Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)(2)
“You want to break something, little minnow? Then break me,” Arcade says as she climbs to her feet. Once there, she ignites her own glove, and without warning, the ground heaves, first left, then right, bucking me like I’m a pesky flea it wants to shake off its hide. A crevice opens beneath me, and mud, silt, and water belch through it, rocketing high into the sky and knocking me to the ground.
I should have seen that coming.
I bear down on my thoughts, turning Arcade’s geyser into a baseball bat as big as a man. I fill it with sand and stones, and then I swing for the fences, right into her rib cage. The impact knocks her off her feet and sends her flailing across the dusty field. She lands with a bone-crunching thud that would kill a normal person. Arcade is made of tougher stuff. She is a Triton, a warrior from an undersea empire flung to the surface by war and horror. Before she set foot on land, she lived her whole life in an inhospitable environment that made her stronger and faster and meaner. My attack was no more than a swat in a pillow fight. She runs toward me, roaring in my ears, with her glove leaving a comet’s trail behind her. It’s her turn to clobber me.
Two weeks ago, I would never have stood my ground like I do now. When Arcade agreed to train me to fight, I was still clinging to the quiet little girl I had been for so long. When she demanded that I think of myself as a weapon, I just couldn’t do it, even though I knew it was confidence and passion that fueled the crazy weapon on my hand. Don’t ask me how it works. All I know is the more badass I feel, the more damage I can do. But getting over years of invisibility wasn’t easy, and my cowardice held me back. Now that wall I built around me is falling down. Now I’m feeling like the wild thing I was always meant to be. Which is convenient, because now we’re in Texas, where Tempest is, where they are keeping my family. Anyone who gets in my way has a big frickin’ problem on their hands. Even Arcade.
Oh, wait—here she comes.
A huge watery fist materializes before me and catches me in the face. I flail backwards, end over end, like a pickup truck just hit me in the mouth. I crash onto my back, hard. Pain stampedes through my hips, neck, and chin. I see stars, and I’m suddenly not sure where I am.
Arcade stands over me, impatient and unsympathetic.
“Get up!” she demands. “Do you think the soldiers at Tempest will give you a chance to recover? They will shoot you where you lie, half-breed.”
I hate when she calls me that word, which is exactly why she does it. She knows it sets me off. She’s asking for it, so I wrap water around a nearby boulder, one that would take ten men to heft an inch, and use the liquid to wrench it free from the soil. It hovers between the teacher and the student. I want Arcade to see what I’ve learned, let her think I will fling it at her if she doesn’t stop insulting me, but her eyes are full of smiles. She’s calling my bluff.
Furious, I send it sailing in her direction. It’s too fast to dodge, and it slams into her with all the power of a subway train. Her body is flung fifty feet away, narrowly missing a patch of wild cacti when she lands. I’m sure I’ve killed her this time. I scamper to my feet in a panic and rush to her side.
“You are the only person in the world who bleeds when she attacks someone else,” she says.
I reach up and touch my nose. It’s wet, and when I look at my fingers, they are smeared in red. I’m not sure why this keeps happening. It seems if I go overboard with the glove, it breaks something inside my head. It’s probably killing me.
“Maybe I need a break,” I confess.
“A break?” she scoffs. “An Alpha does not need a break. Your mother’s blood runs through you, Lyric Walker. Can’t you hear its call for war?”
“My mother was a yoga teacher!”
“Your mother is a Daughter of Sirena. She fought off a pack of barracudas when she could barely lift her own head. Her father was Lan, hero of the Trill campaigns. There are songs about him that will be sung for generations. Your grandmother Shar was also known throughout the hunting grounds for her bloodthirstiness. She once defeated an Orlandi chieftain in hand-to-hand combat, all with a broken arm.”
“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?”