Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,86

wanted to ask because what if…

“She also waits,” he assured her. He wrapped one arm around her shoulders when she sagged.

Evens gestured them up the path. “Thomas messaged me when he caught the signal for the Diatom. I’ll take you back to the house and then…” He shook his head.

The return ride to the estate seemed to go by in a blink. Lana wasn’t sure if that was shock or the fact that Evens’ car was a four-door Maserati with far too many horses under the hood. And he had a motorcycle too? Curious choices for a man who ran a glorified thrift store.

Though her pajamas were still soggy and clammy as a dead fish, Sting kept her tucked close under his arm in the back seat. Good thing he didn’t mind dead fish.

Ugh, maybe she was still shocky too.

She decided to blame the shock when she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “So what you said to me when I was on the Cretarni ship…” She swallowed hard. “Was that as much a lie as saying the Diatom had enough firepower to destroy them?” Though there was plenty of oxygen in the Maserati, she found herself holding her breath.

His arm tightened, but he looked out the window on his other side. “I did not know at that time that the Cretarni had taken your power,” he said softly. “That…changes things, and you have more choices now.”

For the first time, she couldn’t read him, and his words seemed opaque, hiding the feelings he’d once told her he didn’t have. After a moment, she too looked away. “I guess everything is different.”

When they got back to the house, she paused next to the fountain, gawping at the damage. Evens whistled through his teeth.

“I didn’t realize…” She fisted her hands at her side. “They grabbed me before I got a dozen feet from the music room. They knocked me out with some sort of stun gun, and I never saw what they did.”

Before Lana could take another step, her mother burst from the house and ran across the cobblestones. They embraced hard, and when she finally looked up to see Thomas a step behind her mother, she included him in the hug.

“I’m so, so sorry about the house,” she said in a ragged whisper. “This is all my fault.”

“Did you drop the bomb?” Thomas asked with a lift of his eyebrows.

She grimaced. “Not this time, no.” She hugged her mom again. “Really, it wasn’t me.”

“I know, honey. You saved my life.” Her mother gestured to Sting and Evens. “Come to the kitchen,” she called. “We have snacks. And we left the first aid kit out.”

But when they walked into the house, Lana froze in horror at the doorway to the library. “No,” she breathed. “Oh, those monsters…”

The heavy marble chair that she’d thought of as Marisol’s throne and that had kept her zaps at bay was cracked in two, and the fireplace where Sting had pleasured her was a blackened maw.

And the aquarium…

The heavy glass was shattered, the water pooled across the floor, reflecting only the ghostly glow of one bulb. The kelp and anemones hung in sad, limp streamers.

This time, she had no tears, as if the salt water had drained out of her too.

“Why would they do that?” Her voice cracked like the glass. She didn’t know anything about weaponry or war, but even she could tell from the spiderwebbing pattern on the remains of the glass that it had been a direct fire. One of the Cretarni had done that on purpose.

“It is war,” her mother said softly.

“Where are the seahorses?” Sting asked.

He was right; despite the devastation, there were no little bodies. Lana shot a hopeful look at Thomas who held up a cautioning hand. “I was able to retrieve some of the animals,” he said. “I transferred them to the cleaning tank for now. But I don’t know if they’ll all survive.”

“No one was at war with seahorses,” Lana whispered.

“That was always the Cretarni way,” Sting said, “to fight the fighters and the innocent alike. Nothing’s changed.”

She’d changed. Into what though, she wasn’t sure. But she was different, just as she’d told him.

And there was only one way to find out how different.

“We need to get a message to Marisol and Coriolis and the others,” she said. “Warn them that the Cretarni are coming.”

Thomas shook his head. “The bombing knocked out our passive array, and if we contact planetary security, they’ll hold the Tritonans as responsible as the