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Chapter 25
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2024-10-29 19:42:56
VictoryAnne ViceNever turn your back on the ocean...
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[Cordelia]Just as I am about to give up, a strong set of arms wrap around my torso, pulling me up to the surface. “Hang in there, Cordy,” his words are like a prayer. It is strange, but my mystery rescuer sounds a lot like Atlas. No, it couldn’t be. He’d never call me “Cordy.” He hates that nickname.Someone is pressing down on my chest. Their lips press air into my lungs and I am turned to my side so that the seawater can cough it’s way out of my stomach and chest. The saltwater burns as it leaves my body, but I don’t care as I take a deep, grateful breath. I open my eyes. Kneeling next to me is Jude, who is covering me with a warm, thick towel, his eyes full of worry, and someone who looks a lot like Atlas.“Clark?” I realize as my eyes regain their focus. “How? I?”“I like to come to this beach and surf when I’m in town,” he points to his board, the one that carried me to shore. “It’s a lucky thing that I found you when I did. We almost lost you forever.”I take a few minutes to
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[Atlas] When Sydney said “bonfire” with some “friends, " she didn’t tell me that it would be more of a nightclub on the beach. Future Hollywood starlets in bikinis mingle with shirtless college athletes with sculpted abs and perfect California beach tans. The closer we get to it, the more I am certain that coming out tonight was a bad idea. I am in no mood to socialize, especially with a bunch of overgrown children. Sydney leads me to a group of jocks wearing board shorts and tank tops. They are all giving Sydney appreciative glances as they see her approach in her bright bikini and cut-offs. “This is my boyfriend, Atlas,” she announces proudly. She tells me their names but I don’t bother with remembering them. I don’t plan on spending time with them in the future. “Hey Boyfriend Atlas,” one of the large college boys laughs as he punches me playfully in the arm and he hands me a beer. “You’re going to need this. We’re about to play “Two Truths and a Lie.” You drink every time you
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[Cordelia] Nothing in my life had prepared me to be treated like a common criminal. It felt like everyone at the party was watching me being dragged off by two uniformed officers. I could hear whispers as I passed asking, “Who is she? What did she do? - Did someone get hurt? Robbed? Killed?” A few flickering faces glare at me, their eyes averted as their lips twist in cruel judgment. Nobody stops them. Not even Atlas who stands as still as a statue, his face frozen in disbelief. “What is this all about?!” I demand as they push me against the hood of their car. “I refuse to come with you until you…” I hiss in pain when my leg connects with the side of the car, my bruise searing in agony as they tighten the handcuffs and toss me into the back of a police cruiser. Once we arrive, I am escorted through the police station to be fingerprinted, photographed, and thrown into a dark cell smelling faintly of urine and dry vomit. “I want to talk to my lawyer!” I scream as the bars cr
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[Cordelia]“Cordelia, please sit down,” Atlas makes enough room for me to sit next to him. I stand in the doorway, stubbornly refusing to budge, preferring to shiver in the cold than to spend any more time with him. “Look, I promise I won’t do anything but talk to you,” he holds up his hands in surrender. “If I do, you can just punch me.”I glower at his cavalier attitude over his previous attack and my threat. Does he really think I’ll be okay with him in the back seat of the car after he had treated me so roughly?“Please Cordelia,” he pleads. He is usually so arrogant but right now he seems so vulnerable. “I just want to make sure you get home safely.”I think of fighting back, of waiting out in the cold just for spite, but that would be useless, silly, and only hurt me. Hesitantly I agree to his offer for a ride home. His whole body relaxes as the door shuts behind me. Atlas doesn’t look like his usual self. It isn’t just that he is still dressed in his beach clothes, but he lo
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[Sydney]“Agh! She did it again!,” I scream at the phone as I pace back and forth. “I even…well, you know…and he left me to rescue her!”I am pacing back and forth in my bathrobe, my father on speakerphone. He woke me up with news of Cordelia’s daring escape from her prison. Atlas swooped in and rescued her like a white knight. “Now Sydney-bear, calm down,” my father cooed through the phone. “We have other ways to get Greyson Mills away from Steele,” he refers to both the company and the woman, Cordelia. “You’ll get the best of her. You’re a Bryant. We Bryants never quit. Especially against a Greyson,” his growls his distaste, the word sour on his tongue.“I’m just so tired of this game. I really like him, Daddy. I want Atlas.”As my father gives me assurances, I replay the day in my mind, trying to make sense of what went wrong. The trap was perfect. [FLASHBACK–YESTERDAY AFTERNOON]“Are you sure these will work?” I text my father. “Of course, it will work,” he replies, “Trust me.”
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[Cordelia] I’ve been stuck on the phone with my mother for the last hour listening to her unending rant about her “situation. She is speaking so rapidly and with so much force I haven’t had a chance to say more than two words. I am exhausted from the day before, sore from the accident and my experiences in jail, and listening to her jabber is taking the last bit of energy I have remaining. “...And now our lawyer is saying there is no way out of this without at least one of us going to prison!” She starts to moan and weep. I pull the phone away from my ear. “I’m sorry, Sweetie, but it looks like you might have to spend some time in jail.” I startle at her implication. She doesn’t know what I know, so I try to feel gracious as she explains how she’ll let me take the fall for everything in order to save the company. She then spends the next ten minutes wailing about our family’s misfortune–one daughter missing and the other daughter in prison. I am glad she cannot see me roll my e
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[Cordelia] Pulling open the wall carefully, I peek inside. Sensing my motion, overhead lights flicker to life, revealing a staircase leading down. Maybe his bathroom is downstairs? Making my way down carefully, I do not pay attention to the sound of the door sliding closed behind me, nor the tell-tell sound of the lock latching nor did I notice the jars lining the walls on shelves until the tangy smell of antiseptic mixed with formaldehyde hits my nose. Thankfully I also see a large, covered garbage can. Spilling the contents of my stomach into the receptacle, I feel better, but also worse at the same time. Where the heck am I? This is not the bathroom. I am standing next to a cold, metal table. It is covered with the paper that doctors use in examination rooms but lacks any of the basic comforts one usually finds when in such places. Leather straps are hanging from the sides of the bed, to hold a patient in place, and troughs lining each end for drainage. It looks like
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[Cordelia] Tilly’s face is flushed with fear. She is worried about me. Her anger and frustration come from a place of love and concern. Shivering, I take a look over my shoulder at Jude’s place. “Can we go get lunch out today? I'd feel safer if we went somewhere else.” We take her car, and as soon as the apartment disappears in the rearview mirror, I begin to tell her everything. Tilly listens quietly, occasionally nodding to let me know she is still listening. Eventually, she surmises that she doubts he is up to anything “nefarious” although she understands why I might be concerned. “Babies, Tilly! He had babies floating in jars. How do you explain…?” I wave my hands up and down in frustration. “He’s an experimental scientist, right, working on cutting-edge medicine. I bet there is a reasonable explanation for all of it,” seeing my fear and uncertainty she then adds, ”I’m just saying that we should give Dr. Smexy a chance to clear his name before you condemn him.” Crossing m
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[Cordelia]The man drew closer and I realized my mistake immediately."You're not Atlas," my accusing finger hovers below his chin. He is maybe two inches taller than Atlas, and I'm not used to looking up at such a familiar face. "Close, but not quite."The gentleman laughs. "Right there, Lil Miss," his voice has a strong, rugged-sounding accent. "Or should I say," he takes my passport and squints at the picture, "Ms Ortega. A pleasure to meet you, I'm Wally." "Wally?" I blink up at the stranger with an overeager smile. The longer I look at him the less he looks like my Atlas. While he does have the same chiseled features and a similar muscular build, everything from how he holds himself to how he speaks is so very different. This man is hot on the surface in the ways that Atlas is cold and aloof. My husband shares his smiles sparingly and they are almost never so wide and toothy. But when Atlas smiles at you, really smiles, you know it is genuine. I'm not sure I can trust a thing t
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[Cordelia]Once we were airborne and free of Canadian airspace, the tension level of the passengers on the plane immediately relaxed, as if we had passed some kind of test.Even Suzanna breathed a sigh of relief when we landed in New York City. But then she does something I wasn't expecting. She dismisses most of our guards. They nod, taking her word as a commandment, leaving us with only three security members in one of the largest airports in the United States. "This next leg of our trip will be on a commercial airline," she explained as we gathered our belongings. "We will call too much attention to us with that many guards. I'm calling in some of my own for when we arrive." She replies when I question her judgment. "Magnus likely put a tracker on this plane. We need to trick him, and there's no better place than New York City. But if we continue to move in a large pack, we're bound to attract attention." "Reste près," my mother Cristine held out a hand for me to hold as she held
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[Atlas]Delilah Fisher steps around the corner in a long, silver gown, her makeup flawless, and her smile large and welcoming.She looks so much like Angelica did when I first met her that my heart stutters. I love Cordelia with my entire being, and yet a part of me still reacts to the memory of the shining girl who captured my attention almost a decade ago. But this isn't Angelica. Delilah, while beautiful and poised, lacks the immaculate grace that Angelica exuded. Each of the sisters has a unique nature that shines through, despite having almost identical faces."Atlas Steele," her heels click in the silent room as she steps into the light. "Why is it so hard for you to believe your brother? Haven't you seen enough wonders in this world yet to understand that anything can be possible?""There's no such thing as mind control," I repeat. "Believing in psychic powers is for fools.""And you pride yourself on not being one," she smirks, amused. "But a true wise man would keep his mind
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[Jude]Sydney. Now that she has me under her control, I'll never be free of her. When I came to save her, I was convinced she was pregnant with my child. She had sent a distress signal to me using our private channels letting me know of her pregnancy and it was enough to get me to betray the Steele family and derail their plans to find their cure. Using what I knew about Atlas' missing mother was just a distraction.My goal had always been to claim my son.But then I discovered that beyond all logic Angelica is still alive.I should have realized this was possible and known that Magnus wouldn't give up such a valuable tool so easily. Angelica had been Magnus' toy for years before she was sent into my world. I knew he had modified her, and turned her into the perfect weapon, but I had no idea how deep those modifications went until I saw her face staring at me on that magazine cover.She shouldn't have survived that explosion. And yet here she is, unscathed, awaiting a new uterus in
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[Atlas]I twist my arm away from the guard in black. His face is blank as he reaches forward again. "Don't." My voice carries forward, and although it isn't loud, it holds a note of command that makes the armed guard pause."Sir," he blinks retracting his hand. "You are trespassing. I was ordered to take you into holding." My face remains still as my voice rings out again, "You will not touch us. You have no right." The guard swallows, taking a step back, my words hitting him with the force of a slap. "We will leave," I inform him. "You will report our apologies to your boss." He nods, accepting my command. "Atlas," Clark calls my attention to our situation. Blinking I snap awake, and pull my gaze from the guard. As soon as I blink, the guard stumbles backward shaking his head in confusion, as if my words and stare alone were enough to entrap him in some kind of trance. Around the edges of my vision, I see more guards headed in our direction. If we are going to make it out of h
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[Atlas]Damn it, Cordelia!"Pick up, pick up, pick up," the phone rings but nobody replies. "This number is unavailable as dialed, please try again," the message on the other end informs me as my blood pressure rises and my hands shake.A moment ago I had been talking to my wife. And then the line was dead. I sent her to Canada to keep her and our children safe, and she chose to bring herself to Magnus' attention. Sending a quick message to the guards in charge of watching over my family, I stare at my screen waiting for word of their status. "Atlas, is there anything I can do to help?"Blinking away from the screen I look up at my brother as our rented van parks a few blocks away from the luau. Our driver informs us of our arrival and waits for further instructions."I'm sorry, Clark," I close my eyes, rubbing my temples. "You were saying something?""Is everything okay?" He tries again and I groan. "No." I groan honestly. "Or at least, I hope everything is fine. Lately, it seems
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[Clark]The message "Tilly SOS" flicked across the screen three times before winking out, leaving my screen blank. I open my email that I keep under an alias on a secure server. There is a single message alerting me to new information available on my server. I've used this system when working with people who needed to keep their identities safe and their messages secret. The last time I needed it was working with Jude while he was still under Magnus' watch.Even though it has been months since I used it, my fingers remember the passcodes. Soon, I'll be on the server. Two emails are waiting for me, both are from Tilly's parents. In the first message, they inform me that they have landed and are settling in their new place. It is a secure facility, surrounded by several acres of land, disconnected from the distant towns and cities. The Madisons, sparing no expense, went to extra lengths to include copious additional security.They are, after all, securing their legacy. Tilly is their o
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[Cordelia]There is a loud explosion just to the right of the airplane. "What was that," I lower the phone, turning it off as I gaze out the window to see what had caused the noise. "Nothing, Ma'am," the co-pilot says over his shoulder, "Just a little turbulence.""Turbulence?" I shout back as another boom resounds just outside the passenger's cabin as a curtain goes up between the pilots and the rest of the plane, blocking our view. "But we aren't even in the air yet!""Calm yourself, Mrs. Steele," Jake, the security guard, takes his phone from my numb hand. "Sit next to your children and trust your staff to get you out of here safely. We've got this, Mrs. Steele."He almost seemed offended in my lack of faith as he types into his phone what I'm guessing is a message to Atlas to calm his nerves and let him know we are alive. "But nobody is telling me what's happening," I grumble as I buckle in next to Jasper and the little girl I've decided to call Saphira until I learn her real na
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[Atlas]"What do you mean gone," I barked into the phone, my hand clenching it tight enough to hear it crunch. These new smartphones seem to get flimsier with each model. I've broken 3 in the last 6 months from anger or nerves. I love my wife, but I'm pretty sure she's going to stress me into an early grave. "Your mother created a distraction, Sir," my lead guard, Jake, apologizes over the phone, not making excuses as much as stating facts. "Mrs. Suzanna Steele arrived late last night along with a young man she called Sasha. The next morning, while your mother and Ms. Devaroux kept me distracted searching for a false threat, your wife and this young man escaped."Cordelia has always been sneaky when she needs to be, and until this point, he had been very good at keeping her from falling into mischief. I wasn't expecting my mother to be part of the problem. At least now I know where she ran off to. Her room had been empty when I returned to the boat yesterday. "Are you sure it is m
