I treaded water until the SCUBA divers brought the bodies of the two Xalanite guards to the surface, shaking their heads at me when I swam to them and asked if N’kal was down there. Through some miracle, the words that came out of my mouth were English.
“Sorry, ma’am. We’re still searching, but it’s a mess in there. We can barely see with all the blood. So far, we’ve only found the two bodies, so there’s still hope. Maybe their attacker took off with N’kal in his ship.”
Hope—that was a fucking joke. Who’s to say the assassin hadn’t taken N’kal’s dead body as a trophy?
Since there was nothing else I could do, I let the AARO agents in the nearby boats help me out of the water. They toweled me off and wrapped me in warming blankets when I couldn’t stop shivering. My teeth chattered as we headed for shore, where Director Hall was just pulling up with a convoy of government vehicles. More agents poured out of the cars and SUVs, some already decked out in gear for checking the lake. I knew they wouldn’t find N’kal, though. Something in my gut told me that, dead or alive, he was on the ship that escaped.
I’d lost him.
“Secure the area! Sweep the lake! I want Prince N’kal foundyesterday.”
The director shouted orders as she ran for the shore, gun drawn. She waded in to where my boat floated and helped me out.
“What happened? Tell me I didn’t see a Xalanite ship fly off as we drove in.”
I shook my head, unable to put words to my sorrow in either language.
“Fuck. Well, there are at least three or four Xalanite ships in orbit at any given time, plus a ground ship on standby at a hangar back at the intake center. They’re on the lookout for him and will give pursuit if need be.”
I wanted to believe that we’d catch the scarred man, but I couldn’t summon enough energy to hope. I had exhausted everything in me while in the lake; the only thing left was crushing despair.
Director Hall led me to the cabin loaned to the AARO by Amber, the first human to meet—and fall in love with—a Xalanite. She instructed me to sit on the couch and disappeared down a hallway, returning a few moments later with an armful of clean, dry clothes. I found a bathroom and changed, rolling up the cuffs on the leggings she gave me and the sleeves on the sweater. I had never met Amber, but I guessed she was taller than me by the fit of her borrowed clothing.
When I came back from the bathroom, the director was pacing back and forth while muttering into her phone. From the tone in her voice, she was ripping someone a new asshole. I opted to linger in the hallway until she hung up.
“Fucking idiots!”
I cleared my throat to get her attention. Her head whipped around, but her expression softened when she saw me standing there.
“Sorry, agent. The sheer amount of fuckuppery that happened today has me on edge.”
“I should be apologizing, director. I messed up.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
I sighed and sat on the couch. My hands still shook with the shock of everything that had happened. I folded them in my lap to hide the tremors.
“N’kal was acting weird this morning. He didn’t want me to come into the lake with him, and he was evasive about why. I should’ve questioned him more about it, should’ve gone in anyway. I just thought maybe he had a reason for not wanting me to swim with him. Now I realize he probably suspected the scarred Xalanite would show up, though how he knew is beyond me.”
Director Hall sat next to me and put her hand on my shoulder. “You couldn’t have known. This was entirely out of your control. I didn’t expect you to go into the lake with the prince; that’s why I arranged for Xalanite guards. He’s amphibious, Timber. He can out-swim you any day of the week, SCUBA gear or no. Even if you’d been underwater with him, odds are he would have found a way to lose you long enough to do whatever he had planned. Don’t blame yourself.”
I wanted to believe her words, but the guilt ate at me regardless. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was responsible for this.
That it was all my fault.
Her phone rang, and she went outside to answer it. I sat in silence for several minutes until she returned.
“Agent Millwood, I have to go take care of something urgent. Will you be all right here by yourself? I have some of my people stationed outside, but I can give them strict instructions not to bother you unless you call for help.”
“Thanks, director. That’ll be fine.”
She nodded and left again after promising to return as soon as she could. I pulled a throw blanket off the back of the couch and wrapped it around myself. The chill of the lake hadn’t fully dispersed, and the last thing I needed was to get sick because I didn’t take care of myself.
I needed to be strong and healthy if I was going to save N’kal.
While I waited for the director to return, I plotted and planned. Time was running out for N’kal, and if he was still on the planet, I was determined to find him and rescue him.
Chapter 29
