Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,76

to summon the zaps one more time. Her nerves sizzled, the power running under her skin like fireworks…

“Components are coming faster now,” the smaller Cretarni announced. “Maybe this won’t take long at all.”

Just her luck, summoning the zaps was only helping her captors. Like a sparkler plunged into a bucket, her power fizzled out.

And so did her consciousness.

***

When she revived again, she knew this time they were in space.

How did she know? The little empty room where she’d been tossed—still in her ripped pajamas—had the same look as the Atlantyri broom closet, but there was a strange, subliminal hollow hum all around her.

She’d been abducted by aliens for real.

No point in pretending to still be unconscious. That hadn’t really worked out for her last time either, and she was done making the same mistakes over and over again.

Rolling upright, she hugged her knees—the center of her chest still aching from the trident bruises—and flexed her muscles until the chill had left her skin. Stiffly, she got to her feet and marched in place then added jumping jacks until her blood was moving.

How much of her blood was left anyway? Streaks of red marred both her wrists and the skin between her breasts, dripping down from her neck, where the needled shackles had pierced her. Fury guttered through her arteries and shame backwashed in her veins, as if to make up for the lost blood volume. The Cretarni had defeated her while barely lifting a seven-fingered hand.

She swore under her puffing breath, but her hatred of jumping jacks would have to stand in until her righteous rage at being abducted found a worthy outlet.

Catching her breath, she stilled in the center of the little room and closed her eyes, reaching inward for that place where the power had been.

Even more nothingness than was outside this spaceship.

Letting out another shuddering gasp, she tried at least the little ping that Sting had taught her to envision her surroundings. Again, nothing. She might as well be floating in the void by herself without an e-suit. “Let me out!” she screamed. “Let me out right now or I will…” How much did Cretarni know about nul’ah-wys? “Or I will blow up this ship from the inside.”

She screamed again until her throat was as raw as sushi. It was a long time before the door opened.

The Cretarni doctor stood in the way, glaring in dull orange. “You can’t blow up this ship,” she snarled. “We took it all. You have nothing left.”

Lana backed away until her spine pressed against the opposite wall. “Then why did you take me?”

The doctor revealed all those teeth again. “You are the enemy. Empty, but still the enemy. The high dominion will make an example out of you so the Tritonans know that the seeds of their destruction were cast by their own hand.”

Lana flattened her palms against the bulkhead behind her, as if she could draw some strength from that silvery metal. There was nothing, just like the interstellar void on the other side. Her throat tightened. “Why couldn’t you just live in peace?”

The doctor tilted her head, ear tufts flaring. “Why couldn’t you?”

And although Lana wasn’t sure if the alien meant Earth or Tritona, she supposed it didn’t even matter.

When she didn’t answer, the Cretarni clicked her egg tooth. “It’s over, almost. The fleet is gathering in the sky over Tritona where your dead-eyed Tritonyri can’t reach us.” The rictus of her smile exposed double rows of blunt back teeth that somehow managed to be as terrifying as her sharp canines. “When we arrive with the switch charge we will begin the targeted strikes against the Tritonans. The sea will be emptied, finally.”

The malevolent glee in the Cretarni’s hooting hiss needed no translation, and Lana flinched back.

“Why did you even take me?” Her voice broke. “You could’ve just left me back on the Atlantyri as empty as you want the sea to be, as dead as my long-lost ancestors.”

The doctor’s black pupils pinned. “I said as much. But tossing what remains of your burning corpse into the sea that rejected you will be even more satisfying in the end.”

If she’d had even a moment of wondering if she might make some sort of connection with the Cretarni, Lana decided that moment had whooshed right on past.

Kinda like the sound she’d make falling out of the Cretarni ship into Tritona’s waters.

As if sensing Lana’s helpless despair, the doctor stabbed again. “And maybe when we’re done with Tritona we’ll turn with