The Breakers Series: Books 1-3

by Edward W. Robertson

  Except by Lorna, of course. But if she wanted to follow him all the way to Chichen Itza, that was her business.

  After a few miles through the humid, deeply shadowed jungle floor, he followed a path to a road to a house with broken windows and peeling paint. He went to the bathroom around back, then plunked down on the back porch to rest and think. Afternoon sunlight sliced through the trees in coin-sized beams. It had been a long time since he'd run into anything like what had happened on the beach. He was surprised by his reaction to it. Troubled, even. He knew he wouldn't always have hidden in the jungle while the others died.

  His vague guilt didn't last. The idea of "bravery" was a social construction meant to save people who couldn't save themselves by sacrificing those who could. Anyway, there were fights you could win and those you couldn't. The latter certainly included being ambushed on a strange shore by laser-wielding tentacle-horrors.

  Mostly, he was annoyed that it had happened at all. It would have been fun to sail up to Los Angeles and smash up the last remaining alien bastion. Now that the boat was gone, along with the team of well-armed and trained men to lead the way...well, it just seemed like an awful lot of effort. Too much risk, too little reward.

  "I'm going home tomorrow." He repositioned his muddy shoes on the scuffed wooden porch. "If I were you, I wouldn't go back to the beach."

  Lorna glanced up. Her face was still locked in that awful, soundless grief. With perverse effort—like a shattered glass pulling itself back together—she smoothed out her face.

  "I told you," she said flatly. "Nothing's changed."

  "How much talent does it really take to shoot up a bunch of alien eggs? Hell, Ripley was just a crewman on an unarmed ship."

  Lorna laughed. "Let me replay what just happened. We were attacked by the same things we're fighting up north. We had trained soldiers. A couple ex-Marines. And you're the only one who survived."

  "Am I? Then I'd kindly ask you to quit haunting me."

  "I lived because I followed you." She stood and shuddered, clamping her arms across her chest. "You think this is proof we don't need you?"

  He gestured at the jungle. "Even if that were true, our ride got blown to smithereens. Unless you know some friendly dolphins, we're out of luck."

  "They say you walked all the way across America."

  "They do?"

  "It's no further from here to L.A."

  "Walking across a continent is the sort of thing you really only need to experience once." He glared across the red dirt and unkempt weeds of the back yard. "I'm out. I'm sorry. You'll find a way without me."

  Her eyes flashed. She hugged herself hard enough to snap ribs, but something else in her broke first. She sank to her knees on the porch, face disintegrating into anguish.

  "We're the last generation of the old world. My people are trying to preserve it. To hang onto what little is left so our children don't grow into animals. What if we're the only ones? What if the aliens snuff out our last candle?"

  He shrugged. "Who cares? We'll be dead."

  Her cheeks twitched. Grimacing, she fought off the emotions attempting to overwhelm her. "Then do it for me."

  "Don't take this the wrong way, because it's also true of literally everyone else on the planet, but I don't know who the hell you are."

  She lowered her head, dark hair spilling over her face, and climbed into his lap. Her hand was warm on her neck. Her thighs pressed against his.

  "What are you doing?" he said.

  "You're the man who saved the world." Her breath was as warm as her skin, buffeting his ear, sending a chill down his spine. The most intense human contact he'd felt in three years had been a handshake. She ran her fingers through the hair above his ear, avoiding his eyes. "I can't get home by myself. I need you."

  While his brain attempted to make sense of what was unfolding on top of him, his body took action. He reached up and kissed her.

  7

  The man with the scarred cheek aimed his pistol and ordered her to drop the bag. She did. He told her to turn around. She did. He tied her hands with a thin cord and yanked it tight.

  Finally, she understood how her dad must have felt.

  The man made her sit down, then unzipped her bag. Gunmetal gleamed beneath his flashlight. He chuckled, a strange mix of mirth and regret.

  "Got us a situation," he hollered into the darkness. A twig snapped. A silhouette approached through the trees. The scarred man waved. "Caught me a young one. Careful, she's armed."

  Another Catalinan drew up and raised his brows at the guns. "No kidding. Shit. Well, Karslaw's still in with the family."

  "Might ask them outside," her captor said. "Try to keep the why quiet."

  The second man tapped his nose and headed toward the house. The burned man nudged Raina with his toe.

  "Get up."

  "Where are we going?" she said.

  He jerked his head toward the back porch. "Where we'll be able to see a little better."

  As she decided to run, the man grabbed her bonds and twisted, cutting into her wrists. His strength was bullish, irresistible; he marched her to the well-swept concrete. Candles now flickered through the kitchen window. A pair of soldiers walked out, followed by the tall bearded man—Karslaw—her parents, and one more soldier.

  Karslaw eyed the man with the burned cheek. "What's up?"

  "Found this," the man said, jerking her by the cord. "And this." He flopped the bag at Karslaw's feet. Rifles clunked.

  Karslaw sniffed hard, mouth bunching. "Those look like guns."

  "Yep."

  "I'm confused. We made it very clear that guns are illegal."

  The man nodded. "Yup."

  "This poses a problem." Karslaw palmed his beard and turned to Raina's father. "Is this your daughter?"

  "I told her to leave them alone," her dad said. "She doesn't know any better."

  The bearded man sighed and turned to Raina. "Sweetie, why did you get these guns?"

  She shrugged awkwardly, hands tied behind her. "So you could get rid of them."

  "Let me provide you an incentive to tell the truth." He bent down, touched her cheek, and pushed his thumb into the corner of her eye. She squealed and squirmed, but the burned man held fast with his implacable strength. Karslaw's nail gouged into the wetness of her eye. "Why did you—?"

  Rage reddened her sight. "Because you hurt people!"

  "I judge her competent to stand trial and cognizant of her crime," Karslaw said. He drew a gun, put it to her father's head, and pulled the trigger.

  Her mom screamed. So did she. So did one of the soldiers. Her dad staggered forward, looked Raina in the eyes, gasped one garbled word, and fell on his face.

  Her mom fell too, wailing over the roar of the surf. Raina wrenched her wrists free of the burned man and head-butted Karslaw in the gut. He dropped back a step, cocked his fist, and slugged her in the side of the head. She collapsed, star-sighted. He leveled his gun at her mother's temple. Raina called out. Her mom looked up.

  Karslaw's expression shifted. He clucked his tongue and pointed his pistol at the sky. "I've changed my mind."

  "They got guns," said the burned man. "The law's the law."

  "And I'm the man who made it." The quarter moon lit the cunning on his face. "Execution has its place, but it's very wasteful. Do you think we're in position to be throwing things away?"

  The man looked uncertain. "Generally speaking, there's another use for just about everything. Like in the Scaveteria."

  "Exactly my thinking. So let's recycle them instead." He holstered his gun and gestured at the ship. "Throw them on the boat."

  Hands hoisted Raina. Cords cut into her arms. She kicked out, striking an unseen jaw. A man peeped in pain and socked her in the ribs. Raina curdled in on herself, fighting for breath. Grass whooshed below her face, smelling dewy and sweet. It switched to sand and then the damp boards of the dock. She swayed, breath jolting again as a man slung her onto his shoulders and clambered up th
e ladder to the boat.

  Her mother screamed her husband's name, hoarse and broken. "Will! Will!"

  The man carrying Raina dropped her on the deck. She sobbed, choking for air, cheek pressed against the cold, textured fiberglass. Shoes tromped up and down. Men called instructions back and forth. Her mom cried in whinnying jags. An engine burbled—much too weakly for a boat this size; they must only use it for marina maneuvering—and the ship drifted from the dock.

  Raina rolled on her back, chest heaving, finally able to fill her lungs. It was the dead of night and the wind was dim and they left the little engine on, pushing the boat out to sea.

  It was another minute before she felt well enough to sit up. A candle flickered from the front window of the house, untended. Karslaw's words about wasting things was just empty air. He didn't care if the house burned down.

  Nearly half a mile of black water sloshed between Raina and that last light. On the side of the main cabin, a couple of men wrestled with the rigging. Another raider sat up front, binoculars clenched to his eyes. She wriggled around for a better look at the back of the boat and fell on one elbow. The man with the burn on his cheek loomed from around the cabin and gave her the eye.

  "You hang right there," he said. He swung from sight.

  Raina's mom sobbed somewhere below decks. The boat pitched beneath her. As it dropped down a gentle wave, she bounced to her feet, reeling three steps as she found her balance. The man in the bow turned at her footsteps, binoculars still held to his face. Raina dashed toward the chrome railing and leapt headfirst off the ship.

  "Man overboard!" a man yelled.

  She hunched her shoulders tight to her neck. Her head hit the black. The water was very cold and swallowed her up like a giant lamprey. She tumbled through the darkness, her momentum turning her belly-up somewhere beneath the surface of the waves. She hung under the water for a moment, telling her nerves to calm and her lungs to wait, then kicked up toward the moon's stingy light. Her nose bobbed into the brisk and open air.

  Flashlights swung across the water, dazzling the crests of the waves. Saltwater ran down her sinuses, rough on the back of her throat. She spat and breathed and kicked. Men yelled at each other, voices muffled whenever the water closed over her ears. She kicked hard, knifing up high enough to see the weak yellow flicker painting the far-off kitchen window, then rolled on her back and kicked toward the light.

  At times it felt like she wasn't moving at all. Her hands remained tied and she didn't try to use them except when she threatened to slip below the waves. Then, she flapped madly, straining her neck. Her legs threshed the water. The men's voices carried through the darkness with startling clarity, whole sentences preserved above the background hum of the departing engine.

  She kicked and kicked and kicked. When her legs burned too hard to go on, she rolled onto her stomach. Before their first time fishing from the boat, her dad had taught her the dead man's float for if she ever fell overboard. It was scary, but if you hung there facedown, you could stay right on the surface, popping up for regular breaths until you weren't tired anymore. The burn in her thighs receded. She reoriented herself to the stars, turned on her back, and continued.

  Her face and ribs ached where she'd been struck. Her strokes grew looser, inefficient. Waves rolled and hushed over the sand. She had to float facedown again and the noise of the breakers receded as the current tugged her away from land.

  Numbly, she resumed swimming. Waves swelled, surging her closer to shore. One curled over her head, spinning her under the scouring saltwater. Something rubbery tangled her legs. She let the water calm and kicked until her nose hit the air. Another wave slapped her against the hard-packed sand. She groaned out a huff of air, wind knocked from her lungs. Her legs were too noodly to stand. Using her elbows, she rolled up the beach until her face mashed into dry sand.

  Her chest hitched without end. She spat repeatedly, but the taste of salt wouldn't leave her mouth. Cold water dribbled down her nose and the back of her throat. She had to get off the shore. She couldn't see the boat, but if the men turned back and found her, she wouldn't escape again.

  She couldn't see the candle or the kitchen, but the framework of the dock projected a couple hundred feet to her left. She crawled there, stopping twice to cry and breathe, then at last wormed beneath its comforting shadows, the homey smell of clams and seaweed and stagnant, brackish water. Her breath echoed hollowly beneath the close wood. She slept.

  A shriek woke her. She hurt everywhere. Soft yellow light poured from the sky. She crawled to the edge of the dock and peered inland. A small figure trundled around the side of the house, fell to one knee, and barfed enthusiastically. She wiped sand from her brow and gummy eyes. It was Martin.

  She straightened and shambled across the burning sand. Martin unbent and wiped his mouth. He saw her, froze, then turned and ran.

  "Martin!"

  He stopped and shaded his eyes with the blade of his hand. He took an unsteady step toward her, then sprinted up beside her. He held his arms a short ways from his body, unsure what to do next. Her knee went out. He embraced her, propping her up.

  "What happened?" he said.

  "They killed him."

  "Who was it?"

  "The men from Catalina. I brought him guns so they shot him."

  "Where's your mom?"

  "They took her. They took her back to the island." She pushed away from him. "We have to go, Martin. We have to go get her."

  He laughed in disbelief. "Right now?"

  "Before they do more to her. Last time she killed it and buried it in the woods."

  "What?" He glanced to the sea. She followed his gaze, terrified at what she might see, but the sun glared too brightly from the waves to see if there was a sail. He reached for her shoulder. "Come on. Let's go to my house."

  "No!" Her mouth was so dry it was barely a word. She coughed, throat tearing.

  He passed her his water flask. It tasted so sweet she drank it all. He looked to the ocean again, then took her upper arm and guided her through the grass to the road. She shuffled on the asphalt until they reached his fairy-story house with its tall peaked roof.

  His mother was out. He took a long time cutting the ties from Raina's wrists, careful not to slice her, then got her more water and crackers and hazelnuts they grew in the back. She drank and ate it all.

  "Tell me everything," he said.

  She shook her head, but found a way, starting when they came for the guns—Martin said the islanders had taken them away from his mom, too—and ending when she woke up under the docks.

  "I'm so sorry," he said.

  "I'll go back tonight," she said. "I'll get my mom and kill the man who killed my dad."

  "You can't."

  "I'll find a boat. I'll take my knife."

  He leaned forward and almost but didn't quite touch her shoulder. "Raina! There's like five hundred people over there. They'll kill you so much they'd still be killing you next week."

  "There aren't that many," she said. "There's only like thirty of them."

  "That they bring over on the boat," he said. "There's much more on the island."

  She frowned. "How do you know that?"

  He shrugged and glanced across his kitchen, which was bigger and better-lit than hers had been, with full windows that climbed above her head and bathed the gold-flecked brown tile with sunshine.

  "I've been learning about them."

  "Then you can tell me how to kill them."

  Martin mashed his lips together and hopped down from his bar stool. He walked across the tile to the windows and stared out at the palms lining the back yard. Heavy fronds drooped from their crowns.

  "I don't want to be a jerk. But if they wanted to kill your mom, they would have."

  "So I should just leave her there? Let her enjoy her new life?"

  "That's not what I mean. But, like..."

  She balled her fist. "What?"

  He blushed at the wind-rippled palms.
"Well, you're just a girl."

  "I can kill him if I want," she said with exaggerated calm. "I can cut apart his legs and stand on his chest until his lungs squirt from his ribs."

  Martin turned and made a face. "I don't think this is a good idea."

  "Everyone's been sitting around for months planning to fight back while the islanders took more and more. That's what my dad did and now my dad is dead."

  After everything she'd been through in the last twelve hours, saying the words was what finally broke her. Her face crumbled. Tears ran in cataracts down her cheeks. Karslaw had shot him. Taken his life. That meant her father's spirit belonged to the bearded warlord. He had a new family now. A bad one. He would forget her. Worse, the bearded man would use her father's power to hurt more people.

  And the only way to free him was to kill the one who'd taken him.

  "They killed him, Martin," she continued. "They shot him in the head and left him in the dirt."

  "I know."

  "So I'm going to kill the man who did it. And you can't stop me."

  "I won't," he said.

  She swiped at her clumpy lashes with the back of her wrist. "But you said I was just a girl."

  "A girl who'd stick a knife in my back," he laughed. "But what are you planning to do? Row across the whole ocean, land at night in a place you've never seen, and slit his throat in bed?"

  "Yes."

  "Can I tell you about another idea?"

  She crossed her arms. "What's that?"

  "Well." He pinched a lock of his hair and dragged it through his fingernails, as if preening himself for lice. "If you go over there yourself, you can kill him, but you can't get back your mom. They'll find you before you get back to shore."

  "You don't know that. I could find a boat with a fast engine. Or we'll hide on the island and wait to cross until they give up searching."

  "Do you really believe that?"

  She slapped the window, rattling it. Martin winced. She hit it again, harder, certain she could break it. "I have to try!"