Night Forbidden (25 page)

And then, suddenly, there she was, erupting from the water right in front of him. Relief swarmed through him.

He looked down at her wet face, sparkling with droplets, freckles dancing lightly over her nose, her wide, lush mouth only inches away—and felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach.

It
is
her. She’s the One.

“Ana,” he said, bending over as far as he dared. The water was
right there,
so close he could feel its coolness. He drew in a deep, salt-scented breath.

She came close to the boat, her hair plastered back from her face, her hazel eyes clear, the lashes clumping together with drops of the sea, looking up at him as his head blocked the sun. “It’s deep,” she said. “Too deep.”

“Too deep for what?”

“To swim beneath.”

“What about the stones? Did you see them?” He wanted to reach out and touch her head, smooth his hand over her warm, wet hair just as she’d done to the dolphin earlier.

“I didn’t see them, but I can feel their energy. They’re nearby. They have to be. The water is wrong down there.”

“Wrong? What do you mean?”

“The current is all wrong. It’s messed up—that tells me the energy is being gathered. Look over there—you can see it already. I’m going to have to go on by myself.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Fence wanted to lunge for her, but he kept his grip on the rail. “You just said it’s too deep to swim under.”

“Not for me.”

“No fucking way. You can’t go by yourself, Ana. Don’t be crazy.”

She’d backed away from the boat, just out of reach of his hands. Now he could see the faint glow of her crystals just beneath the surface. “There’s no other way. No one can swim deep enough to get past the barrier. I found a place to go under it, but it’s too deep for any of—for Quent or Zoë. That’s why it’s here, you know. No human can get through it. But an Atlantean can.”

“Ana, no. Get back in the boat now. We’ll think of another way to do this.” He didn’t care that his voice had turned hard and commanding, that he sounded desperate and lost beneath the words. “Don’t risk it.”

She looked up at him, opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. Then opened it again. “I can do this. I have to at least try.”

“But they’re already evacuating Envy,” Fence reminded her. “Vaughn said they’d be out of there by evening tonight.”

Ana remained at a distance. “But think of everything else that will be destroyed. Everything that you’ve worked for—that all of you have built for the Resistance.”

“Ana, no,” he said.

She frowned, her brows drawing together as she eased even farther from the boat. “Bruno, you’d do the same thing if you were me. You wouldn’t even hesitate.”

“But—” His throat ached and his eyes were stinging. “Ana, you don’t even know what’s on the other side. What if there’s a trap? Something you aren’t expecting? What if there are Atlanteans there?”

“I’m one of them,” she told him. There was a tinge of bitterness in her voice. “They won’t hurt me.”

“You said you’d never go back—” he began, but she interrupted.

“I’ve got to go. I don’t know how far the stones are or how long it will take to—”

“Ana, please,” he said. “Don’t go. Don’t go alone.”

She looked right at him, as if about to say something. His heart stopped. His hands turned slick and damp.

Don’t.

Don’t say it.

His heart started thudding again, slamming hard enough to jolt him.

She didn’t speak.

Instead, after holding his gaze for a long moment, she slid back under the waves.

Fence stared down into where she’d disappeared, vaguely aware that Quent and Zoë were still huddled together at the stern, arguing softly.

He felt the spray of the water, smelled the sea scent, and gripped the edge of the boat, blinking away the sting in his eyes.

He couldn’t let her go alone.

He gripped the side of the boat more tightly.

But the thought of plunging off into the deep, dark, cold depths made him ill.

He closed his eyes, brought Ana’s face into his mind.

You were breathing underwater.

He tore off his shirt with shaking fingers.

One . . . two . . .

His breath caught in a jerky sob.

. . .
three.

He flipped himself over the rail.

Chapter 18

A
s he plunged into the dark water, Fence’s mind went blank with terror. The sea cloaked him, surrounded him: cool, dark, close.

His lungs were full of the breath he’d taken before launching over, and already they began to burn as he struggled to keep from panicking, to keep from losing it and hyperventilating. He felt a sharp sting beneath his arms, one on each side, in his ribs.

He closed his eyes, floating there, praying for consciousness, for sanity as the sea embraced him.

It’s cool. It’s okay. You’re okay.

He repeated this mantra over and over, but the ocean was heavy and he felt it in his nostrils, saturating his shorts and seeping into his warm skin.
I can’t do this.

His mind had gone black and blank, and he struck out blindly with arms and legs, trying to make it back to the surface.

Then something brushed against him and he opened his eyes with a start.

Ana.

She was there, right in front of him, her face close, her eyes wide with question and concern. The soft blue glow from her crystals filtered in the water around them. Her hair wafted in gentle waves. She reached for his arm, and he grabbed her hand desperately, clinging to his last shred of sanity with her as a lifeline.

I can’t do this. I can’t do this.

He felt the panic rise and fill his lungs, and he knew he was going to have to flounder to the surface, find the fresh air and take in great, deep gulps of it.

She was lifting his arm away from his torso, pointing to his ribs. Where the stinging was.

He barely had the awareness to wonder if he’d cut himself.
Oh, God, blood will attract sharks.
His lungs burned and he let out some of the oxygen reserve, bubbles trailing violently from his nose.

I’m not going to drown, I’ll die from a shark attack.

The desperation and panic won, and he pulled away from her to kick upward. His head broke the surface and he gasped for air. Already he was looking for the boat to grab onto. He
needed
something to grab onto, to pull himself out of this—

“Fence!” Ana burst up next to him. “Fence, Bruno—you did it.”

But he was nearly sobbing in mortification and anger with himself. He looked, and the boat was out of reach. He’d have to swim several yards.

But at least his face was out of the water.

It wasn’t far. He could do it. One stroke . . . the next stroke . . . don’t think about—

“Did you see?” Ana’s voice was urgent. “You have gills!”

At first her words didn’t penetrate over the roar of desperation and panic in his heart and mind, but she said it again. “Bruno. You have
gills
.”

By that time he’d reached the sailboat and grabbed onto it like a drowning man. Hell, he
was
a drowning man.

“What did you say?” Safely holding onto the edge of the boat, trying to forget that he was still in the ocean, he turned to look at Ana.

She’d come toward him, her eyes wild with excitement. “I was showing you! You have gills. You
can
breathe underwater.”

“What are you talking about?” he said, but even as he did, he was lifting his arm to look at his torso. Which was still underwater, so he couldn’t see anything.

Ana was there next to him now, and she took his free hand and slid it down beneath his arm and—

Holy Mother of God.

Sure enough, there was an opening that had not been there a few moments earlier. His skin had split open just like the gill on a fish, by God.

It was fucking freaky. Completely, madly freaky, sliding his fingers along the beveled edge of a slit, warm and moist, in his torso . . . like the time he broke an arm and saw the edge of the bone pushing against the skin from the inside.

It was his body . . . yet it wasn’t.

“There’s one on both sides,” Ana said. She was right next to him now, her legs so close they brushed against his.

“I can’t . . . it can’t be,” he whispered.

“What the hell is going on?” Zoë’s face appeared in front of him. There were tear streaks on her cheeks, and her nose was tipped red, but from the way Quent hovered behind her, his hand curved around her middle, it was clear that whatever crisis they’d had was either resolved or put aside for now.

“Fence has gills,” Ana said.

“Let me see,” Zoë demanded, bending over farther.

Fence obliged, still numb and foggy-minded, by popping out of the water, using the bow of the boat as his pull-up bar.

“Hot damn, you’ve got some crazy-ass muscles going on there, Fence,” Zoë breathed, and then, “I don’t see any fu— Oh.”

Quent was there, leaning over her shoulder, looking down at Fence’s torso. “They’re gone now. But they were there; I saw them for a second. Now there’s just a little line. Like a scratch.”

“They must come out when you’re in the water,” Ana said. “And close up when you come out. That’s why you never noticed them.”

Fence lowered himself back in and felt the now-familiar stinging on either side of his ribs. He’d had these gills all along?

“So does this mean I can breathe underwater?” he said faintly, still struggling to comprehend. And to figure out how, just
how
the
hell,
he was going to allow himself to take that first breath.

“I told you,” Ana said. “I knew you were breathing underwater.”

A particularly vehement wave nudged Fence, and he looked over just as Quent said, “Buggering hell! Look at that!”

His body went cold.

Just beyond the shimmery force field curtain were choppy, massive, gray waves. As if someone had stirred up a great big cauldron, or dropped a big stone in a bucket. The barrier contained them, for they splashed up against it as if crashing into a breaker, but the water was definitely getting rougher on this side as well.

“It’s got to be the stones,” Ana said. “They’re gathering their water force. And when it’s all stirred up and ready, a place will be opened in the barrier to let the tidal wave through.” She looked up at the afternoon sky. “The moon’s up already. It’ll be at its fullest point and strongest pull in two . . . three . . . four hours,” she counted. “I’ve got to go back down there and find those crystals.”

“And we’ve got to get this boat to shore,” Quent said, his face tight. “And far enough inland that whatever comes isn’t going to get us.”

Zoë had already moved away, and Fence saw her picking up the lines and trying to raise the sail.

“I’ve got to go,” Ana said. She looked at Fence but didn’t say anything else.

Another wave, with more violence, smashed against them, sending Ana surging into Fence. He reached down and felt his torso. It was underwater and, yes—it was a miracle—the gill was there again.

Open.

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. He just released the side of the boat and slid underwater.

Out of habit, he’d taken a deep breath of air and he propelled himself down as far as he could go, praying the whole way.

Ana’s long, slender legs and the glow of her crystals appeared above him and began to sink in front of his face. She reached out, sliding her hand along his shoulder then down his arm until their fingers clasped. . . . and this time when she held his hand, he didn’t feel like a kid going to the doctor.

He felt like a man with a partner.

He’d found his lifeline.

Fence held his breath, holding steady as long as he could. He managed to keep the panic at bay by testing his side to make sure the gills were still there, by counting, by praying, by looking into Ana’s eyes.

When he could hold his breath no longer, he released it. And then he had to fight the urge to panic again. Even as he floated there, propelling his hands to keep him below the surface, he felt the water changing around him. Moving faster, harder, without its normal easy rhythm.

He was having a harder time remaining in one place, keeping from bumping into Ana.

Now his lungs were empty. Now he’d been holding his breath for a long time. Too long.

Now what?

He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax. Tried not to think about what he was doing.
Oh God.

The burning in his lungs eased, and something cool rushed into them. Fence had another terrifying moment when he realized that cool rush was water, filling organs that were only supposed to be filled with oxygen.

But he felt no pain, no desperation, no panic.

He opened his eyes and found Ana there in front of him again, watching intently.

He breathed a few times, raggedly, carefully . . . and everything seemed to work.

There was no choking, no tightening in his chest, no panic messing with his mind—well, that wasn’t true. It was still there, hovering, ready to slide into his consciousness if he had even a moment of uncertainty . . . but he managed to keep it at bay.

I’m breathing.

Under the fucking
water.

When at last he smiled, Ana smiled back, and the next thing he knew, she had her arms and legs wrapped around him and was covering his mouth with hers.

The feel of her warm body sliding against his in the cool water was delicious and erotic, and he accepted the kiss from her without hesitation. Her tongue was hot in a world of cool darkness, and Fence realized just how pleasurable this could be. When her hands slid down along his torso, over his gills, he froze, heart pounding, and that panic threatened to turn his vision dark . . . but nothing happened.

She brushed over them, accidentally closing one for a second, and then slid her hands around behind to hold him close.
It’s cool. I’m cool.
It was no more disconcerting than having one nostril plugged for a moment.

He smiled against her lips and kissed deeper, reveling in the sense of heat between their mouths while the rest of her felt cool.

Just as he was getting comfortable with the idea that he didn’t have to even pull away from a kiss in order to breathe, Ana released him.

Her face had become serious and intense, and he looked in the direction she was pointing.

Even here beneath thirty or forty feet of water, the shimmering curtain glowed from a hundred yards away. It extended down into the depths so far that he couldn’t see an end to it.

A rough surge of water reminded him that they were in a violent stew that was going to come to a boil if they didn’t do something. And he also reminded himself not to think too hard about the fact that he was
underwater.
And going deeper.

And now that it seemed he no longer had air in his lungs but water instead, he wasn’t floating back toward the surface. He was buoyant-neutral, hovering in place without having to work to keep himself down.

He drew in a deep breath—it felt so odd, with chill rushing into him and not through his nose—and followed Ana as she took off down, down,
down
.

Down into the blackness.

Fence’s heart hitched and his stomach hurt, but he went after her. He was breathing. The panic had subsided—mostly—but it was so dark. And silent.

At least in the depths of caves—which were just as dark, but not nearly as fucking wet—you could hear the drip or plop-plop of water . . . or the scrape of one’s canvas-covered knees on rock, or the gentle
ding
of a metal helmet against the wall.

Here . . . it was a dead zone. There was nothing but silence.

The only thing Fence could see were Ana’s crystals, and he was grateful for them as he followed their blue glow.

As he became more comfortable with this new and unbelievable development, he also became more aware of his surroundings. When they swam past a building, it took him a moment to realize that the structure extended several feet below and that he was near the roof.

It was surreal in a way the post-Change world had never appeared before. It was as if he were flying through a ruined city, several floors above streets and cars. But instead of having birds as his companions, there were schools of fish. Those orange ones from that Disney movie. He noticed a freaking
squid
, tentacles curling out of a dark space as if beckoning for some prey to enter his parlor. He passed destroyed houses, looking down into roofless rooms and past broken windows, and saw translucent shrimp as big as his hand with spiny blue eyes.

He had a start when he caught sight of a large shadow swimming above him, slowly and ponderously, and he nearly swallowed his heart when he realized it was a killer whale. They were big-ass creatures. He supposed that was why they called them “whales.”

He recognized old, algae-encrusted, cracked signs as they swam over what had once been a large shopping center: one for Home Depot, with only the
EPO
still hanging on tenaciously. Another for REI—which gave him pause, because, wow . . . camping gear. Much of which would still be wrapped in indestructible plastic. It would be a treasure trove! If they had time, he’d stop and check it out.

But of course he didn’t stop, and continued on over another store he vaguely recognized—it had the word “Bath” in the name—and then he saw half of a furry, bleached McDonald’s M protruding from the wall of a building. And a jumble of cars from the long-ruined parking lot below.

Just as on land, the ruins were stamped with Mother Nature’s decoration: fronds of green and brown stuttered in the increasingly rough water, algae and coral attached to brick walls and along the edges of doorways and car windows.

As they swam deeper and he could finally make out the uneven sea bottom, he saw other natural glows that illuminated the floor of the ocean. Starfish, seahorses, even a long, whiplike black snake slithered by. But still the curtain shimmered alongside them.

Once, he and Ana passed a small crystal, no bigger than his fist, set in the ground. It burned lavender and pink, and he realized it was a sort of fence post for the barrier—one of the crystals that connected its force field to the next. He wondered if by moving them out of the way, out of line, it would change the barrier.