Part 39 (1/2)

He grabbed her throat, squeezing. His face was stricken, but pale, his eyes lost in anger and fear, and remorse. ”I was thinking I want to live.”

Jenny snarled at him, no longer pretending to be furious. Les planted his mouth over hers-kissed her so hard their teeth sc.r.a.ped. He tasted wet and sloppy, and when she tried to wrench her head away, he held her in place, forcing his tongue into her mouth. Jenny bit down.

Les jerked back, swearing. Blood dribbled from his mouth. Jenny tasted it and spat. His eyes glittered, with fury or hurt. She still wasn't certain which when he turned away, breathing hard, staring at the sea.

”You think you understand the world,” whispered Les. ”You and your crazy family. But it's so much bigger than you realize, and there's so much wrong with it, too. Don't you ever think about what it would be like to just . . . start over?”

”Start over with your own life,” she told him, hating her voice for trembling. ”Don't make that choice for everyone else.”

Les caught her hand, squeezing too hard. ”I know what the Consortium did to you. I know how they view the world. I know their methods. What they've done is beyond forgiveness. But they are right about one thing. There is something coming, Jenny. If it's not the Kraken, it will be something else that ends the world we know. It's only a matter of time.”

Jenny wrenched her hand away, but he made it clear that it was only because he let her. Her wrist ached, and so did her fingers.

”Coward,” she whispered, heart breaking for all those memories that would be forever tainted. ”You and the Consortium. All of you, cowards. You get all your prophecies and precogs, and glimpses of a bad future, and you want to help it along, or hurt people because you think it'll put you in a better position to survive. You think the world has to change? Fine, grow a pair and change it. You want to survive what you think is coming? Or just survive to the end of the month?” Jenny gave him a look of pure disdain. ”You're not going to survive s.h.i.+t by turning on your friends. Go to h.e.l.l, Les. Go to f.u.c.king h.e.l.l.”

Les had been silent, pale, his eyes dead as he listened to her. She couldn't imagine his thoughts, and didn't want to. Jenny treaded water in front of him, feeling the kra'a burn against her skull while Perrin burned on the other side of his wall, that wall that she had cracked open the moment Les had brought her to the surface. Perrin had heard, seen, everything-a.s.suming she understood how all this worked.

And he was close now. She had stalled almost long enough.

”I'm sorry you feel that way,” Les finally said, a little too quiet. ”Because there's something between us.” He grabbed her hair, forcing her to look at him. ”A bond. A. Very. Real. Bond.” He spat out the words with a clenched jaw.

”Not between us,” she told him, through her own gritted teeth.

”It happens sometimes,” he went on. ”But it's rare. Special. Something every Krackeni desires, to find that one soul-”

”Stop.”

”-that is yours alone, in all the world.” Les leaned in, staring into her eyes. ”There doesn't have to be love, Jenny, but it makes it easier.”

She s.h.i.+vered. ”I'm not yours. There's no bond.”

”I feel it!” he hissed. ”I felt the echo of it the first time I met you, but I thought it was just my imagination. Just before everything went to h.e.l.l, though, it . . . flared. I could see it in you. And if you're not bonded to me-”

”It's Perrin,” she told him, unable to bear listening to another word of what he was saying. ”Perrin is mine. I'm his. That's our bond you felt.”

Les stared. ”No.”

Tears bit her eyes. ”You want to know what I was searching for all these years? What drove me? It was him. Always him. I found him when I was a child, and that was it. I've known Perrin all my life and I love him. I love him, Les, more than anything.”

He shoved her away, and the look in his eyes was stunned, brokenhearted. ”Not him. Anyone but him, Jenny.”

Because he has always had what you wanted, she thought. Oh, G.o.d. Les.

”I always made it clear I felt nothing for you, except friends.h.i.+p,” she whispered.

Les dragged in a deep breath, and reached out again to grab her arm. His fingers squeezed too tightly, but she didn't make a sound.

”I suppose you think . . . Perrin . . . can give you something I can't,” he said, hoa.r.s.e. ”You just don't know him, Jenny. Or maybe you do. Maybe you like a little pain.”

Those tears rolled down her cheeks, but not because he was hurting her body. Just her heart. Les was gone. Her friend was dead.

”I'll miss you,” she whispered.

Les frowned. ”What?”

Jenny head-b.u.t.ted him. He was not expecting it, and she had good aim. His broken nose crunched. She tried to dart away, but he grabbed her, swearing ugly words as fresh blood streamed down his face.

Jenny was certain he would hit her. The rage in his eyes was terrifying. But just as quickly it turned into disbelief, a terrible hurt that reminded her too much of the Les she had known, the man she had believed him to be. Good, vulnerable, c.o.c.ky Les. Les, who had been her friend.

Les, who spun her around. His good hand disappeared-and then reappeared, holding a knife. He was so fast, Jenny didn't have time to fight before he dug the blade into the meat of her neck, so hard he pushed her underwater. Jenny screamed, the sea flooding her mouth, choking her. Les pulled her deep under the surface. Jenny glimpsed the mermaids watching, teeth bared in excitement.

The kra'a screamed with her. Power pulsed, like a shotgun being pumped. Jenny slammed her elbow into Les's gut. Again and again, trying to twist away. Les stopped trying to pry out the kra'a just long enough to punch her side, and then her ribs, making her double over. The knife flashed back to her skull, digging in harder.

Enough, whispered the kra'a.

A pulse of blue light roared over Jenny's body, slamming from her in a shock wave that sent Les spinning into the mermaids with crus.h.i.+ng force. Blood streamed from their noses as they drifted against each other, stunned and twitching.

Jenny went blind, clawing at her throat. She tried kicking, but was too weak to reach the surface.

Perrin, she called out, widening the crack in the wall between them. A rush of images surrounded her, along with the sensation of extended arms, neck and shoulders hunched, her large, muscular body undulating as her hips were forced up, tail driving down in a propulsive, distance-eating beat- I'm coming, he said, and she snapped back into her own body.

Something very large b.u.mped her legs, and her mind reached out instinctively. She wanted Perrin, but it was the great white shark that filled her thoughts: cool, restrained, and filled with strange purpose.

No time, whispered the kra'a, and Jenny's hand moved of its own accord, reaching out. When the shark made another pa.s.s beneath her, her fingers closed around its fin, and she was pulled into swift, graceful flight.

Stop, Jenny told the kra'a, afraid. Stop controlling me.

We know your heart. You would do this anyway.

Doesn't matter. This is my body.

Our body. One flesh. One spirit. Three minds.

Three minds? asked Jenny.

Me. You. It, Perrin said, breaking in. Where are you taking her?

Below, whispered the kra'a. To the Kraken.

It might have been around Christmas, or maybe the New Year, but while some folks were eating turkey and fighting with family over the remote control, Jenny had climbed into a submersible, alone, to dive almost three miles below the ocean's surface.

Lost, sinking, drifting. Listening to the walls groan as the ocean tried to crush her little metal bubble. VHF radio turned off. No lights except the pinp.r.i.c.k glow of dials.

Peaceful. Safe. No one around who could hurt her. Nature might take her life, but that was okay. Wouldn't be personal. Not malicious, or vindictive, or cruel. In nature, life and death happened. It just happened, and you couldn't always stop it.

Sometimes, you didn't want to stop it.

Jenny knew there was magic in the sea. It was not the only reason she loved the sea, but it added one more element of wonder to an unseen world that was already awe-inspiring. The sea was life. More life than could be dreamed.

But dreams, apparently, were the cornerstone of all that life.