Landlocked (Atlas Link Series Book 2) (47 page)

I reeled back my hand and let loose without warning. The slap stung my hand and echoed throughout the corridor. I spun on my heels and charged in the opposite direction, away from Trevor, grabbing onto Josh’s arm as I passed. He followed without saying a word.

I sat next to Josh on my bed, unable to fall asleep. He was lying down, but his breaths weren’t even—still awake, too. I had a tablet propped up against the tops of my thighs, going through SeaSat5 schematics over and over again. Anything that kept my mind off of exactly how screwed my relationship with Josh was absolutely welcomed, even looking at boring master drawings.

Josh cleared his throat after another ten minutes passed. So far, he hadn’t said as much as a single word. I hadn’t meant to slap Trevor. His anger entangled us both, and I couldn’t control my actions.
That
I felt bad about. Still, what right did Trevor have? And to bring it all back to the protecting thing?

Sophia’s words from a month ago boomeranged to the forefront of my thoughts.
Don’t toss him to the wayside because you think his chivalry is irritating
.
Irritating didn’t begin to cover it, but Sophia was right. Again. And despite what Trevor did, I should have told Josh about General Allen by now. That made
me
the guilty party, and guilt pulled me deeper inside myself with every passing second.

I didn’t know how Josh had it in him not to ask me what Trevor meant. He kept quiet, waiting, letting me sit here. He laid there, an ever-present weight on my conscience.

If the situation were reversed, Trevor wouldn’t have let the silence go on this long. He’d have forced an answer out of me, which wasn’t always the best idea. Josh let it simmer, either as punishment or because he knew pressing me wasn’t going to get him an answer, even if he deserved one. But that was about the only thing Josh wasn’t aggressive about. Josh knew what he wanted and would do anything to get it. He was a leader at heart, but a team player in the field. He’d pushed me to do my best, hadn’t coddled me, and he gave me strength when I needed it. We both had secrets, like Trevor and I had, but those secrets hadn’t torn us apart. Yet.

Josh cleared his throat again.

I ducked my head, ready to give in. “Just say it.”

“Say what?” he asked. The slightest hitch in his voice, his breath, sucked the air right out of my lungs.

I forced the words past my lips. “Ask the question you’re letting hang in the air.”

Josh kept his expression so neutral I almost missed the twinges in the corner of his eyes and mouth, the muscle spasms that said he was ripping pissed underneath the cool exterior. At this point, I’d rather take Trevor’s outbursts. His bark was worse than his bite.

“I’m waiting for you to say it instead,” Josh said evenly. “I already know. I was kind of waiting to see how long it’d take you to say something.”

My heart screeched to a full stop and sweat pooled on the back of my neck. “Excuse me?”

“Mara and I don’t keep secrets,” he said, still not breaking eye contact. I was too terrified to look away. “She told me almost right after it happened.”

It was over. And I deserved it. “Josh—”

“It’s not that you didn’t tell me,” he cut in, “because we all have secrets. It’s that you thought you could handle it on your own. You can’t touch the General without backup, and you’ve waited so long there’s nothing we can do now short of taking care of it ourselves.” His words were laced with a thick, sticky venom. Josh sat up and faced me.

They wanted to go on the offensive. Maybe take General Allen out of the picture entirely?

Josh looked me straight in the eyes, my tablet giving off enough light to illuminate his face and the bed. “Trevor’s right, you know. You think you’re invincible so you refuse help. I can’t speak for what happened on SeaSat5 or in the two years since it’s been gone, but you should have said something about the General.”

“He threatened you,” I argued. “And the rest of the team.”

“We can take care of ourselves. That’s the reason we got recruited by TruGates in the first place. He may have threatened you, but we’ve all done a lot worse to other people.”

“I had no way to know if General Allen had powers—if he was Lemurian or not—or the same of his staff,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “He knows it’s Lemurians that he sends you after, and he doesn’t care.”

“How would he know?” Josh asked, a snarl sliding up into his voice.

I pointed at myself. “He knew things about me. About Trevor. About what we found at the outpost, things we didn’t tell the rest of the world. Trevor was in trouble, too. I couldn’t risk saying anything. Not to threaten the General or to you and the team in warning. Especially after Truman…”

“Truman knew?” the pain in his voice, the anger bubbling to the surface, gutted me.

I looked away. I couldn’t stand seeing the hurt on his face. I knew he wouldn’t let me go to him to soothe it, and that’s what hurt the most.

I shook my head. “Truman found me sleeping in the lounge one morning, but no, only Mara.” Why couldn’t anyone wait to let me tell Josh myself? Frustration and betrayal clouded everything, soaking every thought and action in an awkward sense of self-preservation. I’d say just about anything to end this conversation, to keep Josh, to make this all go away.

“You need to learn you’re not alone,” Josh said, his tone less harsh than before. “General Allen was wrong.”

“General Allen has an alternate agenda that involves killing my kind as well as the Lemurians.”

“Even more reason you should have told me.”

I shook my head again. “Josh, I didn’t know what that agenda really was until we were already at TAO to rescue SeaSatellite5. Did I know he wanted us to hunt Lemurians? Yes. But until a few days ago, I thought they were the enemy, so I went with it. What General Allen wanted was for me to disclose information about the hijacking two years ago, information that would have wrongly incriminate Trevor and myself. I couldn’t let Trevor fall into that. Regardless of everything that’s happened, he was not at fault for SeaSatellite5 being taken.”

I wanted to save Trevor, to keep him out of trouble even if he did piss me off. But I couldn’t save everyone. In protecting Trevor, I’d killed Truman. My hand flew to my mouth, barely catching a sob. Josh lifted a hand to my face, cupping it. I turned away from him.

“Chelsea.”

“No,” I said. “You’re… just
stop
.” He was too forgiving and I hated it. I
lied
and schemed, got his buddy killed, then recruited his team to help get SeaSat5 back without explaining everything to them. Was SeaSat5 really the root of all my problems? Losing the station after finding a home there. After finding a safe place after losing what I’d had before. And all I’d lost since then.

“I love you,” I told him. “But dammit, I don’t deserve you.”

I wanted him to go away, to get out of the bed and bunk with Eric, but he didn’t. He didn’t freaking move except to place his hands on my shoulders. I fought all the thoughts wanting to take them off of me, to never touch him again.

“You can’t lie to me anymore,” Josh said. “I understand not being able to say much about the Lemurians before we got involved with TAO, I do. But now that we know, it’s got to stop. You have to stop playing the lone hero, because above all dangers to yourself, it’s not working. You’re not saving anybody.”

Tears fell down my cheeks. I didn’t move to wipe them away. No one forced me to face any of this before. No one before Josh dared to confront my wildfire emotions. And I was so afraid of whatever he might say next that I couldn’t even speak. Was he forgiving me? Did I want him to? His caramel eyes bored holes into me. His breath was warm on my face. The scent of him overwhelmed me. I blocked it out in case this was the last time I’d ever enjoy him.

“I want to make this work, you know,” he said. “You’re an incredible person when you’re not trying to hold the world up by yourself. You inspire me, Chelsea. The fire you have for your dreams makes me believe that one day I’ll get to live mine. And I’d love for you to be there with me when I do.” A smile cracked between the straight lines of his lips. “But you also drive me mad.”

He wanted to make it work?

I couldn’t even process that. The only part that registered was that this was probably my third and final chance. But there were no more secrets to hide. He knew about my world; he’d lived it without even realizing it. And now he knew about General Allen. Those were all the secrets I had.

He bent down and kissed my forehead. “I don’t want to lose you.”

I let my body relax under him. He wasn’t ending it, even though he should have. I was determined to never give him a reason to. “You won’t.”

“Good.”

Still, as we fell asleep next to each other, a heavy weight pressed against my lungs. This couldn’t be that easy. It was
never
that easy.

helsea looked terrible. Baggy uniform, half unzipped. Dark bags under her eyes. At least part of that was my fault, for that stupid fight. For whatever our telepathy had done to spin our separate rage into one big whirlwind. Would this power ever stop growing? Would we be like this forever? First thoughts, then images. Now feelings that turned into their own physical forces.