Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,88
mermaid power, either, but because you were always stronger than you believed. I love you, honey.”
“Love you, Mom.” She stepped back, meeting Sting’s gaze. “Ready to go?”
For a moment, he—who never hesitated to dive into battle—was frozen in place. How could he take her into danger? Abducting her to return her to her friends for a new life on Tritona had been one thing. But plunging her into the heart of a war? She didn’t even have the power of her zaps anymore.
And yet… With her hands on her hips, staring up at him, he hesitated to cross her. She might not zap him with electric shocks, but there was a different kind of fire in those dark eyes—a fire to lure a Titanyri into the depths.
She had donned the e-suit again but it had been modified with alterations from the 3D printer to fit her almost as snuggly as his battle skin—although it covered more of her skin, to his disappointment.
“Does it have pockets?” he wondered.
She nodded and patted her body as she pointed out each compartment. “Gill pouch. Utility tool. Datpad. Retractable knife. Field med kit. Plasma grenade—”
“Grenade?”
Evens cleared his throat. “She mentioned that she missed shooting some of the Cretarni and she wanted a less precise weapon.” He shrugged one shoulder in a self-deprecating manner. “I had a couple grenades I could part with.”
Sting sidelonged a glance at Lana. “A couple?”
“In case I miss the first time again.”
“Just don’t get stopped on your way to the Atlantyri,” Evens cautioned. “There’s not a comic-con within a thousand miles right now so you’d have trouble explaining yourselves. And you do not want to have to explain the grenades, believe me.”
“We won’t be stopping for anything.” Sting spun the Maserati key around his finger.
Evens blanched and rolled his eyes toward Lana. “Maybe you should drive?”
“Well, I was driving the Diatom when it crashed. Both times. But if you’d rather…”
With a groan, Evens stepped back. Lana hugged her mother and Thomas one more time, and then the three who were staying behind stepped back to the edge of the fountain pool.
Sting gazed at the statuary in the middle of the still water. The white stone was sculpted into the fluid lines of a creature that he knew the Earthers called a mermaid. It didn’t make any sense to carve a being of the sea perched on a rock in the air, but even if he didn’t understand that, he recognized the yearning angle of her body as she tipped the empty mouth of her vessel toward the pool. As if she was waiting for that flow of water that would never come, never realizing she had to leave her perch and slip into the dark water to find the hidden depths of the byzantine waterways.
Swiveling away, he opened the door to Evens’ vehicle. “I am ready to go.”
She gazed at the trio on the steps and then slipped into the car. But she didn’t look back as they sped out of the driveway.
Instead she drummed her fingertips on the safety belt across her chest. “What are the chances we can get to Tritona before the Cretarni?”
“Zero.” He considered. “Less than, since we may not be able to launch at all.”
She cast a look at him. “But you’re still willing to dive right in.”
He blinked. “I am Titanyri.”
“I’ve always run away,” she murmured.
The melancholy in her voice bothered him. “From what you’ve told me, you had reason.”
“But it didn’t get me where I wanted to go.”
“Diving doesn’t always go anywhere either, but since I like swimming, I don’t mind.”
After a moment, she grinned. “I should be more like you.”
Except she wasn’t a monster anymore.
But she showed him how to choose music through the vehicle’s sound system, and she taught him the words to Earther songs. And they sang together. In no time they were at the path to the Atlantyri’s resting place. He almost regretted the end of the journey and the end of their music.
The quiet of the woods—quiet except for Lana grunting under the weight of her pack—was a different kind of music, and the silence of the Atlantyri was deeper yet as they swam to the most remote edge of the exodus ship.
They surfaced in the tight confines of what had been the hangar. When the Tritonans who’d crashed on Earth had dispersed to start their new lives, they’d left behind most of the technology that would’ve betrayed their extraterrestrial origins. That they’d never returned and their descendants had