Landlocked (Atlas Link Series Book 2) (39 page)

The scaffolding in the map room never ceased to scare me. I knew it was solid. I knew it wouldn’t budge. And yet it still brought out an inner fear of heights known only to this scaffolding. It was worth it though. I needed a better vantage point than the ground could give. Even then, the way my breathing came in short, shallow puffs gave me pause. If I fell from here, I’d definitely break something and land myself once more in TAO’s Infirmary.

I grabbed onto the railing and peered at the Map. Sophia stood beside me, waiting to see what would happen. I looked for the spot on the map I constantly saw and wondered if it meant something significant.

“Ha!” I said, finding it. Except it was basically gibberish. The part of the map that kept appearing in my dreams and waking hours alike was unfinished on our end, which made nothing in my head make sense. I saw 322BC, 2489AD, and something about a 432DNT. I had no idea what DNT meant, and apparently neither did TAO’s scientists.

“What do you see?” Sophia asked.

I pointed to the map. “That area. It’s always in my head.”

She inclined her head. “Interesting.”

“I guess.”

“Open your mind to it.”

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“Try to see the map in your head. Look for the holes in our knowledge. That’s what I do when we travel,” Sophia said. “Anything we can add to the map is valuable information.”

“I don’t know how. It just happens.”

“Concentrate.”

I looked to the map and focused on the area from my dreams. Then the map was there, right in my face, in my vision, in my mind. Connections and wind. Blue lines and dates and times and so much I couldn’t focus on. Things whizzed by my head, phantoms and objects. But no new information. The spot on the map became a black dot, a hole in the map I couldn’t fill.

I gripped the railing harder and forced myself out of the state. “Nothing. I saw the map but nothing happened.”

Sophia touched a hand to my back. “It’s okay.”

I stepped toward the ladder to go back down. “Could be the medicine Valerie got me. It’s stabilized the issue. At least for now.”

As I slid my feet onto the first rung and climbed down, the map returned with a vengeance. I held fast to the ladder, trying to keep myself in place despite everything in my vision toppling over and swooshing around like a terrible video game opening. Then, towering above me so suddenly, was a huge object I couldn’t identify even though it seemed familiar. It startled me so bad I jerked back and lost my hold on the ladder. I flailed backward and landed hard on the titled ground with a
crack
.

“Trevor!” Sophia shouted.

I didn’t want to open my eyes. That’d mean admitting my own stupidity.

Her steps down the ladder were quick. “Trevor, are you okay?”

“Yup, perfect,” I wheezed. My ass would hurt for days.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I saw the map again. Unwillingly.” And a colossal something or other to boot.

She offered me a hand. “Come on, let’s get you up. What hurts?”

“Everything,” I said as I stood. I grabbed my head, which spun like it did before I got the medicine from Butch. Maybe seeing the map caused the medicine to stop working. I groaned. “It’s back.”

“Let’s get you to the Infirmary,” Sophia said.

She led me there with one of my arms slung around her shoulders. I tried to fend her off, but she refused to leave my side. When we got to the Infirmary I explained the medicine to Doctor Hanney.

“I don’t know what goes into it, only that it helps.”

Doctor Hanney tapped his clipboard. “We can take a sample and try to replicate it. That’s the best I can offer you aside from a variety of normal drugs. I fear this may be beyond our expertise.”

I let my head fall into my hands. “Figured.”

“We need to tell Chelsea,” Sophia said. “She might be able to help you get more of the powder from Valerie.”

“No, we can’t tell her.”

“Why not?”

“It’s my medical condition, right?” I asked. “I don’t want her to know. Besides, while she’s off doing whatever she’s doing, she’s not here. She doesn’t
need
to know. If Valerie can get me more medicine, she will.”

“She’ll find out eventually, Trevor,” Sophia said, leveling me with a look to end all looks. She very much disagreed with my decision, but didn’t look ready to go behind my back about it.

“I’ll tell her,” I relented. “Until I do, please treat it like a medical condition I want kept private.”

“Fine,” Sophia agreed. “We’ll do it your way.”

Good. For lying about this, Chelsea would probably hate me. But we’d been there before, and this time the secret didn’t affect her. At least not the map part of the secret.

“Think you’ll make it to the Juxe show tomorrow?” Sophia asked.

My eyes met hers. I’d almost forgotten completely. “I’m not sure she wants me there.”

“I think you should go either way.”

Sophia was right. As always. But I also had to go to tell Chelsea about Valerie’s hypotheses. That’s if Chelsea would talk to me at all.

I’d make her talk to me.

ruman’s funeral was awkward. For someone okay with the bones of dead people, I was
not
okay with funeral activities. I sat there in the pew, trying to think of what to say or how to act. I didn’t know Truman as well as them. Any grief I felt paled in comparison. Mara and the guys, they’d known him better and for longer. Anything I could have done to comfort them seemed stupid. Pointless. Hypocritical. Truman was dead because of me. I got him killed because I couldn’t teleport fast enough.
I
hadn’t been good enough.

All these stupid powers and all I ever did was get people killed. My fists clenched at my side. I lifted my thighs and shoved my hands beneath them to hide my anger.

Mara hadn’t spoken to me since we’d gotten back, and I didn’t blame her for being upset. If I had just done
something
, anything beyond freeze up and fail to protect them, everything would be different. Truman might have lived.

That was dangerous. I’d played the “what if” game for months after SeaSat5 was stolen. I couldn’t look at any of this objectively anymore. Realistically, I could have stopped General Allen long ago. I could have made a move the first time he’d cornered me, before he took away my powers with that god-awful serum. But he’d threatened Trevor, and if Trevor was for one moment implicated in the loss of SeaSat5, everything we’d built in our search to find the station would come tumbling down. He’d be kicked out of TAO, tried as a traitor. Then they’d come after me, and any shot we had of recovering our old ship and crew would be lost.

And that last job… I could barely teleport myself out, never mind Mara, too. I would’ve never made it to Truman and out again before the explosion, even if I teleported a few seconds out of sync. I did what I did, and that’s all I could have done.

Then why had nothing but guilt and grief plagued me for the past few days? Why did it always come back to not being able to save the SeaSat5 crew?

My fists relaxed beneath my thighs with the answer.
I am not Super Woman
.

I had to accept that fact.

The rest of the funeral and burial activities passed me by in a blur of grieving faces and military dress uniforms. I went home with Josh afterward, who didn’t talk much, and Weyland went with Erin.

Josh turned on the TV and we cuddled on the couch, my head against his chest, for hours. Every now and then his heart rate would pick up, thudding in my ears, then after a few minutes it returned to normal. During those rough patches, I wrapped my arms around him tighter. If he wanted to talk, he would, and I had nothing to say.

I made him dinner that night, standing out in the cold to grill him a pair of burgers. I watched the flames dance beneath the grill’s grate with a renewed hatred of the element given all it meant. Truman’s death. Lemurians. Burn marks.

Sometime before the burgers charred I took them off the grill and brought them in for Josh. We ate and I cleaned up. As I finished the last of the dishes, Josh’s warm hands clasped my face and he drew me in for an unexpected kiss. My eyes remained open, searching his face for reasons why as the kiss grew longer and deeper. I closed my eyes as he backed me up to the counter, his hands wandering.