Page 53 of The Final Storm
Dean cracks his neck, and the doors open. I follow them down an unfamiliar path. This isn’t where Dean had his quarters. We’re high on the ship, looking through windows that could touch the clouds in the right weather.
“A few days, two at most,” Dean smirks. “The second batch is almost ready. Radio me when you have enough people hooked, and I’ll follow. You have a month at most.”
“Want me to look for the girl in the meantime? I can take a boat-”
“No need,” Dean cuts him off. “She won’t stray far from her precious husband, and he was AOE. I saw his brand not long after he crash-landed on this shithole. Matthews gave me access to the Galene’s personnel files after they left, but I told him Rivera’s chip wasn’t active.”
“You’re always a step ahead,” Lindell replies.
What?I want to scream at them and ask questions, but they can’t hear me and wouldn’t answer. The fact that Dean knows where I am, that he’s always known, makes me almost vomit.
A door opens to a room with dark wood shelves and a large empty desk. One wall is floor-to-ceiling windows, and Dean stretches out in a large leather chair and swivels to face them. It’s nothing but sky and ocean that stretches to the horizon.
“That seat feel good?” Lindell asks.
“It was always meant to be mine,” Dean says. “Too bad the old man can’t see this.”
“Would he have been proud?”
“Not in his vocabulary.” Dean shakes his head. He scoots forward and rips something off the wall and chucks it into a trash can. “He would have felt nothing now that I think about it. He planned for things and then worked the plan. And that’s what we’re going to do now. Setbacks will come up, but we’ll get past them.”
Lindell cocks an eyebrow. “You cheated death.”
“I’m not going to die,” Dean shoots him a glare. “That’s not my fate.”
Lindell tilts his head. “I never thought of you as someone who believed in things like fate.” He makes air quotes with his hands around the word fate.
Dean turns back to the window. “Dismissed.”
Lindell pauses, unsure of the slight, but I understand. Dean believes in fate because he believes in me. I get closer to the trash can and peer inside. It’s a photo of Matthews with a medal hanging over the front.
This is Matthew’s office.
“Go to the growing office, and send me the latest tracking for Rivera,” Dean barks before Lindell is out the door.
Lindell nods. “I’ll be right back with it.”
“And I want an updated inventory of the supply left. I don’t want anyone down there blaming a discrepancy on that shipment. I want to know about every ounce.”
Lindell taps a few things into his tablet. “I’ll be back with those items, sir.” He stands, waiting for another minute, and then turns to leave, looking almost dejected at the turn of the conversation.
I hear my heartbeat in my ears and feel my body tremble. My head turns to Dean, and a part of me wants to lunge at him, to find the sore spot from the bullet wound, and slam my fist into the center.
I never escaped Dean, and I can’t get away while he’s living and breathing. He’ll never let me go.
I take one step, and then the room spins, darkening at the edges of my vision. I’m falling, and there’s silence. The Dean in front of me disappears into a mist of nothing, and my eyes open to the dim lights of the medical unit, Luke and Lori standing in front of me, eyes wide, ready for what I have to say.
Chapter 20
Hit
“You’vebeendreaming,”Lorisays. It isn’t a question, and I don’t need to bother with an answer.
“Where’s Morgan?” I ask. My voice cracks, but my throat and head are better. In my mind, I’ve been gone for minutes, but Lori’s clothes are different, and I feel different.
“You’ve been out for almost an entire day. They found Morgan. All but one islander has come onboard, and Gemma wants to speak to you as soon as possible.” All the information hits me fast, but Lori knows the questions I have to ask.
“Where’s Morgan… Sam?” I repeat.
