Anna (Book 2, The Redemption Series) (5 page)

I can’t help but smile at the imagery
in my mind of such a thing. I’m not sure if it’s Malcolm’s protective side that brings a small bit of joy to my heart or the thought of Levi dead which causes me the most pleasure. The happiness doesn’t last long though because that image is soon replaced with the memory of Malcolm and his ravaged back.

“
I’m going to kill Levi one day, Jered. I can’t let him live after the things he’s done to the people I love.”

“
And I won’t stop you,” Jered tells me. “But don’t let your need for vengeance rule your actions, Anna. Hatred will darken your heart faster than anything else in this world and that isn’t who you are. You’re better than that. Never lose sight of who you are and what you were born to do.”

“
I feel pretty confident ending Levi's life is something I am meant to do,” I say with confidence. “But, don't worry. I won't lose sight of who I am. I won't do anything that would make my father think less of me.”

Jered nods like he's satisfied with my answer.
“Then let's get started.”

He holds his hand out to me
, and I place mine into his.

“
What about your friends?” I ask Jered. “Do you need to contact them to let them know what's going on?”

“
After we get Malcolm and Lucas back, I'll contact Rory and Lora. They don't need to be placed in any more danger than they already have been.”

Jered phases us to
the exterior entrance of another teleporter station in the middle of a city. I assume it's the station Barlow's teleporter pad is siphoning its energy from. It doesn't matter that Levi knows we phased here. He would have known we were here anyway even if we used the teleporter in Baton Rouge.

“
Follow me,” Jered whispers, walking along the sidewalk in front of the station and turning down a dark alley beside it.

The alley is a dead end
, and I begin to wonder where it is Jered is taking me until he stops beside a metal disk in the cement walkway.

Jered bends down on one knee and sticks his middle finger in a hole in the disk, easily lifting it up.

“Go down the ladder,” he instructs me.

I walk over to the hole and peer down to see what's there. The
heat and stench emanating from the bowels of the lower level isn't very pleasing.

“
Do I have to?” I ask.

Jered grins.
“Yes, empress. I'm afraid you'll need to get your shoes dirty during this little part of our adventure together.”

I smile at Jered.
“Not necessarily.”

I float into the air and hover over the hole.

Jered's jaw opens slightly in shock which makes me giggle. I almost feel guilty for laughing. The memory of Malcolm's injuries soon invade the small bit of happiness I have to bring me crashing back to the task at hand. I lower myself down the hole and hover over the waste water within what must be a section of the sewage system beneath the city.

Jered makes his way down the ladder and covers the hole back up before descending almost to the bottom.

“Wait!” I tell him before he steps into the smelly water flowing through the large drainage tunnel. “Can I carry someone while I'm flying?”

“
Yes,” Jered says.

I float over to him.
“Then hold onto me and tell me where we need to go. I don't particularly want you trudging through this mess. There's no telling how long it would be before we could get the stench off of you.”

Jered chuckles.
“Good point.”

I encircle Jered's waist with my arms
, and he places his hands on my shoulders. With my strength, holding him to me is easy.

“
Which way?” I ask.

Jered
directs me through the maze of tunnels.

“
Are you sure this is the safest way to get there?” I ask. “Can’t they just use our heat signatures to follow where we go?”

“
The heat generated from all the waste down here will mask our body heat. Plus there are displacers everywhere.”

“
Displacers?”

“
They’re meant to discourage people from staying in the tunnels.”

“
I would have thought the smell would do that.”

Jered laughs.
“Some people get desperate when it gets really cold on the surface and don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“
What do the displacer do?”

“
When you run into one of them, they transport you to another section of the tunnels. It’s a good way to get lost and never find your way back out.”

“
So how are we going to get to where we need to go if we keep getting displaced?”

“
Barlow and his people figured out that if you go through certain displacers in a particular order you can get to their hideout. That way we don’t have to worry about anyone following us. They would have to know the exact sequence.”

We travel through the tunnels and get teleported at least ten times by the displacers before we come to a small platform which leads to a metal door on the side of one of the tunnels. Jered makes quick work at breaking the lock on the door and pushing it inward.

“
I'm sure Barlow will charge us handsomely for breaking his door,” Jered quips as we step inside the small cinderblock room the door was concealing.

“
Why don't you like Barlow?” I ask Jered.

“
It's not so much that I don't like him,” he tells me. “It's more that I don't trust someone who will do whatever it takes to get something they want.”

“
Wouldn't that just make him tenacious?”

“
Aggressively so,” Jered replies. “I've known him to kill to obtain certain items.”

“
Has he ever killed an innocent?” I ask, having a hard time believing even Barlow would stoop so low.

“
No, I wouldn't necessarily call the people he deals with innocent, but still, killing for profit just seems like the wrong reason to end a life.”

The small room we're in also has a metal disk in the floor. Jered bends at the waist and lifts it up.

“This will lead us straight down to Barlow's teleporter room,” he tells me.

The hole isn't big enough for me to carry Jered down with me
too. So, I hover over the hole and descend into its black depths alone with Jered having to climb down the ladder behind me.

A small pin point of light at the bottom helps guide me straight
to the bottom. Once we're there, I see that we've arrived in the tunnel which connects the room where the teleporter pad is and the tracks leading through the interior of the mountain.

Once Jered has made it down the ladder and to my side, I ask,
“How are we supposed to contact Barlow?”

“
There's a communicator inside the teleporter room,” Jered says, already heading in that direction.

We step inside the glass room and Jered goes straight to the control panel on the glass pedestal. I watch as he manipulates the controls until he brings up
a floating image of Barlow's head. The image looks so real it's a little off putting.

Barlow looks at Jered in surprise.
“What on earth are you doing in my teleporter room, Jered?”

“
I'm here with Anna,” Jered informs him. “We need your help.”

“
I'll be right there,” Barlow says without hesitation.

I watch as he turns away and his
disembodied head disintegrates into flakes of light.

It doesn't take long before I hear the
rattle of Barlow's cart as it rumbles down the tracks. Jered and I stay inside the teleporter room and wait for him to come to us.

Barlow
smiles when he sees me, but there must be something about my expression that tells him we're not here on a social call.

“
What's wrong?” He asks me. “What's happened to make you look so sad, Anna?”

I tell Barlow everything that's happened
, making the story as short but informative as possible.

“
That's some major bad luck. I'm so sorry, Anna,” Barlow says, truly sympathetic to my plight. “Malcolm finally kisses you and all hell breaks loose because of it.”

“
Basically,” I admit, feeling a bit humiliated by the whole situation.

“
And you say you have trackers in your body that go off when the poison is released? Right after you kiss someone?”

I nod.
“Yes, that’s what I was told. It’s how Levi found us in Lakewood.”

Barlow looks thoughtful then turns to walk over to the control panel. He soon brings up the image of
a young man I haven’t met yet.

“
Jake,” Barlow says to the man, “bring me one of those local EMPs we got in the last trade.”

“
Sure thing, Barlow,” the man says before his image fades.

“
A local EMP?” Jered asks. “Do you think that will work?”

Barlow shrugs.
“It's worth a try.”

“
EMP?” I ask, having no clue what they're talking about.

“
Electromagnetic pulse,” Barlow tells me. “We just bartered for some that will knock out any electronic devices in a foot radius. I'm guessing the little trackers inside you are electronic and not organic ones.”

“
Why do you think their electronic?” Jered asks, sounding genuinely interested in the answer.

“
Electronic nanites can send out a clearer signal than organic ones. The frequency they transmit at is stronger thus giving them a longer range. If Levi was able to detect their signal all the way in Cirrus when they went off, then they pretty much have to be electronic and not organic.”

“
So your EMP will be able to disable them?” I ask, hoping this is where Barlow is going with his explanation.

“
Yes,” he says. “It should. Though, I'm not sure what to do about the poison. I think that will just have to wear off on its own with a little more time.”

“
I don't suppose you know how long that will take?” I ask hopefully.

Barlow shakes his head.
“I have no idea. But, since you said you had to be injected with it once a week, I wouldn't think there should be that much left in your system by now. I would give it a couple more days before you tried to kiss anyone else. Though, I'm sure the reward of your soft lips would be well worth a little cat nap.”

I shake my head in exasperation at Barlow
. He just grins at me, completely unashamed.

“
I'm taken,” I tell him. “My heart and body belong to Malcolm.”

“
Well, if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me,” Barlow says with a cheeky grin and wink.

“
I can assure you my mind will never change.”

Barlow shrugs.
“Can't blame a guy for trying.”

“
No, but Malcolm would probably kill you if you ever tried to kiss Anna,” Jered says with certainty. “Though, he would have to beat me to it.”

“
You guys are always
way
too serious,” Barlow tells Jered. “Can't a guy just joke around with a lovely lady without there being any dire consequences involved?”

“
Not when the lady is the Empress of Cirrus and the soul mate of a man who would have no problem at all ripping your head from your shoulders and dumping your body in the nearest ocean for the attempt,” Jered says. “Plus, she's family to me and under my protection as well.”

Barlow lifts his hands in the air like he surrenders.
“Fine, I'll stop making passes at the lovely Anna. I wouldn't want to cause an international incident or inadvertently destroy the universe because I tried to flirt with her.”

“
Good,” Jered says, satisfied with Barlow’s withdrawal from flirtation. “I’m glad we've come to a mutual understanding.”

I hear the rattle of another cart on the tracks in the tunnel. The young man Barlow instructed to bring the EMP runs into the teleporter room breathing heavily from the exertion.

“Here you go, Barlow,” Jake says, handing Barlow a slim black box.

Jake
looks in my direction and bows to me at the waist, “Hello, Empress Annalisse.”

I smile.
“Hello, Jake.”

He grins
, looking a little shy at my use of his name so casually.

Barlow
slides the lid of the metal box up. In its interior, lies a small silver disk as thin as a wafer. Embedded in its center is a glossy black button.

“
It’s pretty simple to turn on,” Barlow tells me. “All you have to do is press the black button. Just make sure you do it somewhere that doesn’t have any electrical devices within ten feet of you, unless you purposely want to ruin them forever.”