Malachi gives my hand a squeeze before going after the others. I fumble with my lap belt. The instant it clicks, she sweeps me into a hard embrace.
My eyes sting as an uncontrollable urge to cry overcomes me.
“You can let go now, my love. I’ve got you,” she murmurs. “Let go, my brave, strong girl.”
I bury my face in the slope of her shoulder and stop being brave and strong.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” She inhales long and deep. “Goddess below, I hope Gaea gives Monta the most excruciating death. If she makes his passing swift, I will have words with her.”
“Not too many words.” I hiccup. “I don’t want her to hurt you.”
“Oh, Electra…” Mom smooths a hand down my spine. “She wouldn’t dare. After all, I’d become salty, and then she’d be stuck with your dad. He’s great at so many things, but you know how helovesto talk.”
I can’t help but grin at the picture she paints of my chatterbox father. But then my smile falters, and I rush to an aircraft window to make sure Dad isn’t ripping Reeve a new one.
I’m wrong to worry. My father is nowhere near Reeve. He’s too busy unloading Gael’s cage from the cargo compartment. Not only did Tarian truss up my traitorous genitor, but he stuck him in a cage with his dead son. He claims it was to help Gael accomplish some introspection before his final meeting with Gaea.
The once-tanned, proud Atlantean sits curled in a corner of the cage, skin and clothes soiled with blood and vomit.
Mom grips my hand and folds our fingers together. “Oh, the hate I have for that man.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”
“Sweetheart, the man is a narcissistic pervert. He’s a pro at fooling people into believing he’s a good person.”
“Ines tried to warn me.” My throat clogs with emotion. “I saw what I wanted to see. Like with…with Reeve.”
Mom doesn’t say anything. I wish she would. I wish she’d tell me not to compare the two men. That Reeve is not Gael.
But my mother isn’t the type to utter vapid reassurances.
The way she tracks the humans toward one of the open-roofed Jeeps speaks volumes about what she thinks of them.
“Mal wants us to allow them to roam while we bury Ines,” she tells me.
“I know.” I sigh.
While Mom says, “They’d be idiots to try anything,” I think,They’d be dead idiots.
The sun kisses Reeve’s light-brown locks, threading them with gold. He cranes his neck and looks up at the sky.
Is he searching for the invisible shield that deflects weapons from reaching the isle, or is he simply enjoying the Mediterranean luminosity?
“Do you think they will?” I whisper.
“Did Pandora open the box?”
Chapter 62
Reeve
Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think Atlantis would look so…ordinary.
Although surrounded by the ocean, most of the land is arid, dotted by rubbery shrubs and squat trees. It’s only once we penetrate the village that color splashes the pale land in the form of weathered siding cloaked by rhododendrons and a grove of knobby olive trees.
It’s also only once we penetrate the village that I begin to feel that Atlantis is anything but ordinary.
Power hums through the air and prickles my skin. Though the prickling could also be a result of the reflective stares cast our way. Two dozen people line the dirt road that snakes through the village.
