“He was at our dorm like this when I went back to get some clothes—I couldn’t just leave him there.”
I turn to Nyssa. “Is there an antidote? Something?”
She shakes her head slowly. “I’d need a sample of his blood to even try and make one—I brought some supplies just in case we needed them, but we have to get somewhere to make a fire.”
“They’re coming!” Pritchard says as the sweeper droids race toward us, then stop along either side of the car.
“This vehicle is registered to Wu Fong Pharmaceuticals,” the machine voice says outside Pritchard’s window. A picture of Wu’s building flashes on its chest display panel. “Wu Fong Pharmaceuticals is not in operation at this time of night. Why is this vehicle not checked in?”
“There’s been an attack,” Pritchard says without hesitation. Nyssa jerks forward, and I grip her knee so she doesn’t say anything in protest as he rambles. “Our friend was attacked—look at him! Whatever did it is back there beyond the gate . . . there’s no way back in, so we’re taking him to a medic in The Grind. You have to stop that thing before it attacks anyone else!”
The display screens in the droids’ chests start flashing pictures of the streets, slowly at first, but then so quickly, I can’t make out the individual scenes anymore.
“Can’t you see him covered in dirt and blood?” I ask, playing along. “Something is after us. Now either take us in or let us go! It’s coming!”
Pritchard doesn’t wait for a response before stepping on the gas and pulling away from both sweeper droids. They don’t follow us, but a few others manning the exterior gate to The Grind start rushing in our direction.
Nyssa shakes her head in a panic. “We have to speed up! Speed up!”
“I am!” Pritchard says through his teeth. I wait for an electric current to run through the car and paralyze all of us, but the sweepers just dart right past us instead. I whip around to find them meeting up with the two units we drove away from just before they all disappear into the darkness of the streets beyond.
“Just go through the gate! There’s no barrier screen heading out of The Citadel,” Nyssa says, and Pritchard steps on the gas again. The remaining sweeper units quickly dart out of the way as we move through the gate and back into The Grind, where three times as many sweepers are patrolling. Their lights flash at us, but we just drive faster.
“Head to the docks!” I shout. Pritchard takes a corner too quickly and throws everyone toward the left side of the car. Donovan jostles and falls against the dashboard, but this doesn’t wake him up.
We only get a few blocks before scavengers start throwing flare bombs into the street in the hopes we’ll stop the car, but they don’t realize we’re from The Grind too and know what would happen next all too well. Pritchard drives right over the small fires, and eventually, the scavengers abandon that tactic and start throwing rocks and scrap materials, a few of them causing small cracks in the windshield.
“They were ready for us!” Pritchard yells, and I swear under my breath.
“They must be linked to the scavengers back there—just keep going! We’re almost at the docks!” I yell.
Nyssa grabs my arm. “Knox! They’re following us!”
I look out the back windshield and see the frame lights of several bikes hovering toward us fast. If they get close enough to jump onto the car, they’ll break the windows and that will be it. I open my door.
“What are you doing!?” Pritchard shouts over his shoulder.
“Buying you some time. Get to the docks—I’ll meet you there!”
“Knox, no!”
I jump out the door and curl into a ball as fast as I can. I land hard on the ground and roll for a second before I jump up, surprised I’m not in more pain.
“Okay, let’s see about these bionic legs, Nyss . . .” I say to myself before I start running after the bikes chasing the car. One by one, I catch up to them, yanking one scavenger after another off the backs of their seats by their collars, hair, anything I can get my hands on. The abandoned bikes veer into the nearby buildings or straight down onto the road without a pilot, and the crashes send anyone loitering around skittering into the shadows.
Something jumps onto my back, almost knocking me to the ground. Thin arms wrap around my neck and cut off my air, so I jerk my elbow back and connect with something hard. The arms loosen and fall away, and I sprint to pull down the last two riders who are about to catch up to the car.
Pritchard skids the tires around the corner, which leads to the docks, and stops just before the pier.
“Come on! Come on!” I shout, opening the door to help Nyssa get out. I gesture to Pritchard, then grab the briefcase. “Get Donovan!”
The Luna Bay is pulling in as we race toward it, scattering the longshoremen, and I don’t see the ship’s crew yet.
“The deck crew will be up there any minute! We need to get to the other side of the ship!” Pritchard calls back to Nyssa and me, Donovan’s arm slung around his shoulders.
Nyssa and I get about ten steps closer before she abruptly stops and turns to me in horror. “My bag!”
“It’s too late. Come on!”
“Knox, no, we’ll need it! There are painkillers in there . . . antibiotics!”
Pritchard lets out a restrained groan as he tries to lift Donovan’s newly enhanced huge body over his shoulder. My head spins with indecision until I force everything in it to stop for a second.
“Okay, okay . . . I’m going to help get Don aboard the barge. I’ll come back down to get you. Come to the edge of the pier, all right?” I stare at her hard until she nods. “All right, hurry!”
Nyssa takes off in the direction of the car. I stuff the narrow briefcase under the front of my shirt and tuck in the hem before moving under Donovan’s other arm.
“You’ll have to climb to the deck,” Pritchard says, glancing at my legs as we rush toward the edge of the pier. “I won’t be able to get any traction. Throw down the deck ladder when you get up there.”
I nod just before we jump in the water with Donovan and make our way to the far side of the barge. I let go of Donovan and push my toe into the hull just enough to dent it so I can climb, doing the same with my other foot while gripping onto anything I can find—barnacles, gouges—until I’m at the top. I drop the briefcase and scan the abandoned deck for the rope ladder under the railing so I can launch it overboard to Pritchard, then stop cold when I hear an ear-piercing scream.
Everything gets quiet as I squint into the dark, but after a few seconds I start to make out shapes on the dock. After a few more seconds, those shapes become people and a car, and it’s suddenly as light as dawn everywhere I look. I blink hard a few times, but despite there being no brightness on the horizon, I can see someone hauling Nyssa away from Wu’s black car by her backpack.
I grip the railing of the barge, feeling the energy in my legs surge again just like when I was picking off scavengers chasing the car back in The Grind. I have to consciously let go of the railing because the urge to jump straight to the car about two blocks from where I am is almost impossible to resist, even though I know I’d only land on the pier just below.
In the next second, Nyssa slips out of her backpack and runs toward the barge. I call out to her when I see the man in the black suit behind her raising a gun—I’m too late, even though everything feels like it’s in slow motion. She falls forward just before she reaches the pier.
“Nyssa!” I shout just as the barge starts to pull away from the dock.
“Ryder!” Pritchard calls from the rope ladder, but I don’t see Donovan anymore. I scan the surface of the water, but he’s gone. Pritchard is suddenly pulled off the ladder. He surfaces a few meters away only to be yanked under again, and I climb back down the rope ladder as fast as I can. He struggles back to the surface, this time with three large scratches over his face and neck that quickly pool with blood.
“Grab my hand!” I shout to him, reaching as far as I can.
He struggles toward me and clasps my forearm. I do the same and pull him toward me.
“It’s Donovan! Donovan!” Pritchard chokes as the small currents from the retreating barge splash over his face.
“Hold on!” I yell again, trying to pull him up the ladder, but this time I feel his arm pulling away from mine.
He surfaces once more, fresh gouges covering his face and head, blood spilling from his mouth. “Go, Ryder! Go now!”
Behind Pritchard I swear it’s an alligator I see, the rows of teeth lining the long jaw and high-set yellow eyes, but as the water spills away, the thick, dark hair smooths over the dog-like, pointed ears and head. My brain won’t process the image—not until giant, curved claws grab Pritchard, funneling him headfirst as he screams into the elongated jaws.
I scramble back up the rope ladder, but pain shoots up my legs as something pulls me hard toward the water. I kick repeatedly, holding onto the rope ladder despite feeling the fibers cut and burn into my skin. I finally pull free, not even sure if I’m climbing until I throw myself over the railing. Shots ring out again in the air, and I watch the wake of the barge swallow what used to be Donovan . . . the beast that just ate Pritchard.
The barge’s horn sounds, and I know the deck will be crowded any minute. I grab the briefcase and jump over one of the stacks of pallets, squeezing between it and the surrounding stacks. Blood pounds in my ears, but I can still hear everything—the shouts of each individual voice questioning the gunshots on the other side of the barge, the engine straining to push the barge away from the dock, against the current. All this and I can still hear the wind causing reverberations among the stacks of metal crates on the pallets.
What’s happening to me? This is shock. It has to be shock, I think, clutching the briefcase to my chest. What just happened . . . ? “They shot Nyssa,” I whisper in answer. “Donovan just turned into some kind of . . . I don’t even know,” I add to myself, then quickly press my lips into a tight line like that will somehow prevent anyone from hearing what I already said. I close my eyes to block out the moonlight that’s somehow still finding me even in between the pallets. The voices all start to merge into a droning, undulating hum that is swallowed and muffled by the roll of the ocean underneath us. We’re moving back into deep water, I think absently, suddenly unable to keep my eyes open as the current takes me under.
When I open my eyes again, it’s almost sunset. How long have I been out? I think, noticing there are more voices now, but they’re still on the other side of the barge. A shard of light glints off the metal number plate on the briefcase, catching my attention, and the flood of everything that’s happened crashes back into view. Everyone I care about is gone.
I push the thought back and turn the slots on the number plate at random. I press them over and over again, faster and faster, like if I can get to a certain speed, it will block out the sight of Nyssa being shot, or at least the look on Pritchard’s ruined face just before Donovan—no, the thing that used to be Donovan—swallowed him whole. I drive my thumb into the gold number wheel until the plate caves in, shocking me out of the nightmare loop running in my head.
The briefcase pops open a crack, and for a second I just stare at it. This is the payment case, I remember, so I’m careful to lift the lid in the breeze whipping through the pallet stacks.
But there’s nothing like that inside the case when I open it the rest of the way. The inside of the case is lined in a black cushion with a thin black box that’s come loose from its strap. I shake my head, confused . . . This is what Zhang traded for the syringes? I think, and my stomach sinks again remembering them. I shake the thoughts away. No. It was a dud. It was a dud.
I lift the box from the cushion and turn it on its side, looking for the opening, but I drop it when smoke starts streaming from the corners. The smoke spills over the black cushion lining the case, pushing to the edges, and I realize it’s eating through the cushion—through the bottom of the briefcase and over my legs. The burning is immediate. I push the case away and see my shredded pant legs disintegrating as I scramble to my feet, but not before I also see the gouges running up and down my shins. For a second, I’m seized with fear that they’re from the gel, but then I remember Donovan’s hold on my legs as I was climbing up the ladder.
A cracked tube wedged sideways in what’s left of the black box drips clear liquid, which produces more smoke and dissolves whatever it touches. It pools in the bottom of the case before eating through it, too, and then finally burns through the decking below. It spreads, widening the hole until it swallows the briefcase, which I hear hitting the bottom of the lower level of the barge—and if it eats through that . . .
I stumble out from between the pallets when the decking around me starts to crack. In the open air of the deck, the disembodied voices I’d been hearing on the other side of the ship get louder, closer, until people are swarming everywhere. I don’t understand the language they’re speaking, but two of them rush me, pinning my arms behind me, and everything slows down again.
“No . . . listen! Who speaks English? Remember me? From the docks a year ago! Mama Luz! Where’s Mama Luz?”
They don’t answer, and I don’t think. I just jump as hard as I can toward the railing of the barge, and all three of us push high into the air. I feel the falling sensation in my stomach on the way down to the water, until breaking the surface feels like crashing through a sheet of glass.
The pain dissipates just long enough for me to feel how warm the ocean is, but in the next second it feels like little fires are igniting everywhere on my body. I gasp at the sight of land in the distance—land with palm trees, forests, and mountains against the slowly lightening sky.
I start to swim toward the shore, but something chokes me from behind, wrapping around my chest and shoving my head underwater. We struggle until everything slows down again in my head, and I bite down on what I think is an arm, but the cold, bitter taste of it in my mouth makes me abruptly let go.
I turn again for the shore and am on the beach, pulling myself onto the sand in what seems like just a few strokes. I expect to feel exhausted, but I’m not even out of breath. Seawater pushes over my legs, which sends the ruined tatters of my pants in several directions, exposing the deep gouges down either side of my shins, which have started to burn.
I glance down expecting the gouges to be filled with brown nerve fluid, but they’re red—-bloody. I look more closely into the cuts in the fading light and see the beginnings of muscle tissue that seems to be dissolving the wires and titanium.
“What’s happening to me?” I ask out loud, gritting my teeth as the burning intensifies, then feel something sharp poke me in the shoulder.
“The question is what’s about to happen,” a man who can’t be more than twenty says. He’s with two others, none of them wearing shirts, and their hair is fashioned into dreadlocks that spill over their shoulders.
I push to my feet and notice the tooth necklace the one who spoke to me is wearing—human teeth strung like popcorn. The whites of his eyes seem to glow against his tanned skin as he flashes a yellowed smile at me. He levels a sharpened spear and presses the point of it into my throat.
“Who are you?” I ask. “Where is this place?”
“Scrapper Island Penal Colony,” the man with the spear says in disbelief. “What, did they tell you you’d won a holiday cruise?”
All three of the men laugh until the one with the spear lets out a sharp whistle through his teeth. “Take him to Monroe.”
The two on either side of him rush me, grabbing my arms and hauling me forward. I struggle, and to my surprise, they both fall away like they’ve been struck by lightning. They look as shocked as I feel as they get back on their feet, and all three of the strangers exchange confused glances.
The one with the spear sobers first. “Well, look at that!” He laughs. “Might be he lasts the night after all.”
One of the other men joins in the laughter, looking me up and down. “U
nless the island takes him anyway.” He moves closer and takes a long sniff of the air around me.
I stare at him. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s about the right age.” The other man spits just before wiping his bloody lip with the back of his wrist. “What are you, twenty-eight? Twenty-nine?”
“Twenty-three! What do you mean, survive the island?” I shout, and all three men take an abrupt step back.
“You see that?” the smaller man closest to me asks the others. “You see his eyes do that?” I watch the pulse in his throat jump as a drop of blood pools in the corner of his pressed mouth, then slides down his dirty chin. I swear I can even hear the scraping sound it makes over the patches of dark stubble on his face.
My body moves without my permission—something . . . other compels it. I watch my hands grip the back of his hair and pull his head to the side until all I can see is the taunting, pulsing vein. The other makes me bite down, silencing it and drinking like it’s spring water pouring from his throat.
I drink until there is nothing left, and in a rage, I watch my own arms throw his lifeless body into the waves, far beyond the breakers. The other two men are already running back into the forest, and it takes everything in me to resist the blinding urge to chase them.
I look at my hands, but they’re not claws.
My arms aren’t covered in hair like Donovan’s were.
I’m still me?
But also . . . something else. Something feral, I think, wrapping my arms around myself to stave off the sudden, uncontrollable shivering. The tinny taste of that man’s blood is still in my mouth, but I can’t bring myself to spit it out.
I shake my head until I notice pain and pressure in my teeth. My hands fly to my face, and I drop to my knees when I feel the pointed, elongated tips retracting.
Oh no . . . the syringe . . . the delay . . .
Another surge of palpable violence runs through me with the shock of the tide hitting the back of my legs. The feeling fades when I move away from the water toward the forest, but it’s replaced by another wave of uncontrollable shivering as the details of what just happened start to feel like a story I once heard instead of something I just did.
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