, but it couldn’t change your eyes. Something about the whole ‘window to the soul’ deal. “Yes, you do. But I didn’t always look like this.”

  Her brows squeezed together more, like she’d sucked on a lemon, and she dropped the trowel. “You helped me fight Cody.”

  “Tried to.” I looked down at her hand around my shirt. Only then had I realized that she’d actually been holding me a few inches above the ground. “Want to put me down?”

  She set me on the grass and then drew back. “I need a reason not to dispose of you right alongside him.”

  I hesitated—damn me, I hesitated. If I dropped the glamour before her memories were unlocked, it’d damage her mind. And if I did reveal myself, regardless of her memories coming back, Chelsea was just as likely to hug me in relief as she was to drop me with the trowel for what I’d done. I knew that. If I could just get to the ring on her necklace…

  “Do you trust me?” I asked her. Ridiculous. Of course she didn’t.

  “No,” she spat. “And my group is about to arrive. They can’t see that.” She pointed to Cody’s body.

  “Then teleport him out of here right now and when you come back, I’ll explain everything.” Her eyes narrowed again, but she did remove the body. When she reappeared, I pointed to her necklace. “Open the ring.”

  “Excuse me? You can’t open a ring,” she said. “And who are you to tell me what to do about this one?”

  “Chelsea, come on,” I pleaded. “Just do it.”

  “Stop talking to me like you know me.”

  “I do know you, Chelsea. I know you better than anyone on this planet does.” I knew this would be hard. Getting through to Chelsea when she had her mind made up about anything was pretty much impossible to do. But for once, I was telling her the truth. For once I needed her to believe me. “Just trust me for a few small seconds and open the ring. There’re small hinges in the side. It’s a poison ring. I brought it back from medieval Europe one time when you weren’t looking.” It’d been such a mundane mission with TAO. And the ring had been so perfect. I’d known, even back then, that I wanted her in my life forever.

  She fingered the chain, lifted the ring above her shirt and looked down, examining it. “I’ve never noticed that before. The ring he gave me never mattered—it was what it meant.” Her gaze met mine. “How’d you know about it? Were you friends with Trevor?”

  “Open it.”

  Something flickered behind her eyes, like she knew what was about to happen and was scared to do it anyway. Too afraid of having to relive everything that’d happened over the past few months.

  Chelsea opened the ring. A warm breeze caught the powder inside and lifted it past her face and through the distance between us. Then her gaze snapped to mine, a dozen and a half emotions flashing across her face. Her eyes glowed a light red, almost pink, for a fraction of a second, and the spell wore off.

  I closed my eyes, reached deep for my power, and dropped the glamour that had turned me into “Ethan.” For the first time in two months, I was, finally, Trevor.

  She looked at me with a blank stare for the longest of moments. Then she reared back her arm and sprang forward. Pain burst across my cheekbone.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  CHELSEA

  Trevor—Trevor, or at the very least, someone who looked like Trevor—staggered back a few feet, having the wherewithal enough to not bring a hand to his face. A single wrong move and I’d end this here and now, no matter what that magical dust inside of my engagement ring whispered to my brain. And whisper it did; tales about Lemurian blood magic and glamours and plans to kill General Allen. Plans to end this war on our own. Plans to fake Trevor becoming a traitor.

  My head spun with all the possibilities that didn’t make sense when jumbled together.

  “We need to get out of here,” Trevor said. Ethan said. Someone said.

  “My students will be here soon.” I wasn’t leaving. Not with this guy and not if it meant abandoning my students. One counselor being a White City soldier wouldn’t ruin by summer. I wouldn’t let it.

  “Exactly why we need to leave now.” He pointed to the camp in the distance. “I thought one of the kids was a soldier, not Cody. That means anyone here might be one of General Allen’s.”

  “Look—”

  His hand swiped the air. “I get it; you don’t trust me. But please, Chelsea. The dust will wear off and everything will be clear in time, and I’ll explain, but we need to leave now.”

  I shook my head and dared to meet his gaze. Trevor. Even if the rest of what he said was true—that General Allen had found me, had learned I was still alive when he’d order Trevor to kill me, had sent people here to finish the job—this person in front of me could in no way be Trevor.

  “I killed you.”

  The words slid heavy between us. My eyes watered and my mouth ran dry. Memories in my head, those whisperings from the dust in my engagement ring, spoke different things, but I blinked them and the tears away.

  “I killed you, Trevor.”

  A heavy weight lifted from my chest, but my lungs twisted. Breathing hurt. My mind grew lightheaded.

  His expression softened and he stepped toward me. “No, you didn’t.”

  I nodded, and then kept nodding because despite what I knew to be true, there he stood in front of me. Memories whispered confusing things, and even if any of what they said was true, even if what I knew to be true was corrected, he was still there. I reached a hand out to him and touched the tip of my finger to his chest. He wrapped his hand in mine, but I pulled back.

  “Stay away!” I yelled. Crap, I was loud. Where were the students? Almost here?

  His gaze followed mine to the trail as he slung off his day-pack and dug around inside of it. “You want proof? I’ll show you it’s really me, Chelsea. I’m so sorry you have those horrible memories, but it’s me. You didn’t kill me. I’m alive.” He pulled something small out of his bag and held it out to me. The blue glass phoenix Trevor had given me for Christmas. For Secret Santa.

  “How did you get that?”

  “I grabbed it from SeaSat5 before everything went to hell,” he said. “Anyone on the crew who was there that day would know I got you this, so the phoenix alone means nothing. But no one knows you told me the story behind your band name when we met for the second time, aboard SeaSat5. And as far as I know, no one on the crew knows you co-wrote that story with your sister for a class in high school. Or that before our telepathy was finally dispelled, I heard your thoughts about us being the phoenix and the lobster.” He reached out for me, his fingers brushing my arm. “You’re wrong. You’re not the phoenix in that story.”

  My eyes narrowed. Watered more. The tears spilled over as I replayed his words
over and over again in my head. He wasn’t wrong. I’d never told anyone those details. But still the question remained: “How?” The smallness of my voice, the broken pieces splintered there, surprised me.

  “The memories are there, Chelsea. I promise. But we can’t talk about it here if the General has any more of his men stationed at the camp.” He leaned down, resting his forehead on mine and even that small comfort started to heal something inside of me.

  Until I remembered I’d shot him there. I pulled back and touched two fingers to where there should have been a bullet hole, a morbid curiosity overtaking me. “I don’t understand,” I whispered. Was he trying to tell me I’d never shot him? That none of the past few months had happened?

  He cupped my face, his gaze boring into mine. “It’s okay. I promise I’ll explain everything after we’re in a safe place. Odds are your memories will come back by then, anyway. Give the dust some time to wear off.”

  “You infused my engagement ring with magic powder?” I asked, peering up at him.

  An echo of a smirk crossed his lips. “Your idea, believe it or not.”

  My eyes narrowed. “I’d never let you use an ancient poison ring as my engagement ring, Trevor.”

  He pulled back, shrugging. “I’m not even going to touch that one.” Students’ voices trailed down the hill from the woods. They’d be here any minute. “Showtime. After the morning dig, we’ll go.” There was more behind his eyes that he wanted to say, explanations and half a dozen other things, but I couldn’t begin decipher what they were. “Will you still look like… the other you to everyone else?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry about that.” He turned to pick up a dirt bucket and I grabbed his arm, forcing his gaze back to mine. Before he could ask what I wanted, I wrapped an arm around his neck and drew him down to me. Our lips crashed like the crescendo of a song, slow at first, but then he re-angled the kiss.

  Passion burned between us as our tongues danced. It felt like someone had put a lightning rod on my soul, restarting it and my love for him while simultaneously lighting every part of me on fire. For the first time in months, I felt something and it made my heart swell so large, I was convinced it’d burst.

  Trevor wrapped his arms around my waist and hoisted me up. I squeezed my legs around him and didn’t let go. I wanted to be close, so close that nothing like what had happened would ever occur again—whatever that something had been.

  “Oooh, Ms. Danning and Mr. Ethan!” Zach shouted. The other students gasped and pointed and laughed.

  I climbed down off Trevor and straightened my shirt. “Bucket duty, Zachary! Go dump it now, please.”

  The students ooh-ed him this time and he was off. Trevor and I shared a look, and I hoped he understood that I’d go with him after this to find out what the truth really was. What he probably didn’t understand was that I was still mad that someone had lied, more than likely him. And if he’d lied again, I wasn’t sure what I’d do.

  But I did know one thing: if these kids were in danger because of General Allen’s men being here for me, I wasn’t leaving the camp for very long. I had new responsibilities, and these students came first.

  After the morning dig, Trevor and I escorted the students to the mess hall for lunch. We’d managed to dodge questions about Cody, me promising to look into it while they ate, and soon the students were off for rec time. Trevor led me toward the lake, where we stepped inside one of empty rest cabins.

  “Where are we going?” I asked him. The space was tight, hot, and humid. I didn’t care as long as Trevor was really here, as long as none of this wasn’t some elaborate-as-hell lucid dream I’d soon wake up from.

  He pulled a phone out of his back pocket. “Nowhere until I figure out where is safe.”

  “Why do you keep implying that there’s no safe place?”

  His gaze met mine, his words even when he said, “I’m supposed to be dead. The White City and General Allen think I am. And Valerie’s on the run, too.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “Valerie—she’s alive? She made it out of surgery?” I grabbed on to his arm. “They wouldn’t let me see her, didn’t tell me a damn thing.”

  Trevor grimaced. “I, uh—well, I really did shoot her. By accident.”

  “Trevor!”

  “Look, we both know I’m not the best at this stuff in the best of situations,” he said. “But what happened to Valerie—what happened in that entire ten-minute span—is very, very complicated. Might be best to wait until your memories come back. But yes, Valerie was fine the last I talked to her.”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I’d wondered what had become of her surgery since I left, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t hack the Navy’s databases or computers. I was an archaeologist and nothing more now.

  “One last question,” I said as he held the phone to his ear. “If I have my powers back, does that mean you no longer have any?”

  “Yes and no—son of a bitch.” He pulled the phone away from his ear. “Valerie’s phone went straight to voicemail. She wouldn’t do that, not while I’m here.” He rushed to the window and peered outside of it. His grip around his phone tightened, knuckles white.

  “I’m sure she’s fine. She always is.”

  “But the point of all of this was to make the world safe for us to live without always having to have these plans and hideouts and secret agendas.” He sighed and closed his eyes against the sun. “Maybe we can’t leave after all. I don’t know of a safe place where I can show my face. I’d say SeaSat5, but no one knows…”

  “And if I show up there, I’ll be thrown in the brig faster than someone armed with an A-bomb,” I said.

  He glanced my way. “Has anyone tried to contact you despite the exile restrictions?”

  I shook my head. “No. And I don’t suspect anyone ever will. They have enough super soldiers to travel through time. That’s all they’d ever needed from me.” I’d been the accessory that had come with Trevor to TAO. He was the one who’d known more about the war way back when. He knew science and engineering and was actually helpful. I just shot things. And people.

  “Did anyone find Abby after that fight?” I asked. I’d always wondered about her, too. She’d disappeared during the attack on TAO.

  Trevor’s lips pressed into a thin line. “No.”

  Damn. “We’ll be okay,” I said. “I don’t get the vibe from anyone else here that they’re out to get me.”

  He looked at me with confused eyes. “You sensed something wrong with Cody?”

  “I never trust anyone that fanboys that much,” I said. “Old habits and such.”

  Trevor didn’t appear to have anything to say to that and returned to looking out the window. I let him be. Maybe Valerie would sense that we needed her, like she seemed to always do in the past.

  How was Valerie tied into this mess? I’d been beside her practically every waking moment following the attack on Pearl. Even she honest-to-god believed she didn’t know why Trevor had turned or where his powers had come from. And yet here Trevor was, telling me she’d been in on it the whole time. I’d known Valerie to be a fantastic liar. But great liars had limits, and I had to believe that these lies had been past her limitations for sure.

  An orange-red glow started in the center of the room. “Trevor?” I said as it grew.

  “Maybe Valerie, maybe not,” he said, backing up against the window. He drew a small pistol from a holster on his hip that I hadn’t seen.

  I readied myself for attack, but when the fire had come and settled, only Valerie and Charlie remained in the middle. How did she always seem to know where Trevor was and how to teleport to him without a solid connection?

  “Thank god,” Trevor breathed, rushing to hug Valerie. “I called and you didn’t—”

  She pulled out of his embrace, wincing. “We’re good for the moment, but we can’t stay long.” She turned to me. “You need to claim a family emergency and leave camp immediately. You’re still dead, according
to everybody else in the world.”

  “Should have never had him return your memories,” Trevor grumbled.

  “Heard that.” Valerie tugged on his arm, then pulled Chelsea and me closer so we were all touching. “Okay, Grumpy Pants, let’s go. Charlie?”

  Charlie lifted a device I hadn’t seen her holding. She took off one of her earrings and slid it into a compartment in the front before turning some dials. A Link Piece-making device, like the one Sophia had found in the White City.

  “Oh, wow,” I said. “Where did you get one of those?”

  “Same place we recovered one of the White City ships,” Trevor answered.

  “Except the ship’s gone,” said Charlie. “This is all we have left, and it’s running out of juice almost as quickly as I’m running out of things I’m connected to so I can make Link Pieces.” She glanced my way. “Hope you have some jewelry or trinkets on you.”

  “Go resign as a teacher first,” Valerie said. “Then we’ll go. We have to make this as clean as possible.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll do it later. There’re a few hours of time before I have to be back, and I want answers.” Leveling Valerie with a glare, I said, “All of them.”

  Valerie glanced over my head to Trevor. “You didn’t tell her anything?”

  “Just that I’m alive and you were really shot.”

  She sighed. “Okay. Then let’s go.”

  Charlie worked the Transfer from our present day to… somewhere old. Clay walls surrounded us in a room lit with the soft glow of a handful of lanterns. “There. Home sweet home.”

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “Medieval Europe,” she answered. “And safe. Even if they tracked when we went to, they wouldn’t be able to get exactly here without a device like this. Surprisingly, the devices seem to be rarer than we thought.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Yes. The White City doesn’t even like their own people to time-travel more than necessary.”