Atlantis Rising Read Online Free Page A

that gun.
    “Dina, listen to me. I’m sorry you found Morris with another girl. He made a terrible mistake. I’m sure he’s very sorry about it. But you have to think about your baby. She needs you, Dina. If you hurt him, you’ll go to jail, and then who will raise your baby? You know your mother can’t do it.” A cramping pain burned through Riley’s leg muscles, protesting at squatting on the floor for so long. She shifted a little, careful not to make any sudden or abrupt movements.
    Dina barked out a laugh that sounded rusty from disuse. “That crack ho? She ain’t no mother. She ain’t getting near my baby.”
    “That’s right. You know you’re the best person in the world to take care of your baby. Have you thought of a name for her yet?”
    Keep them talking. Distract them with more pleasant topics; ones with which they feel a personal connection. The voice of the lecturer from one of Riley’s hundreds of hours of training pounded in her head.
    Right. Pleasant topics, when she’s got a gun jammed down his cheating throat. And how about the fact that I’m going to pee my pants any minute? The manuals never mentioned that little fact.
    Dina smiled a little. “I’m going to call her Paris. Like that city in France? With the tower? It’s so beautiful. We learned about it in school. I’m gonna take her there someday. Paris Marguerite, after Grandmama.”
    “That’s a beautiful name, Dina. Paris Marguerite. Now please give me the gun. You don’t want Paris Marguerite to grow up without her mommy, do you?” Riley slowly straightened up off the floor, ignoring the screaming muscles in her thighs. She stretched her hand out, palm upward.
    “Please give me the gun. I’ll help you. We’ll figure this out together. Please give me the gun, so Paris Marguerite grows up with her mommy to take care of her.” She held her breath as Dina wavered, looking back and forth from Riley to Morris.
    A man’s life balanced on the wavering edge of a teenager’s indecision. Nope. That hadn’t been in the damn manual, either.
    Dina took a huge, shuddering breath, and her shoulders slumped a little. She yanked the gun out of Morris’s mouth and held it out toward Riley. Riley felt the breath she’d been holding for the past half hour seep out of her lungs.
    Thank you, thank you, thank you, I can’t—
    Morris’s eyes snapped open. He burst up off the bed, blood running down his face from his mouth, and slammed a fist into Dina’s jaw. “You hit me over the head, bitch? You pull a gun on me ? I’ll show you who pulls a gun on Morris.”
    As Dina fell to the ground from the force of the blow, Morris aimed a kick at her belly. Riley launched herself out of the corner and toward them, screaming, “No, no! Morris, no! Don’t hurt her! Don’t hurt your baby!”
    The room kaleidoscoped into a fractured image of movement and cacophony of sound. Almost in slow motion, Riley saw the kick land with full force against the side of Dina’s huge belly. She heard Dina screaming, Morris screaming, someone else screaming—was that her ?
    She jumped him, not caring that he had to outweigh her by a hundred pounds. “No, no, no . Don’t hurt her. You have to stop. Morris, you have to stop—”
    Morris yanked a handful of her hair viciously, snapping her head back. “Nobody tells me what to do. Especially not some worthless social worker.”
    He raised his fist. Move. Gotta move.
    She yanked her head to the left, just as his huge fist slammed into the side of her face. Just enough. Maybe. Please God, don’t let my neck be broken. Room going black. Fight, Riley. Fight to stay conscious.
    Fist coming again. “No, please . . .”
    But he ignored her, face twisted with rage beyond hearing, beyond reason. His fist exploded again, except it wasn’t his fist.
    It wasn’t her face.
    Thunder? Is it thunder? So black . . .
    As Riley fought the blackness, the hand in her hair loosened. Morris’s face changed in a caricature of