Landlocked (Atlas Link Series Book 2) (30 page)

My fingers closed around the handle of one, the cold metal freezing my hands, and I pulled the mortuary tray open. Slid it out. Bones sat there, nothing but a skeleton.

I back peddled until I was nearly halfway down the aisle. What kind of sick, twisted project was the General running in here? The chill that hadn’t left my body became a full blizzard. Still shaking, I swallowed down the fear rising inside of me and closed in on the skeleton. Donned my archaeology hat. Took a closer look.

“Just shake it off,” I said, hoping it would make this easier. Or at least less creepy. I started with the pelvis, and then moved to the skull. All I could tell on quick glance was that this skeleton belonged to a female. I moved on to the next cabinet over and performed the same quick assessment. Male.

Three females, two males, two empty trays. Plus four more tubes with floating bodies.

A sickening feeling rotted my stomach. I coughed, choking on bile as it worked its way up my throat. I closed the cabinets and returned to the tubes, searching around for a view that showed the victims’ wrists.

There it was. The same twisty tattoo Dave had had. The one that claimed him a Lemurian, one with powers. The one that had convinced Trevor two years ago that my attacker behind the Franklin was related to his family. The mark Trevor didn’t have because he’d never come into his abilities.

General Allen wasn’t just sending his people to hunt Lemurians.

He was capturing them. Experimenting on them.

Collecting them.

Was I next?

Weyland threw an empty beer can my way. I tossed the can off me, grimacing as some of the leftover beer leaked out onto my sweatshirt. Truman laughed heartedly, and I chucked my can at him. Being this happy and carefree after my discovery earlier today made my stomach roil. But I couldn’t help the way my heart warmed when I looked at them. I’d finally belonged to something.

Something that could be taken away so easily.

Those experiments.
A chill crept down my spine and I shuddered.

Josh wrapped an arm around my shoulder, drawing me into him until my head rested on his chest. Every time he laughed the sound vibrated against my ear. I smiled despite my dark thoughts. His heart beat steadily, whispering reassurances he didn’t know he was giving, or needed to. I maneuvered my arms so I hugged him back. If this wasn’t home, I wasn’t sure I’d ever know what was.

My cell phone vibrated to life in my pocket. Josh loosened his arms so I could shift my hand and pull it out. Sarah’s name and picture flashed across the screen.

Strange
.

I stood and walked until the laughter and loud music grew almost out of earshot, and slid my finger across the screen of my phone. “Hey, Sarah. What’s up?”

“I need to tell you something,” she spit out. No pretenses, no greeting—nothing.

My heart dropped down to my feet. That was so unlike her. “What happened? Are Mom and Dad okay? Are you okay?” Had Allen known I found his secret lab and did something to my family in retaliation? My heart jumped into my throat, choking me.

“We’re all fine,” Sarah said.

I didn’t believe her. Maybe it wasn’t Allen, but there was an angry edge in her voice that made me want to beat whoever hurt her. That had to be what this was about. I let out a sigh, glad that Allen didn’t know about my earlier excursion and hadn’t harmed my family.

“What’s going on?” I asked. What did her boyfriend do? It had to be something regarding him. And where was Logan that he couldn’t take care of it for me?

“Look.” Her voice was low. “Trevor was here last night, at Kris’.”

“Excuse me?” I moved even farther away from the party behind me, attempting to hide the volume with which I asked, “What the hell did you say?”

“Kris…” She paused. “Kris had a party last night. Trevor was at the Franklin during our show. I ran into him, well…”

“Sarah!”

What the hell was Trevor doing in Boston?

“He looked pretty down, okay? I felt bad. So I said that if he was staying in town for a while, he should come to the party to perk up a little bit, you know?”

“No,” I ground out through gritted teeth. “I don’t know.”

Sarah sucked in a long breath. “Chelsea, it was a mistake. I’m sorry.”

“What happened? What did he do?”

“I didn’t know he was such a light-weight,” rushed out of her mouth, “so I handed him some whiskey and—”

“Since when does Trevor drink whiskey?” I asked her. He could barely finish a whole beer before I left.

“Apparently never. Two drinks in, he was having the time of his life—”

“Good for him,” I interrupted. “What aren’t you telling me?”

A pregnant pause filled the conversation, long enough and dead enough that the lack of Sarah’s breathing sounds through the phone deposited dread in my stomach and filled my head with worst case scenarios. “Is he okay?”

“Trevor?” she sounded surprised. “More or less. Logan might try to kill him, though.”

“Wait—he’s not hurt or in the hospital?”
Then what the hell happened!

“Why would he be in the hospital?” she asked.

Another voice interrupted the conversation. “Who’s in the hospital, Chelsea?”

I spun to find Josh standing there. I held up a finger, asking him to wait a second. “Sarah?”

“God—no, Chelsea! Trevor walked out of here a-okay. It’s
who
he walked out of the basement
with
that’s a problem.” She squeaked, like the information shouldn’t have come out that way.

I listened as she spoke again, trying to go back on her words and rearrange them so it wouldn’t hurt so badly. It didn’t help. My blood ran so cold I was momentarily convinced I’d turned to ice. “Who?” Not that it mattered much because here I was, sleeping with Josh. Trevor and I weren’t together anymore. But the way Sarah had gone about this whole conversation said he’d slept with someone he shouldn’t have. And if it wasn’t Sarah…

“Chels…” she warned.

“Don’t ‘
Chels
’ me, Sarah.”

Another pause filled the air before she gave Trevor up. “I’m pretty sure he slept with Lexi.”

A single moment passed between us before I pulled the phone from my ear and shouted, “What the
fuck
!” at the mouthpiece. Why her? Of all the goddamn women on this planet,
her
.

“Chelsea—” Sarah said, but I was so far into the red I couldn’t stop now if I wanted to.

“Chelsea?” Josh took a few steps toward me. “What’s wrong?”

I turned to him, my hand a barrier between us. “Don’t right now.”

His face grew dark. If he knew what I was so mad about—and why the hell was I so mad about it?—he’d probably break up with me right then and there, and I couldn’t deal with that right now. I knew I couldn’t.

I brought my phone back to my ear in time to hear Sarah say, “Chelsea, I am
so
sorry. I had no idea he would do that. I think Lexi tricked him into it.”

“Well of course she freaking did.”

Josh took another step toward me. I pressed my hand against some invisible wall, another warning to him.

“He knows who she is,” I insisted. “He must have been pretty damn drunk or angry.”

“I wanted to tell you this morning, but we had to clean up, and Logan was here, and—”

“Does Logan know?”

“Not yet,” she said. “But I’m sure he’ll find out.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “I’m going to kill him.”

“No, you’re not.”

A ragged breath made its way in and out of my lungs. “No, I’m not. But those two will pay. I am so
over
this shit.” Over being the laughing stock of Boston. Over letting her walk all over
me
.

“You shouldn’t have left him hanging,” Sarah ventured slowly.

“Like you know what’s going on right now,” I said, but even as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. “Sarah, I—”

“I know. Believe me, I know. I almost wrung his neck myself this morning.”

I chuckled. She took too much after me. “If he contacts you again, let me know.”

“I will. I’m sorry, Chels.”

And just like that, all the tension left my body. I couldn’t be mad at her for something she didn’t do. “It’s okay, Sarah.” Another thought occurred to me. “Do you know why he was at the Franklin?”

“He said he was picking up something from a friend.”

In Boston? Weird. “Right, well, I got to go. But I think I’ll have some new music for us for Juxe if you’re willing to let me vent.”

“Anytime,” she said. “I have to go, too. Bye.”

“Bye.”

I hung up the phone and lifted my eyes slowly to Josh’s. “Sorry. Sarah delivered some bad news.”

“Sarah?” he asked, arms at his sides. He was no longer trying to reach out to me, rather he let me come to him.

“My sister. Something went down with our friends back home.” I didn’t want to lie. I wasn’t even sure why I did.

No.
That
was the lie. I didn’t want to talk about Trevor with Josh. We hadn’t been together long enough to have the exes conversation.

“Clearly,” he said. “You okay? You were pretty mad.”

I bit the inside of my cheek and looked away. After a few moments of trying to piece together an answer, I gave up and wrapped my arms around him.

“Men are jerks,” I said into his shoulder.

He laughed a little and kissed the top of my head. “Whose ass needs kicking?”

I peered up at him with uneasy eyes. “If I said my ex’s, how mad would you get?”

He shrugged, seemingly unfazed. This man was perfect in every way. “Depends. What’d he do?”

“Something
so,
so stupid.”

Josh shrugged again. “I dunno, I think you could handle it. You even got the angry ex-girlfriend thing going for you.” He poked me in the ribs.

I giggled and pushed away from him. “Not fair!”

“I think so. Guy doesn’t deserve you anyway.”

No. He didn’t. Not if his revenge sex was Lexi. “Why are you so damn calm and perfect after seeing me freak out about another guy like that?”

“Because it sounds as if this goes farther back than your ex. And even if it were about him, and even though we’ve only been dating for a short time, you’re clearly not into him. Just ripping pissed.”

“To say the least,” I mumbled.

He reached for me and pulled me into him. “Remind me to never make you mad.” I laughed and he did, too. “Come on. Let’s go back and enjoy the rest of the night, then we can deal with things tomorrow.”

I looked up to him once more. “All right.”

He leaned down and kissed me softly.