Landlocked (Atlas Link Series Book 2) (23 page)

Meredith used to greet Valerie and me with lollipops or other candy, and in the very beginning, she’d watch us while our parents saw Abby. They’d disappear for hours inside the walls of this place, and only now did I realize they were probably questioning Abby on what she’d witnessed while at the same time telling her it wasn’t real. They’d thought her slight psychosis problems wouldn’t allow her to keep their secrets, that her time being taken by the Atlantean super soldiers had destroyed her mind completely.

We still didn’t know for sure what Abby had seen, or experienced, her freshman year of college, only that Atlanteans had kidnapped her. And that she’d returned broken in mind and spirit.

“Yes, I’m here to see my cousin, Abby Schuster,” I said.

“Name?”

“Trevor Boncore.”

Meredith, a bigger woman with warm, almond-colored skin, looked up and her smile grew wide. “My word. Trevor, it’s been too long.” She stood and rushed around the counter to hug me. “You’ve been gone for so many years.”

I nodded. “I know. I’m not proud of it.”

Meredith pulled back and held onto my shoulders. “Terrible thing, you not visiting. Abby had other guests, though. Kept her spirits up. She talks about you all the time.” She winked. “Think I know more about your childhood than I reckon any other woman.”

I shook my head, smiling. “Great. Good thing there’s no other woman.” Last thing I needed was Chelsea or anyone else hearing any of the multitude of embarrassing and messy stories from my childhood.

“Like you expect me to believe that,” Meredith said wryly.

“It’s true,” I said. “I’m a single man.”

She shook her head, frowning. “Waste if you ask me.”

I grinned. “Well, thank you.”

Meredith wrote me up a visitor’s pass and sent me on my way. “She’s in her room right now, with lunch soon. Do you want me to bring you?”

“No. I can handle it. Thank you, Meredith.”

She smiled again. “I’m glad you came back.”

“Me too.”

I stopped outside Abby’s door. I’d come all this way and never thought if she even wanted to see me again. After four years, I wasn’t sure I could blame her if she didn’t.
Just go
. If things got rough, all I’d need to do was ask about Valerie. If things were okay, I’d ask that later before I left.

I took a deep breath and opened the door to Abby’s room.

Valerie had been here. Often. It was immediately obvious. Paintings lined the walls, all done in Valerie’s distinct bold style. Scattered between them were others, probably done by Abby. The one place my family would be sure to watch, Valerie risked visiting. Valerie, who’d been in it deeper than I’d ever be. Abby made it worth it. And me? I’d been too terrified, too childish to even stop by. But Valerie had spent hours with Abby. Many hours. As any best friend would. Too bad neither of us could tell Abby the truth without risking what fragile state of mind she had left.

Abby sat with her back facing the door. She hunched over a canvas, completely lost in thought. I knocked on the doorframe, not wanting to startle her. She turned at the sound and gaped at me with wild eyes.

Crap, she was pissed.
Of course she was pissed.

But then she smiled and rushed into my arms. She was thinner than I remembered, but just as tall and beautiful. Her hair had lightened in the time I’d been gone, no longer matching mine.

“Hey, Abby,” I said as I hugged her.

She buried her head in my shoulder. “You’ve been gone so long.”

“I know.”

She pulled away and gestured at the room. “It’s okay. Valerie said you were busy. She’s teaching me to paint.”

“I see that,” I said. “Valerie’s a good artist.”

“And I will be, too.”

I nodded at her. I was so, so glad she wasn’t catatonic anymore. After the string of episodes that’d led to her being committed, she wouldn’t eat or speak. Those visits were the hardest. All over again, the guilt sunk me—for not being smarter, for not being in school with her the semester it all started. If I’d been there, if I’d been three or four years ahead in school instead of two, maybe I could have saved her. If I’d been there, I might not have made Hummingbird at all.

I smiled at her. “You’ll be an amazing artist.”

Abby squinted at me. “You’re taller.”

“And older,” I said. “How often does Valerie come by?” She must dodge Abby’s parents and my own every time she came. So she must have learned their visitation patterns and convinced Abby not to say anything.
Dammit Valerie.
I understood why she did it. Abby was her best friend. But if our family caught her after the whole SeaSat5 debacle…

Abby shrugged and plopped down into the chair in front of her canvas. “Every couple days. She makes things better.”

I snagged a spare chair from the far corner of the room and sat next to Abby while she painted.

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“The days she comes by, things are clear. Good. When she’s gone for too long…” Abby frowned, clouds darkening her eyes. “When she’s gone for too long, the demons come back. They strike,” she said sharply, jabbing her paintbrush onto the canvas, “and they strike and strike. They make me do it again. Skip my morning classes. Run the woman over. They say bad things. Horrific things, the demons.”

“But Valerie makes it better?”

Her smile returned and she painted around the jab mark like it wasn’t even there. “Yep.”

My heart constricted around her answer. Sounded like Valerie had somehow found a way to help Abby, but the effects weren’t permanent. We weren’t sure exactly what sent Abby into her near-catatonic state. Valerie had long hypothesized she’d been interrogated by Atlanteans after they’d kidnapped her, which was the root cause of Valerie’s initial dislike of Chelsea. No one had proved anything either way.

“Do you want to paint with me, Trevor?” Abby asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

I couldn’t paint worth a damn. The only thing my hands were good for were electronics. It didn’t matter to Abby, and that warmed my heart in ways that hadn’t been done in years. I’d always had to be perfect for so long now.

I smiled at her. “Sure.”

She handed me a brush and pointed to the canvas. “I want to paint the fireflies, but there’s too many. I can’t do it all. They never come out right. It’s been so long since I’ve seen them, since we were kids.”

“I was wondering if you remembered that.”

Her eyes lifted to mine and, in a brief moment of utter clarity, she said, “I could never forget.”

The moment passed as quickly as it came. I dabbed the end of my brush in yellow paint and added fireflies across her painting. Lunch was brought to her, and Meredith included a sandwich for me. We laughed and reminisced, but it was clearer now than before that part of her mind was gone. Her memories were missing. Valerie’s hypothesis seemed likely, and now that I was old enough to recognize Abby’s condition for what it was, I was tempted to check her out of this place and bring her to TAO. She wasn’t crazy. She was a victim. Of what, I could only guess. But she wasn’t insane, and that was the important part.

Sometime later, when Abby deemed the painting finished, she got up and padded across the floor. Back and forth she paced along the same line.

“Abby, what’s wrong?” I asked her.

She put a finger to her lips and tapped. “Something for you. From Valerie. Need to remember where I put it. Aha!” She raced to an old-looking, large wooden jewelry box and pulled something white out of it: a piece of notepad paper. “Valerie said if you ever visited, to give you this. She reminded me every time she came. She thought I wouldn’t remember, but I do. I remember.”

I took the note from Abby. “Thank you.”

She smiled and returned to the painting we finished. “You read while I find a spot to hang this.”

I stared at the note in my hands. My name had been scribbled across the top in Valerie’s lyrical handwriting. This was it. After days of searching, I had my first real clue.

I opened the note.

Trevor,

For the record, I knew you’d come. But I also knew it’d take you a while. You’re such an open book sometimes. And, also for the record, a version of this note has been in Abby’s room since the day I left SeaSat5. I revised it the day I sent you the message in the fake award email.

We need to meet up. I can’t imagine you’ll be thrilled to see me, but you’re in danger. Chelsea is in danger. It’s… complicated at best, and I need to know how much you know, what you know, before I can say anything. I need you to meet me where it all started, where the war hit its turning point. You know where this place is. Think, Trevor. Think about where this all really started. I’ll be there waiting for you.

And if you’re wondering about Abby—yes, I’ve found a way to help her. It’s slow going, but at least it’s progress. All those years we thought she’d had a mental breakdown and lost it… We were stupid, Trevor. We still are. Nothing is like we thought it was, and now the crew of SeaSatellite5 is paying the price. More will pay if you don’t come to me.

See you soon, Trevor. —V

The place where it all started. Did she mean the classroom we were in the day I’d sketched Hummingbird? That’s the place I’d consider as the genesis of our situation. But that seemed too easy an answer, too simple a solution.

SeaSat5 was gone, so she couldn’t mean the storeroom Chelsea had teleported into, either. With those choices gone, where else could she mean?

Where the war hit its turning point.

I looked up from the note. There was only one last place fitting Valerie’s description.

I needed to catch another flight.

“Did she say nice things?” Abby asked over my shoulder.

I folded up Valerie’s note and stood to leave. “Yes, thank you, Abby.” TAO could have their secret mission without me. I’d have my own. I needed to figure out who the new mole was.

“Are you leaving?” she asked, a frown tugging down her lips.

I froze. How could I have been such an asshole?

“No,” I said. “I can stay for a while.” My flight back wasn’t for another few hours, and I hadn’t seen Abby in years.

Abby smiled and clapped excitedly. “Awesome. I have an idea for another painting.”

I stayed and painted with her until the last possible second. For a brief moment, painting with my cousin staved off all the darkness, all the bad things happening right now. In those hours, I felt the best I had all week.