Hearken (Daughters of the Sea Series) (21 page)

             
As I climbed the narrow stairs leading to Stasia’s house, I mentally reached out to see what I could feel from her, but all I discovered was a whole bunch of nothing. I hoped that meant she was completely fine. It could also mean she was completely incapacitated, but I tried not to think about that possibility. I scaled the last step and crossed the small front porch with the intention of knocking on the door, but decided against it at the last second. I turned the knob and pushed the door open slowly.

             
“Stasia?”

             
I surveyed the empty room and took a quick inventory. Her shoes had been kicked off, but no other sign that she’d been there was visible. The undisturbed furniture divulged no secrets, and the closed door that I assumed led to the back bedroom further blocked my view. I marched down the hall with determination, readied my defenses, and reminded myself to breathe. Electricity hummed through my veins; fueling me with the energy and confidence I needed. I took the last step and reached for the doorknob, but the door swung slowly open on its own.

             
“Olivia?” Stasia stood before me looking very Goddess-like in a flowing white dress that featured sparkling crystals across the bodice and hemlines. Her face glowed with a layer of power and her eyes searched mine. 

             
“Oh. Hey,” I greeted her with slight confusion. She appeared to be okay, but I couldn’t shake the odd feeling that something was still off. “I just wanted to come and check on you.”

             
“I just uh…” She frowned before mentally shaking herself and forcing a smile. “I was just trying to figure out why all the clothes are white.”

             
“I’m hoping golden boy can explain that to us, too,” I concurred, and followed her out the front door; still checking for anything else amiss out of sheer habit. “I’m going to make the grand assumption they haven’t undergone some crazy genetic mutation here that rendered them all virgins, so it has to mean something else.”

             
“If that were the case, my closet would be full of black clothes,” Stasia contended. “And yours would be full of neon.” Her comment caught me off guard and it took me a second to realize she wasn’t insulting me, but simply stating the obvious truth. I had a feeling the list of guys she’d slept with was pretty short – as in
just
Finn Morrison – so in contrast, I was a raging brothel of one. I smiled when we reached the ground and joined the others, who were already waiting for us.

             
“Fine by me. Neon happens to be one of my favorite colors,” I admitted with a laugh.

             
“Last I checked, neon isn’t a color,” Carmen threw at me cynically. I quickly deliberated her choice of clothing, a plain white sundress, and smirked.

             
“Neither is skank, but that doesn’t stop you from wearing it all the time.”

             
“Well, it’s good to see you two are getting along,” Stasia interrupted curtly. “’Cause you’ll be doing the pre-selections for the Games the rest of the night.”

             
“What about dinner?” Phoebe protested in her wide leg linen pants and smock. “Sebastian was telling us about this really cool place to eat dinner closer to the city!”

             
“Why don’t we do that tomorrow?” Stasia insisted. “The pre-selections have to be done as soon as possible, and at the rate these two are going, we’ll have two dead Council members before midnight.”

             
“Stasia’s right,” Sebastian piped up. He stepped out of the shadows of the trees like some kind of creepy stalker and stepped in between Carmen and me with a maddening grin. He clamped a heavy hand on both of our shoulders before speaking to the group. “Duty should always be your first priority. I’ll make sure these two behave. I might even be able to scrounge up some food and drinks if they’ll promise to be good.”

             
I squirmed out from under his touch with an audible groan, making him chuckle. It was that moment when I decided to begin planning my alibi for his untimely murder. Lucky for him, Carmen spoke up just in time.

             
“Is there somewhere we can go to work on pre-selections besides the tree houses?” When Carmen spoke, I noticed the bright turquoise of Stasia’s eyes cloud over as they focused on something across the lake. Its undisturbed waters had awakened with the dim orange glow from the sunset, and the forest beyond was becoming increasingly blackened by the shadow of the coming night. In front of me, Stasia tilted her head to the side as if she was listening to something. Her stance grew very still while she continued to concentrate on whatever it was I couldn’t see. I could only hope she would be okay while Carmen and I tried not to kill each other for a couple hours of work.

             
“I know the perfect place.” Sebastian’s voice brought me back to our conversation. “As long as you’re not afraid of heights. Or insects the size of buses.” He raised his eyebrows at Carmen and multiple red flags flew up in my mind’s eye.

             
“How do you know what a bus is?” I eyed him suspiciously. He’d obtained a white t-shirt from somewhere; covering his broad chest and making him look even tanner than he already was.

             
“Just because I live on an invisible island doesn’t mean I don’t get to leave every once in a while.” The sharpness of his tone told me not to press further, while his threatening gaze had me narrowing my eyes at him with mistrust. I decided to grill him later when I could corner him and beat the truth out of him if necessary. I don’t care who appointed him – he was hiding something. And I intended to find out what that something was.

Chapter 20

Olivia

              “Is the Rent-A-Babysitter really necessary?” I whispered to Carmen.

             
“Unless you want to be sacrificed to the Atlantean Gods for trespassing.” Sebastian twisted around to face me with defiance. “It would be wise of you to keep me close.”

             
“You’re kidding….right?” Carmen scrunched up her nose at him.

             
“Am I?” he challenged with a sneer.

             
“If anybody needs security, it’s Stasia,” I countered matter-of-factly.

             
“Every soul on this island knows who Anastasia is.” He raised a blonde eyebrow. “I seriously doubt the same can be said for you.”

             
“I can take care of myself!” I demanded with hands on hips. I realized I resembled a toddler having a temper tantrum more than a Goddess’s Warrior, so I dropped my arms and straightened my back. It was just that something about him made me want to throw things.

             
“Fine.” He shrugged and smiled slyly. “Have it your way. But don’t come running to me when they staple ropes to your bare skin and carry you to the center of town, and then gut you from head to toe.” He tapped on Carmen’s forehead and pointed at her feet for effect. “After you bleed out, they’ll take your heart and liver to the offering cliff and toss it into the fire.” Carmen’s eyes grew big and she clutched his arm.

             
“I don’t know if you’re kidding or not, but I don’t really want to find out the hard way,” she pleaded. “Don’t listen to her – stay with us!”

             
He stood slightly straighter and grinned down at me. When I didn’t say anything, he nodded once at Carmen and turned on his heel. She followed into step with him and motioned for me to follow. Every shred of the pride in my heart was yelling against me, but I forced my legs to follow suit. No matter how much I wanted to rip his throat out, we were strangers in a foreign land and at the moment he was all we had. I sighed and glanced up at the waning moon rising in the east. It seemed larger somehow out here on this island amidst the dark silence of wilderness.

             
We followed Sebastian down a worn path, and the sound of rushing water could be heard off in the distance. I wasn’t sure I was necessarily looking forward to flying down more rapids in a wooden canoe – especially at night. Thankfully the moon was bright enough to light our way, but it was still no match for the sun. The night harbored more unknowns, more monsters, more secrets in its endless shadows. There were more hiding places, and an infinite amount of space for an imagination to run wild.

             
Despite all of those traps, I’d still always loved the night. Sometimes the monsters hiding in the shadows were only the ones inside of us. At night we had the wherewithal to be careful, but the day presented a veil of security that caused us to let down our guards and ignore our baser instincts. Sometimes the scariest monsters were those right in front of our faces; the ones who had mastered the art of deception. So it was the night where I felt the most comfortable. To me, the sunlight presented more risk – it had the power to uncover our darkest secrets and shine light on our weaknesses. 

             
“Whoa.” Carmen stopped abruptly and grabbed my arm. I was about to pull out of her grasp when I looked ahead and realized I needed her grip to steady me. Just ahead was a beautiful, intricate bridge created from the roots of two huge trees on either side. But that wasn’t what had my legs wanting to run the other direction. No, that wasn’t what had me seriously questioning the sanity of these Atlanteans. It was what lay beneath the naturally constructed root bridge.

             
“Here’s where that whole ‘afraid of heights’ thing comes in.” Sebastian smiled widely at us and the moonlight caught his eyes just as they met mine; throwing me off guard for a second. That one simple glance contained so many emotions, it took me a moment to sort through them all. His sense of adventure, overflowing excitement, and visible anticipation gave him a youthful appearance that made my heart warm. I suddenly figured out where the phrase ‘if he jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?’ came from. It was difficult not to get caught up in the magnetic elation shining in his features as he surveyed the enormous crevice in the earth’s crust. I found myself yearning to share in his emotions; to experience the raw elation of something he’d probably done a million times. I’d follow him off a cliff to experience that kind of passion any day. 

I mentally shook myself. I had to stay grounded. Just because he thought it was a good idea didn’t mean it was. I didn’t know him from Adam, and regardless of what Stasia thought, I still had my doubts about him. I was sure Hades probably had the same passion in his eyes right before sucking the souls from his victims and stealing them away to the depths of
Tartarus to burn for eternity. 

“Why is there a massive crack in the island?” Carmen questioned with dread; eliciting a chuckle from Sebastian. He smoothed the hair out of his face and stepped up to the edge of the cliff. I made the mistake of glancing down at the ‘crack’ in the island, and had to grab Carmen’s arm again. A bout of dizziness hit me as my eyes adjusted to the depth. I could just see a thin line of white at the bottom.

“It’s one of the rings,” Sebastian responded, as if ‘rings’ were a common occurrence and nothing to get all worked up about.

“Unless this is ‘The Lord of the Rings’, I’m going to need you to expound on what you mean by ‘ring’,” she retorted.

“Lord of the what?” He cocked his head to the side with quiet fascination.

“Lord of the Rings…It’s a trilogy that…
nevermind.”

“We don’t have any lords, but here on Atlantis there are four rings,” he explained. “Each encircles the city. There are two land rings and two water rings, and they protect us. This is the deepest of the water rings, as well as the oldest. The only way across the water rings are these bridges made over centuries from the roots of rubber trees. We’ve perfected the art of manipulating the roots to provide a natural type of architecture. You can find the root bridges elsewhere on the island as well, but they were originally only for the purpose of crossing the rings.”

“So the island resembles a massive bull’s-eye?” Carmen guessed.

“More or less, yes.” He checked his watch. “And we need to hurry.”

Not willing to stick around and figure out why we needed to hurry, we followed him across the root bridge with shaky legs and wide eyes. The bridge itself was much more stable than I would have expected. It didn’t swing, and felt as stable as if we were walking on the ground. The floor of the bridge was packed with dirt and large stones, making it feel as if we were completely safe. But one glimpse downward and all thoughts of safety flew out the window. The moonlight shone on the metallic layers within the walls of the crevice, and I found myself mesmerized by the cadence of gold, silver, bronze, and reddish colors glimmering in the moonlight. They cast an eerie ambiance over an already mysterious landscape. Random bird calls and animal howls careened through the night; enhancing the feeling that we were in uncharted territory.

The only thing that gave me any amount of solace was the confidence in Sebastian’s gait as he practically danced across the bridge. Once we reached the middle, he turned slowly and flashed a grin that looked a little too maniacal for my liking.