Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)

“Trill? Orlandi? Are they Alpha clans?”

She shakes her head. “There are other empires, Lyric Walker. Did your mother teach you nothing?”

“I didn’t want to know,” I confess. When I found out my mother wasn’t a human being, I avoided everything about her past. I didn’t want Summer Walker the Underwater Barbarian. I wanted Summer Walker wearer of cutoff jean shorts and flip-flops.

“There are many things in the sea, Lyric Walker. Be thankful that you have only seen a small number of them.”

I shudder. I’ve seen enough to give me nightmares for the rest of my life.

“So you knew my family?” I ask. “All my mother really told me is that they were important figures in the Alpha government. I didn’t know they were famous.”

“As counselors and consorts, they were widely regarded, but it was their warrior instincts that earned them respect. You dishonor them with your halfhearted efforts.”

“I’m getting better!” I argue.

Water ruptures from the soil and curls around my neck like an anaconda. It jerks me off the ground nearly ten feet. I dangle and kick for freedom. She could kill me right here. She just might.

“Better is not good enough, Lyric Walker,” she says casually, as if she’s not strangling the life out of me. “We march to Tempest to free our people. Your pathetic efforts will intimidate no one. Is there no ferocity in you?”

The air slowly leaves my lungs. My legs search for land that isn’t there.

“Your city has been demolished. Your friends are dead and gone. Enemies roam your lands. Soldiers have taken your people, torn them from the arms of their mothers, all to cut them open and see how they work! Does none of this burn your passions? Where is your fury?”

“I can’t breathe!” I croak.

She frowns, and just like that, the water releases me. It rains to the ground, taking me along with it, and I land in the sand, gasping for oxygen. She stands over me with the sun behind her, so I cannot see her expression, but I don’t need to see it to know it is full of disgust.

“I have fury.” I choke.

“Then why don’t I fear you? Do you know why I am so much stronger than you with this glove? It’s because, as the humans say, I have scores to settle. My people were obliterated, reduced from millions to thousands. We suffered the indignation of living like rats in your surface world, to be spied on and attacked by human filth. We humiliated ourselves, cowering on your beach, and it was all for nothing! The Rusalka found us. We were easy targets. They slaughtered even more of our people, taking us from thousands to hundreds, and among those broken souls was my selfsame. Fathom’s death will not have been in vain. This weapon I wear burns bright with revenge, and I will use it to crush those responsible—the Rusalka, the prime, and the people at Tempest.”

Fathom. Hearing his name is a punch in the belly. In the two weeks that Arcade and I have traveled together, she has never mentioned him once, not in passing, nothing. I’ve been smart enough to keep my mouth shut too. After all, we’re both in love with him. I suddenly suspect that all this training is an excuse to get me out into the middle of nowhere so she can kill me. She would be justified, I suppose.

“He’s not dead,” I croak.

“Of course he is,” she says, watching me like I’ve said something crazy. “The prime and his consort cut him down in the water. If the Rusalka didn’t track him and feed on his body, then the sharks devoured him for sure. No, he did not survive. He has gone on to join the Great Abyss.”

I’m incensed by her certainty that the boy we both love did not survive. I saw the wound on his side and the blood that leaked from it, and I saw the goodbye in his eyes when he kissed me and swam away, but I can’t give up hope. I cannot accept a world in which he’s not alive.

The glove glows brighter on my hand. Yes, I do have something that fuels it. It’s regret for not holding on to him tighter. I should have held him and never let him go. I was a fool to respect their relationship. She didn’t . . . doesn’t love him. When you love a person, you don’t shrug your shoulders at their loss. You don’t just move on.

A funnel of water shoots out of the ground and catches Arcade, catapulting her into the sky. I wrap her in silt and mud and bring her down to the ground like a pile driver. This time I don’t hold back, so when she hits, there’s a bang I’m sure can be heard for miles.

I walk over to her limp body as she recovers. Instead of a fiery anger, I see the faintest hint of a smile.

“There is a fighter inside you, Lyric Walker,” Arcade says. “Tempest may tremble before you after all.”

I hear someone clear her throat behind us. When I turn, I find Bex standing a few yards away, holding my empty backpack. She’s wearing a miniskirt, a Superman T-shirt, and a pair of Mary Janes that add two inches to her already-tall frame. She’d look hot if it weren’t for the impatient crease between her eyes.

“We’re out of food,” she says. “If you’re done killing each other, we need to go shopping.”