Page 38 of Love, Nemesis (Ocean to Ashes #2)

Lethe turned, and Cal followed him to the nearest door.

“It’s not so simple,” Lethe said. “When they caught me, they had their fun with my memories. It’s why Ivan can replicate them so well.

My head is a bit of a mess,” he said. He looked over to evaluate Cal’s condition.

The boy was staring off but turned slowly toward Lethe when he noticed him looking.

“Are you going to be all right?” Lethe asked.

Cal swallowed and nodded before looking at the door in front of Lethe. “Why are we going in there?”

“I need some kind of trigger,” Lethe said, “to help me switch memories. The Strike like tormenting people with memory, but I’ve been in this situation before. Follow close.” He reached for the handle in front of him, grabbing Cal’s sleeve before opening it and walking through.

Instead of the inside of the shop, the door led them to another memory. They both stumbled as they entered into it, the door vanishing behind them as they fell into a street.

It was raining hard, lightning cracking across the sky. Lethe pulled Cal aside as two Riders rode past them, swinging chains with flaming maces at the end. A loud whistle echoed through the air as one of the nearby houses exploded into dark smoke and a Strike walked out, eyes gleaming teal.

A Rider jumped from his horse, and the teal-eyed Strike lifted an arm, commanding the black smoke around him into a liquid spear that shot through the Rider before a swing of a dark blade from the smoke beheaded him.

An explosion shook nearby, sending debris raining over them.

Lethe cursed, wrestling Cal into a nearby alleyway. The boy curled up with his hands over his head. “Where did you bring us?” he shouted.

“Battle at Cleary. I only have so many reliable memories where I know we can find Ivan.”

“Where is he?” Cal shouted over the noise, searching the area before flinching from another explosion.

“We need to cross a few streets.”

Yet another explosion shook the air.

“What?”

“Listen to me,” Lethe demanded, yanking the boy’s collar. “Remember, this is just a memory; everything has already happened. Some of the Strike can still hurt us though.”

“That’s not like a memory at all!” Cal argued.

Lethe rubbed his face briefly. “All right. Let’s go,” he said, jerking him up as they ran through the rain.

Lethe slid to a stop, peering into a street when he saw a Strike waiting there. The Strike had blue eyes.

“Can he see us?” Cal whispered.

“Not that one,” Lethe said, and they crossed the street in a hurry, navigating through a few alleys.

Lethe grabbed the reigns of a horse that was loose in one of the streets. He hopped on, pulling Cal up with him before they raced forward.

They headed toward another set of explosions, rain blasting against them as they joined a group of Riders racing toward a central direction.

“Hold on tight,” Lethe demanded, feeling Cal’s arms tight around his waist as he and the other Riders charged toward a Strike.

The Strike, golden-eyed, sent a barrage of black blades their way, materialized from dark smoke—Madness from the Eating Ocean, manifesting in one of its many forms.

The Riders threw bottles of fluid that exploded and consumed the blades. Black bullets followed, faster than the blades, hitting one of the Riders nearby and causing her to fall off her horse.

Lethe and Cal cleared the distance just in time, the Strike not noticing them as the horse raced past.

Lethe could feel Cal’s head pressed against his back.

They were close. Ivan would be somewhere on the next street.

A blast exploded from ahead, hitting them with an invisible force and scattering the rain.

The horse reared up and fell back. Lethe pulled Cal away as the animal lay in the mud, struggling to stand. They both scrambled up, looking in the direction of the blast as a creature pulled itself from above the houses. Its body was a shape like a black mountain, growing in the distance.

Wings unfurled, spreading across the horizon like a canvas, prepared to envelop the town. Its head lifted to the sky, jaws opening and displaying a canyon of teeth as it roared. The earth shook under them; Cal slammed his hands over his ears.

Grabbing him, Lethe rushed into the next alleyway before bursting through the nearest door. They rolled into an open field, the grass green, flowers gathering bees nearby.

The sky was blue. The world was silent.

Cal lay curled up on his side with his hands on his head. Lethe was on his hands and knees, panting. He cursed.

Cal started looking around. “What happened?”

“That was Amiel,” Lethe replied. “It was too dangerous for me to take you any closer. I need—” He panted, rubbing his face. “I need another way to reach Ivan, but every memory that’s clear enough, he’s near the other Strike.”

Cal sat up, covered in mud as he looked around. He swallowed hard.

Rolling onto his back, Lethe removed his canteen and handed it to Cal. The boy drank small sips, his fingers shaking.

“Lethe,” he said after a while. “What happens if we die here?”

“Then we’re dead,” Lethe said and paused for a while, his hand over his eyes.

He exhaled, breath steady. “I think I know a way.” He started to sit up.

“There is one memory where the other Strike won’t bother us.

I remember it clearly enough. Ivan Rowe must have been locked up inside The Bleeding Grin at the time.

I never actually saw him, so this is technically a loophole to get to him.

If we can get inside the Grin, I can fight him. I’ll just need help getting inside.”

“If the other Strike won’t bother us, why can’t we just walk in?” Cal asked nervously.

“Certain…specifications have to be met for the main door to The Bleeding Grin to open, and the others will be completely blocked off,” Lethe explained.

“Okay,” Cal said, distracted as he tried to screw the cap back onto the canteen. His fingers shook so badly that the cap fell down into the grass. He tried again, focusing hard, looking as if he were on the brink of panic.

Lethe eased down next to him, taking the canteen and steadying it as Cal used both hands to get the cap on. Lethe waited for him to finish screwing it on before returning it to his belt next to his oil canister and Ana’s, which he’d taken several nights ago from her belt.

“I wouldn’t bring you with me, Cal, but I don’t know what would happen if I left you here,” Lethe said.

Cal looked out at the field, full of grass with the ROSE cottages in the distance under the mountains. He pursed his lips and nodded, wiping mud from his face.

Lethe kept watching the fields. This was the valley of the Dragon’s Spine where Ares had set up his cabin. Lethe had spent several summers there. He’d come out into the fields on particularly beautiful days, when The Ocean’s War seemed like it was happening in another universe completely.

“What memory?” Cal said.

The question jarred Lethe. He looked over, and for a split moment, he didn’t recognize Cal.

“What?”

“What memory where the Strike won’t bother us?” Cal asked, and Lethe recalled their previous conversation.

Strange , Lethe thought.

Cal looked over at Lethe when he didn’t reply. Lethe exhaled, looking back over the field, remembering the conclusion he’d reached.

The loophole.

What memory?

The memory they’d have to dive into.

Ah. That.

“The Burning of the Strike,” he said.

He’d have to go back to where it all ended.