by Joss Ware
Fence sat in the very center of the small sailboat’s stern, shielding his eyes against the hot sun as he gazed out over the sparkling sea. The only reason he wasn’t fighting rising panic was because there was land within sight, and because his seat was positioned down inside the sides of the boat.
That made him feel a little more grounded, a little safer—even though he was surrounded by a liquid death trap. But he remained in that seat, navigating and managing the sheets and lines, horribly aware of the fact that he wasn’t wearing a life preserver.
The only thing that would save him if he went over or if the boat capsized was a rope strung with big Styrofoam pieces someone had scavenged. After all, Styrofoam was something that even Mother Nature couldn’t beat down into dust.
He just hoped to hell they didn’t do a Titanic.
The four of them had been traveling since mid-morning, and the ragged coastline was in and out of distant view. He hadn’t stopped praying for continued good weather, and so far it had been hot, sunny, and clear, with just enough wind to take the edge off the heat and keep them going at a good clip when they were actually sailing. But they paused every thirty minutes or so for Ana to take a dive and check for the Goleth stones, which made their progress slow and tedious. In fact, the boat was more of a vehicle to carry their equipment than a mode of speedy transportation.
More than occasionally, they encountered small islands that had probably once been mountains and now acted as oases to Fence in the middle of this vast watery desert.
“Once we find the stones, I’ll dive down and see what they look like,” Ana said. She was speaking to Quent and Zoë, who sat on the bow.
She’d settled in the center of the boat, on a small raised platform that might have been called a sundeck if it hadn’t been a fishing boat. He had a perfect view of her golden body basking in the sun, wisps of her long, damp hair fluttering in the breeze. The sight helped to distract him from the liquid jaws of death that surrounded their craft and the conversation happening around him.
“If they aren’t too deep—although I suspect they will be—you can join me,” Ana added.
“Right, and Zoë’s got the sling she made,” Quent said. “If it’s long enough, you can loop it around one of the stones and we can help move it out of place.”
“It’s three hundred fucking feet long,” said Zoë. “And I’ve got extra cord if we need it. Damn straight it’ll be long enough.”
“Are you certain you know which stone to move? How many of them did you say there were?”
“I’m not sure,” Ana replied. “No more than a dozen. And it shouldn’t matter which crystal I pull out of alignment, the way I understand it—I talked to Dad about it a little too. He agrees with me that as long as the energy pattern is interrupted, that will be enough to stop the wave. Of course, then we have to figure out what to do with the stone so they don’t just roll it back into place.”
“We’ll take it back to Envy,” Quent said immediately. “We’ll want to study it, and compare it to the other crystals we’ve collected.”
Fence was acutely aware of the way Ana spoke only to Quent and Zoë, and not to him, when it came to these plans. In fact, once they’d gotten on the boat, Ana’s attitude toward him had become . . . different.
She’d sidle up to him and slip her fingers into his hand, giving him a little squeeze as if to reassure him. Or if she had to pass him to scoot from the bow of the small boat to the stern, she’d pat him on the back or arm. Like he was a child on his way to the doctor or something. Not like she was his lover.
And his heightened sensitivity pointed out that she was very careful not to talk too much about the water, what she saw, what it was like.
Ana had been in the ocean more than she’d been out of the water, but every time she went in or came out, she insisted that Quent lean over to help her climb back aboard. She described what she saw to him and Zoë, while Fence sat back, listening like a bump on a log. She even used some odd clicking noises and splashes in the water to bring one of her dolphin friends over to the edge of the boat, and allowed Quent and a reluctantly fascinated Zoë to bend over and pet its nose.
Fence wasn’t invited.
And yet he knew exactly what she was doing, and why. It was just as he’d feared: she was treating him like a child. Like less of a man.
As if he had a—
Jesus Christ.
As if he had a handicap.
Which, of course, he did. A fatal, debilitating handicap.
An unexpected blast of anger surged up, heating his face and chest, causing his fingers to tighten so that his knuckles turned nearly white over the tiller.
“What the bloody hell is that?”
Quent’s exclamation drew Fence from his furious misery. He looked up to see a sort of shimmery, wavering . . . thing stretching out over the sea.
“Oh my God,” Ana breathed as she sat up.
“What in the fuck is it?” Zoë said at the same time.
“Stop the boat,” Ana commanded, crawling awkwardly toward the bow. “Don’t get near it.”
Fence didn’t bother to explain how impossible it was to stop a sailboat in its tracks. Instead, he reacted quickly and jerked the tiller so the vessel did a sharp turn—too damn sharp for his taste, bringing the water right up next to him—as he untied one of the lines and dropped the sail. When the water slopped over the edge onto his leg because of the boat’s tilt, his heart lunged into his throat.
“What is it?” Quent repeated. He’d climbed as far forward as he could and was practically leaning out over the rail to get a better look.
Now that the craft was nearly still, Fence could take a better look.
The whatever it was stretched as far as the eye could see, along the horizon of water. They were in open sea right now, with the edge of land to the southwest and two miles behind them, but beyond there was nothing but water and sky.
Fence swallowed and focused on the odd, undulating sort of . . . curtain. It looked like a clear shower curtain, muted with water and light shining from behind it. Or like the heat that visibly shimmered up from asphalt during the summer. Whatever it was, it was transparent, except for the faint multicolored ripples that shone in the sun. Yet it was like a wall—for waves crashed up against it, but not through it.
He shivered when he thought about how they might have sailed right into it, if not for Quent’s sharp eyes.
And, more likely than not, this was the reason sailors who left Envy, sailing north, never returned.
Fence couldn’t control a deep, harsh shudder.
“Thank God we didn’t come upon this at night,” Ana said, as if reading his mind. “It would have been much harder to see. And we’d have been caught in it.” Her voice was tense, and her face matched.
“What exactly is it?” Fence asked. As he watched, he could see that the ocean was much more turbulent on that side of the barrier, yet contained. It looked almost as if the water over there was stirred up by a storm . . . or an energy center.
“It’s a barrier. A— Like an electric fence,” Ana said. “It’s to keep land-livers from getting too close to Atlantis, sort of confining them to this part of the sea. We can’t cross it—in the boat, anyway.”
“Let me guess. Crystal energy?”
Ana nodded, still staring at the transparent wall. “Crystals lined up along the bottom, sending their energy up and out like a . . . oh, like a . . .”
“Like a force field,” Fence finished for her. “But I don’t think this is the location I plotted—we’re still too far south. You don’t think this could be the energy center, do you?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” she said, already stripping off her tank top to reveal her bare torso. Her crystals glinted in the sun, and Fence’s heart stopped.
Lord, You sure did amazing work when You made this woman.
Her torso was bronzed gold, flaring into the gentle curve of her hips, her tanned skin contrasting with the aquam
arine crystal studs. She wore a serviceable bra that looked more like a banded cut-off tank top than those lacy things he used to look at in the Victoria’s Secret catalogs his sisters got—but on Ana anything was mad sexy. As he watched, she worked her hips out of loose, frayed jeans, revealing the ever present knife she had strapped to her upper thigh. Now she was dressed in nothing more than the bra and a pair of shorts that were so brief you could practically see her belly button. From below.
He was distracted only for a second before realizing what she had in mind. “Ana, what are you doing?”
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Quent said, but Zoë had already taken matters into her own hands.
Before Ana could reply, the other woman fit one of her arrows into its bow and snapped it in a long arc over the water.
When the metal arrow went through the undulating curtain, there was a sizzle and a pop, and lightning or some sort of electrical current snapped, radiating from the center of penetration. The scent of smoke wafted through the air.
“Bloody hell,” whispered Quent.
“You’re not going down there,” Fence said, grabbing Ana’s arm and pulling her back from where she was perched to dive.
“Yes I am,” she argued. “At the very least, I’m going to see what’s below. Maybe the stones are there.”
He shook his head. “How do you know there’s not an electric current, or some other energy in the water, right here? Don’t be stupid.”
Her eyes flashed. “Let go of me. I know the ocean and I know the risks. And besides, look.”
She pointed, and Fence noticed for the first time a dorsal fin protruding amid the waves.
“It’s Marco. If he can swim there, so can I,” she said, and with surprising strength and force, she yanked away.
Ana was in the water before he could react.
“Damn it,” he said, lurching to the side where she’d gone over.
The sight of the rippling waves, dark and choppy, just beneath his face, made him queasy and damp-palmed, but he forced himself to look down into the dark water.
“You two men,” Zoë said with disgust. “You never give us women the fucking benefit of having our own damned brains. Do you think we’re stupid enough to want to get ourselves hurt or killed? But no, you have to try and think for us, and fucking tell us what to do, and what not to do, all the damn time!” And she burst into tears.
If Fence weren’t so worried about Ana, he’d have stared at Zoë in shock. As it was, he was only mildly aware that the hard-as-nails, smart-assed-as-they-came zombie hunter was crying. For no apparent reason.
Still staring down into the depths of the dark water, Fence was vaguely aware of Quent’s stunned reaction. He felt the boat shift alarmingly as the blonde man reached for his irate woman, pulling her into his arms even as she insisted that he “leave me the damn fuck alone! You’ve already done enough to stir things up!”
Ana, come on. Get your pretty ass back up here.
Fence searched the depths, unable to see anything but the glitter of sunlight on the dark blue waves.
I should be with her.
But the very thought had his stomach roiling. He squeezed his eyes closed, steadying his breathing at the thought of sliding into that cold, dark depth.
I saw you breathing under the water.
He shook his head to dislodge the thought.
Ana, where are you?
And then, suddenly, there she was, erupting from the water right in front of him. Relief swarmed through him.
He looked down at her wet face, sparkling with droplets, freckles dancing lightly over her nose, her wide, lush mouth only inches away—and felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach.
It is her. She’s the One.
“Ana,” he said, bending over as far as he dared. The water was right there, so close he could feel its coolness. He drew in a deep, salt-scented breath.
She came close to the boat, her hair plastered back from her face, her hazel eyes clear, the lashes clumping together with drops of the sea, looking up at him as his head blocked the sun. “It’s deep,” she said. “Too deep.”
“Too deep for what?”
“To swim beneath.”
“What about the stones? Did you see them?” He wanted to reach out and touch her head, smooth his hand over her warm, wet hair just as she’d done to the dolphin earlier.
“I didn’t see them, but I can feel their energy. They’re nearby. They have to be. The water is wrong down there.”
“Wrong? What do you mean?”
“The current is all wrong. It’s messed up—that tells me the energy is being gathered. Look over there—you can see it already. I’m going to have to go on by myself.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Fence wanted to lunge for her, but he kept his grip on the rail. “You just said it’s too deep to swim under.”
“Not for me.”
“No fucking way. You can’t go by yourself, Ana. Don’t be crazy.”
She’d backed away from the boat, just out of reach of his hands. Now he could see the faint glow of her crystals just beneath the surface. “There’s no other way. No one can swim deep enough to get past the barrier. I found a place to go under it, but it’s too deep for any of—for Quent or Zoë. That’s why it’s here, you know. No human can get through it. But an Atlantean can.”
“Ana, no. Get back in the boat now. We’ll think of another way to do this.” He didn’t care that his voice had turned hard and commanding, that he sounded desperate and lost beneath the words. “Don’t risk it.”
She looked up at him, opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. Then opened it again. “I can do this. I have to at least try.”
“But they’re already evacuating Envy,” Fence reminded her. “Vaughn said they’d be out of there by evening tonight.”
Ana remained at a distance. “But think of everything else that will be destroyed. Everything that you’ve worked for—that all of you have built for the Resistance.”
“Ana, no,” he said.
She frowned, her brows drawing together as she eased even farther from the boat. “Bruno, you’d do the same thing if you were me. You wouldn’t even hesitate.”
“But—” His throat ached and his eyes were stinging. “Ana, you don’t even know what’s on the other side. What if there’s a trap? Something you aren’t expecting? What if there are Atlanteans there?”
“I’m one of them,” she told him. There was a tinge of bitterness in her voice. “They won’t hurt me.”
“You said you’d never go back—” he began, but she interrupted.
“I’ve got to go. I don’t know how far the stones are or how long it will take to—”
“Ana, please,” he said. “Don’t go. Don’t go alone.”
She looked right at him, as if about to say something. His heart stopped. His hands turned slick and damp.
Don’t.
Don’t say it.
His heart started thudding again, slamming hard enough to jolt him.
She didn’t speak.
Instead, after holding his gaze for a long moment, she slid back under the waves.
Fence stared down into where she’d disappeared, vaguely aware that Quent and Zoë were still huddled together at the stern, arguing softly.
He felt the spray of the water, smelled the sea scent, and gripped the edge of the boat, blinking away the sting in his eyes.
He couldn’t let her go alone.
He gripped the side of the boat more tightly.
But the thought of plunging off into the deep, dark, cold depths made him ill.
He closed his eyes, brought Ana’s face into his mind.
You were breathing underwater.
He tore off his shirt with shaking fingers.
One . . . two . . .
His breath caught in a jerky sob.
. . . three.
He flipped himself over the rail.
Chapter 18
As he p
lunged into the dark water, Fence’s mind went blank with terror. The sea cloaked him, surrounded him: cool, dark, close.
His lungs were full of the breath he’d taken before launching over, and already they began to burn as he struggled to keep from panicking, to keep from losing it and hyperventilating. He felt a sharp sting beneath his arms, one on each side, in his ribs.
He closed his eyes, floating there, praying for consciousness, for sanity as the sea embraced him.
It’s cool. It’s okay. You’re okay.
He repeated this mantra over and over, but the ocean was heavy and he felt it in his nostrils, saturating his shorts and seeping into his warm skin. I can’t do this.
His mind had gone black and blank, and he struck out blindly with arms and legs, trying to make it back to the surface.
Then something brushed against him and he opened his eyes with a start.
Ana.
She was there, right in front of him, her face close, her eyes wide with question and concern. The soft blue glow from her crystals filtered in the water around them. Her hair wafted in gentle waves. She reached for his arm, and he grabbed her hand desperately, clinging to his last shred of sanity with her as a lifeline.
I can’t do this. I can’t do this.
He felt the panic rise and fill his lungs, and he knew he was going to have to flounder to the surface, find the fresh air and take in great, deep gulps of it.
She was lifting his arm away from his torso, pointing to his ribs. Where the stinging was.
He barely had the awareness to wonder if he’d cut himself. Oh, God, blood will attract sharks. His lungs burned and he let out some of the oxygen reserve, bubbles trailing violently from his nose.
I’m not going to drown, I’ll die from a shark attack.
The desperation and panic won, and he pulled away from her to kick upward. His head broke the surface and he gasped for air. Already he was looking for the boat to grab onto. He needed something to grab onto, to pull himself out of this—
“Fence!” Ana burst up next to him. “Fence, Bruno—you did it.”
But he was nearly sobbing in mortification and anger with himself. He looked, and the boat was out of reach. He’d have to swim several yards.