by Kat Falls
“The eel pool?” I scoffed. “What about the crocodile pool? Are you going to apologize to those people?”
“For what? I’m providing them with an opportunity. Don’t recall you having a problem with the boxing match.”
“People don’t die in a boxing ring.”
“On the surf circuit they do. All the time. But it’s the surf’s choice to step into the ring. Same with the stadium. No one forces them into that water.”
“Their circumstances force them,” I said coldly.
“And what caused their circumstances?” Fife asked pointedly. “Maybe an ordinance that keeps them from fishing on the continental shelf?”
Shame tore through me. I had no answer for that.
“There’s our ride,” Shade said, pointing toward the part of the stadium that had collapsed into a wall of rubble. Now the purpose of the razor wire strung across the breach was obvious—to keep the crocodiles from escaping into the ocean. Beyond the fence, an enormous fin cut through the waves. The Specter.
Fife sighed and cast a look at Shade. “Breaks my heart to think you won’t enter the ring again anytime soon.”
“Anytime ever.”
“You would have drawn them in by the hordes. Oh, well. So, we’re back to our usual arrangement?”
“Should have something for you within the week,” Shade confirmed.
Just listening to them made me want to dive in the ocean to scrub off.
With a wave of his hat, Fife signaled his airship, which was holding its position over the stadium. At the same time, Shade took off in the opposite direction, heading for the breach.
“I’m thinking about ocean rodeo next,” said Fife, looking at me. “Dolphin roping, bucking orcas,” he went on as a ladder unfurled next to him, dropped from the hovering airship. “What a show it could be. Shame you’re not eighteen.” With a tip of his hat, Fife mounted the ladder and climbed toward an open hatch in the floor of the airship’s compartment.
Spinning on her heel, Gemma hurried to catch up with Shade, who stood at the edge of the breach. He jumped before she reached him. Racing over, I saw that the edge was not a sheer drop-off but a steep incline of cement and debris. Below, Shade leapt from chunk to chunk until he’d reached the top of the razor wire, where he dropped to the rubble wall on the ocean side. Moving at a more careful pace, Gemma and I followed.
The Specter had circled back and now Pretty stood on the pectoral fin, swinging a grappling hook at the end of a rope. When the sub reached the gap, he let the hook fly. With a thud, it landed in front of the fence and scraped along until it caught in the wall.
“How can you do business with a man who runs an event like that?” Gemma asked Shade the moment she’d alighted onto the rubble.
“Ease her in closer,” Shade shouted down, then he turned to her. “Fife pays the most for our goods.”
“What kind of excuse is that? This is happening right in front of you”—she jabbed a finger toward the flooded stadium—“and you’re doing nothing about it.”
“Never threw a coin,” Shade replied, unfazed. “Never will.”
Below us, Pretty used the dangling line to climb up, hand over hand. At the top, he hauled himself onto the wall and stood, with his long hair glowing like silver in the moonlight. “We need to make wake,” he told Shade, and handed him the line. “Those skimmers are still circling.”
“I’m not going with you,” I told them.
“You going to fly out of here?” Shade sounded amused.
“I’ll borrow one of the surfs’ scrap boats and row out.”
“Suit yourself.” He held out the line to Gemma. When she didn’t take it, he frowned. “I’ll drop you where you want.”
“I’m staying with Ty.”
“Think I’m going to let you paddle out of here on a heap of trash? Think again.”
Several members of the Seablite Gang stood on the Specter’s fin watching as Gemma backed away from him.
“You got five seconds to get aboard the easy way,” he warned her, “or we do it the hard way.”
“Dark Life,” Pretty said abruptly. “Know how to sail?”
“What?”
“Boat. On top of the water. Sail,” he spelled out in a dry tone.
“Yeah, I can sail.” I’d learned on the Seacoach when I was young, practicing on supply runs to the coast.
“The surfs keep sails and rigging in the back of the first building south,” he told me. “Just follow the wall and you’ll find it.”
“Thanks,” I said, while wondering if his information was on the level. The last time Pretty and I talked, he’d threatened me with a knife.
Turning to Shade, he said softly, “Hauling her aboard kicking and screaming … You really want to set that example?” He tilted his head fractionally toward the watching outlaws.
“Didn’t know I needed a conscience.” Shade’s tone had a dangerous edge.
Pretty eased back. “You don’t pay me enough for a job that hard. Do what you want.”
Shade leveled his gaze at Gemma. “Buck me on this and you don’t get another chance. You understand?”
She nodded.
“So, are you coming?”
“No,” she said firmly.
He tipped his head as if saying “so be it” and turned to rappel down the dangling line onto the Specter’s fin.
“That’s chum,” Pretty scoffed, facing me. “If anything happens to her, he’ll kill us both.”
“I won’t let anything happen to her.”
“Then take off now before Fife decides you’ve seen too much. He didn’t hire Ratter for his math skills.”
“Pretty!” Eel shouted. He stood on the fin alone, holding open the hatch. “You better jump or he’s going to leave you swimming with the crocs.”
Cursing, Pretty took a flying leap onto the fin. The hatch barely closed behind them before the sub sank under the water.
“I was wrong about him,” I said, watching the Specter’s dorsal fin disappear.
“Do you mean you underestimated Pretty or overestimated my brother?” Gemma asked sadly.
“Come on.” I took her cold hand in mine. “Let’s get out of here.”
No guard watched over the boats tethered together by the rubble wall. Resolving to return it at my earliest opportunity, I chose the sturdiest among them, and Gemma and I climbed in. Paddling away from the light of the stadium into the sweltering darkness, we headed south.
“I don’t understand,” Gemma said from the front of the boat. “Why did Gabion send us here?”
“He heard me ask Captain Revas why Drift would have done it. I think he was showing me why.”
“No one knows how bad the surfs have it.”
“Because little things added up—settlers passing the ordinance, states not letting townships near the coast, and the federal government cutting their rations. No one saw the total effect.”
“Or cared to,” she added.
We came to the first building south of the stadium. It was perched on higher ground, yet only one story was visible above the water. Circling, we spotted a wide entryway in the back that led into a cavernous room, probably a warehouse at one time. Flashlights dangled from cords tied to the support beams above and created eerie pools of light on the water.
Though we’d stopped paddling, our boat glided forward in the still water. Docks floated at the back and along the sides of the enormous space. All three were crammed with equipment—masts and sails, stacked fish traps, paddles and crates. We tethered our boat to the dock in the back and climbed out.
“I’ll bet they moor all of the boats in here at the end of the night,” I said, noting the line of cleats that edged each of the docks. “Which means we better hurry. I don’t want to be here when the surfs come back.”
Gemma untied one of the flashlights and held it while I dragged a rolled-up sail off a pile by the wall.
When I heard her gasp, I looked up to find her staring at me with horror. “W
hat?” I glanced around but saw only piles of rigging.
“On the wall,” she said in a choked voice. With her flashlight directed over my shoulder, she spotlighted a word painted across the cracked cement in large, scrawling letters— SURGE.
Before I could make sense of it, Gemma tracked the flashlight’s beam over the wall until she discovered another: FIDDLEBACK.
Finding no more on that wall, she directed the light to the other side of the loading bay. She said the next township name aloud even before she found it: “Nomad.” And there it was, in scrawled letters just above the floating dock.
The heat inside the warehouse grew oppressive. “Maybe the surfs painted the names of the missing townships as a way to commemorate them,” I suggested.
“Does that writing look respectful to you? Or does it look like it’s intended to scare people?”
“Scare or warn,” I agreed. “Let’s get out of here.”
After one last look around the dark, dripping space, I pulled the mosquito netting from the boat’s mast and rigged the sail in its place. Gemma continued to shine her flashlight across the mountains of stuff, until something caught her eye behind a curtain of fishing nets that had been hung up to dry. When she ventured toward that corner, I called, “Gemma,” in a hoarse whisper. “Come back.” I didn’t need the light, but she felt too far away for my peace of mind.
“I think I see more writing,” she said.
“Come back,” I insisted. “I’m finished. Let’s get out of here.” I glanced at the entryway, half expecting to see the flotilla of surf boats arriving. They weren’t. But what I did see there stopped my heart.
“Ty, look.” Gemma had pulled the fishnets aside. “‘Drift’ is painted here.”
“Chum,” I muttered, whirling around to look for a weapon.
“What?” she asked.
I pointed at the water where a wake streamed into the docking area as if made by an invisible boat. “Crocodile.” Only its nostrils poked above the water. But judging by the size of its ripple and the width of its snout, the croc had to be nearly twenty feet long.
Gemma let the fishing nets fall back into place. “Oh, crap.”
The creature made a wide circle and headed back toward the entrance.
“It’s okay,” she whispered as much for herself as for me. “It’s leaving.”
But no, the crocodile didn’t leave. It took up a spot in the center of the entryway and floated, daring us to come near.
“Even if we’re in the boat, it can get us, right?” she asked, although it was clear she already knew the answer.
“I wouldn’t try cutting past that beast in a speedboat, forget trying to sail by when there’s no wind in here.”
“It can climb up here anytime it wants, can’t it?” She surveyed the floating dock. “Don’t answer that.”
“Look for a harpoon or a speargun,” I said, backing toward the far corner.
When I turned, my legs were knocked out from under me. My head cracked onto the dock as I sprawled. Thinking the crocodile had somehow flown across the distance, I pushed up with a choked yell, only to see a man standing over me, his rusty trident at my throat. Hadal, who looked more monster than human with his scabbed, hairless skin and horns.
“I have no choice,” he ground out as he lifted his arm to impale me.
“It’s anchored, isn’t it?” I sputtered, putting the pieces together in a flash. “That’s why ‘Drift’ is painted on the wall.”
He froze, weapon still raised but not smashing into my chest.
“Someone chained the hatches, disabled the engines, and sank her deep.” I was guessing, but it felt right. “And you don’t know where.”
“Yes,” he said, so softly it might have been a released breath. “With all of them trapped inside,” he added, running a hand over his scaly head as if to erase a thought, “Even my daughter.”
“Who?” I asked, without trying to get away. “Who is scuttling townships?”
Hadal lowered his trident. “Fife.”
No big surprise there. My dip in the crocodile pool had altered my vision. Now I saw Fife’s good-natured act for what it was—an act. “He ordered you to kill me?”
With a nod, Hadal stepped back, allowing me to rise. “At Rip Tide. But I came here instead, thinking that maybe the Seaguard could find Drift in time….” His words rolled off as he regarded the crocodile floating in the entryway, its eyes and snout visible.
Quietly, Gemma joined us.
“Where are my parents?” I asked.
Turning from me, Hadal moved to the dock’s edge. “Fife planned to leave them at the surfs’ garden tonight. That way, we’d be blamed.”
His words sliced me open. “They’re dead?”
Still and silent, Hadal watched the crocodile slip under the water without a trace. “I don’t know,” he said finally.
I forced myself not to react—no panic, no grief, nothing—to think above my mind’s noise. I had to get to the surfs’ garden fast—how? Call back the Specter?
Hadal faced us, looking so haunted, my thoughts stuttered into silence. “Killing you won’t save Drift.” His voice sounded raw, as if he were in a stranglehold. “Fife will never free Drift. They’re a warning to the rest—while I’m the living reminder.”
When he lifted his trident again, I pulled Gemma behind me, cursing myself for dropping my guard.
He rolled the weapon in his hands. “It’s Fife I should kill….” He spat, tightening his grip on the shaft. Then his eyes found me. “But maybe it’s not too late for you. Maybe you can still save your family, but only if you sail now.” He flipped the trident tines down. “Get there before high tide.”
At that moment, the crocodile exploded out of the water.
Spinning, Hadal slammed the trident down on the creature’s skull, but the razor-sharp prongs bounced off as if they’d hit rock. In a flash of movement, the crocodile closed its jaws on Hadal’s leg and yanked him off the dock. All that remained a heartbeat later was a swirl of blood in the churning water.
I staggered back and heard Gemma’s choked cry, felt her arms circle me. I turned to cling to her.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
“The boat’s light enough to lift over the wall,” I said as we sailed toward the break in the barbed wire. Hadal’s words urged me on—Get there before high tide. Which meant within the half hour. Maybe less. My nerves were taut as a winch line and yet, for the first time in two days, I had real hope.
Gemma had not taken her eyes off the dark water around us since we’d sailed out of the docking area. She swept the flashlight beam across the lagoon in a repeating arc. I understood completely. The thought of encountering another crocodile was unbearable. Luckily, by the time we reached the break in the fence, we hadn’t seen so much as a ripple.
She scrambled onto the rubble, taking the paddles while I rolled up the sail.
“Ty,” she said, pointing into the darkness. “Something is cruising over the waves out there. A boat?”
It was too far away for me to see with sonar. But something Kale had said on the Specter came to mind. “It’s moving like a skimmer. Can I have the flashlight?”
I knew the beam wouldn’t help us see that far out on the ocean, but with luck it would be seen. I flicked the light on and off—three short, three long, three short. SOS in Morse code.
Within minutes, the skimmer pulled up alongside the rubble wall. Both front and back pods had tinted viewports, making it impossible to see who was inside. Then the viewport on the first pod slid back to reveal a trooper, staring at us with disbelief.
“We need to get to the surfs’ community garden as fast as possible.” I dropped the rolled sail, ready to abandon the surfs’ boat.
“You’re glowing,” the trooper said.
“Yeah, I know.” His comment didn’t prick me at all. In fact, I couldn’t imagine ever caring about such a minor thing again. “My parents might be hurt. Please give us a ride.”
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“Hop in.” He waved us into the front pod with him, even though it was designed to hold two people, while the back pod had seats for three. “You’re the Townson kid?”
“Yes,” I said, squeezing in next to Gemma.
He punched a button on the control panel and the viewport slid closed. As the skimmer took off at top speed, hopping the waves, he said, “Captain Revas will be glad to hear we found you.”
“Found us?” Gemma asked.
“We’re here on her orders.”
At Gemma’s confused look, he explained, “There are two more skimmers on the other side. We can’t cross into the Ruins without a warrant. But Captain Revas told us to circle the area all night in case you showed up.”
“How did she know we’d be here?” I knew now that Fife wouldn’t have told her.
“Some boxer got hold of her. Said he told you about the Ruins, but then he started worrying about your safety.”
“Gabion,” Gemma said.
I realized it wasn’t Captain Revas that Gabion had been afraid of the previous night, but Fife. “The captain understood him?”
“We all know sign language.” The trooper sounded offended. “It’s part of our training.”
As he radioed the captain and told her where we were headed, Gemma and I stayed pressed together. Not talking.
I didn’t have words for what we’d seen that night. Or a reaction, it seemed. I froze up every time Hadal came to mind, which was just as well. I needed to stay calm at least until I knew that my parents were okay. Then I could think about him. And Drift … Suddenly the memory of Nomad’s chained hatches swept through my mind on an icy current.
No. I couldn’t think about what the people on Drift were going through, either. Not now. Not if I wanted to be able to function.
Two skimmers arrived at the surfs’ garden from the south, just as we reached the entrance. One pulled up alongside us, and the front viewport slid open to reveal Captain Revas.
When the trooper retracted our viewport, she beckoned to me. “Jump in,” she said, though it didn’t sound like an order. Gemma must have decided not to squeeze Captain Revas because she opted to stay with the trooper.