Salted (9781310785696)

by Galvin, Aaron

“That’s why you need to take us with you,” Racer said.

  “Us?”

  “Me and Paulo and Ellie. They want to run too.”

  Chidi scoffed. “The others should know better.”

  “They do know better. They know we can make it! The only reason they haven’t yet is because Paulo’s sure he can convince Lenny to run with us!”

  “You poor, naïve, pup. Lenny will never run. Hasn’t he said that a hundred times? Dolans don’t run. And they have his father.”

  Racer’s blue eyes lit up. “Right, but see, that’s the plan…a hostage for a hostage. Oscar for Declan.”

  “Are you insane? Your plan is to ransom your owner’s son? It will never work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because even if August made the deal, which he won’t, the second he had Oscar back he would spend a fortune hiring other crews to find you. And not just catchers like us, he’ll hire Merrows, maybe even Orcs. He’ll scour every reef, blue hole, and cavern to find you.”

  “Orcs?” Racer winced.

  “Merrows and Orcs. You think your idea hasn’t been thought of before? It has. Have you ever heard of the Caribbean Monks?”

  “Sure, but they’re all—”

  “Dead,” Chidi said. “Each and every one of them hunted down and killed to send a message. That’s what happens to slaves who get ideas of taking down owners.”

  “Yeah, but that’s because they took some Merrow’s daughter…or was it a son?” Racer asked. “I can’t remember. Anyway, we’re talking about a Selkie owner! Sure he’s got some power, but August isn’t a Mer—”

  “He has Merrow friends,” Chidi said. “How do you think a former slave came into having so much anemoney and power? Why do you think Nomads don’t bother him? He’s protected! Henry told me. It’s the only reason he took this job. He wants to find out who backs August.”

  Racer rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine. So what’s your plan for escaping?”

  “I’m not running!”

  “Well, maybe not now that I caught you, but you planned to. I know you did! Take me with you,” Racer said. “This is my first time around the Drybacks. I don’t know what to do, or where to go. Help me!”

  The sincerity in Racer’s voice reminded Chidi of other slaves who had once begged the same of her. “I…I can’t…” she said. “I won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t, okay! It doesn’t matter why not. Y-You wouldn’t be safe around me.”

  “That’s why we need to run together,” Racer said. “Running alone isn’t safe. What if Henry found you? We all know he’d come after you. If the rest of us stayed together we could help.”

  No one helps. Chidi closed her eyes. She could still see the blood and vacant expressions of those she had run with before. “Henry would never stop hunting me.”

  “He would if we killed him.”

  Chidi covered her mouth. Racer said it with such ease, with all the confidence of one who had never known true terror. She shook her head.

  “What?” Racer asked. “Why is that wrong of us to think that way? Owners can do whatever they want to us. So what? We can’t get them back the same way? No! I say we send a message back. Besides, Henry has it coming. Paulo told me how he’s treated you!”

  “Paulo doesn’t know…”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Racer grabbed Chidi’s wrists. She fought to free herself of his grip. He forced the underside of her wrists skyward. Scores of scars lined her wrists and forearms, and the bite marks worst of all. Some ran deep; others left only light tracings.

  “How’d you get those, Chidi? Huh?”

  They know…they all know. Chidi flipped her hands back over. The scars on her skin anyone could see. She thanked the Ancients no one could wrestle the invisible scars out of her. Those she had buried deep.

  “He’s a monster, Chidi. But you don’t have to worry about him anymore…I’ll protect you.”

  Racer leaned and kissed her.

  Chidi caught him by the throat. “What are you doing?”

  “What? I thought girls wanted protect—”

  “I don’t need protection. You ever kiss me again and I’ll be the monster,” Chidi said, releasing him. “Get me?”

  Racer stepped a few feet to her left. “Okay. Sorry.”

  Chidi wiped her lips with the back of her hand and spit. She looked on him again and debated what to do. Henry would kill the pup without a second thought, she knew. She turned away from him and watched several loaded busses drive off.

  “Come on,” she said. “We should go back to the bus before Paulo wonders where we’re at.”

  Racer followed her into the parking lot. “But we’re really going to see if he’ll come with us, right? Because I’m pretty sure we’ll need Paulo and Ellie to escape. Think how great it will be! With Paulo’s strength, my speed, and Lenny’s planning, you girls won’t have to worry about anyone recapturing us!”

  “Good thing,” Chidi said. “I don’t know what I would do without you if Zymon’s guardian came after us. How did you take his Leper down again?”

  Racer fake-laughed. “That’s why we need Paulo too. Me and him? Unstoppable.”

  “So what should Ellie and I do? Be good little girls tagging along for the ride?”

  “Are you kidding? We need you both too. Ellie’s not as strong as Paulo, but she’s pretty strong for a girl. And you know more languages than the rest of us put together. The five of us could go anywhere!”

  Except near salt water.

  Racer yanked her down beside a parked car.

  “What—”

  Racer pointed at the zoo. His earrings flashed. We’re surrounded!

  Employees barred the front gates, leaving only one open. Others brought out yellow sawhorses with the Indianapolis Zoo: Do Not Cross written in black lettering. Each employee bustled about to clear the area of visitors.

  A lean and long-legged man stepped into their midst, his silhouette casting a larger shadow than the two lion statues he stood between. Chidi read the U.S. MARSHAL written in bold yellow across his navy jacket. The marshal adjusted his black cowboy hat. Even from a distance, Chidi recognized the mismatched line of white around the base of his hat.

  Seal teeth!

  The marshal turned in her direction.

  Chidi paled. “Racer! We have to go now!”

  “Why? Who is that man?”

  “H-he’s not a man! He’s the Silkstealer!”

  Racer shook his head. “That’s just a story.”

  The Silkstealer paced around inside the barricades. The toothpick he held in his mouth danced from side to side. He removed a radio from his pocket and held it close to his mouth.

  He’s not alone…

  Chidi watched him point at a different barred gate and speak into the radio again. A beefy zoo guard strolled over to speak with him. The Silkstealer barked at him for a solid minute. The guard cowered away.

  Two more men emerged from the crowd; both wore U.S. Marshal jackets. Each took a post inside the open gate.

  “Do you think they’re here because of Marisa?” Racer asked.

  Chidi shrugged. “Her notebooks say he’s chased her before.”

  “The stories say no Silkie has ever escaped the Silkstealer though…”

  “I don’t know why you sound so worried,” Chidi said. “The stories also say he only hunts girls.”

  “At least Silkies live to have a chance at escaping. All the stories say he kills Selkies!”

  Chidi barely heard him. The bus she had planned to board pulled away from the lot. She watched it go, saw the teen’s faces through the windows as it drove past, taking with it any hopes of freedom she held.

  Her next breath clotted with black exhaust from the bus tailpipe. Chidi coughed and buried her nose in the neckline of her Silkie suit. She pulled Racer to his feet. “Come on, we need to get back to our bus.”

  GARRETT

  For all Johnny’s talk about how much he loved dol
phins, he showed none of it now with sharks to look at. Garrett wished he could record his friend to prove Johnny a lying suck-up, but he had forgotten to charge his phone.

  “Dude, dude, dude! Check this out!” Johnny said. “It says sharks don’t have eyelids, but most have something called a ni…nictating membrane…is that right? Whatever. Anyway, it helps protect their eyes whenever they’re attacking prey! Pretty sweet, huh?”

  Each informational placard only furthered Johnny’s true opinion that a shark could win in a fight against a dolphin. Garrett might have agreed with him on any other day based solely on the sheer number of teeth sharks had. I wonder what a Merrow could do to a shark?

  Johnny ran to another tank. “Aw, man! Check this one out!”

  Garrett scanned a placard that read sharks had a system of pores called ampullae of Lorenzini. The ampullae allowed them to detect weak electrical signals given off by other fish and help them hunt. He paced around the rest of the exhibit, his thoughts always returning to Wilda. He eventually found Johnny at the tasseled wobbegong tank. Neither of them could find the shark anywhere inside.

  Unrequested, Johnny read aloud the information card. “Whoa. It says here wobbegongs are masters of camouflage. Pretty sweet, huh?”

  A few minutes later, Garrett spotted the wobbegong hunkered against a rock. Most of its body had a brownish coloring and matched the stone while the ends of its body replicated the moldish green seaweed drifting beside it.

  “Whoa,” Johnny said. “Look at that!”

  A giant cardboard cutout of a cartoonish hammerhead shark with glasses hung overhead the exit. The hammerhead pointed toward a dark corridor with one of its fins.

  “Sydney told me the great hammerhead is the only big shark the zoo has,” Johnny said. “The exhibit’s closed though. Pretty corny advertising, huh?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Johnny pointed at Garrett’s feet.

  Waxed into the floor, a trail of plastic hammerhead sharks swam into the darkened exhibit like fishy footprints to guide them ahead.

  Johnny spit his gum into the trashcan and popped a fresh piece into his mouth. “Let’s see where it goes!”

  They followed the path of hammerheads down a short hallway until it diverged in two near the end. One path led to light shining through the sides of the exit door. The hammerhead path went down an unlit hall. Several black and yellow pieces of tape form an X across the entryway, each reading: ZOO PERSONNEL ONLY.

  “You know, on second thought, I-I don’t know, Weaves. Maybe we should go to the bus.” Johnny checked his watch. “Yeah, we need to get going. We really need to go back to the bus. It’ll take us at least five minutes to walk there.”

  “You’ve been talking all day about seeing this thing,” Garrett said. “Syd isn’t with us to tattle, and now you want to go home?”

  “Yeah, but what if we get caught?”

  “Uh, they ask us what we’re doing and tell us to leave.” Garrett looked both ways for anyone who might be coming down the same hallway. Seeing no one, he ducked under the tape. “You coming?”

  “I-I…My dad would kill me if I got in trouble.”

  “Fine,” said Garrett. “Go back to the bus and I’ll meet you there.”

  “What if Mr. Lansky asks me—”

  “Tell him I went to the bathroom and I’ll be right there. It’s not like I’m going to take forever.”

  Johnny hurried away, like even listening to Garrett talk about breaking a rule might taint him.

  Garrett continued into the exhibit, pausing occasionally to let his eyes adjust to the shadowy surroundings. Ahead, he saw the slightest hints of blue where the shared wall ended and opened into the exhibit. Photographs and information tidbits of great hammerheads had been hung along the walls. Garrett walked past them all without stopping to read any.

  He turned the corner and gasped.

  The tank sprawled before him like a movie theater screen and inside it, a fifteen-foot long shark-man. His emaciated, bare-skinned torso reminded Garrett of Aboriginal tribesman he had seen pictures of in geography class. His cheekbones looked carved from obsidian, flawed by thin scars shaped like triangles. Dreadlocks floated around him like curled black and silver snakes wrapped in brown seaweed. His eyes might as well be two pieces of coal with the slightest trace of chalk ringing his irises. Five slits on both sides of his neck fluttered open each time he exhaled, making the loose skin flutter.

  Garrett shuddered. Whatever this guy is, he’s not like Wilda. He stepped closer.

  Rows of triangular teeth lined the shark-man’s mouth. Each filed into a pointed tip with serrated edges down its sides. Lean muscle comprised what little meat remained on his body. Endless odd symbols, brands, and more triangle-shaped scars covered his skin.

  Garrett had the morbid thought some of the scars looked like bite marks. What could have done that to him?

  The shark-man shared the same white underside as Wilda. The similarities stopped there.

  Where Garrett imagined the man’s thighs should have been, a triangular shaped fin emerged, and another near where shins should be. Garrett remembered Wilda’s tail splaying horizontally, the tips and sides rounded off. The shark-man’s tail stood vertically, its bodylines sharp and pointed.

  Garrett would have thought the shark-man dead had it not been for his tail, swaying back and forth like a pendulum.

  Tick…tock...tick...tock.

  Are you the one Wilda talked about? He waved.

  The shark-man did not move.

  Garrett waved again.

  Still the shark-man would not flinch.

  “Hey!” Garrett shouted nervously. “Hey, you! Shark-man!”

  Maybe he can’t see out. Garrett took a few steps to his right to fully see the shark-man. A dorsal fin stretched out of the middle of his back.

  “Whoa…”

  The shark-man twitched and whipped upside down before Garrett could back away. He plastered his face against the glass.

  Garrett flinched.

  The shark-man widened his black eyes. His teeth gnashed. He banged a fist against the tank and made it thud.

  Oh no…why did I move? Garrett thought. He knows I can see him now!

  The shark-man swam back and forth, like a tiger stuck in its cage. He stopped mid-swim. His back straightened and made him appear even taller and more threatening, something Garrett had not deemed possible before. Then he opened his hand, large enough to palm a watermelon. His long, bony fingers motioned for Garrett to step closer.

  “No way…”

  The shark-man pointed at his mouth, a trap full of dagger-like teeth. He rubbed his stomach and shook his head.

  He doesn’t want me to be afraid. Garrett warily looked at the tank. That pane’s thick enough to keep him in there, right? He took a step closer.

  The shark-man perked up. He motioned Garrett come forward more.

  Garrett stopped a few feet away from the tank. “Were you born this way?” he asked, recalling Wilda’s words. “Have you been Salted?”

  The shark-man placed his left palm flat against the glass. Garrett saw traces of a rusty-colored, askew triangle seared across it, long since scabbed over.

  “Well, well, well. Lookie what we have here…” a voice behind Garrett said. “We’ve been looking all day for you, Weaver.”

  Garrett turned.

  Eddie Bennett and Juan Marrero stopped fifteen feet shy of the tank.

  Garrett saw Bryce Tardiff hanging back to prevent his escape.

  “Time to pay up for what you did to Kellen,” Bennett said.

  “What I did to him?” Garrett said. “He tried to drown me, Benny. Get your facts straight!”

  Juan rushed in. He shoved Garrett against the tank, elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Easy, Marrero. I want to get my shots in too!” Bennett popped his knuckles. “This one’s for getting me suspended….”

  Bennett punched Garrett in the gut.

  He crumpled, sucking wind. Ju
an lifted him back up and held him against the tank again.

  Bennett punched Garrett in the nose with a right hook, then in the jaw with his left. “That’s for what Owens got from his dad…”

  Garrett’s head lolled downward, his jaw aching. Blood flowed from both nostrils. He tasted more trickling down his throat. He heard a thunking sound above his head.

  “Whoa!” said Tardiff. “Guys, check out that shark!”

  “Nobody cares about some stupid shark,” said Bennett. “Pick him up again!”

  Water dripped down the back of Garrett’s neck. Why is everything so wet? He felt Juan lifting under his armpits again.

  Garrett slumped to the floor

  “Marrero!” Bennett yelled. “Why did you drop him?”

  “I-I dunno. He just got heavy all of a sudden!”

  Garrett reeled. He rolled to his back.

  The shark-man gazed down on him, a dark merman of death. His tail continued to sway.

  Tick…tock...tick...tock. Garrett swore the shark-man grinned at him.

  “Hey!” said Tardiff. “What’s wrong with Weaver’s leg?”

  “Pick him back up, Marrero!”

  The room spun in alternating black and red blurs. Bile rose in Garrett’s throat.

  “I-I can’t…” said Juan. “I can’t lift him—”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know…he’s…he’s too heavy!”

  “He can’t weigh that much!” Bennett said. “Lift him up!”

  “I can’t!”

  “Here, move!”

  Another pair of hands grabbed under Garrett’s arms. Again, he did not budge.

  “Wha—what’s the deal—” Bennett grunted.

  “I told you! He’s too heavy!”

  Garret’s pain subsided. His eyes fluttered open. Both of his classmates continued their attempts.

  Juan’s face turned purple as he tried again.

  Bennett glanced downward and screamed. “Look at his leg!”

  “Wh—”

  “Look at his leg!”

  Juan yanked Garrett’s right pant leg up. “What the…”

  No…not again! The black and white skin had returned, and his legs turned smooth and hairless. He reached down to touch them. His skin felt like wet car tires. Garrett screamed. Not again! Why is this happen—