Rogue Wave (The Water Keepers, Book 2) (37 page)

“I know,” Rayne said carefully. “I just think it might be better if we stay close to each other, especially if something goes wrong.”

“I guess that makes sense,” she said with smile. It was her smile that kept him going, that gave him a reason to never give up. He couldn’t let her down today.

“We’ll need to leave here in the next hour or so. Does that give you enough time?” he asked.

She nodded. “I’ll be ready.” Then he pulled out the prepaid phones to get them set up while he let her go back to eating her breakfast.

An hour later, they were walking past the outdoor pool at the back of the hotel, just about to walk down to the path which led along the beach to the pier.

There were already people everywhere; people walking dogs, pushing strollers, enjoying a leisurely jog along the concrete path, all doing their best to weave around each other and the numerous bike riders and rollerbladers passing them by. The place was bustling with energy. The crowds would be perfect, easy to blend into when they approached the drop point. If Ash’s thief showed up again, Rayne was determined to make it clear that they were messing with the wrong guy.

Rayne pulled Sadie a few feet off the path, out of the line of traffic. Even out in the bright sunlight, he could see that there was hardly any blue left in her dark eyes. “Here, take this,” he said, handing her one of the cell phones from his pocket. “I want you to stick close to me until we reach the pier. When we get up there, I’ll find a good place for you to wait a few yards off from the drop point, then I want you to stay on the phone with me the entire time that we’re separated.”

She took the Bluetooth headset he held out to her and nodded. “I think I can handle it.” Then he took her hand firmly in his grip, leading her forward up the path. He knew she could probably handle it, but he was hoping her body could as well.

When they reached the large wooden walkway full of people, Rayne directed them cautiously through the middle of the crowd toward the amusement park section of the pier. They made their way forward along the boardwalk until Rayne stopped in front of an empty bench located across from the food court.

He pointed to a brightly painted souvenir shop several yards away. “You see that purple building?” he said. “That’s where I’m headed. There’s a row of lockers right along the left wall. I shouldn’t be out of your sight for more than a few minutes, okay? I’ll be on the phone with you the entire time. If anything feels out of place, I want you to tell me immediately.”

Sadie agreed and leaned against the metal railing behind the bench, staring down at the sandy beach far below them, almost like she needed the rail for support.

“That was a long walk out here,” Rayne said. “Maybe you should sit down and rest for a minute, conserve your strength.”

Sadie’s casual tone seemed out of place next to the tired look on her face. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

Rayne nodded, hoping to convince himself as much as her when he said, “Of course you will. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

He secured the Bluetooth to his ear as he moved swiftly across the boardwalk and dialed Sadie’s phone.

“Hey,” she answered cheerfully.

He moved quickly, glancing back at her over his shoulder. “Everything still good?”

“Well, I’m not dead yet, if that’s what you mean,” she said with a chuckle.

“You know, that really isn’t funny,” he teased, walking past the front of the purple building.

Of course, it really wasn’t funny to him at all, but if making light of the situation helped Sadie feel at ease, he was willing to play along. Rayne was about to think of a joke to keep her face smiling when his feet froze in place. He swore under his breath, caught off guard as he recognized the man in the hooded sweatshirt and dark sunglasses across the way. Ash’s Healing Water thief was about to beat him to the punch yet again.

“What is it?” Sadie asked through her headset in alarm.

“Just stay where you are,” Rayne instructed.

He shuffled forward quickly, hiding behind a series of clothing racks lined up against the wall of the souvenir shop. He could see the thief forcing open the locker where the Healing Water was secured. When the thief successfully opened the locker door and grabbed the flask of Healing Water from inside, Rayne lunged forward behind the thief’s back and threw his arms in a choke hold around the guy’s neck. The thief responded quickly, wrapping his right leg behind Rayne’s shin, forcing his shoulder skillfully out of the choke hold, and flinging Rayne’s back to the ground.

Rayne shook off the pain as Sadie’s voice called out in his headset. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

Rayne was down just long enough to give the thief a head start. “The thief is back,” he said to Sadie. “Just stay where you are.”

Rayne jumped to his feet and ran after the thief, who was heading around the back of the building toward the heart of the amusement park.

Obstacles flew back in Rayne’s direction through his pursuit, trash cans and strollers and darts from one of the carnival games. Rayne pressed forward with relentless determination. This guy was quick, and it was obvious he’d been trained, but the thought of Sadie’s darkening eyes pushed Rayne’s legs even faster.

The thief sprinted under the roller coaster and past the Ferris wheel, to the far corner of the park, pushing helpless bystanders out of his way as he shot past them.

Just when Rayne was about to question his ability to catch up, the thief made a crucial error, losing his focus at the sound of a popping balloon and smashing right into an ice-cream cart. The thief scrambled to get up off the ground, but when the guy hit his feet, Rayne thrust his knee into his chest, followed by a second strike to his head from Rayne’s elbow.

The thief’s sunglasses flew off his head from the blow, revealing a sickeningly familiar face. Nicole’s cousin,
Derrick
, glared back in Rayne’s direction. At least that was who the guy
claimed
to be.

Rayne’s eyes tightened. “
You
,” he accused, as he realized he’d been deceived. “I always knew you were trouble.”

Derrick shrugged with a wicked smile and said nothing. Instead, he threw his arms around Rayne’s neck, forcing Rayne’s face down to collide with his knee. Rayne grunted at the hard bone against his head.

“That sounded painful,” Derrick jeered.

When Rayne pushed away from Derrick’s hit, staggering back a few feet away, he said, “What are you doing here? Did Ash send you?”

“Just trying to keep life interesting,” Derrick said. Then he turned to run out toward the edge of the pier, jumping up onto the metal railing as if he were going to leap straight over the edge and plunge himself down into the ocean below. Rayne was close on Derrick’s heals. He grabbed the guy’s shoulders, pulling him back from the rail and throwing him onto the ground.

“I don’t think so,” Rayne said, pinning Derrick on his back. “No one’s leaving until I get that Healing Water.”

Derrick smirked. “You can try, but you might be here a while.” He thrust his knee into Rayne’s groin, sending a wave of pain clear to his gut. Rayne replied quickly with a blow across Derrick’s face.

“Is that all you got?” Derrick taunted.

Something out of place caught Rayne’s attention. For a split second, he gaped at Derrick’s face, one of his eyes still dull and brown, the other…an alarming shade of purple. This was no ordinary guy pushing his nose where it didn’t belong; this was a trained agent from Ambrosia.

“Shade contacts?” Rayne questioned aloud, realizing he’d been taken for even more of a ride than he’d thought. Anger spilled out from Rayne’s fists and he pummeled the agent’s face with three consecutive blows.

Derrick, or the agent, or whoever the guy was, laughed haughtily in Rayne’s face. “If you want the Healing Water, come and get it. It’s right in my pocket.”

Rayne jabbed his elbow into the agent’s chest and scrambled to reach for the guy’s pocket. Just as Rayne’s hand emerged with the silver flask, trying to move to his feet, the agent swept his leg under Rayne’s body, knocking him onto his knees. The agent followed up instantly with a chop of his hand against Rayne’s arm, causing the Healing Water to launch up into the air.

Panic shot through Rayne’s body. He leapt forward, reaching out his hand, but the silver flask slipped through the tips of his fingers, bounced once against the ground, and fell tragically over the edge of the pier.

Rayne’s eyes burned red. The Healing Water was gone. Sadie’s chance at life had slipped right through his fingers. He grabbed the agent’s throat and started to squeeze. “What do you know about Ash?” Rayne yelled. “Why is he stealing Sadie’s Healing Water?”

The agent struggled to respond, his throat still constricted under Rayne’s grip. “What do you mean
Sadie’s
Healing Water?” the agent managed to say.

“Don’t play games with me,” Rayne said, yanking the agent’s head and knocking it back against the ground. “Ash knows the water was meant for her. She’s on the verge of death.”

Before Rayne could make another threat, the brunt of the agent’s palm thrust up into Rayne’s chin, sending a shock through Rayne’s jaw. The agent’s legs sprang forward, throwing Rayne’s body tumbling over the agent’s head. Rayne rolled out of the throw and jumped to his feet, holding himself in a ready position.

The agent held his hands up cautiously. “Rayne,” he said, “just stop for a second and listen to me. It’s me, Jax. Jax Bennett. Don’t you recognize me?” The guy slid out the other brown contact from his eye and tossed it aside, allowing both violet eyes to shine through on his face. He ran his hand over his perfectly smoothed hair, messing it up into a wild, unkempt arrangement, and nodding as if to say,
see…it’s just your buddy from back in the old days at the Academy
.

Rayne hadn’t seen Jax Bennett in person for years, probably not since the first year after graduation. Of course, Rayne had seen him plenty of times on TV, since Jax was the tabloids’ favorite star of Banya; a Scout who soaked up every ounce of attention his fans could dish out and still seemed hungry for more.

Rayne should have easily been able to recognize Jax on the street, but without the stark white spiky hair, dark black eyeliner, and loud, ridiculous clothing that Jax normally paraded around the city in, Rayne hardly remembered what Jax Bennett truly looked like.

Rayne made a careful assessment of the agent’s facial features, determining that this was in fact his old friend Jax Bennett. But so what? That didn’t actually change anything about their current confrontation.

Just as he was about to continue his interrogation, Rayne’s eyes went wide.

Out of nowhere, Sadie emerged from behind Jax’s back, clutching a bowling pin in her grip. She pulled her arms back over her shoulder and swung the pin with all her strength like a baseball bat, right across the back of Jax Bennett’s head.

She jumped over Jax’s body, out cold on the wood planks of the boardwalk floor. “Are you okay?” she said, running to throw her arms around Rayne’s neck. She glanced back at the agent lying on the ground and dropped her arms abruptly when he opened his eyes and moved to sit up.

“Oh my gosh,” she said with recognition. “
Derrick?
It was
you
?”

“My name isn’t Derrick,” he said, rolling his eyes and moving cautiously to his feet. “It’s Jax.”

Jax took a step forward toward them. Rayne stepped in front of Sadie as a shield.

“I’m not here to hurt her,” Jax insisted. “I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.”

“What are you doing here? Are you a Water Keeper?” Sadie asked in disbelief.

“No, he’s a Scout,” Rayne answered for him, stepping away from Sadie so he could move back in on Jax. “He graduated from the Academy with me and Ash. We
used
to be friends.”

When Rayne was within arm’s reach, Jax held up his arms to signal his surrender. “I’m still your friend,” Jax started to say, but Rayne’s glare was unforgiving. Rayne leapt high off the ground and wrapped his leg around Jax’s neck, yanking him with the entire force of his body over his head. Both bodies flipped in the air as Rayne used the momentum and control of his legs to pin Jax to the ground yet again.

“You better explain fast,” Rayne said. “Or I’m going to show you just how much I’ve been holding back. We’re pretty far from the Threshold right now…I bet you’d have some trouble recovering if I broke your neck.”

“Wait! This is…a misunderstanding,” Jax spit out between gasping for air. “I thought it was just a joke…or a rivalry over a girl. I have no idea what’s going on here.”

“Why should we believe anything you say?” Sadie called over Rayne’s back.

Jax pled again. “Rayne…you of all people should know. Ash is always pulling off elaborate practical jokes. I had no idea that Sadie needed the Healing Water. I don’t know what this is about.”

Rayne squeezed tighter around Jax’s neck. “Do you swear…on the sacred Pool of Banya that this is the truth?”

“Yes,” Jax said, pushing out his last breath of air. “I swear.”

Rayne released his hold from Jax’s neck, and both agents collapsed backward to catch their breath.

Sadie ran over to their side and turned to Jax. Without a word, the frustration in her eyes spilled out as she slapped her hand right across his face. Jax didn’t say anything at first, just sat there stunned and allowed Sadie’s glare to give him the reprimand each of them knew he deserved.

“I guess I deserved that,” Jax finally said, rubbing his cheek.

Rayne was the one to reply, “Yes. You did.”

Even if it had turned out in reality to just be a joke, which of course Rayne knew it wasn’t, that wouldn’t excuse the fact that Jax had been lying and deceiving everyone since the day he showed up.

Sadie finally broke the tension. “Have you been in contact with Ash?” she asked Jax anxiously. “He has my mom; he’s been threatening to hurt her. Do you know where to find him?”

Jax squinted at Rayne. “What is she talking about?”

“It’s true,” Rayne said. “Not only has Ash been stealing our Healing Water, he’s been making threats specifically to Sadie and her mother. He hasn’t just been MIA because he’s been grieving his father’s death; he’s been up to something that isn’t right. There have been reports of Healing Water abuse all over the news here, and Ash is somehow involved. I tried to talk some sense into him, to turn himself in, but he wouldn’t listen. I think he’s gone completely off the deep end.”