FIFTY-THREE

“LUCY, STOP!” KING shouted as Lucy raised a fist and prepared to shove it straight through Sara’s skull. He put his hand on Lucy’s arm, not trying to hold her back—he knew he couldn’t—but hoping his touch would distract her.

It did.

Her arm yanked away and then swung out, catching King across the chest. He careened back, slamming into a wall. The back of his head grew wet with blood. Stumbling forward, he felt the gash with his fingers, the salty sweat on them stinging the small wound. He would live.

At least for a few more seconds.

Lucy pounded toward him and slammed him back against the wall. “You may marry me, but you will never be above me.”

King looked into Lucy’s pretty brown eyes, so full of hate, and for the first time realized she stood at least a few inches taller than him. She’d inherited Weston’s height. She was right. He never would be above her. He couldn’t help but smile.

She pushed against him harder. “Why do you smile?”

Sara pushed herself to her feet, holding Weston’s belt against her waist. The hard shape of the sheathed knife pushed against her belly. She reached for it. If Lucy intended on killing King, she might have to use it. But King defused the situation with the last grouping of words Sara would have ever expected him to say.

“Because you’re right. And I’m happy to have found someone like you. Someone strong. Someone to protect me.”

Lucy giggled, transforming from enraged killer to tweenage girl. Sara’s eyes widened. He had her wrapped around his finger . . . already!

A pain-filled scream of anger sounded from the temple’s top room. Weston. Still trying to stand up after the pounding Sara had delivered to his body and pride. He vented his anger and pain with a wild vocalization that barely sounded human.

Lucy let go of King. “Father?”

Sara saw an opportunity. Lucy, it seemed, was easily fooled. “He’s hurt. Maybe even dying. I was going to get help.”

“Father!” Panic filled Lucy’s hairy face as she launched toward the steep stairs and took them in sets of four.

Sara ran to King. “C’mon!” she said, taking his wrist and pulling him through the hallway that ran through the cruciform fishpond rooms.

Still stunned by the blow to the back of his head, King staggered behind her. As they reached the last of the fishpond chambers, Sara abruptly stopped and turned to King. The loud clomping of his booted feet had caught her attention.

“What?” King said, his faculties starting to return.

“Lose the boots. They’ll hear us.”

King did as he was told without pause. He either realized she told the truth or trusted her enough to act on her word. The boots slid off quickly. Sara took them and tossed them into a fishpond. Large wet mouths opened and attacked the boots as they sank beneath the surface.

Side by side, they ran silently out of the hall and stopped. Standing high up on the cliff entrance was a group of hybrids, hooting and agitated. The humans hadn’t been spotted yet, but would be when Lucy or Weston sounded the alarm.

King grabbed hold of Sara’s arm and yanked her into the tunnel. He glanced back the way they’d come and saw Lucy’s and Weston’s feet appear at the top of the doorway, descending the steps slowly.

A call rang out from the hybrids above. The noise sounded like a horn of some kind as it echoed throughout the city chamber. For a moment, King thought they’d been spotted, but heard Weston ask, “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

Just before Lucy and Weston had a clear view down the tunnel, King grabbed hold of Sara and shoved her into one of the adjacent rooms. They were wide, empty alcoves, featuring nothing but three descending stairs that entered the fish pools. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to go . . . but in.

“Get in the water,” King whispered.

Sara looked down and saw the gleaming skin of several large fish reflecting the crystal light from above. “Are you crazy?”

Weston’s grunts of pain grew louder as he was helped down the hall by Lucy.

“She will tear us apart if they catch us.” King’s eyes blazed with seriousness. “She killed Bishop. Bishop. You have no idea how hard that is. And she is more savage than even Weston knows.”

Without another word, Sara slid into the water. King followed behind her, careful not to splash. Fish swarmed over their bodies, pressing their fish lips against them and sucking. Lacking proper teeth, the fish couldn’t eat them, but their large bodies and fervent attempts at mauling the pair pushed them ever deeper. King wondered just how deep this well went. It could be hundreds of feet for all he knew.

As they continued to descend, King realized he might have traded a death at the hands of Lucy for a death at the fins of overzealous fish. He guessed they had descended thirty feet when they finally hit the bottom. He opened his eyes. Through the silhouettes of countless large fish swirling above his head, he saw the small square of light that marked the entrance. But here, far below the surface, he saw that the four fishponds connected underneath, forming one very wide, very deep pool.

LUCY HELPED WESTON walk down the hallway. He could move, but leaned a lot of his weight on her body.

“Thank you, my dear,” he said.

“Father, I—” Lucy stopped and sniffed.

“What is it?” Weston asked.

Lucy bent and smelled the floor. “They stopped here.”

Weston’s eyebrows rose. “They?”

Lucy ignored the question and entered the room where King and Sara had slid into the water. She smelled the perimeter of the pond. Fish roiled beneath her. Then she saw a different kind of movement and shot her hand into the water. Water coursed off her wet, matted arm hair as she pulled out the size-twelve military boot. “He took off his boots.”

Weston snatched it from her hand. “His boots?” His eyes widened and his voice filled with anger. “You brought King down here?”

Lucy cringed. While physically superior to Weston, she still feared him. “He wanted to marry me. Wanted to ask your permission.”

Weston’s face contorted awfully. He bit his lower lip. Sneered. His eyes twitched. And then he went placid. He couldn’t blame her. She knew nothing of modern men, charm, or lies. He should have known better than to leave her alone with a man like King.

Lucy pointed out his ring finger. “You are married. You are loved. And I am not!”

Weston shook his head sadly and rubbed her hair with his hand. He pulled her against his side and hugged her. “Everything he told you was a lie. No one could love you more than me.”

A second loud call sounded from the top of the cliff entrance. As Weston headed for the temple exit, Lucy took his arm. “What about the human woman?”

“They won’t make it past us, and the other exits are well concealed. We will find them both when we return.”

Lucy held on. “And then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can I kill them?”

He paused, looking in Lucy’s eyes. “You are too eager for blood, Lucy. There is a time for such things, but not every problem can be solved through violence. They are trapped and sooner or later will expose themselves or starve to death.”

Lucy pounded the stone floor. Weston felt the vibration beneath his feet. “The mothers would kill them. They are strong and fearless.”

Weston did his best to hide his growing concern. Not just for his well-being—Lucy could kill him in seconds—but for the state of his family. What did Lucy know of the mothers? They were expelled long before she was born. All she knew was that they were to be shunned. But her knowledge of them went beyond the stories told to the Nguoi Rung children. She had either been told these things by someone else or had direct contact with the old mothers. And if that were the case, how many of the other children had been exposed to their primitive influence? If there was dissension growing, he would not be outdone by the vapid intellect of the mothers. “Kill them, then. Kill them both.”

Lucy leaped and clapped, giggling with excitement. They exited the temple together.

AS THE FISH came to realize that the new additions to the pond were not edible, they backed off, allowing King to tug on Sara’s arm. She blinked her eyes open, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of being underwater, and perhaps nearly out of breath. She held her nose with one hand and pushed away fish with the other.

King pointed across the underwater chamber to a square of light that signified another exit above. They swam together toward the light and then arced slowly up; hoping Weston and Lucy had already left.

As they reached the halfway point, Sara began kicking wildly. Almost out of air, she was desperate to reach the top. King pulled her up and helped her rise more quickly. As they ascended through parting waves of fish, he held his finger up to his lips. The message was clear—no matter how badly you want to breathe, do it quietly.

They breached the water together, rising just above the surface. Sara did her best to suck air in quietly, but couldn’t stop a gentle wheeze from escaping. King pulled himself slowly out of the water, taking care not to splash, and then pulled Sara out behind him. She fell to the cold stone floor, still clinging to her wad of now-saturated clothes, taking in mouthfuls of air like a dying fish stuck on the shore.

He glanced through the doorway and saw Weston and Lucy exiting the temple, hustling through the snake-shaped balustrades and moving toward the large exit.

He turned back to Sara, who had sat up. “They’re gone.”

She nodded and smiled. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said, enjoying his look of bewilderment. “I have the cure for Brugada.”

King’s face scrunched, but not in confusion. He stumbled, caught himself, and then fell to the floor. He landed on his back, one arm hanging over the top step toward Sara and the fish pool below. His face fell flat and still. His eyes open wide and unmoving.

Dead.

Brugada.

Sara knew what had happened, and like she did with Rook, she waited for the cardioverter defibrillator to do its thing. But nothing happened. Sara gasped as she realized that King wouldn’t be coming back. The electric shock torture he’d endured at the hands of the VPLA had no doubt short-circuited the small device implanted in King’s chest. He’d been shocked over the stitched-up incision more than once.

She’d discovered the cure too late to save him.