Page 37 of Seduced By the Mermen
“What will work?” I ask.
“The car is being locked in place. But the dome’s force field can take some of the brunt. They’ll put a weight on the bottom of it so it doesn’t rise too fast, then ease it on the bracket even though it’s not on the track. They can cut the main cable and the emergency one too. The car will lift on its own buoyancy. Maybe faster than anyone would want it to—hence the weight. The track ends upstairs at the grand dame duchess’s apartment.”
“Whoa,” Forrest comes back with. That’s his mother’s apartment. And I get what he means. Having Blair come into his mother’s place in an emergency situation? Forrest’s parents are traditionalists, and a lot. But what are we supposed to do? Not use a decent plan to save her?
“We’ve got to do what we can do.”
“Fuck.” Forrest nods.
“Delmar thinks that’s a good plan. I keep asking how she’s doing, but he won’t give me any details, and that can’t be a good thing.”
“Indeed,” Forrest rumbles. “How long before they can make things happen?”
Clark’s got his head in Forrest’s block again. “Half an hour, but they’re going to stand by with the scuba tank.”
“I’m going to go up there and see if I can convince as many of my parents as possible to go out for afternoon tea,” says Forrest. “Or dinner, or a trip to Athens. What else can I do?”
I make the decision to strip off my clothes and head for our own airlock before I know I’m doing it. I’m through the first airlock and into the second one. The water hits my ankles, and when it reaches my neck, I duck down under the water, blow the air out of my lungs, and shift. I push the button for the airlock to open, and I’m out next to the dome. Thirty stories below us, I see the stuck lift car. There’s three maintenance omadas around it. I head straight down.
I’m here too,Alexei projects to me.Forrest and Clark are going to run the technical side from the penthouse.
Good.I’m swimming straight down and not letting it get to me. I’m only thinking of Blair.
Blair
“That’s going to be better. We’re going to move fast, though. They’ve got another line on us. And if we don’t rise on our own, they’ll try towing us up with one of the omadas. They have to find a long enough cable to pull us straight up the track. So this is the first thing they’re going to try.”
“No more talk about breaking the glass?” I’m trying really hard to have what my mom called grit. Right now, I am not so gritty. I’m cornmeal, or more like plain white flour. Or paste. Or butter. I’ve got no lumps; I’ve just had enough. I’m not newBlair. Nope, I’m old Blair, hiding my daughter from my drunk husband out in the barn because she’d made too much noise or hadn’t done a chore to his liking.
“Hopefully not.” Grayson’s holding me in his lap. Yeah, no grit. His arm is around me like a safety belt. Delmar’s holding my hand when he’s not messaging. Sterling glares at the workers outside.
My breathing is under control. Or at least, I think it is, when there’s a rap on the glass and I jump a few inches off Grayson’s lap. It’s Zion, and Alexei’s behind him. Zion places his hand on the glass, and I reach out and place mine on the other side. It’s odd. I know I can’t feel him. But there’s something about it that makes me feel so much better.
“You can do this, Blair. We’re going to be fine.”
“I’m going to be fine,” I say like a parrot who doesn’t know what she’s saying. But I’m going to believe it.We’re fine, we’re fine,was what Marlee and I said all the way to Arizona when we fled the farm. And we are. She is. We’re good, and I can’t stop thinking about it.
Zion’s blue-gray eyes shine at me though the glass. Alexei’s deep blues too. Only Sterling’s not looking at me, like a mountain of a little boy who knows he’s done something wrong. He likes respect. My ex wanted respect—unearned respect, at that—but never once had any remorse. Sterling might not be saying much, but his whole body is shouting it.
I flick my eyes up to him. He holds my eyes for a fraction of a second before he goes back to glaring at the workers outside the car.
Delmar clears his throat. “I’ve got a message from Forrest. He wants you to know that he hasn’t told the Portsmouth clan. But if you want them here, he will.”
“Oh, goodness, no. I don’t want to worry AD and Marlee.”
“AD?” Delmar asks.
“Annabelle. It’s my brother’s nickname for his daughter. I don’t use it much.” Only when I’m nervous. And why would I be nervous? “No, please don’t tell them.”
“Okay, Forrest wants you to know...” Delmar stops. “He wants you to know that you will be fine.”
“Right, fine.” I hold Delmar’s gaze, but I have a strong suspicion that wasn’t the message. But I don’t need to worry about that, not now.
“We’re ready to do this. Remember, Sterling and Delmar are going to hold you around your waist,” Grayson explains. “The maintenance crew will raise us up, and we’ll get out at the penthouse. If that doesn’t happen, we’ll be breaking the glass. Hold your breath until I get the regulator into your mouth.”
The three of them strip their clothes off. Sterling takes one arm and Delmar my other. I’m trying really hard not to look at them below their waists. But then, I don’t want to look out of the elevator either. Doing both but neither is really hard. My eyes land on Grayson’s in front of me. He does make for a nice distracting wall of muscles. To my sides, there are muscular forearms and abs for days.
“Blair, just hang on to us,” Delmar says.
