Waterborn (The Emerald Series Book 1) (33 page)

“Yeah, I don’t know. A man named Simon Kelley also died. He was negotiating with the local government to make the project happen. He was your grandfather, Athen’s father. The project died along with him.”

“That sounds very unfortunate.”

“Even today the idea offers some hope for a future that doesn’t involve hiding. The ability to survive as a species.”

“Are we in danger as a species?” All this was so new to me, so wonderfully new. It was sobering to think our very existence was threatened.

“I don’t know. I do know there aren’t as many of us around as there were twenty years ago. And if you hadn’t already noticed, the ratio of males to females is about three to one. Not very good odds when it comes to procreation.”

I remembered Erin telling me about the problems it had caused when Jamie had decided to marry her.

“Well, now I’m thoroughly depressed.”

“Don’t be. The real reason I brought you here was because this is also a prison of sorts. There are rooms inside, tanks really, equipped to hold one of us. It’s where your father served his time for the crime he committed against your mother. Rumor is he refused to step outside the building even though they offered to let him for fear he wouldn’t be able to make himself go back in.”

I couldn’t imagine anyone being able to make my father do anything he didn’t want to. This building didn’t seem strong enough to hold him. I wondered if anything could.

“I’m not sure I understand why you’re showing me this, telling me all this.”

“Because I think you should know everything so you can make informed decisions when it comes to your family.”

“You think I should forgive him,” I stated, contemplating what it would be like to live inside that building for seven years. Never seeing the sun. Never feeling the wind.

“I didn’t say that. I don’t think I could if it had been my mother, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. I do think it took a repentant man to force that kind of punishment on himself. In some ways this place was built in ignorance. It might be able to hold me, or Jeb, but not someone with your father’s abilities, his power. It’s one of the reasons I got so mad at Sol that night on the beach for using you like he did and exposing you like that in front of one of them. Some things are better kept secret. And I doubt I would last a week locked up in a place like this. Your father stayed. Voluntarily.”

Noah made it sound like my father was a hero. I buried my face in his chest. “I just want someone to tell me what to do. Tell me what I should do.” I loved the way his arms felt when they came around me.

“I can’t do that, Caris, and you don’t really want me to. I didn’t bring you here to upset you. It’s just, if it were me, I would want to know.”

“God, Noah. You should have seen him that day on that boat. He was magnificent and at the same time so terrifying.”

“You don’t have to be scared of him. Whatever he’s done, I don’t believe he would hurt you.”

I leaned back so I could look into Noah’s face.

“That’s just it. I wasn’t scared of him. I wanted to be like him.”

I
t seemed fitting
, after Noah’s revelations, that my father would come to me.

My eyes flew open on a gasp. Heart pounding, I lay still, listening for the thing that had woken me from a deep sleep. My open door infused my room with a salty breeze, the constant din of the waves. All as it should be except for the sharp twang that pierced my nose. Three brief encounters and I already knew his particular scent. He’d done that on the boat—impaled his scent in my memory.

I sat up to an empty room, knowing he’d been here. A small light caught my attention. One of my father’s pearls hung from a silk band over the picture of my mother. It shone like a tiny moon, the light illuminating a swipe of moisture on the glass of the frame. He’d touched it. He’d touched my mother.

Without even having to look, I knew he was out on the beach waiting for me. And I knew I had to go face him and tell him I couldn’t accept such a gift. Tell him no matter what this was between us, it didn’t matter to me. I wouldn’t forgive him.

The sun wasn’t far from rising, the gray pre-dawn fighting the inevitable. He stood near the shore with his feet planted in the wet sand. When I approached, he turned to face me, his chiseled face softening into a fatherly expression I’d seen on my dad many times.

“I don’t want this.” I held out the necklace, hating the tremor of emotion in my voice. Hating the way that even as I said the words my fingers tightened around the pearl as though laying claim to it.

“It’s your birthright. You can’t deny that anymore. I know you think you hate me, but it’s not in you to hate, not real hate.”

It was raining. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. It wasn’t falling from the sky but from someplace inside me. Warm drops of water sought to ease my mind and steady my heart, washing away what remained of my resolve and indifference.

“I wanted to hate you,” I confessed with trembling lips as he continued to comfort me with the force of his energy. It flowed through me, telling me everything was all right. Everything was right.

“Caris.” He stepped toward me and I retreated, my body not ready to acknowledge the hidden place that recognized him.

“Don’t,” I said, holding his pearl clutched between us. “My dad gave up everything for me.” I needed him to understand that while I didn’t hate him, while I might spare a small portion of my life for him, my dad deserved my loyalty. He had earned it. He would have it.

“I admit he was the better man to raise you. I hope one day he will accept my gratitude.” His eyes bore into mine and I wondered if my eyes did that too—shone with such intensity.

“He won’t.” My arm shook visibly with the force of this one small step closer to absolution. But not hating him was a long way from acceptance. Not hating him was a long way from forgiveness.

His eyes brimmed with sympathy. “You’re like me, Caris. How do you think I found you? Your energy, it calls to mine. Don’t be afraid of it. It makes you unique. It makes you special.”

“I won’t be used as a pawn. Not by you. Not by Sol.”

“Sol is suffering the consequences of his actions. And don’t misinterpret what you saw. My only motivation in coming for you was your safety. Our gifts are what they are, gifts. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking they are something more, like I did. They are merely relics of a time gone by, when such things might have given us an advantage in a different world.”

He spoke as if I were an antique, pretty to look at and collect, but serving no real purpose. As though the evolution of our species was behind the timeline of the world’s evolution, relegating us to circus performer status. I found the idea inexplicably sad.

“Did you kill those men?”

“Men.” He laughed, then his eyes lost some of their light, dimming with compassion. “Do you really want to know the answer to that?”

I thought I did but I found myself shaking my head.

His eyes dropped to my wrist and the bracelet I wore. “You have made a good choice in Noah, but he can’t teach you everything. For your sake, you need to learn control.”

“So I can learn to control it?” I jumped at his morsel of hope, craving the thought of control.

“Yes, but you’ll have to allow me to help you.”

So there it was. The thing I feared most. I wouldn’t be able to resist him. I knew it and so did he.

“Take this.” Ounces could measure the weight of it. Still the necklace hung heavy in my palm. One last ditch effort to lose the weight of his existence.

“Keep it,” he said, his gaze holding steady through the unspoken “please.”

“You were magnificent that day you jumped from the bridge. I was proud of you. I knew in that moment, it was all worth it. The second you leaped I let go of any remaining guilt. How could I be sorry for creating you?”

“My existence doesn’t justify your violent, cruel behavior.” I had come out here to return an unwanted gift and all I was doing was placating his feelings. Making it worse was that my heart had sped up when he’d called me magnificent, the same word I’d used to describe him to Noah. More than a small part of me wanted his approval.

“No, nothing could justify what I did. But it does make it easier to accept. Just as I hope one day you’ll be able to accept me.”

With the rise of the sun came the solid touch of a hand on my shoulder. I had no idea how long he had been standing behind me, how much he had heard. My father’s face hadn’t changed, but his eyes did lift to meet my dad’s over my head.

“You have no place here, Athen. I won’t allow you to bully her.” My dad’s voice dripped with venom. I’d never heard him speak like that before.

“Bully her?” My father took a menacing step forward. I tensed. Even on this empty stretch of beach there wasn’t enough room for all three of us. I doubted there was anywhere big enough for the two of them.

“You’ve done well with her, Patrick. I don’t admit that lightly. But you are only, well, what you are, and she is different. And you are not innocent in your self-righteous rage. Or have you somehow forgotten you stole her from me?” Scorn punctuated his words. “She is my daughter, my blood, whether you like it or not.”

My dad lunged, a swift movement that took me totally by surprise.

“No.” I reached for him, grasping in my fear. Not fast enough to stop him. His fist connected with my father’s face with startling accuracy and force.

“No, she isn’t.” My dad stood nearly toe-to-toe with Athen, ready, despite the odds, to do battle on my behalf.

Athen wiped at his lip, smearing blood on the back of his hand. A begrudging look passed over his face. “You mistake me, Patrick. I’ll do what’s best for Caris, but I will give her a chance to decide what that is. If she’ll allow me to be a part of her life, I’ll be forever thankful and count myself lucky. If not? Well, life goes on as it’s been. I hope you’ll afford her the same respect. She deserves the chance to make the choice without you standing in her way. You owe her that much. We all owe her that much. Caris, more than you or even Rena, is the one who is the victim here.”

I wanted to refute his words. I wasn’t a victim.

Then his eyes shifted to me, where I stood rendered immobile by the impossibility of the situation, faced with the two men who impacted my life in drastically different ways. Drawn to both of them for completely different reasons. My father was right, I didn’t have a choice about the connection we shared, but I did have a choice whether to make him a part of my life. It was just a choice I wasn’t ready to make yet and might not be for a long time.

His eyes fell on me again and with them a wind that blew gently, touched every part of me then died—a silent goodbye. A reminder of what was between us. Without another word he turned for the water and on a dive, he was lost in the dawn light and the wavering shine of the water.

My dad sucked in a harsh breath, shaking his hand to throw off the sting. “Shit, that hurt.”

“Do you feel better?” My heart still hammered in my throat.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve fantasized about doing that for a very long time.”

I sighed, running a hand over my hair, and realizing I still held the necklace, I denied the relief I felt. “I’m sorry. To see him, it must bring back so many bad memories.”

“I knew I would have to face him eventually and it was long past due that I deal with it, that I deal with him.”

“I’m sorry, Dad. I tried to hate him.” Honesty was necessary at this point. I had no room for anything else. “But I can’t.”

“I have to tell you, your mother never did either. He hurt her, he disappointed her, but she never hated him. Especially after you were born.” He sighed, reaching to wipe a strand of hair off my lip. “Hate is an exhausting and unproductive emotion. I should know. I’ve lived with it long enough. I’ve harbored enough for both of us.”

The admission caught me off guard. I’d never thought of my dad as anything but loving and kind-hearted. He put his hands on my shoulders, his eyes tender.

“I will respect the decisions you make about that part of your life,” he said, his smile wistful. “And I thought we agreed to no more sorries? That was two for you.”

“I’m glad my mother picked you,” I said.

“Me too.”

I hooked my arm around his waist as we fell into step on our way back to the house. Morning light filtered down on us like a new promise.

“And you know we have that thing today. Flattery won’t get you out of it.”

I groaned into his shoulder, that thing being my tour of the high school. “Do I have to?”

“Yes,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “But if you absolutely hate the idea after we’ve looked, we can talk about other options.”

Up in my room, I sat on the edge of my bed, my mother’s image smiling back at me. I stared at it a long time before I lay the necklace back where my father had left it for me.

B
lack rubber burned
into my skin with each flip of the tire. I grunted with effort, ignoring the beady-eyed curiosity of the five seagulls following my progress. I’d spent so much time on this beach with my brother, I could imagine hearing his voice in the wind, pushing me harder, pushing me to be better. Always one more rep to do, always farther to go. I’d probably flipped this damn tire a mile, and still it wasn’t enough.

I abandoned the tire and tacked on a five mile run. Nothing like forcing your body to its physical limits and stripping down to the guts of your soul to find some mental clarity. I’d been doing this every afternoon for a week and I still didn’t have it.

Not that I hadn’t found contentment. I had. I was more than content; I was happy. But ever since losing Caris’s Song I had felt a gnawing lack of purpose and direction.

By the time I was done, my mouth and throat felt like I had eaten a bag of cotton. The water called to me, a promise of relief. I was about to immerse myself when I spotted Marshall walking toward me. He had on a pair of khaki shorts and a short-sleeved button up shirt. Overdressed for around here. He tossed me a bottle of water.

“How did you know I was out here?” I had come back to the beach behind the Facility seeking the solitude it offered.

“Caris was at the house. She and Erin were about to go shopping for school stuff and she mentioned you’d been coming out here.”

Caris had decided to enroll for her senior year, and I was glad she and Erin would have each other. She hadn’t given up hope that I would finish with her.

Misery loves company.

It had to be upwards of ninety degrees without a stir in the air and Marshall wasn’t even sweating. I’d never figured out how he was able to pull off that cool-as-a-cucumber look in the dead of summer. For a lander he was in good shape, lean and ripped, and in top-notch physical condition. It reminded me of the first time I had met him, seeming all cool and shit. Sixteen years old and having lost my dad two years before, I had been looking for a replacement, someone to look up to, and Marshall had fit the bill.

“So what’s up? You obviously didn’t come all the way out here to workout with me.”

“Not hardly. I could never keep up with you boys.” He dug his hands into his pockets. “Mr. Harrison dropped the charges against Sol. Evidently Athen Kelly cut a deal with him. Sent Sol packing. Banished him from the coast for the foreseeable future.”

“You won’t hear me complaining about that,” I said. And really, I wasn’t surprised. Banishment was typical punishment when someone in the tribe committed an offense. Not that it happened much, but when it did, tribe-imposed exile was the normal consequence.

“You want to speculate on why, after nearly two decades of living in relative obscurity, Athen Kelly decides to rear his head out of the water?”

“Nope.” Pretty sure I knew the answer to that one. Same reason I had been called back from the Deep. Same reason Sol decided to stir the waters and force a confrontation.

Caris.

Same reason, entirely different motives. My motives were pretty straight up. I loved her. Sol, on the other hand, saw her as an opportunity. As for Athen Kelley, his motives might be a bit more complicated. I sensed he was thinking about what might have been. Caris gave him a chance to right a wrong. Her presence was a catalyst for hope, the reinstating of something so many of us thought lost. Hell, even I was restless thinking about the future mainly because she made me see one.

“That’s not why I’m here, though. Got a favor to ask.” He pulled what looked like some kind of GPS device out of his pocket.

“What kind of favor?”

“Eight-year-old kid missing off a deep-sea charter. Called in about an hour ago. No one saw him go over but there’s a cushion missing from the boat. Search is underway, figured you might want to help out.”

“Saving the world was Jamie’s job. I don’t know if I want it to be mine,” I offered, a token resistance at best. Marshall knew damn well I’d go look for the boy. I just needed him to know I wasn’t Jamie. That I might want to do things a little bit differently. Because I knew if I took that device, I was taking on more than finding some poor kid.

“No one’s asking you to save the world, Noah. It’s just one eight-year-old kid in the water and a family that wants him back.”

I met Marshall’s gaze through his sunglasses. Of course, all I could see was a reflection of myself in the dark lenses. Saw myself take the device out of his hand and string it around my neck.

He offered general directions, approximate coordinates of the boat, which didn’t mean a whole lot to me. I found it easier for him to just point his finger and say “that way.” I had my own ways of finding things that didn’t belong, and they didn’t involve technology, just good old-fashioned instinct.

It took me all of twenty minutes to find him, about a mile outside of what would have been their search radius, and by the looks of him, he’d been out here a while. Stupid landers. He wasn’t even wearing a life vest. Legs dangling under the flotation device in a pair of geometric print shorts bright enough to see from hundreds of yards away. No signs of injury from my viewpoint. I surfaced in front of him, easing my head out of the water slowly, knowing I was probably going to scare the crap out of him. He had his head down and his eyes were in the process of drifting closed.

“Hey, buddy. What you doing out here all by yourself?”

He lifted his tear-streaked face off the cushion and stared at me with dark eyes, hazy with fatigue. “I fell.” His small voice quivered.

“I heard about that. You okay? You hurt anywhere?” I took a quick visual survey. He shook his head, fists clenched around the straps of the cushion so tight his fingers were white and rubbed raw where the straps bit into his flesh. I eased them loose and held his arms in place with my hands.

“No,” he said, eyes glued to my face.

“Can I put this around your neck?” With one hand, I slipped the device over his head and secured it around his neck. “This will help them find you so you can get out of here. You’re doing good holding on so tight. You must be really strong.”

“I play soccer.”

Poor guy sounded thirsty. I should have brought some water. He was coherent enough though, and other than a nasty sunburn and dehydration, he appeared to be in decent shape, considering.

“That’s cool. I bet you can run fast too.”

“I’m pretty fast. Not as fast as Jenny. She’s the fastest on our team.”

I smiled at that. Already a ladies’ man. “What’s your name?”

“Cody,” he stammered, looking at me like he was trying to figure out if I was really here.

“Well, Cody. Do hear that?”

Cody perked up, his sunburned forehead furrowed in concentration. His eyes went wide the second he picked up on the
thwamp, thwamp
of the chopper.

“You know what that is?”

“A helicopter?”

“Yeah, it is. You ever been in a helicopter?”

“No.”

“Then today’s your lucky day. A guy is gonna drop down from that helicopter and pick you up and take you back to your mom and dad. You okay with that?”

He nodded his head, not at all convinced of the plan. “He won’t drop me will he?”

“Hell no. This guy knows what he’s doing. And you’re really strong and brave, so hold on tight.”

His mouth quirked in a sort of smile. “My mom would take my DS away if I said that word.”

I had no idea what a DS was. I retraced my words in my head, wondering what I’d said. “What? Hell?”

“Yeah.” He giggled.

I liked this kid. He had to be scared out of his mind, and here he was bobbing on a seat cushion, laughing about curse words. Kid was lucky. That cushion had saved his life.

“Hell is a bad word,” I confirmed. “You should never say hell.” My voice got lost in the sound of the approaching chopper. “Cody, looks like your ride’s here.”

He craned his neck, looking up at the chopper that now hovered overhead, blades beating wind down on us. His eyes were trained on the bright orange suit. I sank under the water and watched from a few feet below as Cody wrapped his arms tight around the guy’s neck and they hoisted him away, water streaming like a kite tail from their feet. About halfway up, he took his face out of the guy’s neck and looked back down. I knew he couldn’t see me, the water too dark, the chop of the waves making it hard to see clearly. I saw his hand come up, saw the little guy wave at me, and crap if my chest didn’t get all full feeling. That mental clarity I’d been pushing so hard to find slapped me upside the head. Who knew I would have found it in the face of an eight-year-old boy. A lander at that.

They probably would have found him anyway, even without my help. Maybe not as fast. Maybe not before something else found him first. Maybe not before his grip gave out or a rogue wave toppled him over.

I swam back to shore bloated with a sense of satisfaction that took me by surprise. This was what I wanted to be. It’s what Jamie had been.

One of the good guys.

Beat the hell out of going back to school.