Forever Breathing (Just Breathe #3) (27 page)

Hearing those words at this moment right before we swim out, both breaks my heart and makes it soar. I tell her, embracing her one more time, “Alody, I love you too. So much. But I want us to save our words because we will be fine. Do you understand? We will be fine. You will be able to tell me every day for the rest of your life. We just have to get through today. So save those words and when we have won the right to be here, tell me then.”

A smile creeps across those perfect pink lips right before I gently kiss them. When we pull away she has a determined look in her eyes and my resolve strengthens believing my own profession to her.

Chapter 46

Ever

Jack and I swim out of the cave leading the others. As soon as we are clear of the doors, everyone disperses. Jack leads me around to the back of the caves. The only time I’ve ever been back here was when I helped Amber escape the Erebus, when we thought it was bad to be one, such a long time ago now. I stop Jack before we get around to the back and ask, concerned, “Wait, where is Amber? When we came back out into the main room, she wasn’t there.”

“Don’t worry, she’s with Jenna. Now listen Ever, this time it’s going to be tough. There are so many more of them and less of us. We need to go and do something first though.”

I know this but him speaking it out loud, terrifies me. We are in way over our heads. He pulls me the rest of the way around to the back. I notice others hiding out in the crevices of the caves. I think it’s now more of a waiting game again. I wonder what that last vibration through the water was but I’m afraid to ask. If Jaspen has already been defeated in the city, then we won’t have a fighting chance. Not against six cities the size of ours and Roman’s. Jack pulls me down into a large crevice leading to a wide underground room. Once down there he asks me, “When was the last time you ‘willed’ something to move?”

I have to think for a minute because it has been a while. I tell him, “It was…it was when I was in Roman’s dungeon.”

He chuckles, “Dungeon? You call it a dungeon?”

I nod, laughing with him at my terrible reference.

“Okay, I thought that was the case. Find something in here to move and practice. We might be here for a little while.”

I look around and find a large rock in the corner. Picking it up slowly with my mind gives me a flashback to the dungeon and it falls back down. Jack turns to me from whatever he was doing and asks, “Are you okay?”

I nod, “Just rusty, I guess.”

I try again this time focusing on the present, right now. Once it’s up, hovering in the water, I whip it across the room and slam it against the opposite wall. It breaks into tiny pieces, each floating slowly back to the rocky bottom. I smile grateful that I still have it. I glance back over to Jack. He is preoccupied with something. He didn’t even see my great display of power. I decide we both need a bit of fun so I imagine a small school of silver fish swimming into the cave. Sure enough they pour in from the opening. Actually they keep streaming in, definitely not a small school. Jack turns and notices with a panicked look. He looks across to me and I am grinning ear to ear.

“Did you do this?” And he swims to me with something in his hand.

I smirk, “Guilty.”

By this time the amount of fish in the room is becoming a bit too much.

He drops whatever was in his hand and gathers me in his arms, looking down into my eyes, “Um Ever, I think pretty soon, there won’t be any room for us in here.”

I close my eyes and imagine a clear room. Immediately, the fish leave back out the way they came. He lowers his face to mine and mumbles against my lips, “I think that’s enough practice for you.”

Before I can respond, His mouth is on mine and whatever snide comment I had intended, is lost.

When we finally pull up for air, I ask bothered suddenly, “Jack, why are we waiting? It’s driving me crazy. Why can’t we just go out and help? The fighting has started, hasn’t it?”

He lets me go, picks up the object he dropped earlier and turns the other way. I wait a full two minutes before I’m about to shower him with aed, hanother onslaught of questions but he beats me to it.

“Yes, they’ve started. We don’t want to be out there right now. I promise it will all make sense very soon.”

I knew it. This is always Jack’s MO. Tell Ever, only what is necessary.
My blood is starting to boil with anger. Is he never going to get it that I can handle things? I’m about to let him have it. I open my mouth to argue but notice the long thing in his hand. I close my mouth and look closer. It resembles a spear but it isn’t a spear. It’s long and seems to be made of gold. One side has a handle and the other is fashioned with three prongs. It reminds me of the trident in all of the tales on land about Poseidon.

Instead of yelling at him, I ask suddenly scared, “Jack, what is that?”

He holds it out to me but I flinch and shy away. For some reason, this weapon is something I want to be as far away from as possible.

He glides toward me with his hand still outstretched. I look up at him because he is scaring me.

“Ever, just take it and I will explain. Slowly, I reach out in front of me and my fingers just barely graze it. The minute my fingers touch it, a dull glow illuminates the room. I pull my hand back and the glow disappears. I look up into Jack’s eyes and the familiar tingle is starting in the tips of my fin. He lowers the ‘thing’, yes that is all I can call it at this point. Something very scary. I don’t know why but I have a very bad feeling. Then he comes face to face with me and pulls my chin up from staring down at it to look into his very vibrant, blue eyes.

“Ever, you mean more to us than you can even imagine.”

I try to turn my head to shake but he won’t let me go.

He continues as the tingle rises higher up my fin.

“Right after Seamus came, tales were told that a mer-person would come and save us from his wrath. This was way before my time but the stories have been around for a very long time. Over the years they have been told less and less. People started to say it was just a story. I know for a fact right now Ever, that it’s not just a story.”

The tingle rises up higher radiating through my arms and my last thought is that I was doing so good. Now I’ve gone and ruined it...

Chapter 47

Ever

When I wake up, Jack is sitting on the floor of the room cradling me in his arms. My eyes meet his and a look of relief washes through his face.

He shakes his head smirking, “You know you worry me every time you do that. I should have known not to give you so much all at once.”

I shake my head at my stupidity. I really thought I was done with this idiotic fainting business. What the hell is wrong with me? You would think after all I’ve been through, I would be past this.

Jack grins watching me, “You know you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. This is part of who you are. It’s probably never going to go away.”

He bows his head reserved, “We are both going to have to get used to it.”

I pull myself off of his lap and sit up. I glance across the room at the offensive thing that caused me to faint and ask carefully, “Tell me why that glowed when I touched it and why it doesn’t glow when you touch it.”

He sighs, “Ever, when you chose to come here it was against everything I believed. You already know this. I was trying to keep people that were essentially half-blooded mer-people
away. I know it sounds so harsh but that’s all I knew. You know that it all changed when I met you. I had to question everything I believed in and make new choices. I know my choices were nothing like yours but I changed everything I believed in because it was the right thing to do.”

“Amber saw it the first time you came to the sea. She knew who you were but she always believed in those stories. She adopted our parent’s beliefs but somewhere in there she always believed in the fairytale.”

I remember that first time I met Amber on the beach. She took me out to explore my ‘wills’ as she put it when we came to the city. She said that I had different ‘wills’ and wondered if I was the ‘one’, whatever that meant.

“When we went to visit Alex at the lake that day and he told us about Roman’s city, he also told me something else. He explained that there were rumors, again not very many, but some still spoke about a trident that could be used to change everything…”

Now I know I must be going crazy. He actually called the thing a trident. I turn to him and interrupt, “Jack, this is stupid. That is a story. On land we tell stories about that thing, involving the sea god Poseidon. This is so make-believe stuff.”

“Ever, Poseidon, yes he is a story, maybe something the people on land have made up to explain sightings of our people, I don’t know. But I do know that Alex knew it was here. When
you touched it something happened. I know very little about this but I do know that you come from two very strong leaders and this… I don’t know…this could end it.”

At this point in time I know I am in way over my head but some of what jack is saying could be true. It did glow when I touched it and he found it here as Alex said. Alex…

I turn to him, “Why didn’t Alex tell me about this?”

“I’m not sure he believed it was really here. His father thim, “Whold him about it right before he died. He told him that he would know when it would be time to find it. I guess he never thought about it until you and your brother came here.”

I push myself up and glide over to the ‘thing’, bend over and slowly pick it up. It immediately glows but gets brighter the longer I grasp it. Finally, the room is lit up as if the sun is in the center of the room.

I hold it out in front of me afraid that if it gets closer, I don’t know… I turn to Jack and ask in a shaky breath, “Okay, how does this work?”

He swims over to me and carefully pries my fingers from it. As soon as my hand is free, the glow disappears.

“Ever, because I don’t know, it might be best if we don’t try it in a closed space.”

“But we really don’t have the liberty right now to go out there to try it out.”

“True, I would just assume it is dangerous though. After Alody and James check on something, they are meeting us here. Then we’ll decide what to do.”

I’m still extremely anxious that we are not fighting and everyone else in the city is. How many lives will be lost because we weren’t there?

Chapter 48

James

Alody and I make our way to the back of the Erebus caves once we check on her people scattered across the expanse of caves. A surprise attack is what we planned and a surprise attack is what the brothers will get. At this point, I am convinced Jaspen has some ulterior motive. I don’t know if he will turn on us at the last minute or if he’s set his sights higher. I do know that we can’t trust him and that is something we need at this moment, trust. Alody, Jack and I made other plans not including Jaspen. Only time will tell if they come to fruition.