Dark Abyss (8 page)

Caleb entered the room dangling her nightgown from one finger and her panties from another. “You want to put your own clothes back on?”

She sent him a drop dead look, stalked across the room, and snatched her clothes from him. “So I can run around the city in my nightclothes? I don’t think so! I’m taking the damned robe! You can have it back when I … we … get to my place where I can dress.”

He shrugged, grinning at her a little lopsidedly. “I liked the way you looked in it.

What’s wrong with it? It’s dry now.”

She gaped at him, trying to decide whether to ask him if he’d liked the way it looked wet or dry. As thin as it was, it probably hadn’t covered much when it was wet.

She felt her face heat just thinking about asking, though, and she decided against it. “It’s for sleeping. People don’t usually run around in public in the clothes they sleep in,” she muttered.

“You sleep in clothes? Why?”

He wasn’t feigning flabbergasted, she saw. “Because … just because,” she retorted. Because she was more comfortable when she was covered up and because when she was naked she was too aware of every brush against her skin. Because she didn’t enjoy looking at herself and she feared being looked at by anyone else. And it just plain felt indecent!

She realized she envied their complete comfort in their own skin, but she supposed they had every reason to be confident and it seemed doubtful they had ever known it any other way. Their living quarters were like anybody else’s, but just going about their daily lives meant that they were in and out of the sea all day long, and that wasn’t even counting those who worked outside—like Caleb and Simon. They probably got tired of dragging the robes on and off, which would explain why they dispensed with them regularly.

It presented her with an interesting question. If they were so accustomed to nudity, did they actually pay any attention to it? She hadn’t been able to get her mind off of it, partly because they were all just plain gorgeous, but also because the sight of naked flesh was completely alien to her—almost. It sent a jolt through her every time and it took her several minutes to recover from it and
even try to behave
‘normally’.

She saw when she emerged from her thoughts that Caleb was still looking at her questioningly. “Because it’s the custom on the surface and it’s what I’m used to.”

“So it … bothers you that we don’t wear anything?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But it does, doesn’t it?”

“No, no! It really doesn’t!” she lied, wishing he would drop the subject.

He frowned. “I was thinking about trying to talk you into stopping by the station to give us some descriptions, but you aren’t going to be comfortable with that, are you?”

So much for thinking there was anything flirtatious or suggestive about the discussion! It was an opportunity to put off the inevitable, though, and she didn’t want to lose it. “I could do that.”

He cocked his head questioningly. “You’re sure you wouldn’t mind?”

“No … I mean, I’m sure!”

His smile lit up his handsome face, lit her up and turned her insides to molten putty. No man should be able to do that with no more than a smile, she thought a little dazedly as he caught her elbow and escorted her through the house, make her feel weak all over and breathless and faint just by smiling at her.

She felt the same way when they reached the foyer and the pool she only vaguely remembered arriving through and she looked down to discover the metal ‘coffin’ she’d feared attached to it. “How … how clever!” she gasped weakly. “It’s a … uh … docking station, too?”

“Be careful climbing down the ladder. The rungs might be a little damp.”

They were, but she did all right until she stepped on the trailing hem of the robe and pulled the thing half off. Grabbing the neck, she yanked on it to cover herself and managed to dislodge her foot from the rung below her completely. Fortunately, she only missed the last one. Her knees buckled from the scare, though, and she landed in the floor—actually the front window of the thing since it was docked nose down, which scared her almost as badly.

Joshua was already trying to help her up when Caleb hooked his feet on the sides of the ladder and slid down it. The hard part about getting up was trying to straighten without disrobing at the same time. She finally managed to get her feet free of the damned thing, though.

“You alright? You hurt?”

“No,” Anna said shakily, trying to ignore the throbbing on her hip, shin, and along her ribs on her back. She actually wanted to examine the pain to see if she was just bruised or bleeding, but she was embarrassed enough about her clumsiness that she decided to wait until neither of the men were looking.

“Let me help you get strapped in,” Caleb said soothingly, helping her into a seat.

She was shaken enough from the fall and the discovery that she’d landed on a glass window that she was grateful for his help. She wasn’t sure how long it would’ve taken her to figure out how to get the harness fastened without help.

“Too tight?”

She shook her head.

“You sure you aren’t hurt?”

“Oh! No! No!” she assured him. “I may be bleeding internally—heh-heh—but otherwise I’m sure I’m fine.”

He frowned at her.

“I was joking.”

He still looked skeptical, but he settled in the seat beside her and strapped in.

“Ready?” Joshua called back to them.

“We’re ready.”

Anna gripped the arms of her seat as Joshua started the engine and she felt the bubble-like transport begin to vibrate all over.

“Does it always do this?” she asked uneasily.

Caleb frowned. “I guess. I never noticed.”

Oh! That was reassuring!

A jolt went through her, traveling all the way down her spine and making her sphincter clench when she heard a loud clang behind her. “What was that?” she gasped.

“He just closed the hatch.”

“Oh.”

“This will be a lot more comfortable than the trip down.”

She smiled at him weakly. Then Joshua dropped the damned thing. It suddenly fell. Her stomach leapt into her throat and tried to choke her, which was fortunate because it prevented her from screaming her head off when he swooped upward again and her seat rotated. She thought for several unnerving moments that it was going to keep rolling until she was standing on her head. Instead, it righted itself and began to rock back and forth, slowing gradually to a gentle rocking and finally stopping and clicking in place.

“Wasn’t that fun?” Caleb asked cheerfully.

She discovered when she glanced at him that he was wearing a pleased grin. She gave him a drop dead look. “You might have warned me my damned seat was going to flip!”

He looked surprised and vaguely annoyed. “I thought you’d enjoy it.”

“I don’t
enjoy
getting the shit scared out of me!”

“Well, pardon me all to hell!” he said tightly. “How was I supposed to know it would scare you?”

He had a point, but there was a world of difference between ‘enjoyment’ and ‘scared half to death’. She might not have been frightened and still not enjoyed it! She sulked about it a while, but she began to feel guilty about being so nasty when she lost some of her fear. “Sorry,” she muttered. “It scared me, ok? I’ve never been in one of these things and I’m afraid of heights.”

He relaxed fractionally. “We’re in the ocean.”

“But I
still
felt like I was falling and it’s black as pitch down there.”

“The sun isn’t up yet. During the day, there isn’t much light this far down, but the water sort of glows.”

No wonder she felt like hell! Why they’d thought it necessary to drag her out of bed when she probably hadn’t been asleep more than a couple of hours was a mystery to her—except they seemed determined to torture her with sleep deprivation!

She struggled for something pleasant to say to smooth the waters. “I’m sure it’s beautiful.”

He smiled more easily. “You’ll have to tell me when you see it,” he said, pointing to a glowing patch of water ahead of them.

She stared at it, watching it spread through the water, watching the ripples catch it and refract it until the water around them seemed to glitter with gems. Loathe though she was to admit it, it was pretty.

And then Joshua turned the craft and she saw the city for the first time. Her stomach went weightless as she stared at it, watching the brightening water slowly envelop it. It almost looked … magical, as if fairy dust had been sprinkled over the city.

The buildings were nothing like anything she’d ever seen. Built like domes set upon tall stalks that reached down to the sea floor below, surrounded by the greenish-blue water, it almost looked like a garden on an alien world.

“It
is
beautiful!” she gasped in surprise a split second before she spotted the rubble, saw the twisted metal and chunks of jagged, broken concrete that littered the center as if someone had waded through the garden, carelessly lobbing the flowers from their stalks. Her smile faded. The pleasure she’d felt only moments before became distress as she stared at the gaping holes and realized this was where so many people had died, or been maimed for life.

As the light reached down to chase the shadows, she saw the merfolk moving between the buildings. At this distance, they looked more like the creatures of fable than real people and it increased the sense of staring at a magical world even while it reminded her that it must have looked much the same the day of the bombing.

She swallowed a little convulsively, feeling guilt creep through her insidiously, as if it was somehow her fault.

And maybe, in a sense, it was—though not the way she felt it. She hadn’t wished it on them. It wasn’t her fault that her father was a murderous lunatic, but wasn’t she just as guilty as everyone else of simply ignoring the problems the colonists faced? Wasn’t she ultimately as responsible as everyone else for doing nothing? Atlantis might be a territory, not a state, but it was still a part of her country and they were countrymen.

Had she, even once, thought that their problems were their own and for them to solve because she disapproved of them? Was it ever really right not to help someone, someone who was
family
, just because you didn’t approve of the way they lived?

And what if they hadn’t chosen to break free of the society they came from and establish the territory?
Most of the energy they used to make their lives comfortable came from the labor of these people.

“This was your father’s doing,” Caleb said grimly.

Anna sent him a hurt look. “I know, but I didn’t know he was going to do it. I couldn’t have stopped him—this.”

He shook his head. “I meant, this is
his
doing, not yours
.”

Did he mean he didn’t hate her because of her father? She hoped so. It was hard enough to bear the responsibility for one’s own actions, but at least you could attempt to make amends. You knew you were the one who
should pay for the mistake. To have to make up for someone’s faults when you had no control over what they did and knew beyond that that you might spend the rest of your life trying to clean up behind them was just too depressing to contemplate.

She could deal with being ignored, with being alone, not having friends, not having anyone anymore. She’d
been dealing with that. She didn’t think she could deal with having people hate her, of feeling cold condemnation in their gazes every time they looked at her.

She was so distressed it hardly unnerved her at all when the transport docked.

“This is the Watch Center?” Anna asked as Caleb and Joshua escorted her briskly down a short hallway and through a fairly large room that seemed to be bursting at the seams with men, desks, and equipment.

“This is a sub-station. The Watch Center was too badly damaged in the blast to use until we can get someone in to repair it.

“Oh,” Anna said uncomfortably. “I guess that’s why it’s crowded?”

“That and it’s shift change. The night patrol comes in to file their reports. The day shift reports in for assignments.”

The three of them paused in front of a door and Caleb rapped on the panel.

“Come!”

Anna’s heart executed a little double step when she recognized the voice, but Caleb opened the door before she could brace herself. Simon looked up with a scowl from the report on his desk. The expression was wiped from his face so quickly that it might have amused Anna if she’d been in any condition to enjoy it. Unfortunately, memories of their argument only a little earlier were bombarding her.

“Anna came to help.”

Simon seemed to drag his gaze from her only with an effort to look at Caleb almost blankly for a moment. “Good,” he said finally, slowly. “Take her into the neuro-center down the hall and get her hooked up.”

“You have a neuro-scanner?” Anna asked in surprise and with more than a little uneasiness.

Joshua glanced at her. “We appropriated it from the Water City PD.”

Anna gaped at him. “Really?”

He chuckled. “No. We bought it.”

“I’ve never had a neuro-scan,” she said uneasily when they’d helped her into the reclining seat and Joshua moved behind her to settle the scanner over her head.

Caleb planted his hands on the armrests and leaned toward her until he was almost nose to nose with her. “It doesn’t hurt, sweety. It’s a little disorienting, but there’s not even a tiny sting.”

It was
very
disorienting having him so close, distracting enough that she hardly noticed when she felt the pressure of the scanner helm settling against her scalp.

“Promise?”

He winked at her. “I’d promise you anything. You want me to stay and hold your hand?”

Desperately! She smiled at him weakly, knowing he was teasing. “I’ll be fine,”

she said doubtfully.

He leaned closer. “You are fine,” he whispered near her ear, the warmth of his breath sending a shiver along her arm.

Warmth blossomed inside of her as he leaned away and she saw the look of appreciation in his eyes, but it wasn’t enough to keep her focused on happy thoughts very long.

Joshua settled his hand over hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Ready?”

She squeezed his hand back and nodded, unable to speak past the knot of nerves in her chest.

“Good girl! Now just relax, breathe slowly, close your eyes and think back to the night you went to the party, focus on the things you remember seeing—one thing at the time—and try to see if you can create a detailed memory of the image in your mind. The more details you can remember, the better our picture. Understand?”

Anna nodded a little jerkily. “Where do you want me to start?”

“Start with Paul asking you to go.”

She tensed at the new voice—Simon’s. She could tell from the sound that he wasn’t in the room, but it didn’t make it any easier to relax when she realized he must be watching.

“Relax. I’m going to turn off the light to help you relax, ok? We’ll be in the next room monitoring the scan.”

She did relax, relieved the moment he turned out the light because she didn’t feel as if she was on display. They wouldn’t be watching her. They’d be watching the screen, she reminded herself.

Coaching herself to relax fully, to allow her mind to drift for a few moments, she began trying to remember every detail of the conversation with Paul. She remembered thinking he was sort of cute and that he liked her. Focusing finally, she tried to summon details, the shape of his face first—long and narrow—the way his hair framed it, his chin.

He had a weak chin. It wasn’t bold and cleft like Simon’s. It formed a little rounded knob. His lips were full, a little fuller than she liked, and his mouth wide. When he smiled it was very toothy, almost like a predator—and his lips, the entire mouth area, protruded slightly further than his chin. His nose was long and slightly pug at the end.

His eyes were close set, the eye sockets shallow, his eyes small and almost almond shaped. His eyebrows were dark, like his hair, and formed almost perfect arches, almost as if he plucked them to shape them.

“What about his cheekbones? High? Rounded? Flat?”

She considered it and remembered they were high and sort of pointy—his ears looked almost pointy looking at him straight on, giving him a sort of elfin look.

A small screen above her head flickered on, startling her so that she opened her eyes.

“Is that him?”

Anna stared at the image she’d created with her mind feeling a sense of awe. “It looks just like him,” she said, amazed, feeling her heart thump with pleasure and excitement that she’d managed to remember so many details. Tamping her excitement, she studied the image carefully, trying to decide what was just a tad off. When she closed her eyes again, she knew what it was. The image was broader across the cheek area and his features were grouped a little closer together. Satisfaction filled her when she opened her eyes again. “That’s it. That’s him.”

Feeling far more confident, she relaxed in the chair again and conjured an image of the boat he’d taken her to the party in and then the mansion. She wasn’t particularly happy with the results of those. It had been dark and she’d been uneasy. She couldn’t remember enough details.

Creating an image in her mind of her father wasn’t hard at all. Committing it to the image display proved nearly impossible. Dismay filled her as she realized that he looked like a male version of herself … or vice versa. She hadn’t realized until she’d tried to create the image that she had his face.

She tried not to let on how much it disturbed her, but she couldn’t dismiss the anxiety that they would see the strong resemblance and consequently, she had a hard time producing an image of him that matched her memory.

“Try to relax, Anna,” Caleb murmured from directly beside her, startling her momentarily since she hadn’t realized he entered the room with her. “You’ve been doing so well. What’s wrong?”

She tried breathing deeply and slowly to calm herself. “I look like him,” she admitted finally, realizing there wasn’t much point in trying to hide it, feeling scalding tears slip from beneath her eyelids and run down the sides of her face.

He slipped his hand beneath hers and wiped the tears from her temples. “Well, don’t cry about it, sweety! He makes a lot prettier girl than a man.”

Caught off guard, Anna uttered a sound midway between a laugh and a sob. She sniffed and said a little crossly, “I didn’t mean
just like me.”

He stroked a finger along the bridge of her nose. “What about this part?”

She summoned the image. “A little broader and longer.”

He touched her cheekbone and traced it down to her jaw-line. “And here?”

Anna felt a warm tingling in her belly. “Not as pronounced, the cheekbones. The jaw’s a little more square.”

“Picture it in your mind.”

She took a calming breath and conjured the shapes in her mind’s eye.

“Now this,” he murmured huskily, tracing her chin.

Hers was more pointed, narrower, not quite as pronounced. She held her breath when he traced her lips, focusing for a moment on the feel of his touch before the image of her father’s mouth rose in her mind—a hard, straight slash, the lower lip slightly fuller but still narrow. When he put his lips together in displeasure they almost disappeared.

She was almost sorry when she completed the image. It had felt … a little strange when Caleb traced her features, but pleasurable, too.

She found herself staring at her father’s face when she opened her eyes, but she didn’t feel the soaring sense of satisfaction that she’d felt when she’d produced the other images. She swallowed with an effort. “It’s him.”

The light limned Caleb’s face as he stared at the image grimly. “We don’t need to adjust it?”

Anna shook her head. “No,” she whispered when she realized he hadn’t looked at her once.

He turned to look at her when she spoke, smiling with an obvious effort. “You don’t look that much like him.”

She didn’t believe him. She knew she did and she didn’t believe he didn’t see how strongly she favored her father—the man they all hated so much.

She tried to conjure images of some of the other people she’d seen at the party, but with indifferent success. Partly, she knew it was because she couldn’t really focus after she’d done her father, but most of it was because she’d been too uncomfortable when her father had dragged her through the throng of people to really look at them.

She was relieved when they finally removed the scanner from her head, exhausted from the effort, and depressed. Everyone thanked her for her cooperation and Caleb and Joshua escorted her out again.

She felt like every man in the station was staring at her and wondered if they really were or if it was just hypersensitivity that made her feel like they were. The trip home was more boring and depressing than frightening. Although Joshua had already shown her the little transport was capable of surprising speed, they had to rise slowly to the surface to allow themselves time to adjust to the difference in pressure and there was very little to see beyond the occasional startled fish darting away.

When they’d left their home and headed to the city, Anna had rehearsed over and over in her mind how to go about asking them to keep her in protective custody, but she discarded the idea after the session with the neuro-scanner. She didn’t think they would refuse only because she looked like the man they wanted, but it certainly occurred to her that they would’ve offered protective custody if they’d thought it was necessary.

She
wasn’t convinced that it wasn’t, but she didn’t feel up to trying to convince them that she needed protection especially since it occurred to her that she couldn’t without sounding like she was begging.

Well, she’d made enough of a fool out of herself in front of them! She would be too uncomfortable, she assured herself, to be around them after all that! It would be a relief, actually, not to have to face them.

She would be better off asking for police protection from the Water City PD anyway. At least, if they granted it, she would be able to have some normalcy. She’d be in her own home, surrounded by familiar things, and she could continue her research.

Routine comforted her. She’d heard a lot of people complain about not having enough excitement in their lives, about leading dull, uneventful lives, but she liked hers that way. She liked the quiet nights and days she spent in her lab and her greenhouse, listening to the music she played for the plants.

It would help her regain her equilibrium.

Her neighbors stared at them when Joshua and Caleb climbed out of the submersible and escorted her into her house. To her relief, they passed her in the foyer and checked the house thoroughly. Joshua paused when he reached her again and smiled a little ruefully. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Dr. Blake.”

Anna felt her throat close at the realization that she wasn’t going to see him again.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Joshua.”

Nodding, he glanced at Caleb and left.

“Was it a pleasure meeting me, too?” Caleb asked teasingly when he stopped to tell her bye.

Anna looked at his achingly handsome face, wishing …. She wasn’t sure what she was wishing for. She tried to return his smile and found she couldn’t. “I want to thank you for being so nice to me,” she said, stumbling over the words a little, feeling horribly awkward. “I know you were just doing your job.” She shrugged, smiled wryly.

“Playing good cop, I guess. But … I was so scared! And it made me feel … better.”

The laughter died in his eyes. For once, he looked completely somber. “I wasn’t playing good cop.”

He leaned closer. Anna lifted her face a little hopefully. She saw his deep blue eyes gleam, either with triumph or amusement. She wasn’t sure which, but even as she began to move away, embarrassed, thinking she’d misunderstood, he caught her chin and closed the distance. The touch of his lips was electrifying. A river of scalding heat poured through her and with it stinging sensation. She clutched at his robe a little frantically as dizziness swept through her, parting her lips for him in mute supplication to give her more. So mighty a thrill went through her as he thrust his tongue into her mouth and raked it along hers and she took his taste and scent into her that she thought for a moment she might have come. Shudders raked her, sapped the strength from her until she began to think she would’ve been in real danger of simply melting into a puddle at his feet if she hadn’t been clutching at him so frantically, if his arms hadn’t been around her, supporting her, holding her against his length.

Disappointment flooded her when he broke the kiss. At the same time, she felt a flicker of relief that she hadn’t embarrassed herself by passing out. She couldn’t seem to unglue her eyelids, though, or stop her eyeballs from swimming.

“I have to go, Anna.”

She managed to get her eyes open at that, realized she was still clutching two fistfuls of his robe as if it was a lifeline and forced her fingers to relax. Nodding a little jerkily, she settled on her feet. “I know.”