nuts.
Gailen stayed back a safe distance. “You are okay?”
“Yeah. But I feel no reaction. I just feel…” She touched her throat and her nose, still filled with the stale smell. “Nothing.”
Warmth filled his face. “You are cured.”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far.” Sometimes an allergen didn’t cause a reaction at first, and then later it did. But she hadn’t had a lesser reaction to peanuts before…
And she had swallowed the magical elixir and activated it…
“I’m going to stay here just to be safe.” She sat at a table in the middle of the cafeteria. “Can you see the stingray?”
He disappeared behind the counter. “There is something.”
“What?”
He emerged a moment later with her dropped phone. He’d learned to take pictures the other day when she’d taught him how to use the scanner app.
She peered at the photos. Inside the panel, among the remnants of both types of peanuts, was a small device that matched the general shape and buttons of a stingray. Like the jammer, this particular model had no batteries and was designed to be wired into a power source. So, if someone shut off the power to the kitchen, say, when it wasn’t being used, that would shut off the stingray and cause everyone’s phones to lose signal until they connected to the real satellite. The same when they turned the power on again—it would force everyone’s phones to reject the satellite and connect to the closer stingray again.
But attached to it was some other device. One with several long blocks of putty wrapped in black tape. Cylinders poked out, and exposed wires led to a pager.
That looked like…
Oh, no.
God, no.
All the strength left her body.
“You’re going away from me again,” Gailen said.
She pushed against the film wrapping around her hot, thudding heart. Yes, it was good to stay calm, but she couldn’t go comatose now of all times.
“What is it?” he asked.
She forced out the words. “My experience in this mostly comes from movies and TV. But it honest to God looks like a bomb.”
“Actually, it’s the control center for a series of bombs planted all over the platform.” Ryerson, jailed leader of the Sons of Hercules, breezed into the cafeteria as if he’d never left. “And you, Starr Langley, are going to dismantle it for me.”
Sixteen
“You’re supposed to be in jail,” Starr gasped, her soul darkening behind the thick substance.
Ryerson laughed. “Rich people don’t go to jail, Starr Langley.”
Gailen moved in front of Starr. His empty hands clenched for his stowed trident, his stolen dagger. “You dare return here? You are the leader of the Sons of Hercules.”
Ryerson did not break stride. He wore dark coverings and carried a large bag. “That has yet to be proven in a court of law.”
“You attacked my fellow warriors. Atlantis. You tried to hurt Queen Bella’s young fry.”
“I cured him.”
Behind Gailen, Starr stood.
“Sit down.” Ryerson kept the table between himself and Gailen and stopped outside of easy reach. “If you want to save the rest of them, we haven’t much time.”
The impulse to attack—to avenge the injured and exact mer justice—made Gailen’s muscles twitch.
Starr curled her hand around his forearm, stopping him. “What are you talking about?”
“These bombs are all over the platform.” Ryerson opened his black bag, unrolled a large map, and jabbed at the markings. “This is the brain. Take it out, and the rest will deactivate. You can have your grand party, and no one will be any the wiser.”
Starr stared at the map. “So many. You’ll destroy the whole platform.”
“After the company provides me with qualified immunity, I’ll bring in my team to remove them.”
Gailen growled. “You will remove them now.”
Starr tightened her grip on Gailen’s forearm. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” Ryerson asked.
Gailen knew about bombs. The Sons of Hercules had first appeared when they bombed the Sea Festival of the Azores several years ago, targeting the warriors of Dragao Azul. “Why are you doing this? Why do you hate mermen?”
Ryerson rolled his eyes. “I couldn’t care less about mermen. I promise you.”
Starr took a long, deep breath. She seemed to be taking strength from Gailen’s presence, and that was the only reason he didn’t leap across the table and destroy this dishonorable man. “This one controls the others? Okay. How do I turn it off?”
Ryerson pulled a smaller leaf out of his bag. “Here. This is a diagram of the control box.”
Starr stared at it. “No. There’s no pager.”
“Oh. It’s this one.” He put a different leaf on the table.
She blinked rapidly,