Ava Rising: Book 2 of 3

Chapter 10

Something was following them. She could tell as soon as she woke up. Cursing at herself for falling asleep during her watch, she rolled over in the sand to find Lucas staring out to sea.

He turned to her and said, "We're being followed."

"I know. Can you tell by whom?"

"I'm trying..." As he trailed off it was clear that he was not succeeding. He stomped his foot into the ground, spraying sand into the air. Ava ducked to avoid getting any in her eyes.

"Watch it," Ava exclaimed.

"Sorry," Lucas murmured. "It's just...I'm a strategist. That's what I do. But I don't know how to strategize like this...with no data. Without knowing who's tracking us, I don't know whether we should set out by foot, or by sea, return to the city, or flee to the country."

Ava nodded, saying, "My family might be coming to find me. Or it could be the Ares...or the Gaia. Personally, I'm hoping it's not the former."

"Or it could be...my mom," Lucas said.

Ava looked at him in surprise. She hadn't considered that his mom might be following them. But given Lucas's prodigious talents it would make sense for his mother to be a powerful member of her Order. For someone of that age and skill, it wouldn't be difficult to track two young members. She shivered, hoping that Lucas's mother was not like his father.

Lucas must have caught the action because he said, "She's different."

Ava bit her tongue, not wanting to badmouth Lucas's remaining loved ones—there were so few. But it was no use. She'd never been one to hide her emotions. "How do you know? I mean I trust you, I do. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. But how is finding your mother really going to help us?"

"Do you think I'm a monster?"

"What? God, no, Lucas. You know that."

"My father was a monster."

"You're not your—"

Lucas interrupted her, "I'm not looking for your reassurances. I'm making a point. Where did my defiance come from? Why did I turn away from the violence of my father?"

As Lucas spoke—his tone strident enough to convince even himself—Ava caught a flash of memory. She saw a very young Lucas—maybe four or five—clad in spaceship pajamas and curled on top of his covers like a puppy. His cheeks were flushed and his eyelids were fluttering as a lovely woman with a mass of dark hair stroked his forehead tenderly.

Ava jabbed a fingernail into her palm, trying to disentangle herself from the stolen memory and return to the present moment. She stared down at the sand, embarrassed to have snatched such a sacred snippet of his past, however unintentionally, and realized that Lucas was in the middle of saying something.

"—and we need to find someone in the Ares who will be sympathetic to our call for peace. Who better than my mother?"

Ava wasn't exactly sure what Lucas had been saying while she had been distracted, but that had never stopped her before. "Your mother...who was married to your father...who—"

Lucas cut in, "She'll understand. She has to understand." He said the second part mainly to himself.

"When was the last time that you saw her, Lucas?" she asked, trying and failing to keep the hesitation out of her voice.

Lucas didn't answer right away, which left a pit in her stomach. He hasn't seen her in a very long time. She kept going, even though the sadness in Lucas's eyes made her want to stop. She had to drive home her point. "Did she ever come to see you and your dad when you guys traveled to Australia?"