Page 55 of Love, Nemesis (Ocean to Ashes #2)

ANA TRIED TO steady her breathing, mind moving through the possibilities, racing to process the situation and determine her next move.

She had no next move.

Nothing had ever prepared her for this.

The Great Light had brought back the Strike. How many? How many had she seen?

“Look at me,” Ivan said, and her chin was drawn up as if by an invisible force.

His hands moved to his hips and he titled his head slightly, rich hair combed back in a perfected style.

They all looked in many ways perfected, pictures from a century ago, State’s time, as if they hadn’t aged at all.

She looked through their faces, recognizing each and every one.

“There are fifteen of us here,” Ivan said, answering the question in her mind.

“Do you want to fight us all? Use Chronos—the device we helped invent—against us? Hmm? We couldn’t let you die.

No. No. Not yet. One domino chasing another one.

Pulling strings, one by one, but why? What has this all been for? ”

He dangled the question in front of her, smiling as he bent down at the hips. He seemed to relish her confusion. She couldn’t look away. Fifteen. There had been seventeen Strike total.

She resisted the urge to see who was missing.

“The State you serve with so much loyalty? We built it. The roles we played in death, it seems we played again in our second lives! You were, again, a slave!”

The truth echoed with a deep, resounding crash in her brain, and every conviction she had, every truth she’d discovered, crumbled in front of her eyes.

She’d spent her entire life defending the legacy of the Strike. She’d given everything she was or ever could be back to them, all in her attempts to distance herself from them. Now, as Chronos, she was a cornerstone of their empire.

Ivan smiled as he seemed to witness all of the devastation this truth created inside her mind.

“Looks like we have another guest.” He released her head from the power of his invisible grasp and backed away from Ana as he counted down with his steps.

“Three, two…” He looked toward the entrance, rolling one of his wrists toward the door as two Strike wrestled Lethe into the room.

Ana and Lethe’s eyes met.

Ivan whistled. “Lethe Shepherd.”

Lethe’s expression faltered with shock, but then his eyes scanned the room and apparently a much faster learner than Ana, he spat, “Illusions.”

They threw Lethe against the wall with her. His expression was stoic and dark. His eyes burned with resistance as he pushed his body close to Ana’s. He grabbed her wrist, squeezing hard.

Ana found his hand, returning the gesture to confirm that she was unharmed.

“So, I hear that you killed me . Impressive,” Ivan said, looking between them as he crossed his arms again.

Ana swallowed hard. With Lethe by her side, she had some sense of power, some sense of resistance, as futile as it might seem. Like a reminder of something still worth protecting, his presence beside her grounded her, pulling her reeling mind toward a central point of focus.

Ivan smiled as he watched them, opening his arms again. “Look at the two of you,” he said. “United by a common enemy, the bond—your bond.” He rubbed his hands together. “Reminds me a bit of Emma Shepherd. A strong bond can take quite the long beating…sustains quite profound entertainment.”

Ana glanced back over at Lethe as she noticed him looking at her. In that moment, she felt something, as quiet as a whisper in the dark of her mind.

I can give you three seconds.

An impression, a push in her mind, from Lethe. Strange.

Three seconds , he repeated.

Three seconds at what cost? she thought, but felt she knew the answer.

“Look at me,” Ivan demanded, and they both looked back at him, by impulse or some force of Ivan’s, Ana wasn’t sure.

Ivan’s eyes narrowed as if he spotted something in Lethe. “Lethe Shepherd,” he repeated, lower. He closed the space between them, kneeling. He lifted a hand, palm up, and beckoned with a finger.

Lethe’s arm jerked, torn from Ana’s, but he held back, gritting his teeth.

“You don’t have to be ashamed. Not at all,” Ivan whispered, beckoning a second time.

Lethe’s arm was forced out, extended before Ivan as the rest of him fought to pull back.

Ana reached for Chronos, but with a flinch of Ivan’s other hand, the device was pinned against the opposite wall.

Ivan’s eyes inspected Lethe’s bruised fingers, his own dark hand gently taking Lethe’s wrist and turning it.

“It’s taken to you,” Ivan said, searching his hand as if he could see something in each line of his skin.

“More than that. You should be proud,” he repeated with admiration.

“It’s just ravenous. Do you feel it? Your blood is so saturated with Snake Bite, but you have to feel it, especially when it’s like this. ”

Ivan pulled his hand back, fingers dragging across Lethe’s.

Lethe called out in pain, withdrawing his arm as he threw himself back against the wall and curled up.

“Lethe!” Ana fought to cover him, leaving herself stretched out and exposed with Chronos still bound to the wall behind her. Ivan shook his head, smiling.

“I removed the Snake Bite. Your blood is clean now,” Ivan said. “Wait a few minutes and I think you’ll find that The Eating Ocean isn’t as easy to hate as it used to be.”

Ivan turned toward the other Strike, lifting up his arms, “It looks like the infamous Lethe Shepherd is one of us!” he announced.

A few Strike moved forward, closer to the flames as if to get a better look. They murmured to one another, but there was a heaviness to the mood of the room despite Ivan’s theatrics.

Ivan started to circle the pyre, hands behind his back as if mulling over the news himself.

“I’m,” he said, lifting his hand to his chest, “thrilled that Peter’s work finally paid off, but…

” He wavered his hand in front of him as if unsure.

“Peter was much better at managing new Strike. I can’t help but feel this is all going to be a little bit of a mess. ”

Ana saw Lethe’s arm by the light of the fire, the fingers on the left hand blackened. His breathing became quickly erratic.

“We’re all dead,” Ivan said, looking over at all the Strike. “But it’s nice to feel alive after so many years, isn’t it?”

Some of the Strike chuckled, all finding different places across the room. The next time he turned, at last, she saw it. The Great Light. The single blue shell—the real one, hung around Ivan’s neck.

Ana filed through her options. Chronos would not stop him, not completely. Chronos dampened Madness, made it vulnerable to injury, but the Strike in their manipulation of it would not be put down so quickly. There were so many of them.

She couldn’t attack Ivan now. She needed to help Lethe.

Help him–

She stared at his hand, at his blackening fingers and the realization dawned on her.

The Snake Bite.

Lethe was a Strike. No. More than that. He’d been a Strike all along.

“All this time,” she whispered, hands lighter on him now though she still wanted to help him. She looked around the room, realizing that the only creatures capable of helping Lethe were likely standing around him now.

That thought then led to another, and then another as a picture unfurled.

She paused.

Wait.

She stared at the shell. She thought of the replicas of the shell, no doubt created to protect the real one.

This time, Ana did not resist unveiling her thoughts, looking Ivan directly in the eyes like an invitation.

Ivan’s expression settled, his eyes narrowed only slightly as if he’d clearly received her question.

The State seemed to be built up to protect The Great Light at all costs, as if it were an object of great value. They had complete control of it, but what did they merit from that control? In all likelihood, Hailey had been trapped in their game too.

“Yes,” Ivan said, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall that guarded the pyre.

“Ivan, the other Ivan, the ‘real’” he gestured with his fingers to emphasize the word, “Ivan told Hailey when he was going to die. They’d been exchanging secrets of the future in coded letters.

Haily reached out to him to try and save himself and possibly the State from us. ”

“You’ve probably predicted a lot of this,” Ana said, inspecting the room.

Despite the shock and terror of the revelation of their existence, when she looked at the Strike, she noticed how many of them seemed to keep their distance, glowing eyes nestled in the darkness. A couple of them were sprawled out almost lazily in the back of the room.

Ana looked back at Ivan, her fear fading in the slightest way. She inquired again, asking questions in her mind she knew he could see.

Ivan didn’t move. When he didn’t reply, she asked aloud.

“You have all been down here for years, manipulating people to rule on your behalf. Why not just show yourselves? Why not…?” She paused because at last she understood. “Strike are different,” she whispered, glancing down at Lethe momentarily.

His breathing had settled. He still hid his hand in his chest.

“You can transcend time. You don’t think like people do.”

“We can’t be fooled into thinking we are real,” Ivan said.

“It was a flaw of The Great Light we didn’t anticipate, because we didn’t really anticipate activating it at all.

It was a grand experiment, facilitated by Strike Peter.

He released its power toward the end of the Burning of the Strike for a single purpose that he had largely kept to himself during its development. ”

Ana read Ivan’s eyes, trying to understand the direction he was taking them. She searched the room and realized that there was no illusion of Peter among them. Two illusions were missing.

Peter and Amiel.

“Do you want to guess why?” Ivan prodded.

“No.” She shook her head in horror.