Within These Walls: Series Box Set

by Tracey Ward

  “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. “Are 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.

  “Trent!” I scream. “Trent, help me!”

  I take two steady breaths, make sure I’m calm and breathing even, then I take a large gulp and dive under again to give it all to Ryan. When I break the surface for more air, to buy more seconds of Ryan’s life, I see Trent come up inside the hull.

  “You have to help me,” I say quickly, speaking faster than I’ve ever spoken in my life. “Ryan is trapped. I can’t get him loose and he’s going to die. I’m giving him air but he’s stuck.”

  Trent nods quickly then dives under the water without a word. I take another large breath and dive under after him. While Trent works to free Ryan, I press my mouth to his again. I do this several more times, more times than I can count. Trent has to come to the surface twice for more air, but he keeps diving back down. He doesn’t quit. I’m starting to feel dizzy when I go down again and press my mouth to Ryan’s. I barely notice that he doesn’t grab onto me. But then it strikes me that he doesn’t respond at all and when I pull away, I watch in horror as bubbles of air escape his lips, passing over his closed eyes.

  “Ryan!” I shout, knowing he can’t hear me and that I’m wasting my own air. But I can’t hold it in.

  Finally Trent has him free and his body floats upward. We both grab onto him and yank him toward the surface, kicking as hard as we can as we pull his dead weight with us.

  When we have our heads above water in the hull, Trent turns Ryan around in his arms. He puts Ryan’s back to his front and wraps his arms around him like he’s giving him a weird hug. Then they both sink slightly as Trent puts all his strength into squeezing hard and fast on Ryan’s stomach. Ryan lurches forward, his face falling in the water. I reach out to steady them, to try to help Trent keep him afloat.

  “What are you doing?” I ask him, my voice shaking.

  “I’m getting the water out of his lungs,” Trent grunts, then he jerks on Ryan again. Nothing. Trent’s calm face is pinched in concentration and anxiety. “Come on, come on.”

  I hold onto Ryan’s face with both my hands as I tread water with my feet. I carefully brush his hair out of his closed eyes, willing them to open. To be brown and beautiful and alive.

  “Come on,” I whisper, chanting with Trent. The sound of ou
r low voices fills the hull of the boat, rebounding off the water and echoing around us. “Come on, Ryan. Please.”

  Trent sinks again, jerks hard on Ryan and I get a face full of water when Ryan suddenly spurts and sputters. He chokes violently for several seconds then vomits into the darkness. I don’t even care. He’s fighting for breath, breathing in and out, no matter how raggedly, and I start crying my eyes out when his own eyes flutter open and he looks at me.

  “Ryan,” I breathe, my voice coated in tears.

  He coughs, more water spurting out of his mouth violently. He reaches out blindly to grab onto the hull and hold himself up but his hands slip off the smooth sides. Trent and I hold onto him tightly, both of us giving up our arms to keep him afloat as he tries to get his bearings.

  He takes several ragged breaths before saying hoarsely, “I can’t swim.”

  I laugh despite my tears, taking his face in my hands again and staring into his open eyes. At his mouth pulling in air and blowing it out forcefully. His pulse throbbing at his throat, beating with his heart, moving through my veins.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ryan isn’t kidding. He seriously can’t swim.

  That’s going to be a problem. It’s one we solve by finding a piece of floating debris, a task that is disturbingly easy with almost all of the Colony boats blown up and burning in the water. A couple are heading for the hills, back up the Sound as fast as their hobbled ships can carry them, but most of the boats are burned beyond salvage. It didn’t take long. The Vashons laid their armada to waste in no time. Almost like they had planned for years for such an attack.

  As we swim/paddle toward the opposite shore, I wonder what this night means for the Vashons ‘uneasy treaty’ with the Colonists.

  I also wonder what provoked the Colonists to attack.

  When we make it to shore all three of us lay on the ground breathing heavily and shivering. The water was cold, but being out in the open while wet feels colder. We need to make camp somewhere nearby soon and start a fire or we’ll all get pneumonia and die.

  “We need to get moving,” I groan, sitting up. I feel weighed down by exhaustion and wet clothes.

  When I look over at the boys I find both of their eyes closed.

  “Hey!” I shout, clapping my hands hard. They both startle, their eyes shooting open. “No sleeping, not here. Especially you, Trent. The last thing we need is you dying in your sleep.”

  He sits up slowly. “I don’t have a concussion.”

  “Good news. Unless you want hypothermia, it’s time to move.”

  “It’s not cold enough for that,” Ryan protests. He’s still lying down.

  I lean over him, my face near his and my hair hanging around him. “It’s cold enough to get sick. Get your ass up.”

  He reaches up to run his hand over my cheek, back into my hair. “You saved my life.”

  “Don’t get mushy on me. Get up.”

  He pulls my face down farther and kisses me soundly on the mouth. I don’t fight it because it’s warm, it’s him and he’s alive. I can’t stop to think about how happy I am that he didn’t die out there. I can’t think about what would happen to me if I lost him. Where my heartbeats would go without his to follow.

  I pull away. “Move. Now.”

  “So bossy,” he grumbles, but he gets up.

  We’ve come ashore in an old industrial area. This is good and bad. Good because it’s probably abandoned. Bad because there won’t be much to make a fire with and we absolutely have to have a fire.

  “Where do you think we are?” I ask quietly as we slowly make our way through the rusted rubble.

  “Judging by the light in that direction,” Trent says, pointing to our left, “I’d say we’re just south of the stadiums.”

  “Perfect. So we have to get by the Colonies to get home.”

  “We have to go through the valley,” Ryan says.

  “The what?”

  “On Crenshaw’s map. Remember the valley between the stadiums and the dark shadowy area. He said the space between was the Valley of the Shadow of Death.”

  “And the black area was the portal to Hell,” I say, remembering it suddenly.

  Ryan cocks an eyebrow at me. “He told us not to go there.”

  “He also told us not to go to The Hive.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “We can’t avoid it,” I protest, feeling frustrated.

  Trent stops short suddenly, looking around with his wicked hawk eyes. “We’ll make camp here.”

  “Okay, why here?”

  “Because over there,” he says, pointing ahead and to the left of us, “are the Colonies, just two blocks away. And over there,” he points to our right, “another two blocks away are the cannibals.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I hiss, immediately going tense. “We’re near the cannibals? How do you know that?”

  He frowns at me like I’m stupid. “Because I’ve seen them.”

  “Of course you have. We can’t stay here.”

  “We can’t go back either and we definitely don’t want to go any farther forward. Not at night.”

  “Why not at night? The Colonists won’t be able to see us as well.”

  “I’m not worried about the Colonists. At night, you have to worry about the cannibals. They’re very territorial, they live underground and they only come out at night. Right now, they can see better than I can. A lot better.”

  “Oh man,” I moan, wrapping my arms around myself. “So right now not only do we have to worry about zombies and pneumonia, we have to worry about being kidnapped by Colonists and being eaten alive by cannibals?”

  “There are also a lot of mosquitos this close to the water.”

  “Oh my God,” I mutter.

  “We’ll be alright,” Ryan tells me. “Let’s start a fire and—“

  “A fire? Are you crazy? It’ll call them all right to us.”

  Ryan shakes his head. “We have to have a fire, Joss. We need to dry off, to warm up. It can’t be helped.”

  “We’ll go over there inside that shack,” Trent says, pointing to an old security building at the entrance of the parking lot we’re standing in. “We’ll bust out the windows if they’re not already gone to let the smoke out, but the building should block most of the light from the fire.”

  “Fine,” I say reluctantly, knowing they’re right. “But when we die, I want you both to remember I told you so.”

  “Noted,” Ryan agrees.

  Luckily the shack is a complete mess. Complete mess means things to burn. Things that have been inside and kept from most of the elements, most importantly moisture. Only one window is broken. Trent wastes no time breaking two more while Ryan and I get to work building our fire inside an old metal trash can. It’s easier than you’d think, but then again, we’ve had practice. Lots and lots of practice.

  Once it’s burning in the center of the room, we huddle around it. I drape my torn, wet coat over a chair to let it dry faster. I’m shivering from head to toe so when Ryan wraps his arm around me and pulls me in close to his body, I don’t fight it. I tense and my breathing gets tight, but I try to hide it. I don’t want to hate this. I want to like it, and a big part of me really, really does but a little part of me is still afraid. Maybe it always will be.

  “Why didn’t they search us for weapons when we went to see Marlow?” I ask, suddenly remembering I had meant to ask Ryan before.

  He nods thoughtfully. “I wondered that too. Every time I’ve been in to see him, my weapons were taken.”

  “Did they just forget?”

  Ryan chuckles. “You don’t forget something like that. Not working for Marlow.”

  “Not if you want to live,” Trent agrees.

  “So I’m not crazy? It was weird.”

  “Yeah, it was.”

  “He’s going to be mad about his boat.”

  “No, he won’t be, not really, but he’ll act mad,” Ryan says darkly. “He’ll use it as a way to get
something from us.”

  “He never meant for us to make it back alive did he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh come on. He sent us there in the U.S.S. Sold You Out. It couldn’t have been more obvious we were associated with The Hive and the Vashons obviously don’t like them.”

  “Yeah, but why?” Ryan insists. “Why send us there to have them kill us? I think he wanted to see if it would work.”

  “He wanted us to draw them out,” Trent says. “Probably take a few of their people prisoner to barter for something.”

  “What though? Land? Turnips?” I ask.

  “Probably guns.”

  I shiver involuntarily as I remember the black barrel of Ali’s gun pointed at my face.

  “Do you think that gun was loaded?” I ask quietly.

  “It was,” Ryan replies softly, his grip on my upper arm tightening.

  I nod, knowing he’s right. I knew it when I looked at her face. She was ready, willing and fully able to kill me on the spot. But I don’t hate her for it. I don’t blame her at all. She didn’t do it to protect her soft bed or a fluffy pillow. It wasn’t for the sake of central air or a good hot meal at the end of the day. It was for her family. For her daughter and her husband. For the people she loves.

  Sitting beside this fire with Ryan’s arm around my shoulder, I can easily understand that.

  “So Marlow will be mad when we get back that we lost his boat and didn’t bring him his bounty,” I surmise, “and Crenshaw will be mad that we went to The Hive first and pissed off the Vashons. The Vashons are mad at us, probably all of them want us dead because they think we brought the Colonies to their door in an ambush.”

  “By now word has gotten out about what Trent and I have been up to, my fight in The Hive not sanctioned by the Hyperion, going behind the backs of our brothers. We’ll be thrown out of the gang.”

  “Will they hurt you?” I ask.

  Trent grins, his face lit in a macabre mask by the firelight. “They’re welcome to try.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper, feeling like an asshole. I drug them into this and now their lives are ruined. “You’re both obviously welcome to come live with me in the loft.”