The Atlas Six (The Atlas 1)

“I’m only trying to h-”

He broke off as the bars warped, Gideon’s face disappearing. He opened his eyes to jarring darkness, someone shaking him awake.

“There’s someone here,” said a voice he didn’t recognize for a moment, and Nico groggily struggled to sit upright.

“What? It’s just my friend, he’s not—”

“Not in your head.” It was Reina’s voice, he realized, adjusting to make out the general shape of her face in the dark. “There’s someone in the house.”

“How do you—”

“There are plants in every room. They woke me.” She was using a tone that sounded like stop talking. “Someone is trying to get inside, if they aren’t here already.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know,” she said, brows creased. “Something.”

Nico reached over, pressing a hand to the floor to feel the wood pulse beneath his palm.

“Vibrations,” he said. “There’s definitely someone here.”

“I know that. I told you.”

Well, better if he could take care of it alone, or close to alone. Reina had probably done him a favor waking him first.

Ah, but he’d said he wouldn’t do things alone.

“Wake Rhodes,” Nico said on second thought, rising to his feet. “She’s in the last—”

“The last room on the right, I know.” Reina was gone quickly, without asking questions. Nico crept out into the house, listening for a moment. Libby was better at listening; she was more attuned to waves of things, usually sound and speed, so he gave up and started feeling instead. He could sense the disruption from somewhere downstairs.

The middle door opened, revealing Parisa in the frame.

“You’re thinking very loudly,” she informed him with palpable distaste, as Libby emerged from her room.

“Shouldn’t we wake—”

“What’s going on?” demanded Callum, bursting from his door.

“Someone’s in the house,” said Nico.

“Who?” said Libby and Callum in unison.

“Someone,” replied Nico and Reina.

“Many someones,” Parisa corrected. She was holding a hand to the wall. “There are at least three compromised access points.”

“She’s right,” sa

id Reina.

“I know I’m right,” Parisa growled.

“Has anyone woken Tristan?” asked Libby, looking predictably fretful.

“You do it,” said Parisa, disinterestedly.

“No,” Nico said. “Rhodes is coming with me.”