The Isle

  Voss, you’ve done it again, I think, scowling. I’d like to throw rocks at his house. Just when I thought he couldn’t get worse, he goes and does this—illegally buys freshwater when the UMI can’t cough it up at the aqueduct auctions.

  I spit in his moat.

  Behind the Elite Isle truck, a group of girls my age stand in a long line. One by one, they approach a heavyset woman with square glasses and wrinkled lips. She rifles through a trunk, handing out black-and-white uniforms.

  My cuffcomm buzzes. It’s Derek:

  Not through yet. Can you hide safely? May need assistance later.

  I could hide. . . .

  I could also hide in plain sight, I realize, watching the girls take their uniforms to the back of the truck. When they come out, they’re wearing cream-colored aprons over black dresses and funny little doily crowns on their heads.

  My own wet, grimy catsuit sticks to my body.

  If I’m going to stand in line with a bunch of West Isle girls, I’ll need to not look like a wild forest beast.

  Using the truck for cover, I wade through the moat and swing right into the changing room. Inside, four girls pause to give me the up-down . . . just like the racers’ girlfriends back home. One throws her old sweater into a clothing cubby: bingo.

  I make a mad dash for the bathroom and wait for them to leave.

  The girls snicker. Maybe they think I have to blow it up, ’cause soon the changing room is silent.

  I take this golden opportunity to rummage through their cubbies.

  A moment later . . . presto! No longer a forest monster. Wearing someone else’s cleanish button-down shirt and oversized jeans, I return to the servant line.

  The girls here are exactly as I’d pictured: round pink cheeks from having enough food. Clean, well-brushed hair. I must look like a bona fide rat in comparison.

  I step up to the lady.

  “Name?”

  Of course there’s a list. I don’t have an answer for her, and she examines me like maybe I’m mute. “You don’t have any no-shows?” I eventually ask.

  The lady laughs heartily at my joke. “No-shows? For a gala held at the governor’s mansion?” She pats her belly, still laughing, because I’m just so damn funny.

  “But . . . I really need the money,” I say seriously. The girl behind me puts her hands on my shoulders to move me out of the way. I spin around. Who the hell does she think—?

  “Don’t turn her away, Imelda,” the girl pleads. Cradling the woman’s palm, she sways side to side, like a sweet, excitable puppy. “Lorelai never shows. Just use her uniform.”

  Imelda eyes me like I’m pond scum.

  “You gave me that exact same look, once upon a time.” The girl throws her glossy peach hair over one shoulder like she’s famous. “But just look at me now!” Behind us, a group of her friends giggle and hide their faces. It’s faux embarrassment, though; they obviously adore her.

  I, however, continue to exist as pond scum.

  “I’ll make sure she cleans her face.”

  Heat rushes to my cheeks. I turn away, rubbing at my skin. My fingers come back brown.

  Imelda watches. She furrows her brow in a motherly sort of way. Sighing, she begins to search the trunk full of uniforms. “Name?” she asks, but it’s just for show at this point.

  The girl kisses Imelda’s cheek. “Lorelai Gates,” she answers.

  Imelda side-eyes her and hands me a black dress with a funny paper crown pinned to the collar. “Here you go, Lorelai,” she says, totally monotone. To the girl, she adds, “You were never that filthy.”

  Dumbfounded, I ignore the insult and stare at my uniform.

  A few moments later, my West Isle savior pulls me aside. “Lorelai’s dad totally made her take this job because they’re rich, and she’s a teensy bit spoiled. Don’t tell her I said that. I love the girl to death. I’m just saying: She. Never. Shows. It’s rude, you know? This is a really good gig, and you obviously need it way more than Lorelai does.” Her face drops and she covers her mouth. “Brack. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  I’m so busy trying to follow—she talks so fast—it takes me a moment to catch up to the offense. When I do, turns out I’m too grateful to care.

  “Look,” the girl adds quickly, blushing. “It’s tough out there, that’s all I meant. My parents? They both work two jobs and we still end up short. I was even stealing fresh from shipping boats and selling it for a while. That’s how I met Imelda. . . . Don’t tell her I told you that.”

  This girl? A thief for the black market?

  That’s when it hits me . . . how little I know about the West Isle. They have their rich folks, like Callum, and they have their not-so-rich folks. I doubt this girl’s had it as bad as me or Aven, but poor don’t always need to be a competition. Tough is tough.

  “Now, not to be mean, but . . .” The girl clasps her hands together, begging as she walks me to the changing room. “Please, please, please don’t screw up? Imelda will kill me. Okay?” Smiling, she holds open the door.

  “Spigot’s in the back. Hand towels right beside it.”

  I forget to smile, say thank you, anything—it all happened so fast.

  I stare at the girl too long, and she nudges me into the changing room.

  I’m in.

  25

  AVEN

  5:03 P.M., FRIDAY

  “You can leave your things in the Omni,” Sipu says, turning off the engine.

  As Ter and I watch the water in the airlock drop, a faint blue light flickers on in the metal room. Soon, there’s no water at all.

  The moonroof slides open, and Sipu hops out first. She grips the wheel on a circular steel door, spinning it a few times. As soon as it swings open, she rushes away, forgetting about us.

  “She’s off fast.” Ter and I glance at each other, confused. His cuffcomm buzzes. “It’s Ren,” he says, typing a reply. “She’s just making sure we found each other.”

  He comms her back and shimmies through the moonroof. For a moment our kneecaps touch. I don’t mind if I’m blushing; it makes my cheeks pink.

  Ter offers me his hand. So much has happened, I’m not thinking. . . . I give it to him. Quickly, I remember and pull away.

  But . . . I felt something, I realize. A leftover tingling, like clingy static.

  Resting against his palm, I find five half fingers. Wrinkled skin has grown around a second set of knuckles. It’s working! They could come back—a bubbly feeling in my chest makes me want to laugh.

  I bite it back, though.

  My hands are ugly, I think. They don’t mean to be, and I know it’s not my fault, but they are. I don’t even have fingernails. They look like alien hands, or the hands of a monkey. With this boy standing in front of me, I want to hide myself.

  I should be grateful. I am grateful. But I see the ugliness, too. Curling my knuckles away, “Don’t look,” I tell him. “The water isn’t done working yet.”

  Ter’s seen, though; it’s too late.

  He doesn’t pull away. He just lets me take my hand back. “They did that to you at the lab?” he asks, green eyes inches from mine.

  I’ve never been this close to him before . . . not since Miss Nale’s, when maybe we’d eat lunch together if Ren wasn’t around. I always knew his eyes were green, but now that I’m so close, I realize I was wrong. That’s not the right word for them at all.

  Once, hunting pennies, I found this crayon . . . it was called electric lime. I’ve never had electricity, and I’ve never seen a lime in real life, but it fits perfectly.

  What were we talking about?

  I’ve forgotten everything: my hands, my fingernails, the dictionary definition of ugly. I only know that I’m standing here, and a boy—this boy—is standing with me.

  “Lucas! Are you happy now?” Sipu yells in the other room. We whip around at the noise.

  “Yes. Very,” comes his muffled answer. “You think you can pull a stunt like that in the tunnel, and I wouldn’t
find out? Didn’t you wonder how I knew Derek and that girl would head through there in the first place? Holo cams. And Kitaneh agrees knocking out your husband isn’t very nice; now you’ll have to earn your right to the springwater. I doubt she’ll even let you into her apartment until she trusts you again. If she trusts you again.”

  A crinkle of worry forms between Ter’s eyebrows. He helps me out of the mobile and pulls open the heavy steel door.

  A boy, red-haired and very muscular, sits at a desk. He looks just like Derek, I realize, but I know it’s not him. This one’s too angry.

  Sipu slams both hands down on the table. He ignores her. “Here you go.” She gestures to Ter and me. “I’ve captured the maimed girl and her friend. You can do the rest,” she shouts.

  Captured?

  Lucas pushes a button under the desk. The steel door sucks closed, locking with a heavy chink.

  I gulp as the red-haired boy, Lucas, stands. He makes me want to bolt for the door. He moves so slowly, like those holos from science class of wild cats stalking in the brush.

  Not saying a word, Lucas reaches into his pocket and tosses her something.

  She catches it with both hands. Fingers fumbling, she pops off the cork to a small glass tube and tosses it aside. Then she chugs.

  It’s the water. . . .

  “You lied to us?” I ask Sipu, whispering.

  When she’s emptied the vial, she drops it onto the floor—the glass explodes like a dying star. Sipu can’t meet my eyes. She lets her blond bob hide her face, drying her lips with one sleeve.

  She didn’t want to.

  “Why’d you bring us here?” Ter asks, putting himself between me and Lucas. His voice is cool. Like we’re having a friendly conversation, but also like he might be my bodyguard, if necessary.

  “Tie them up,” Lucas tells Sipu.

  “I said you could take it from here,” she spits.

  Scowling, he kicks his chair. As it screeches to a stop in the middle of the room, he grabs a line of wire from his desk drawer.

  He stalks up to Ter, who backs away, hands raised.

  I don’t breathe. I back away too, until I’m pressed hard against the airlock. Lifting my cheek from Ter’s black T-shirt, I peek under his armpit—and duck just in time.

  He throws a punch, nearly drawing his elbow into my face. When he lets his fist loose, it connects perfectly with Lucas’s shoulder.

  Lucas shifts an inch, maybe.

  Instantly, he throws a hook under Ter’s chin, knocking his head against the steel door. A line of blood trickles down the nape of his neck. He doubles over. I reach for his hand—“Ter?” I ask as he staggers onto his knees.

  I shouldn’t have opened my mouth. . . . Lucas sees me. Grabbing my wrist, he drags me across the concrete to the other side of the room. I wince as Ren’s leggings roll away, and the floor scrapes off a layer of skin at my hips.

  He passes the line of wire over and under my palms, like it’s a cold, hard snake. If he notices something is wrong, that my hands aren’t all there, he says nothing. He ties the line so tight, I can feel the blood squeezing, aching through my fingers.

  The ankles are next and I begin to lose hope. I can’t expect Ren to come for us—she has no idea that we’re here. I don’t even know if she’s okay, much less able to save me. For the billionth time. Curling myself up into a corner, I lay my head to the concrete. This time I don’t cry.

  Tied up beside me, Ter’s barely awake—there’s only the smallest sliver of white in his eyes. His head droops like he’s sick. I lean against his shoulder, wanting to comfort us both.

  Sipu paces back and forth, across the room. She’s fidgety. When she looks at Ter and me, I try to harden my face.

  I can’t.

  I should resent her . . . hate her for lying to us and bringing us here—but deep down, I just feel bad for Sipu. Lucas, her own husband, blackmailed her. She’d be dead if she hadn’t listened. When she looks at me again, I give her a weak smile. Not a friendly one—one that says I understand.

  Projected onto the brick wall in front of Lucas’s desk is a holo of the governor. He’s standing on a balcony, talking to a roomful of reporters. Lucas’s eyes and ears are glued to the image. “We knew this guy was bad news,” he says. “Kitaneh better not screw up this time. Things are only getting harder for us. He’s getting desperate. He knows finding the spring is the only way to avoid a Second Appeal.”

  When they show a close-up of Governor Voss, I close my eyes.

  “Exactly,” Sipu agrees, then pauses to face Lucas. “Which is why we cannot be stuck in the old ways. We’ve never dealt with a situation like this before.” Under her breath she mutters, “Why do you and Kitaneh not see this?”

  “Sipu, if we were doing things the old way, they’d be dead already,” Lucas answers casually, throwing his thumb at Ter and me. “Kitaneh and I have always seen eye to eye . . . on a lot of things. Not just this.”

  Sipu’s breath catches in her throat. She stiffens.

  Seeing this, Lucas drops his eyes. “The old ways worked,” he goes on. “Hundreds of years, the spring stayed hidden. Nobody was killing each other over it or using it to start wars. We never saw immortality doses in the streets. Nobody was getting rich off it. Then comes this guy.” Lucas nods to the holo projection of Voss. “And her friend Ren—” He’s pointing at me. “Now? It’s all over.”

  How can he say that? I can’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth—“But so many people aren’t sick anymore,” I tell him. “For us, nothing’s over. It’s all just begun. Right now, Voss is keeping hundreds of people in a prison waiting to die. They’re the ones it’s over for.”

  Lucas lifts himself from his chair.

  I shouldn’t have said anything. My heart beats so fast, I feel the blood pounding against the wire snake around my hands. They ache.

  Lucas drops to a knee right in front of me. “Oh, kid,” he says, snorting, squeezing my cheeks until they hurt. “It’s over for you too. You’re alive for one reason: so your friend Ren will come and find you. That way, we won’t have to find her.”

  He jerks my head back and forth, and Sipu rushes to stop him. “Lucas—let her go. She’s just a girl,” she says, gently trying to pull him away.

  Lucas releases me, but Sipu backs off too late. He glares at her, teeth gritted, and raises his hand—he’s going to hurt her.

  His open palm hangs in the air.

  26

  REN

  5:05 P.M., FRIDAY

  The kitchen, where I’ve been assigned (technically, Lorelai) is hot, bustling with movement. Other girls from the line, also wearing black dresses and ridiculous paper crowns, fill flutes with a seemingly endless supply of freshwater. Gallons upon gallons Voss is giving out for free—a slap in the face to everyone, even West Islers, I’m beginning to understand.

  I glance around, looking for someone to report to, when I get a comm from Ter.

  Got her. Sipu picked us up.

  Sipu? That wasn’t part of the plan. . . .

  A girl, short with long black hair, pushes me a silver tray. “Take this,” she says.

  I nearly drop it.

  Backing away, I see her face—dark skin, round face. Wedded eternally to Derek. It’s as if all movement in the kitchen slows down—steam from pots of boiling fresh pause their billowing, and no one moves. We’re the only ones in the room.

  “Kitaneh—” I breathe.

  Our eyes lock. “You.”

  We look around, neither knowing who’s gonna make the first move. Would she try to kill me? Right here, in this kitchen? She’s in disguise. She won’t want to give herself away. . . . I hope.

  Kitaneh points a chopping knife at me. “Why are you here?”

  “Why are you?” I say, no knife, though.

  Her jaw stiffens and her eyes go cold. The other girls look at us. Kitaneh lowers the blade and begins violently carving carrots.

  I understand the servant getup—she’s here to kill hi
m.

  “Do you feel guilty at all, girl?” she asks. “Now that Voss is so loved by everyone, he will come after you, and us, more determined than ever before. This is because of you and what you have done, handing out water to the sick like it’s some kind of drug.” She continues chopping, harder now.

  I step closer, not caring—she’s here for Voss; she won’t blow her cover on me. “And what about you? Don’t you feel guilty at all, girl?” I say. She doesn’t get to play holier-than-thou because she’s ancient and I’m not. “A cure for the Blight existed right under your damn basement, but instead, you let people suffer. Guilt-free, you are,” I scoff, sarcastic.

  Kitaneh drops the knife onto the cutting board and turns to me. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says, gripping the counter. “I do what is necessary, but I am not without conscience. I’d die tomorrow and give up this ‘calling’ if I thought humankind wouldn’t destroy itself.”

  I wanna call bullshit; Kitaneh protects the spring with more ferocity than a rabid dog. Then again, that kind of fanaticism tends to run deep—kamikaze deep.

  Kitaneh turns to scrape the extremely well-chopped carrots into a metal bowl. “I don’t even care why you’re here.” Dismissively, she waves her knife. “Voss isn’t the only one who won’t live to see morning,” she whispers.

  Then, Kitaneh smacks my arm with her wrist. “What are you doing standing around? Take it, I said!” She’s handing me the tray, and everyone’s watching.

  I do as she says, her threat ringing in my ears, and hurry out the kitchen. The glasses of fresh wobble in my hands, and I just about fall directly into the main ballroom. The party hasn’t even begun yet—who the hell am I supposed to be serving?

  I steady myself, putting on my best servant face, and get my bearings. I’m in a long room with a new window every five feet. The ceilings are so high, they could fit ten of me standing. At the center, a wide, winding stairwell opens up to the dance floor blocked off by men and women also in black. They’re not dressed like us servers, though. They’re sporting jackets and ties, mics and holocams. It’s a press release, or an impromptu State of the UMI, I realize, cursing my luck.