Breaking Through (2 page)

It’s been five years
since I graduated at eighteen from Brighton Academy—two years early. But nothing’s changed. Even the trainers are the same.

“Riley Barton, right?” Cara asks once she has the door shut. I’m surprised she remembers. In my time here, I only had two classes with her. She focused mainly on the students whose abilities lie within their emotional cores. The only other time I even spoke with her was when the Navy recruited me, since she handles all transfers in and out of Brighton.

“Yes, ma’am,” I confirm.

“And you’re heading up this mission?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Cara sits down behind her desk. She motions for us to take the seats in front of her. Like the foyer, this room is the same too. Her office resembles a university history professor’s. Framed maps on the walls, some old and some new. One of those old-fashioned globes rests on an end table between the leather couch and a matching chair.

“Well, I have to admit, Riley, I’m a little surprised. I thought this…
conflict
was taken care of two summers ago. We’re still dealing with the repercussions of that failure.”

“We understand that,” I say, referring to the Navy and not to me personally. To date, I’ve been given very little information on what transpired during the first mission. Most of the files are classified. “However, we’ve recently received intel that the project is alive and well on their end. We’re taking a different approach this time,” I assure her. “No one’s going undercover.”

Cara opens the folder one of my officers gave her. She flips through it, her lips pursed. “Top secret, huh?”

“Straight from the president himself.”

“And your crew—”

“Minimal. Fifty-fifty,” I say, referring to half my team being Navy sailors and the other half coming from here—Specials.

She scans the list. “Minimal is right. You’re only requesting five students.” She leaves the rest unsaid. For the first mission, we’d recruited twelve.

“That makes six Specials, counting myself, ma’am.”

“Double duty?”

“The fewer involved, the better.”

Cara’s stare holds mine for a second before she returns to the list. She points to the name on top. “You have Nautia Olson on here.”

I work to keep a poker face at the mention of the aquator. Recruiting her for my team was not my idea.

“Yes, ma’am,” I confirm. “I’m told she’s of vital importance.”

“Then I assume you’ve read her file. She’s not stable.”

“I read what my clearance allowed. She’s having trouble controlling her ability, but I wouldn’t call that unstable. Is there more I should know?”

I’m fishing. It’s true that I wouldn’t call her struggles
unstable
. We all have our moments, Specials like Nautia in particular, whose power stems from their emotions. But with enough training, those issues can be dealt with. Fixed, even. With Nautia, though, it runs a helluva lot deeper than that. According to her file, she’s not unstable; she’s a freaking disaster.

Cara clicks the end of her pen on the desk, something I recall from before. Finally, she shakes her head. “No. That sums it up.”

“If you have reason to believe she’d put this mission at risk, I’d appreciate your thoughts.”

Cara studies me in silence, like she’s considering what she should divulge. “You’re asking for three months’ training at a military facility first, is that correct?”

I nod. “The location is classified.”

She closes the file and slides it across the desk to me. “Well then, Captain, I suggest that if she’s as important as you say, you’ll need to figure how to harness her emotions or she’ll be of no use to you.” Cara stands and glances at my two accompanying officers before her gaze lands on me again. “I’ll assemble your new recruits.”

I take in the three
other students in Training Room 103. Haskal is the blond guy in front of me. He can manipulate any metal by simply thinking about it, and he’s a class A asshole. As if on cue, he twists in his chair and smirks at me. Then he separates his fingers into a V, lays them against his lips, and flicks his tongue in and out.

“You’re a perv,” I say.

“Ah, come on, Nautia. I know you’d like it.” He repeats the gesture.

“You’ll never know.”

Haskal winks. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, baby.” His gaze wanders down to my breasts. Then he seductively licks his lips before turning back around.

Scumbag.

The guy beside him is Gibson, a levitator. And next to him is Britta, a fifteen-year-old noob who hasn’t even completed her first semester here. The only reason I know anything about her is because she’s been bragging to everyone that the CIA has already flagged her, and she’ll be out of here by the end of the year. Translators don’t tend to stay long at Brighton before they’re recruited elsewhere—one year, two years max.

That makes four of us for this top secret Navy mission. I check the clock. I guess we’re all early because Cara said to be here at seven sharp and it’s two minutes till. I sigh, still baffled as to how in the world I got approval to participate in this operation. When Cara came to my room and told me to pack my bags, there was some serious doubt engraved into her features.

The door opens, and the man Kray identified as my ticket out of here walks in. I feel a slight tug at the corner of my mouth as he swaggers into the room. If I’m being forced to be a subordinate under someone, this guy’s not a bad choice. The tan glow of his forearms immediately makes me wonder if the rest of him is that pretty. Like he spends a lot of time shirtless on the top deck of a boat, letting sunbeams soak into smooth skin. I imagine nice, tight abs, a hard chest. Damn. I’m glad Kray’s not here to listen to my thoughts.

Golden irises sweep over the room. My eye candy removes his hat, showing off brown hair that’d probably curl a little if he grew it out more. He sets his cap on the table and holds up manila file folders to make sure we see them.

“There’s supposed to be five of you,” he says, and the four of us sit up a little straighter. This guy might look like a summer day, but the thunder of his voice tells us he means business.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Under the commanding stare of our new captain, none of us flinch at the sound of our missing student barreling in through the door. Inwardly, though, I roll my eyes. Kray? Really?

“I know what you’re thinking, sir,” Kray says, “and I will do my best to be more punctual in the future.” He plops down into the seat beside me. “Carry on, Captain Barton.”

I jerk my leg over to kick him under the table. “Moron,” I mutter.

“You must be my telepath,” Captain Barton says.

“At your service.”

Stop smiling, Kray,
I think, hoping—for once—that he’s listening in.

“Right.” Barton grins, though it’s not a happy one. “Be late again and your
services
will no longer be required. Understand?”

Kray clears his throat, probably feeling the weight of Barton’s authority like the rest of us did earlier. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now, let’s get started.” He tosses the folders onto the podium and opens the top one. “As Special Officer Kray Shields has pointed out, I’m Captain Riley Barton, and I’m heading up this team. Lights, please.”

The overheads dim, and a hologram bursts up from the transmitter in Barton’s palm. A man appears, one I don’t recognize, but for some reason I think I should. Like I’ve seen his picture a thousand times. Our captain slides the transmitter onto the table in front of Haskal.

“This,” Barton says, “is Yun Ji-jin, supreme leader of North Korea. And this”—the hologram changes to a large warehouse—“is their state-of-the-art weapons laboratory in Wonsan. As you can see, they’re well equipped.”

“How did you get this footage?” Haskal asks, intrigued. “Ji-jin runs a tight ship.”

“That he does, Officer Smith. We had an insider.”

“Had?”

“Classified information. This,” Captain Barton continues as he zooms into the far southeast corner of the facility, “is what we’re after.”

“A steel tube?” Haskal asks. When Captain Barton doesn’t answer, Haskal leans forward to examine the hologram better. “Is that…?” He stands up. Transfixed on the piece of metal, he shakes his head. “Holy shit! How did they get that?”

Barton smiles like he expected Haskal to figure it out without telling him. “Because we gave it to them.”

Gibson holds out both hands, palms forward. “Hold up. What is it?”

Haskal pushes his fingers through his hair before he drops his arm. “It’s a MEGA alloy consisting of six metals—iron, lead, silver, antimony, titanium, and cobalt—that, when mixed with six non-metals, create, well, a MEGA metal. It’s lightweight, hard as fuck, and virtually unaffected by heat.”

“You know all that by looking at a picture of it?”

“Sh-yeah. It’s a pretty distinct piece of shit. Unlike anything on the face of the planet.” Clearly, Haskal has already settled into his assumed role on this team.

“Whatever you say, man,” Gibson says, but his expression borders on impressed. Haskal being smart is a shock for all of us.

I peer at the hologram. I know nothing about metals or MEGA metals or whatever else Haskal just explained, but the picture draws me in anyway. There’s a sheen to the surface, a coloring that’s unlike any metal I’ve seen.

Wait. Have I seen this before?

Something in my head blocks my thoughts, pushing the answer just out of reach. Now there’s nothing. I’m blank.

Haskal rotates to face our leader. “This is the motherfucking Superman of metals. The military has been working on this formula for decades, so why the hell did we hand it over to the communists?”

Barton pushes off the wall he’d been leaning against. “Because it was the only piece they were missing. But it’s not the MEGA metal—macrometallium—we’re after.”

“Obviously,” Haskal mutters.

“It’s what they’re covering the macrometallium with.” The hologram brings up a new picture—a 3D model of what resembles a giant Mike and Ike. A long, tube-like structure covered in some kind of pink gel.

“Um …what is it?” Britta asks, twirling a lock of black hair around a finger.

“Essentially, it’s a torpedo.” As soon as Barton says it, the image begins to strip down. Thin horizontal and vertical computerized lines indicate each layer, and the tube shrinks until only the metal is displayed again. Then it repeats. “The macrometallium is the shell they put the bomb in. After it’s nice and snug inside the capsule, they coat the outside in this stuff—hydroplexasma—a material they engineered that makes the missile invisible and undetectable underwater.”

“What do you mean
invisible
?” Haskal asks, arching a brow.

“I mean completely undetectable by sight, sound, infrared, you name it,” Barton replies.

We watch the hologram again. Covered in the hydroplexasma, the bomb torpedo is lowered into a tank of water and completely disappears.

“How the fuck is that possible?” Haskal murmurs.

Barton flashes his gaze to me. “That’s where you come in, Nautia.”

I suck in a breath at the mention of my name, momentarily shocked that, a) he recognized me, and, b) that I have to do something with this mega-bomb thing. “Oh no. No way. I don’t know anything about this stuff,” I say, waving my hands in front of me.

“You can influence water, like I can metal. It’s inside you, a part of you,” Haskal says, twisting around to look at me. He obviously understands something I don’t. “This shit disappears in water, sweetheart. That’s your department.”

“I’m not freaking Poseidon. I can only manipulate the water,” I answer, glancing up at Barton. He has his arms crossed, silently watching this scene unfold like he’s determining how we’ll work as a team. No doubt he’s also gauging my reaction.

“And I can only manipulate metal,” Haskal says, bringing my attention back to him. He shakes his head like he’s irritated that he has to explain this to me. “It’s more than that, Nautia. Once you can control it, feel it consume you, the element will become a part of you. An extension of who you are. You’ll know its power.”

I break away from his stare. Him locking onto me, being sincere, makes me feel awkward, especially after his earlier flirting. I’ve never felt that way about my ability. In fact, water killed Nate, and he had the same gift I have. No, water is so much more powerful than I’ll ever be.
It
controls
me
.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask, snapping my attention back to our captain.

“It’ll be your job to dissect the coating. Find out what it’s made of, why it reacts the way it does with water. If the Navy has that information, not only can we recreate the hydroplexasma and use it, but we can also develop a multi-purpose system to detect the torpedo underwater. Figuring out the chemical formula is our mission. It’s why we gave them the intelligence to finish the metal core,” Captain Barton sums up.

The hair on my arms stands on end, and I’m not sure why that is the response my body senses. My mind says something different.

“Get a chemist. You don’t need me,” I say, pushing out of my chair. Screw this whole mission.

Barton’s gaze rests silently on me. I assume Cara has told him all about me and my emotional instability. He’s probably waiting to see if I’ll lose control.

“It has something to do with water, Nautia. You command water. Make it
tell
you,” Haskal tries again.

Nate’s face flashes in my head. Eyes the same color as mine widen as water rises higher and higher until it covers his face. Slowly, he closes his eyelids like he’s given up. It won’t listen. It won’t obey.

“That’s ridiculous,” I counter, grabbing my notebook off the table. “I can’t do that. Find someone else.”

From beside me, Kray grabs my wrist. He holds up an index finger to Barton. “Excuse us one second.”

Without waiting for a reply, Kray drags me out of the room and into the hallway. He spins me around to face him.

“N—”

“Kray!” I interrupt. I’m not the girl for this job. Doesn’t he understand?

“Calm down,” Kray warns as he glances up at the ceiling, probably expecting the sprinkler system to react to me. “Just listen for once.”

I cross my arms in response and he continues. “I hate to tell you this, but Haskal the Asskal is right. If you can harness your power, Naut, you could be one of the strongest women alive. Fucking
water
!”

I drop my arms. “
If
, Kray.
IF
. In case you haven’t been around for the last two years, I’ll clue you in. I’m still here because I. Can’t. Control. It.”

“All right. Now let me clue
you
in, princess.” He jabs two fingers to the center of my forehead. “There is a block—a wall—in your head. I can literally see it every time you think something. All of your thoughts filter through this barrier. And you know what else filters through it?” He pauses like he’s waiting for me to respond. When I don’t, he goes on, “Your power. The harder you push against the wall, the thicker the wall gets and the less control you have.”

“So, see? We’re saying the same thing.” I move forward to push past him, but he stops me.

“No, we’re not. What
I’m
saying is that if you can break down that block, you can set your power free. Let it flow throughout your whole body instead of having it crash into that inner dam of yours until it explodes.” Kray lifts my chin. “It’s all in your head, Nautia.”

Deep down, I know he’s on to something. I can do simple things, like reverse the flow of a creek with no problem. However, if I tried reversing the flow of the Mississippi, I’d get a killer headache and pass out for a few days. What my friend said makes sense, but—

I sigh, softening a little. “I don’t know how.”

“Start by not allowing what happened to Nate to deplete you. Whatever happened to him won’t happen to you.”

“Did you hear what Barton said in there?” I murmur.

“An inside man?”

I nod.

“Yeah. But that may or may not be Nate. I read Barton’s mind, and he has no access to those files. He has no clue what became of the spy.”

“It’s not Nate,” I say defiantly. “He’d never give up information about that metal alloy junk. He wouldn’t sell out his country.”

“Even if he was following orders?”

“No, of course not. That’s…”

“If it was Nate—and that’s a big if—then he was doing us all a favor by giving Ji-jin the missing pieces to creating macrometallium. They already had the hydroplexasma, now they have the whole invisible missile. And the best part? We know about it. Now, if we can get ahold of the hydroplexasma, we can make the invisible visible, therefore eliminating the threat. A serum is only valuable if no one has the anti-serum,” Kray says.

“It wasn’t Nate,” I repeat.

“Fine. It wasn’t Nate. Still doesn’t change this mission.”

“What Barton’s wanting me to do, though…I don’t know if I can.”