Noa focused on her words. “Her name is Sasha now, and when I was above, I think I heard where she is.” The room remained so quiet, Noa heard every beat of her own heart. “They say Darius has a new weapon, a secret weapon beyond any power ever seen. As Callum said, powers must be performed by Fae, and Sasha … well, you know what she could do.”
Callum began to wheeze. “The very thing … I failed … I failed…”
Noa reached out to touch him, or hold him maybe, she didn’t know—because before she did, the cave door exploded into a million flying rocks, and jaws of deep black water roared into the room.
• • •
The flood of liquid blackness pummeled Noa’s body backward and crushed her against the wall. There was no air, no Stella-light, no warmth: only freezing, torrential water swirling and pounding in every inch of the room.
It went everywhere: drumming in Noa’s ears, ripping through her hair, swelling in her nostrils, spuming in her mouth. Her tongue bloated with minty salt; her eyes stung and blurred because there’d been no time to blink them. Swirling eddies tossed her and the others like dead rats in tiger jaws: they slammed up to the ceiling, hurled down into the walls, spun and flipped and churned in currents seething angrily out the door.
No amount of flailing could prevent their passage. They tumbled, smashing past jagged rocks and one another’s limbs into the stronger tide pelting down the Tunnels’ arteries. In these wider, central pathways, the waters moved more fiercely and erratically, as if the extra speed and space bred warring currents like Medusa’s hair. Noa was slammed against one wall and then another, then up then down then up, and each impact felt as if it might be her last. Bones were breaking; joints were crunching; and she couldn’t even scream.
Noa writhed, eyes bulging, swelling—when out of the rushing dark, Callum’s face appeared, wavering and blurry but focused intently on hers. He was tumbling but also trying to direct his motion toward her.
Noa didn’t even have time to feel relief; she smashed through stalactites that had hung from the onetime ceiling. The pain forced out what remained of her air; her brain fuzzed up, and a strange, warm calm crept over her. She opened her arms to greet it, wanted nothing more than to fall asleep in its arms—
Callum’s hands grabbed onto her ankle. Sharp pain knifed through her body, exploded in her head, rattled her back into agonizing consciousness.
Noa struggled, tried to kick Callum away; she wanted to go back to the warm, the calm—but he held her fast, fingers biting into her leg like a metal vice—
And suddenly, her body gasped. Like her lungs had filled with oxygen. She arched her back, muscles spasming with the rushing feeling of breathing air. The current pushed her into somersaults and raked Callum, still gripping hard onto her ankle, against the floor, the walls.
Noa opened her mouth to breathe again but only choked on water; her lungs had never cleared at all. But Callum was still gripping her, and her body gasped again. This time, Noa felt it—the relief wasn’t from her chest, but from her back. Her shoulders flexed and arched; Callum struggled to stay attached; and Noa understood:
Callum was giving her gills.
Noa tried to see through the dark translucence, suddenly wanting, needing to see Callum’s eyes. But his face was contorted with concentration, so much, in fact, that he didn’t see the jutting rock until the current slammed him into it, headfirst, tearing him from Noa’s leg.
Noa shot forward far past Callum, screaming uselessly into the water, body choking again. She tried to turn back but couldn’t make Callum out—he was trapped against the rock, unconscious or even dead. The current whipped her around a turn, and then she could see the rock no more.
Noa swirled and tumbled, eyes stinging with salt from the water and probably tears. Her gills were gone, her lungs exploding, every part of her body swelled and begged her to just breathe in, breathe in deeply and finally, finally go to sleep….
Big arms, Noa.
Noa blinked into the dark, harsh flood, and suddenly she was standing on a diving board, the water moving clear and blue beneath her. Her dad was on the pool deck holding up two orange water wings, designed to go around toddler arms to keep them afloat while they learned to swim.
Noa furrowed her brow, confused. She didn’t need those anymore. She was past the days of sandwich hands and blowing bubbles.
Those are Sasha’s, Noa told Christopher. I already know how to swim.
Christopher looked at her quizzically, like she was telling him a joke. Who’s Sasha?
Noa looked down: beneath the diving board, the water now peaked and crested violently. She could not see clearly beneath the surface. Then through the blur, she caught a flicker, a little hand like a starfish. She heard a small voice, but muffled, as if underwater far away.
Where?
Urgency ignited inside Noa, pushed like fire up through her throat.
Did you see that? she called frantically to Christopher, but her father’s face was blank. Noa had no time. She grabbed the water wings from his hands, popped open the plastic filling tube, sucked in air.
Without pausing to explain, she dove into the water, stroking hard.
• • •
Noa’s eyes flickered; her body was still whirling in the current, but the pain in her chest had loosened. Her mind fluttered with growing clarity. She had no energy to fight, to swim, but she somehow knew she had the air to ride it out. Her whole existence shrank to the Tunnel, everything vacuumed away but water, movement, and survival.
Suddenly, harsh, bright light reached around Noa from all sides. Its fingers strangled the flood’s throat, squeezed and squeezed until the water broke into thunderous spray. Noa sputtered, gasped in the flood’s explosive disintegration. Her arms spun madly, her legs kicked out, and she realized she was falling, shot from the Tunnel’s exit as from a blasting cannon of waterfall.
Noa’s body processed the change more quickly than her mind. Her arms and legs pulled in, curled pill bug–style, like Sasha in their shared duvet. When Noa finally hit the trench below, the slap of water ripped across her outside skin, but her face was safely guarded, eyes squeezed shut tight. She plunged under and down quickly; her legs unfurled to push against the sandy floor. Then she was shooting upward, hands and arms beating fast, and breaking through the surface like a mermaid. She flipped her hair back, faced the sun, and breathed in deeply.
Then she opened her eyes—and screamed.
Callum and Judah were in the rocky shallows, lolling in the tide. Facedown in the water.
Neither one was moving.
• • •
“Callum! Judah!” Noa screamed, swimming madly toward the two limp bodies. Her muscles spasmed in their sudden restoration of oxygen, hobbling her stride. She forced through it, half swimming, half doggy-paddling to the horrible, oddly peaceful scene.
When Noa finally reached where she could stand, she stumbled up, crashing through the water at a slogging run. She finally reached the edge of the rocky shore and fell upon their softly drifting bodies. Judah’s hand, Noa saw now, was tangled in Callum’s shirt. He had pried his brother loose from that snagging rock back in the Tunnel.
“No!” Noa cried, flipping both brothers over. “No, no, no!” Both were stone still, eyes closed; Callum had a deep gash across his forehead; blood ran messily across his face.
Noa looked frantically from one to the other, not knowing what to do. She screamed in desperation and fell to Callum’s side, pressing into his chest to give him CPR. She counted the compressions then leaned down to breathe into his mouth, her wet hair tangled and sliding down her face. His lips were cold and tasted bitter, a mix of metallic blood and choking mint. And she didn’t get that tingle—that tingle she always felt when they touched.
Noa pressed and pressed, but there was no life; so she pressed harder, as hard as she could and more. Then finally,
finally, after moments that were centuries, millennia, eons, Callum coughed and sputtered, hacking up a torrent of black water.
“Noa…” he groaned, blinking toward her.
This was no time for a reunion kiss.
“Heal him!” Noa cried, yanking Callum upward with all the force she had, ignoring how he winced.
Callum squinted as he focused on the body beside him. Judah. Adrenaline spiked him to attention. He put his hands on his fallen brother, eyes intent through blood still pouring down his face.
Nothing happened.
“Why isn’t it working!” Noa demanded.
“I don’t know,” Callum muttered through tense, clenched teeth, straining so much his wound gushed more. “I don’t—”
“Oh my God! What is that?” Noa shrieked, pointing madly to Judah’s face. Black sludge had begun to leak from Judah’s nose. Not like the water; thicker, much thicker, like molasses deep and rich.
Callum didn’t answer, but his eyes were terrified. He clenched Judah even harder, sending Judah all his Light—
Judah’s body suddenly spasmed, contorting in a seizure; Callum was flung backward through the air and slammed into the rocky bank.
“Judah! Judah!” Noa pleaded, trying and failing to grab Judah’s flailing, seizing arms. “Judah!” she screamed, as his eyes opened and rolled up into his head, leaving white blanks behind.
“Noa, be careful!” Callum strained from behind her as he tried to pull himself to his feet. But Noa didn’t listen, couldn’t; she finally caught Judah’s arms, tried to pin his body down. But his legs were seizing too, even more rapidly now—his knee smacked hard into her stomach, taking out her wind. She gasped but refused to relinquish her hold upon his arms. With no breath to speak, she could only think her pleas to him instead, though of course he wouldn’t hear her.
Judah, wake up!
A snap of electricity burst beneath her palms, burning the place where she’d grasped his skin. Noa screamed in pain just as Judah’s other leg connected with her ribs and sent her toppling to the side. She landed facefirst, tasted the nutty roundness of the bank, hands sizzling with pain.
Noa groaned, stumbled to her knees. Beside her, Judah’s seizing body stilled.
Dead.
Noa watched him, unable to believe it. His face was white, and wet, and cold. And then she believed it, all too well. She knew death. She knew the feeling of death beside her, of her shoulder beneath its hand. Death had become her patron saint.
Then, absurdly, Judah gasped, springing up with wild eyes.
Callum half-ran, half-crawled to Noa, who was stunned, paralyzed. Sure what she saw could not be real.
“Judah?” She doubled over in pain as she tried to touch him; she needed to touch him to know it was the truth.
Judah was panting, trembling, running his hands through his dark, wet curls. He wiped at his nose, smearing away the brackish sludge.
Then Callum’s hands were on Noa’s arms, trying to help her up, but she struggled to get past him.
“Your rib is broken, Noa, wait!”
But she needed to touch Judah, touch him now. Because he really had been dead. Noa knew it, she had felt it.
But Callum was blocking her; he wouldn’t move. A healing warmth shone outward from her rib cage. When the bone had knit, she finally broke free, half-crashing into Judah.
“Are you okay?” she asked, reaching for him, taking his hands. She realized Callum was steadying her from behind, the only thing keeping her from face-planting in the mud.
Judah looked toward Noa with cloudy eyes, relief pouring over him as he found her face.
“Hilo…”
“Stop right there!”
The sudden, slicing voice made them all turn as one: Arik stood above them, above the Tunnel’s outspout. An unbroken line of Clear Patrolmen stretched from him in both directions around the shore.
Noa, Judah, and Callum were entirely surrounded.
PART III: PRISON
The silver boots were closing in, a swiftly tightening noose.
“Your faces,” Noa hissed, digging her nails into Callum’s shoulder. He was frozen by Judah, staring, but the pain snapped him into action. He grabbed Judah’s forearms and bent his forehead to his brother’s, ignoring Judah’s confused muttering.
“Separate them!” Arik’s voice rang out, and just like that, two rough hands yanked Noa up and away as if she were some irksome weed. More hands grabbed Judah and Callum and twisted them apart. Noa screamed as something like handcuffs burned around her wrists, and whatever hands were holding her spun her so she was facing outward, Callum and Judah in full view.
They no longer looked quite like themselves.
In the split second that he’d had, Callum had managed to slightly alter both their faces: their cheeks were rounder and paler, without the cutting Forsythe cheekbones. Their usually olive skin was pink and splashed with freckles. The shape of their eyes was also different, more almond, though that change was subtle—but that hair, those Forsythe curls, Callum’s regal posture and the glint in Judah’s eye … Noa still knew them both in the splittest heartbeat.
Would Arik?
The whippish Captain didn’t hurry. Arik took his time, sauntered toward his prisoners, the long sword at his belt accenting his height. Each step was even, patient.
To Noa, that made it worse.
“Reward the pixie,” Arik told one of his men as he breached their line. “Never liked Greenies much, but her tip was good.”
The lieutenant—squatter, broader, more in the mold of his muscle-bound comrades—nodded once and stomped away.
Noa tried not to look at Judah, but couldn’t stop herself. He’d clearly regained his faculties; his now-rosy lip was curled, his now-rounded eyes sharp with hate. She could practically hear him seething. Hilo.
Arik walked first to Judah, who was pinned between two burly Guards. Not that they needed much strength to hold him; Judah’s face was fierce but his body sagged, knees bent, toes dragging on the ground. Arik lifted Judah’s new chin, stared at him sharply.
The Captain squinted as he studied Judah’s features minutely. He turned Judah’s head abruptly from side to side, examining his profile. Then he shoved Judah’s face away impatiently. Arik seemed to ponder something intently for a moment, then he looked back at Judah with a rueful smile.
“That expression,” he said, as if amused. “It’s you I saw in the Work Sector, isn’t it? You caused all that trouble. For days now I’ve been haunted, thinking I saw a ghost! But it was only you.” He laughed harshly, and white spittle hit Judah’s cheek. Judah’s scowl deepened.
Arik leaned in close, his face only a millimeter from Judah’s. “But of course, that would have been impossible,” he hissed smugly. “Not from that useless mongrel.”
Arik straightened up, somehow looking even taller now, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He turned to Callum carelessly, raked him up and down. Unlike Judah, Callum was hard for the Guards to hold. It took four patrolmen to immobilize him, and he was heaving and lurching, primed with anger.
“Restrain him,” Arik said lazily, and a fifth Guard belted him across the forehead with the blunt end of his sword. Callum’s gash reopened, leaking blood down his face.
Callum’s eyes met Noa’s, resolute.
“Don’t even think about it,” Arik warned Callum, suddenly not so careless, and with his sword pressed right up against Noa’s throat. “Or I’ll start with her.”
Callum froze.
Arik smiled, let the tip of his sword travel slowly down Noa’s chest. It was so sharp it cut right through the top of the soaking Clear Fae robes she still was wearing, which were now nothing more than a sopping, dirty blob of heavy rags.
Arik stopped his sword a few inches below Noa’s collarbone, revealing her long, lengthwise scar.
He leered. “Been caught before, pixie?”
Noa didn’t answer, but Callum looked ready to detonate. She glanced pleadingly toward him—Judah was too weak, there were too many Guards, they’d never get away. Callum’s eyes were fire, but he nodded minutely.
Arik saw it all, supremely amused. He walked toward Callum, chucked him tauntingly under the chin, then turned to his nearest lieutenant.
“These are the ones who caused the mayhem in the Work Sector. Take them to the prison.”
“For Review?” asked Noa’s captor immediately, grip tightening in a sickening kind of excitement.
Arik glared at him. “They came out of the Tunnels,” he replied, obviously annoyed. “Interrogate them first. Find out what they know. If there’s anything to know. After that you can have your little … show.” Arik’s mouth curled in distaste. His patrolmen evidently didn’t share his revulsion; they murmured excitedly what Noa knew was a very messy prospect.
Noa’s stomach turned. She looked up to see Arik studying her face guardedly.
One of Callum’s Guards was also looking her way, watery eyes moving sinuously from her face to scar to…
“We could recycle that one a different way,” he suggested, voice oddly higher than Noa would have expected. She shivered beneath his gaze, the way those eyes took their time. The tip of his tongue wet his bottom lip. “If she’s Green, I mean, that’s some Joy Juice worth a try—”
Arik’s icy glare cut off his lieutenant.
“We are the Otec’s highest Guard,” he said softly. “Remember that.”
Callum’s Guard bowed his head, and Noa breathed out. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath.
Arik gestured to his cadre, and one of the Guards from the back brought forward a limp, bedraggled boy with glassy eyes, no more than nine years old. The boy’s tufted brown hair was uneven and fell into his eyes; Noa could tell it had been months since a mother’s tender hand had cut it back. One ear was bigger than the other. He was still growing into them. Noa couldn’t tear her eyes from the freckles on his arms.
Renegade Red Page 16