Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)(69)

I race onward, up another stairwell, into a hallway where I find the elevator. I also find Fathom blocking my way.

“Lyric Walker, whatever you are doing must stop,” he says.

I could stand here and let him try to explain why he’s done me wrong. I could give him a chance to persuade me that Spangler’s plans are good for us all, but I’m sort of sick of this kid’s face. I have never turned my power on another person the way I do Fathom. Water hits him from every side, like four tractor-trailers crashing through an intersection and he’s caught in the middle. It sends him crashing through the adjacent wall and out of my path.

I jam the elevator button, but nothing happens. I jam it again and notice the sensor pad. I’m so stupid! I need a passkey!

I use some water on the floor to help me pry the doors open and look down into the blackness of the elevator shaft. Up is no more inviting. There’s just no way I can climb it. I’m sure I’d fall to my death the second I tried. I’m going to have to get creative. I’m unsure how far the shaft goes down, but if there’s water at the bottom, I need it. I extend my hand into the void and bear down with my mind. What was it the preacher said about this valley? The mountains block the moisture. It’s the driest place in the country. Still, there has to be some, maybe down in the bedrock below us, hundreds of feet deep. I feel some wetness on my lip. The nosebleed has started, and I’m beginning to feel a dull headache from trying so hard. Things are getting a little fuzzy, and then—

We are here, Lyric.

“Come,” I whisper.

There’s a rumbling from far below, an explosion, and whoosh! I watch the liquid blast up through the shaft, filling the space and rising higher. My hand gets whipped upward from the gushing water. I’ve made my own elevator.

I have no idea why I hold my breath. Maybe it’s an old habit dying hard, but I do, and then I leap. The current rockets my body upward, higher and higher. My scales appear, and my gills take over for my lungs. The whole experience is . . . magical. I’m about to reach the very top floor, and with a sweep of my arm, the doors fly off. It’s pretty badass, if I do say so myself. They crash into the laboratory, and water spills onto the floor, flooding everything. Unfortunately, I go with it. It’s not the most elegant entrance. I flop around like a crab in a net, but it certainly gets everyone’s attention. Spangler’s science staff stands around me, gaping and dumbfounded. That is, until I stand, and they fall over themselves to get out of my way.

“How do you let them out of the tanks?” I shout. No one answers. I should have grabbed one of those nerds and forced them to help me.

“Lyric!”

I turn, half expecting Fathom, only to find Riley stepping out of my water elevator. He’s dripping wet, breathless, and his eyes are wild and troubled. He’s also got his weapon ready.

“Riley, please don’t try to stop me,” I beg. “I only have a little time to get this done.”

“Get what done? What is this place?” he asks, staring hard at the tanks.

“This is where they keep the Alpha parents,” I explain.

“You lie!” he shouts angrily.

“Riley, Tempest is the lie. Everything Spangler and Doyle and the guards have told you about this place is a lie. Your human parents aren’t sick. They’ve been prisoners locked up in this building, and your Alpha parents are in these tanks.”

“That’s not true!” he shouts.

Water seeps out of the elevator and wraps itself around a chair. Suddenly, it’s off the floor and sailing right at my head. I manage to command it to slam into a wall before it clobbers me, but it was close.

“It is! I’ve seen it all. I was locked away myself. Spangler only let me out when I promised to train you with the gloves.”

Another chair soars across the room. A leg clips me in the side, and my ribs burn.

“Riley, I don’t want to fight you, but I will, and I’m a lot better with this thing than you are, so do yourself a favor and just look around!” I scream.

He stops his assault and does as I ask, his head whipping from one end of the room to the other. Suddenly, he’s running at me and I’m sure he’s going to attack again, but then he sails past me to one of the tanks. It has an unconscious Selkie floating in it, most likely unaware of what is happening around him. Riley stumbles to the next tank and the next, and I hear him gasp when he comes across one filled with Rusalka hands. He turns and sees another with human body parts, and finally he comes across a Sirena whose chest cavity has been opened wide so that we can see her beating heart.

“My father? Is he here too?”

I nod.

“You can help me rescue him and all the others.”

“What’s real?” he shouts. “Is the plague real?”

“No!” I shout to him as I plant myself in front of a computer. I search the screen, looking for a button that might say OPEN TANKS or STOP BEING EVIL. I quickly realize I’m wasting my time. I press a few buttons, hoping to get lucky, but nothing happens. All I know about computers is how to make a Vine.

“Then the parents didn’t die?”

“He killed them!” I shout. “He needs all of you to be as good with the gloves as you can be, and giving you something traumatic and worth fighting for did the trick.”

“Coney Island?”