Back to Atlantis by Bar Sagi (best book reader txt) 📗

stirred up Yasmin’s hair, and she closed her eyes, imagining that she was flying. She felt as though she was letting go of her worries, letting herself go, and just being blown away from the breeze.

“You okay?” Yasmin opened her eyes and saw Violet looking amused.

Yasmin grinned, looking around. David was standing a little ways away, talking to Gloriana.

Lucas on the other hand, was staring at the town, his face pained. But why? She wondered. He is stopping the rebels. They killed his parents. He should have, at the least, not looked like doing this was the last thing he wanted to do. Was he scared? But they weren’t even fighting!

“Everyone!” Gloriana said, taking out three glass beads and handing one to each Yasmin and David. She tucked the last one in her pocket. “We’re going to split up. We can’t search this entire village together, so David and Violet are going to search the left side while Yasmin and Lucas are going to search the right. As for me, I’m going straight ahead and searching everywhere I think rebels might be.” She glanced at all of them, making sure they understood. “Okay?”

Everyone nodded, and Lucas looked even moodier as he did so.

Yasmin’s heart sank. Did he really hate the idea of being with her so much?

“Let’s go,” David said to Violet, and she nodded as he led the way. They headed down the hill, David walking just slightly ahead of Violet, even as she rushed to keep up.

Yasmin looked at Lucas again, he was deliberately looking away from her, staring at the town. “Lucas?” she asked, touching his arm.

He jumped, looking at her with wide eyes, like he had forgotten she was there.

Yasmin drew her hand back. What had happened to the Lucas she had known? The engaging, fun guy who was full of life? All she saw in front of her was a moody teenager who looked like he wanted to be far away from her. “Are you coming?”

Lucas nodded, and they headed in silence down the hill.

As they entered the town, Yasmin couldn’t help glancing around. The town looked so peaceful, And small. The wooden buildings were never more than three stories high, and there were few things not made of wood. As they passed the church, without a single sign of a rebel, Yasmin stopped.

Looking around she realized in panic that Lucas wasn’t with her.

“Lucas?” She called out, running back to the fountain they had passed a while back, with the merman.

She spun around desperately, wondering where he could have gone. Had a rebel taken him? But she hadn’t heard anything, nor had she seen anything! “Lucas! Where are you?”

Feeling a sudden chill, Yasmin rubbed her arms.

“Lucas?” She called out uncertainly. “Is that you?”

Pain burst in her skull, and she fell to the ground, unconscious…

Chapter 23

The betrayal

David and Violet were searching the town, and David tried to hold back his twinge of annoyance. Why had he been stuck with this idiot?

Violet couldn’t stop smiling, and she was sticking to him like glue. It drove him crazy! Why did she try to act perfect all the time? He knew she fought perfectly well. Why was she always trying to hide part of herself?

But then again, who was he to talk? He was always hiding the person he was under a stone mask too.

There were few people in this world who had met him as he really was: kind, playful, and happy. Because he was never happy in Atlantis.

Why couldn’t he have been paired up with Yasmin instead? He thought grumpily as he made a face. But then, it was probably for the best.

Yasmin hated him, and besides, he shouldn’t get to close to her, either. He couldn’t get her hopes up. No that wasn’t right. He shouldn’t get his hopes up.

Yasmin would never be his again. She would probably hate him forever. But there was a reason. A really stupid one, but still. And David wasn’t going to destroy his hard work of the last six months.

***

Yasmin opened her eyes, her head aching as she tried to move. Her hands were bound by tight ropes, and she was tied to a chair. Even her legs were tied together, so tight it hurt.

Groaning, she tried to remember what had happened. She remembered a bursting pain in her skull, then… nothing. She must have collapsed.

Yasmin looked around with a growing horror. She had been kidnapped, right? She was in one of the houses probably, but an abandoned one. It was covered with dust and the ceiling had a hole in it.

Who had done this?

“So you’ve finally woken up,” a familiar voice said, and Yasmin felt terrified. Not because of him, but because of who he was.

Because of the fact that she had trusted him, had cared for him, only to be stabbed in the back.

“Lucas,” she whispered, as he stepped forward, a neutral expression on his face. “Why?” She managed to get out, feeling like she would cry.

Lucas looked away, guilt covering his face. “You wouldn’t understand, Yasmin.” She saw a tear slide down his cheek and watched in shock as he buried his face in his hands. “He… I have no choice.”

“You work for the beast.” Yasmin realized, looking at Lucas’s crying face.

The sunlight streaming in from the hole in the ceiling made his hair glow, and with the dust swirling around him, he looked like a defeated angel.

Like someone who had been broken for a while now. Instead of feeling anger, Yasmin just felt pity. And then she felt anger, but not at Lucas. At the beast.

The whole reason she had come to Atlantis was because she wanted to prevent another Abby, but in the end, she was just as helpless as she had been half a year ago. “But why?”

“He has my parents.” Lucas looked at her, his eyes wild. “He forced me to choose, Yasmin. And I can’t let them die.”

“Your parents?” Yasmin felt like she was staring at a puzzle with half the