Regardless, Helen could sway the Captain into ignoring his Head of Security long enough to talk to Chelsea, if only Chelsea stopped digging herself a hole she couldn’t get out of.
Chelsea glared at Lieutenant Weyland. “You look familiar, too.”
His eyes skirted around her and called me out on my lie without admitting his own. Who wouldn’t recognize this firecracker? He shifted in place, the fingers of his left hand still pressed against his gun holster. The action was enough to shut Chelsea up. Thank god.
“Are you both sure neither of you have ever met Ms. Danning?” Captain Marks waved her driver’s license with one hand, the other still pressed palm-down against the Briefing Room’s table.
I met Lieutenant Weyland’s gaze, an eyebrow rising. I wasn’t budging if he didn’t.
“No,” we said in unison.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Chelsea stood, her face red and eyes glazing over.
The same ache which held me in place in Boston returned now. It almost made me come clean to Captain Marks. But now wasn’t the time.
Chelsea huffed, arms crossing at her chest. “I know I can be imprisoned for this. I could—” She stopped, her head cocking to one side.
Why’d she stop?
Chelsea shut her eyes and scrunched up her face. I tensed. What was she doing?
Navy blue lights filled the room, flowing like a waterfall, each droplet over the other, until her form disappeared completely. Lieutenant Weyland pulled his gun. I spun around, searching for Chelsea, for any trace she’d been here at all. For proof I hadn’t dreamt up the whole damn thing.
Chelsea disappeared. Gone from my life as fast as the first time we met. I rolled my head onto my shoulders. She’d slipped through my fingers yet again.
I sighed. “Guess it won’t matter what you do with her now, huh, Weyland?”
He shot me a glare.
Dark blue lights rematerialized next to me until Chelsea appeared within the cascade. She did it. She teleported again.
The safety of Lieutenant Weyland’s gun clicked off, a harrowing echo in the room. I side-stepped in front of Chelsea with one hand held out before me, the other on her arm.
“Don’t, Lieutenant!”
He didn’t react. He didn’t move his finger off the trigger, either.
Captain Marks stepped toward me, his own hand held out as though approaching a wounded animal. I turned to find Chelsea’s mouth open, lips pulled back. Her eyebrows rose to her hairline.
“Chelsea?” I asked.
Her jaw set and her eyes narrowed into small slits. Her hands slid up between us, shoving me away. “I knew it. I freaking knew it! You do remember!”
I met her eyes, wishing I hadn’t. Her anger gutted me, stacking all my reasons for lying into a neat tower and whacking them over. “All right, yes. I do. Please, Chelsea, calm down.”
“Holster your weapon, Lieutenant,” Captain Marks barked before pointing to Chelsea. “Ms. Danning, I need you to take a seat.”
The Captain was the type of person you could only read by their eyes. The rest of him remained the calm, in-control exterior that a military officer was supposed to have. But his eyes, so wrinkled in concern, gave him away. Judging by that alone, confidence surged within me that he wouldn’t imprison Chelsea. I didn’t think he wanted to. But until Lieutenant Weyland calmed the hell down, it looked like Captain Marks wasn’t going to budge.
“No,” Chelsea said, swiping the air. “Tell me what is happening to me, why he’s here.”
I had to get her to stop. What if she teleported again? What if she popped into the middle of the Pacific Ocean by accident or something?
She sighed, plopping into the chair. Her strong, defiant composure broke, cracking around her eyes, pulling her lips downward. “I have no idea what’s happening to me.” A tear broke free as she stuck her shaking hands between her knees.
I sank little by little into a chair beside her. “I know someone who can help. If you’ll let her.” My eyes lifted to the Captain’s. “Captain, what about Dr. Gordon?” If Weyland wouldn’t leave, Dr. Gordon was Chelsea’s sole hope. Maybe she could nudge Captain Marks further into the “don’t imprison Chelsea” zone.
Chelsea brushed away stray tears. “Why should I let you do anything?”
Fair question. Why should she? Instead of outright helping her, I’d lied. But she couldn’t understand the reasons why. Hell, I didn’t. So I settled on something else. “Because I’m still taking the saving thing too far.”
She looked up at me with eyes like daggers. “You should’ve said something—”
“Ms. Danning,” Captain Marks cut in.
Her mouth clamped shut, lips forming a hard line.
Captain Marks glanced at his Lieutenant. “I’d like to speak with Ms. Danning alone.”
Chelsea stared me down, the room a deafening quiet. Her wild eyes burned with intensity. I tried to hold it, but her hazel irises smoldered and swam like a molten ocean sunrise. They seared me from the inside out. Not painfully, but thoroughly, into every crevice of my mind. Like she saw straight into my soul.
Lieutenant Weyland stepped forward, breaking the spell. “No way, sir.”
Captain Marks leveled his eyes to meet with Lieutenant Weyland’s, a warning.
The Lieutenant’s lips sealed tight, then he nodded to me. “Let’s go.”
I gave Chelsea one last look. She trained her eyes anywhere but on me. Her lips quivered the tiniest bit, but she didn’t speak.
God help me, I would make this up to her if it was the last thing I did.
“Well shit, Trevor.”
I tossed Valerie a glare and stalked past her into Engineering, two decks tucked near the bottom of SeaSatellite5. Whiteboards and chairs had been scattered between everyone’s desks. A stack of reports, a computer with two monitors, and empty water bottles dominated my workspace.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
Valerie blocked the path to my desk, offering me a file folder. “The report on the hull’s inner liquid, post-teleporting episode, as requested.”
I eyed her. “Never requested it.”
Valerie was part of the bio-engineering group, not mine. She only knew about the liquid because she’d sat in class next to me the moment I’d invented it. My shield. My ballast system design. I’d gotten this job because of them both. Valerie had happened to catch a ride in my tailwind, both of us products of a generation too focused on fairytales to risk the Navy finding evidence of the old maritime civilizations before they did.
I’d known Valerie for longer than I could remember, she being the daughter of a family friend. Both of our parents lived by the extreme version of our fantastical history, that our families descended from those who colonized Lemuria, a lost continent forever at war with the City of Atlantis. I’d grown up on the stories, thought it all nonsense until my tenth birthday. Ever since I’d seen my name scrawled in the language of the Lemurians, ever since they’d tested me for powers I didn’t have, I’d believed.
Valerie, on the other hand, had welcomed stories of Atlantis and Lemuria seemingly since birth. She’d almost changed her major to history or archaeology to chase those dreams. Then her mother had convinced her the best way to be productive to the collective was to get onboard a SeaSatellite5 Navy vessel. Only these SeaSatellite ships traversed the seas with such speed at this depth. These vessels would find any remnants of the history our families believed in, if any evidenced existed to be found. And I didn’t contend that point.
So when my parents had forced me through school after I’d designed Humming Bird, I’d accepted it. Until, at least, they’d revealed their plans to use my system to keep the Atlanteans out, to claim SeaSatellite5 and any other satellite ships as Lemurian pawns in their war, without the Navy’s consent or knowing. They’d wanted my system, the very thing I’d thrown my entire being into, for war.
The Navy didn’t even know what was happening. They’d employed us because they needed engineers like me and V
alerie. Young, ingenious post-graduates willing to think outside the box. That’s what had gotten my rotating ballast system off the ground. Who would think of making a ship that rotated orientation around a never-changing interior? No one. But the Navy had sure jumped on the idea real quick. You know, for “research vessel purposes.” I still wasn’t convinced there wasn’t something more I’d never been told, but I doubted I’d ever find out for sure.
It’s why I’d run. Like if I got far enough away, if the Navy no longer had the creator of the Humming Bird system, no one could use it—not the Navy for exploration, nor the Lemurians for war. To keep their ship afloat for long-term study, or to anchor the ship while they hauled Link Pieces from shipwrecks.
When my plan to run had backfired, I’d installed a shield to block everyone from teleporting onboard. The same shield Chelsea had bypassed an hour ago. I could only stay mad about it for so long, then I’d remember the night we first met, and my heart would leap around like an excited, confused animal.
“Yeah, well, I figured Teleportation Girl kept you busy.” Valerie raised an eyebrow. “Did you tell Captain Marks the truth about her?”
I opened the file folder and glanced at the contents to give myself time to think. Until today, I’d never seen anyone teleport. With the exception of Dr. Gordon—where you couldn’t even see her power anyway—I’d never seen someone use abilities, period. Where my parents had remained open about our history, they’d stopped sharing information about powers, Lemurian or Atlantean, when I was young. Probably because I’d never developed any. Thank god. Being a descendant of Lemuria I could handle (sort of). But having abilities to top it off?
“He’s aware I’ve met her before, yeah,” I said.
Valerie’s hand appeared on top of the folder, drawing my eyes to her. “You don’t think this is worth reporting?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Have you ever known me to be anything but?”
I snapped the folder shut. “Those were fairytales. People don’t teleport. People don’t actually have abilities.” Except apparently Chelsea. And Dr. Gordon.
“Dr. Gordon sees the future,” Valerie argued, hands resting on her hips.
“Sometimes.” With inaccuracy. I plopped into my desk chair.
She came to the other side of my desk and slapped both palms to the surface. “Teleportation Girl could be one of us.”
I gave a slow shrug. “Maybe. Does it matter? If she’s one of us, there’s nothing to worry about.”
Valerie leveled her chestnut eyes with mine. “It’s a big deal—someone we didn’t know about shows up on the ship we’re assigned to?”
No one else had been assigned to any “ship.” SeaSatellite5 was the only one. “I mean, it’s whatever,” I replied.
“It’s not a freaking joke.”
“I didn’t say it was.” But I didn’t care, either. All I had to do was keep SeaSatellite5 out of my extremist family’s hands and pacify their hell-bent determination to find enough Link Pieces to destroy to Atlantis forever. If I managed that, the rest didn’t matter.
My endgame consisted of making video games for a living, or something like that. Anything but devoting my life to a war over time travel, something I didn’t agree with doing, period. Time wasn’t meant to be traveled or changed. By anyone, for any reason. That the Atlanteans did so because they wanted to modify history to their liking sucked, yeah. But the Lemurians didn’t need to underhandedly employ the U.S. Navy and its most classified vessel to do their dirty work. It wasn’t hard to find Link Pieces—artifacts and artwork made by men with the ability to be used for time travel. I didn’t really understand how Link Pieces worked, only that they existed, and that Lemuria and Atlantis wanted control over all of them.
“You may find his orders funny,” Valerie said, her teeth grinding together. “But ignoring them will get you killed. And believe it or not, I do like you, Trevor. Remember who the enemy is. ‘Cause if she turns out to not be one of us, he’ll find out, and no matter how into her you are, he’ll end it.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”
But I knew she would, especially if Chelsea did turn out to be Atlantean. If Chelsea was, what would happen? My throat tightened around the thought. She’d be my enemy by birthright, and Valerie would turn her in to Thompson, our Lemurian boss. The guy who set us up on SeaSatellite5. The man Captain Marks didn’t know we answered to, or that he even existed.
Valerie shook her head, confirming my thoughts. “I follow orders.”
“Blindly.”
Her hands balled into fists, and she stalked out of Engineering. I should have stopped her in case she planned to report Chelsea’s appearance. But I didn’t. For the moment, I wanted to believe this wasn’t real. That everything I’d built my system for, every act I’d done to defy my parents and their stances on the war, hadn’t been thwarted and challenged.
I tapped on my keyboard until the screen turned on, and I broke into the security camera feeds. Captain Marks and Chelsea sat in the Briefing Room. Her head rested between her hands, defeated. Captain Marks tried to keep his distance without appearing cold. He was freaked the hell out. That made two of us.
Please let her be Lemurian.
The thought struck like thunder snow, rare and unexpected. I’d never come across another Lemurian other than my family, Valerie, and Thompson. And there Chelsea sat, maybe one of us.
Maybe not.
I opened a new window on my second monitor and brought up the tape again, watching once more as she teleported into a supply room on the Science Decks. My breath hitched. Deep cobalt poured from an unseen source, depositing Chelsea on SeaSat5. Blue, not the red of Lemurian powers from the lore I’d read as a kid. But dammit, it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
A memory nagged at my brain, pulling me halfway in the right direction, but letting go before I could latch onto its meaning.
Think, Boncore.
Soldiers. On my tenth birthday, when my parents imparted most of what I knew about Lemuria to me, they’d warned me about abnormally powerful Atlanteans strong enough to match even the Lemurian soldiers who wielded fire as though they breathed it.
Strength.
I gulped, my brain struggling to wrap itself around a vague memory from Boston. A kick so powerful it flung Chelsea’s attacker clear across the alleyway.
This can’t be real. This isn’t happening.
Chelsea was absolutely not from Lemuria.
Valerie was right, but she didn’t know about Chelsea’s strength. I would have to keep that to myself. Because Valerie didn’t know the very enemy we’d been warned about just waltzed aboard SeaSatellite5… and into my heart.
Chelsea
hat. The. Hell.
Teleport. The word rolled through my mind like a thunderstorm on a sunny day. Forming the syllables felt awkward enough: Te-le-port. Tele-freaking-port. Across the room to Trevor. Across the ocean to a military research station where the guy I met in an alley in Boston was employed.
I leaned my forehead against the cool metal table. I was screwed. The military planned to lock me in here forever—for experimentation and god knew what else—and I’d never graduate and practice archaeology. I’d never play on stage again. Both dreams, ripped from me by something unreal. I wouldn’t have believed this happened if not for the cuffs digging into my wrists.
Unless I could figure out how this teleporting thing worked. Maybe if I could get farther than across the room to Trevor, I could escape.
I slammed my cuffed wrists onto the table for the tenth time, unable to calm down. Every time I got my mind off of being handcuffed for something I didn’t mean to do, Trevor’s face swam across my thoughts, reigniting searing-hot anger in my veins. He’d denied knowing me at possibly the worst time to do so, then went back on it like he couldn’t decide whose ass to save—mine or his own.
Really though, I couldn’t blame him. He’d saved me in that alleyway, then got hauled into s
ome black SUV. These Navy sailors had to have been his captors, which meant, somehow, the events were related. Mr. Trigger-Happy, the one who freaked the hell out when I teleported again, looked familiar, too.
I stood, hands cuffed in front of me, palms facing upward, and concentrated. All I saw was red. Trevor had lied. Lied. Lied like Ray had after he slept with Lexi. Lied like I didn’t matter at all. Even if Trevor came out with the truth at the end—and thank god he did—that initial second-impression of him wouldn’t leave my mind.
My heart submerged deep into my chest. Maybe I didn’t matter. Maybe to him I was some stupid girl who shouldn’t have left the Franklin alone. Maybe he was just some silly tourist who got lost and decided to help me on a whim.
My fists balled in front of me, painted fingernails digging into the skin of my palms. Maybe silly and stupid was all I’d ever be, thanks to Lexi. Thanks to this teleportation freak-show I’d become.
My hands shook. What if I could never play a show again because I’d accidentally appear somewhere else—in the crowd, next to our lead guitarist, or, god forbid, to Ray? What if I always teleported here, to Trevor?
“Everything okay?”
I startled, my hands up in defense. My heart raced. Didn’t know why—not like I had shot of escaping from a military station I shouldn’t even know existed. Level One Secure Class Vessel, the friendly Lieutenant who found me in the supply room had said. Lieutenant James, but he’d said to call him Dave.
Dave had to be about the only person on this sub convinced I shouldn’t be jailed. Dave alone saw how terrified I was. Dave alone understood at all.
“Ms. Danning?”
A woman stood half in the doorway, half out, with eyebrows raised high. I probably looked ridiculous, frozen in the middle of the room, handcuffed and shaking.
“What?” I asked.
She stepped into the room and shut the door behind her without turning from me. She wore a white lab coat thrown over her pale yellow uniform—the same color Trevor wore—and had her light blonde hair pulled into a tight bun. She stood at my height and looked to be in her late twenties. She smiled gently—a doctor’s smile, the one given before a life-threatening prognosis.
Gyre (Atlas Link Series Book 1) Page 3