Part 12 (1/2)
His gaze hardened. ”Les. Yes. Yes, it was him.”
”How . . .” she began, and shut her mouth, shaking her head. How this man knew Les wasn't important. Not yet, anyway. ”Did he damage the rest of the boat?”
The man pried the plastic cup from her fingers. Jenny let go, surprised she had crushed it. He tossed the cup into the trash bin beneath her desk and stood, pacing to the porthole window. ”I don't know. There are other things we need to discuss.”
”I can't imagine what,” she muttered, dazed.
The man didn't seem to hear. He prowled across the room to the door, peering up and down the corridor. Incredibly graceful, but too contained, as though all the energy bottled beneath his skin was ready to explode. Watching him made her feel claustrophobic.
He finally glanced at her, long hair shrouding much of his gaze: thoughtful, unreadable; alien in his utter remoteness, as though part of him was a million miles away. Jenny wished she could say the same about her own emotions. ”I set us on a northerly course, toward a nearby chain of islands. I'm sure there are other places you would prefer to go, but we're being pursued.”
Jenny stared. ”Pursued?”
”Three vessels. That's why I woke you. We're now dead in the water.”
She held up her hand, desperate for a moment to think-without pa.s.sing out-and tried to get off the bed. She managed to move a full inch before the man crossed the room and held her still. It was like hitting a wall. He wore shorts, she noticed belatedly; swim trunks that belonged to Les.
”I'm sorry,” he said. ”I wasn't trying to scare you.”
”The only thing that scares me,” she replied, hoa.r.s.e, ”is the possibility I'm losing my mind. Now let me up.”
He removed his hand. Jenny stood. Or tried to. Her knees buckled, and the man caught her against him. Her face pressed against a rock-solid chest that smelled like salt and minerals, and kelp.
”You're not crazy,” he rumbled. ”But I understand the feeling.”
Jenny swallowed hard. She could hear his heartbeat, as well as her own. And, for a moment, a third pulse, in the base of her skull. All three, beating together at the same time. The sensation frightened her.
She shuddered, and tried to push him away. His arms tightened. ”Easy. You're still weak.”
”Doesn't matter. I need . . . s.p.a.ce.”
”No time,” he replied. ”Our pursuers appeared less than ten minutes ago, circled, got close. The boat had been having trouble before that, and when I pushed the engines, they stalled out. Someone had begun the process of breaking down the wiring.”
”Les,” she muttered, though that didn't make sense, despite everything he had done. He seemed to need the boat. Ismail, on the other hand. . .
”The outer door,” she added, and the man shook his head.
”Locked. But I don't trust that. This is a cage now.” His voice dropped so low when he said the word cage, she almost didn't hear him. ”The men have made no attempt to board. It's as though they're waiting for something.”
Jenny pushed against the man with all her strength. Which wasn't much. She was incredibly weak. ”Get out of my way. I need to see them.”
He gave her a look so grim, Jenny felt afraid. But he surprised her by bending down and scooping her into his arms. His strength was effortless, and she swallowed her gasp, barely. ”I can walk.”
”I'd rather not sc.r.a.pe you off the floor,” he said, with surprising dryness. ”The first time was hard enough.”
She stared. ”You're a smart-a.s.s.”
The man grunted, but it might have been with laughter. ”I've been told that, in less polite terms.”
There was barely enough room in the corridor for him to carry her, and the lab door stood ajar. He kicked it closed. Jenny glimpsed the cold locker on the other side of the gla.s.s. That door was open so wide she could see the mermaid's sheet-covered body.
She gave the man a sharp look. He was staring inside, faint scars even more p.r.o.nounced against his face-battle scars, marks of war, violence. Bad things had been done to him. Maybe he had done bad things to others. The look in his eyes-unforgiving, distant-suggested yes.
He had been in that cold locker. Jenny knew it. But the way he stared at the body was heavy with more than just memory. He had known that dead woman, and the idea was horrifying. Not just because it meant he had lost someone. In all Jenny's dealings, in every part of the world, the right perception-how strangers viewed each other-meant the difference between life and death. Here, now, especially.
”We found the woman several days ago,” she said, afraid of what he would do. In all her fantasies, finding him again was not supposed to feel dangerous, like walking on a minefield. ”She had washed up onsh.o.r.e, alive. I believe she died soon after she was found.”
He seemed to think about that. ”You were looking for her?”
”Not her, specifically,” she replied carefully. ”We received word of something . . . strange . . . about her body. That's what we . . . I . . . do. Search for . . . odd things in the sea.”
I didn't kill her, she wanted to add, but couldn't speak those words. She was afraid it would sound like begging. But he looked at her as though he could read her mind, and said, ”Breathe. I don't blame you for her death.”
Relief made her voice embarra.s.singly ragged. ”Why wouldn't you? You don't know me.”
He stared dead into her eyes. ”Not even a little?”
Jenny's breath caught, and after a moment of her continued silence, his mouth twisted into a bitter grimace that was too mysterious and unhappy for Jenny's comfort. He started moving down the corridor, hunched over to keep his head from hitting the ceiling. His long hair was soft on her face.
The man managed to squeeze them up to the bridge. The radios had been smashed. Wires and plastic covered the floor. He put her down but kept an arm slung around her waist like some supporting brace. Which, unfortunately, she needed in order to stay upright.
”Right there,” rumbled the man, gazing out the window. Jenny looked, and saw a boat circling them almost one hundred feet out. It crossed paths with two other small vessels, going in the opposite direction: both little better than cheap tin cans, though their twin-engine propellers appeared new. The men on board were armed with machine guns and machetes, weapons strapped over flimsy T-s.h.i.+rts and shorts. They had already donned black ski masks.
The first boat was different. Newer. Sleek. Driven by only one man. He wore little except black slacks, a sleeveless black muscle s.h.i.+rt, and two guns holstered in a shoulder rig. No mask. Stone-cold face. He stared at The Calypso Star with dark eyes.
Looking at him sent chills through Jenny. She had never seen that man before, but she knew his type. The others might be local fishermen turned pirates. But he was a mercenary.
A mercenary . . . or something else. With the Consortium, you could never tell if what you were dealing with was fully and boringly human. Not until it was too late.
Sweat broke out. Feverish, but this time it was from fear. It was starting all over again. She had avoided her family for six long years, taken herself from the fight and all the bad memories she still couldn't shake-but the old war had come to her anyway.
What had Ismail said? The Consortium needed her.
Well. f.u.c.k that. f.u.c.k them.
If she could just stop shaking and untwist her guts from her throat.
”You're right,” she said, sounding calmer than she felt. ”They should have boarded by now. They're waiting for something.”
”Or testing you to see if you'll attack and make yourself vulnerable. If that's the case, they won't wait much longer.”
She hoped the mercenary was not psychic. ”The windows are tinted to prevent anyone from seeing inside, and the gla.s.s is bulletproof. They can be opened, just enough. I have guns.”
He was quiet a moment. ”Do you want to kill them?”
The question took her off guard. Made her think about what it would mean to point a gun at someone and pull the trigger.
Again.
She still had nightmares. All these years, she hadn't let herself consider what it would feel like to live through that again. Not in the heat of the moment, unthinking-but deliberate. Intent. Picking up a gun to take the offensive.