by Tracey Ward
“She’s cool, I swear,” Sam tells her. His voice is rising in pitch with his nerves. “She’s not a zombie.”
Feet are rushing around the house. I hear the front door fly open, boots pounding on the tile floor of the hall and entryway. People are running upstairs above us. Someone is shouting but it’s too muffled to understand.
The brunette, Ali, looks at me. Her hand holding the gun never wavers.
“You’re going to answer my questions and then you’re going to die so you may as well be honest, do you understand me?”
“Huckleberry!” Sam cries.
Ryan, Trent and I all stare at him, confused as hell.
“Huckleberry, Ali! I swear it! Don’t do this!”
“Calm down, Sam,” she tells him evenly, never looking away from me. “I’m crystal clear. I know what’s what and these three are spies.”
“What?” I exclaim, shocked. “No, no we’re not. I promise.”
“Lies. You’re spies for the Colonists, which leads me to my first question. What were you supposed to accomplish once you were inside?”
I shake my head, my breath coming hard in short, painful gasps. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re not working with the Colonists. Ask Sam. Ask Taylor!”
She cocks the gun. Ryan steps closer to me but one look from Ali sends him right back where he was. She focuses her eyes on me again.
“We haven’t had strangers on this island in years. Then suddenly you three show up in a Hive boat with insider knowledge about the Colonies. Now, just days later, Colony ships are creeping through the Sound heading our way in the dead of night, obviously planning an ambush. So I’ll ask you again, what were you meant to accomplish while you were here? What did they send you to do? Were you supposed to disable our power supply? What were you planning?”
“All we wanted,” Ryan says calmly, trying to draw her attention away from me, “was to speak to someone in your council about getting help freeing our friends from a Colony. That’s all. Trent and I, we’re members of a gang on the outside but it’s not The Hive. It’s also too small to be of any help. So we went to The Hive and they sent us to you. That’s the entire truth.”
Ali shakes her head, her mouth forming a perfect line on her face. It makes me sweat down to my toes.
“Try again,” she whispers darkly.
“Lower the gun and talk to us about this,” Ryan insists firmly.
“No time for that. The ships are almost here and if they manage to overtake this island, I’m not about to leave you alive. So I’ll ask one more time, what were you meant to do here?”
“We were meant to find Heaven,” I tell her softly, thinking of Crenshaw. I’m so used to not mentioning him, never talking about him to keep him safe, that I suddenly realize I never mentioned him in my story to her. I only ever told Taylor about him and the name didn’t ring a bell so I never brought it up to Ali. That seems infinitely stupid to me now. It’s amazing what clarity a gun to the face can bring.
“See, now we’re getting somewhere. God, Heaven and divine retribution – that’s all Colony talk.”
“No, it’s Crenshaw. Except he called it Elysium.”
She blinks and I nearly pass out. His name means something to her.
“Crenshaw is the one who told us about you originally,” I continue, hoping to hit home again with his name. “He said we never should ask The Hive for anything. That they were liars and traitors and he was right. I should have listened to him. He showed us a map, told us he helped you plant a garden here and that he had an open invitation to join whenever he wanted but he won’t because he’s waiting.”
Ali takes a deep breath. Her fingers flex slightly on the handle of the gun.
“What is he waiting for?” she asks, her tone giving nothing away.
“His daughter,” Ryan says softly. “The Hive has his daughter and he’ll never leave her.”
Her eyes dart from me to Ryan, to Trent and back again. Finally, she lowers the gun.
“What’s your name?” she asks me.
“Joss.”
She shakes her head minutely. “No, what’s your name?”
I frown, suddenly unsure. “Jocelyn.”
Whatever softness was building in her leaks away. The gun is back in my face in an instant.
“Wrong answer.”
Gun = clarity.
“Athena!” I cry, finally understanding. “He calls me Athena. He said Joss was too mousy for—“
“A warrior like you,” Ali finishes for me, the gun lowering again.
I nod quickly, though it’s more like shaking. I gesture to Ryan. “That’s Helios.”
Ali looks to Trent who shrugs, unconcerned.
“We’re not that close,” he admits.
Ali stares at each of us in turn. No one else moves. We stand statue still, all very aware of the gun hanging heavy and dark at her side. She stares at me the longest, her face blank. Then suddenly she nods curtly as though coming to an agreement with me, an agreement I know nothing about.
“Sam,” she says, turning to face him, her entire demeanor changing. She suddenly seems tired. Her movements are slower. Sluggish. “Let them out. I’m not the only one who will be coming for them, I just got here first. Once they’re out, take them to their boat at the old pier. It’s tied up there.”
“You’re letting us leave?” Ryan asks hopefully. “Alive?”
Ali looks at him, a sad smile on her lips. “Any friend of Crenshaw’s…”
She turns to leave as Sam is unlocking our door. Maybe it’s foolish, maybe it’s tempting fate, but I call out to her.
“Thank you.”
She pauses in the doorway, her face cut in half by the light in the room and the shadow beyond it.
“Don’t thank me yet. I doubt you’ll make it past the buoys.”
“What’s the deal with the buoys?” Ryan asks.
She ignores him. Her eyes are fastened on mine.
“If you see Crenshaw again,” she says, her voice soft and affectionate, “tell him Persephone sends her love.”
Chapter Seventeen
When she’s gone, Sam swings the door to the cage open. Not waiting for us to get out, he runs across the room to a large cabinet and unlocks it quickly. Inside are our weapons. When I take hold of my ASP in my shaking hand, my brain and body still coming down from the gun in my face, I feel better. Less like wetting myself and more like kicking a little ass. Crushing skulls and forgetting names.
“We’ll go out the back way,” Sam says, checking to see if the hall is clear.
It sounds like most of the people have moved outside. There’s the sound of shouting wafting in through the door that’s been left open and I can see lights scattering around the huge front lawn. There are vehicles, flashlights and torches but mostly there’s bodies. Lots and lots of moving, running, frantic bodies, none of which I want to come in contact with right now.
When the house is silent he runs us out of the library, down a long corridor that leads to the kitchen and out the back door. When we hit the backyard, I’m momentarily floored by the fact that there’s a swing set with a slide and sandbox out here. The little girl with the eyes and the doll must live here permanently. I can see her here, laughing and running with her dad nearby, her mom in the kitchen. Both of them with a gun on their hip and a knife in their shoe.
Sam sprints us over the dark lawn toward the back of the property. There are other people out here running around, but they’re farther down on the other side of the house. No one pays us any mind. Eventually we reach bushes that we dive straight into. The branches claw at our clothes trying to hold us back. I hear a rip as I run through them and I know yet another coat of mine is torn. I’m suddenly wishing I’d paid more attention in sewing class.
“Over here,” Sam calls quietly.
I don’t know why he’s bothering with stealth. The world has gone insane around us. People are shouting, horns are blaring, lights flash in every direction.
He leads us up to the fence, then without looking back to see if we’re following, climbs it like a crazed monkey. He’s up and over in only a few seconds, taking any thoughts I may have had about these people possibly going soft right over with him. I glance at the boys, feeling like it was a challenge. One I’m not sure we can rise to but I’m sure as hell gonna try.
I take a couple of steps back, then launch myself at the fence. I tune it all out – the noises, the fear, the stress of the moment, all of it. I focus only on getting over the fence and to the other side without tearing my clothes any more than I already have and without landing on my face on the other side. I’m grinning ear to ear when I land firmly on my feet beside Sam, the water from the Sound lapping gently on the shore not far behind us.
Ryan and Trent clear the fence, though I’m pleased to see Trent struggle a little bit. Mr. Roboto isn’t perfectly agile. It’s good to know.
Once we’re all together again, Sam runs us to the west along the shore. It’s not long before I spot it – our ill-fated, ill painted Hive boat. I wish they’d burned it. I’m with Ryan on this one; Marlow isn’t getting that thing back in one piece.
“There it is,” Sam breathes, halting not far from the pier. “Take it and go. Get clear of the buoys as quick as you can, but steer clear of the Colony ships too.”
“What the hell are the buoys for?” Ryan asks, sounding annoyed that he’s yet to get an answer on that question.
Then he gets one. Just as I’m pointing to the boats cutting through the water and closing in fast, the night explodes in light and sound. It comes from behind us inside the island, then it cuts across the sky like a comet ripping through the night. It’s huge, angry and it’s on fire. It lands near one of the boats, missing it by mere feet. Then another one launches not far behind it. This one arcs a little higher, crossing the water a little bit farther and then it connects solidly with the Colony boat. The boat erupts in flames. I hear screams coming across the water that’s growing choppier by the minute. They won’t put it out. Whatever that ball was made of, it exploded and it carried flames with every inch of it. The boat is now a floating funeral pyre.
“That’s what they’re for,” Sam tells him. “Now go and stay away—“
“From the buoys, yeah. Got it,” Ryan agrees. He puts out his hand to Sam who takes it and pulls him into a quick hug, both of them slapping the other on the back twice hard. “Thanks, man. Take care.”
“Yeah, you too. Good luck out there.”
When Sam is gone, running back up the shore toward his people shouting and preparing to fire another blazing ball of ugly, we run the short distance to the old, broke down pier.
“So, I don’t get it. What are the buoys exactly?” I ask, climbing in.
Ryan helps Trent untie us then starts hoisting a sail. “They’re distance markers. They let the people firing know how far out the boats are so they shoot more accurately.”
“What are they shooting? Cannons?”
“Trebuchet,” Trent says, taking the rudder. We slowly begin moving across the water, his eyes watching the buoys and boats carefully. There are a lot of them in the way, in between us and open water. Safety. This is going to be tricky. “It’s like a catapult. It has a long sling arm with weight on the other end. When the weight drops, it shoots the arm up which drags the sling and flings whatever weapon you loaded in it toward your target.”
“From the looks of it,” Ryan says eyeing the burning boat, “they’re using burning oil or tar.”
“Maybe they figured out the secret to Greek Fire,” Trent whispers reverently.
I look at him in surprise. “What’s Greek Fire?”
He shrugs. “No one knows what it was exactly, but it burned on water. Scientists tried for ages to figure it out but they could never recreate it. Maybe returning to medieval methods of warfare has made people more resourceful than a curious scientist in a lab coat.”
“Can’t be it,” Ryan says, sounding disappointed. “It’s going out when it hits the water.”
“Damn,” Trent mutters.
“Okay, but whatever it is,” I say, pulling them out of their fanboy funk, “we need to avoid it. I don’t think the people operating the treb… the things are going to be picky about hitting us.”
“Trebuchet, and you’re right,” Ryan agrees. “Should we drop the sail? Float inconspicuous?”
“No,” Trent tells him, sitting up straighter. “Because we’ve just been spotted. We need to get out of here.”
One of the Colony boats is closing in on us, probably mistaking us for a strike from the Vashons. It’s large and long, what used to be used to ferry people back and forth between the island and different parts of the bay, I think. It’s hulking, rusting hull is barreling down on us, the water breaking noisily in an angry white froth ahead of it. Trent guides us in the opposite direction which also happens to be straight into the fight. Right into the line of fire. There are tons of ships and buoys around us, every one of them a big red flag full of nope.
More fireballs rain from the sky. I can hear it coming and I duck, although what good could it really do. The missile hits the bow of the ship chasing us. It erupts in flames that I can feel as well as hear. More shouts, much louder now that they’re closer, rip through the night. The cold air superheated on one side of me while the other side is covered in goose bumps.
“Get us out of here, Trent!” Ryan cries, scanning the boats around us. No one else is taking notice of us.
“Yeah, cause I wasn’t already trying.”
We slip between two large ships, more ferries I think, and I look up, worried they’ll drop buckets of burning oil on us the way the Vashons are firing on them. Luckily, we continue to be ignored. They have bigger problems than us. The Vashons are seriously destroying them. As far as I can tell, there’s only one ship not engulfed in flames. The one on our right that’s passing by us, heading for a green buoy.
“Guys, what was the first buoy we saw? Was it green? Was that the farthest out?” I ask breathlessly, daring to hope we’re in the clear.
“No, it was pink, then—“
The boat beside us explodes in flames that spill over the sides, scorching hot in the cold water around us. I duck down, covering my head with my hands and I feel Ryan throw himself on top of me. There’s screaming and shouting from above us, Ryan shouting beside my head to Trent.
“The sail! The sail!”
“I can’t put it out!”
“Trent, duck!”
The boat rocks violently to one side. Ryan and I bang against the hull, water pouring in and drenching my pants. Then the ship tilts even farther, heat rising on what little exposed flesh I have, then it’s dark, silent and icy cold as death. The boat has capsized. We’re in the water.
I can’t feel Ryan anywhere near me so I kick to the surface, desperate to find him. When I break the water, I’m alone. The boat is upside down, its algae stained hull exposed to the air and fire and stars. For a brief moment as the flames flare up on the boat beside me, I can see the small hornet drawn on the rudder. The one Ali told us about.
“Double crossing Captain Hook,” I growl.
I will kill that man if given the chance.
“Ryan!” I shout, spinning around in the water. “Ryan! Trent!”
“Over here,” Trent calls quietly.
I thrash to the left, spotting him a ways off in the shadows. He’s nothing but a head in the water but he’s floating and breathing so I’m happy.
“You okay?” I ask him, swimming toward him. My arm aches with the effort but it’s not as bad as it could be. I’m relieved it’s at least splinted again.
“Been better. I hit my head.”
“How hard?”
“Hard. Too hard. There are two of you.”
“Great,” I grumble, coming to a stop beside him. I reach up and touch the back of his head. My hand comes away wet, of course, but I can tell from the thickness and warmth of it that it’s blood. “A
re you okay to swim?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Where’s your boy?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him, panic welling up inside of me. “He was with me when we went in, but I can’t see him. Can you?”
Trent shakes his head, winces. “I can’t see much of anything besides stars.”
“Ryan!” I shout. “Ryan!”
“Wait, shut up.”
I scowl at Trent. “You shut up.”
“No, seriously, shut up. Do you hear that?”
All I hear is the sound of chaos all around us and blood in my ears as my heart races out of control. I’ve never been so scared in all my life and it’s all his fault. All because of Ryan. Because of caring.
“Hear what?” I ask impatiently.
“Thumping. From the boat hull.”
I dive toward the boat, pressing my hands and ear to the slimy surface. I can hear it. A frantic pounding from inside. I sink under the water, reaching for the lip of the hull so I can slip under and up inside. When I make it, I break the surface looking around and calling his name.
“Ryan?”
A hand grabs onto my injured arm, yanking it hard and pulling me under the water. I go to cry out in pain and surprise when water fills my mouth. My lungs. The hand doesn’t let go. It pulls me under and to the side. I force my eyes open in the water but all I see is darkness. Then there he is, the ghostly white outline of Ryan’s face. His eyes are bulging wide with terror and desperation. He’s drowning.
I can see his coat hooked on something on the hull. I grab onto it, tugging as hard as I can but I can’t get him free. He’s being held sideways against the hull, his booted foot the only thing out of the water. It’s what was banging on the boat.
He grips my hand harder. I open my mouth involuntarily, gurgling in pain. Then I get an idea. I jerk free of him, sending agony up into my shoulder, and I break the surface. Taking in a deep gulp of air, I dive under again until I’m level with him. Then I grab his face in both my hands, press my mouth to his and I breath into him. I give him everything I have in my lungs, every ounce of life I’m holding onto. Then I break for the surface again.