Pacifica

by Kristen Simmons

  It was probably for the best. Chances were the Armament wouldn’t believe their story anyway, especially once they found the two below deck.

  They didn’t have time for a delay; he had to get to the president before the ocean liner launched.

  Ross held his breath as they coasted through the line of ships. Without pause, they slipped into a waterway between two islands, and entered the trash-filled Sacramento Bay.

  “I can’t believe this is actually work—”

  Before Adam had finished the thought, the scanner began to beep, a high-pitched sound that gripped Ross’s spine. A quick glance at the circular black screen revealed twin red dots on the far left side of the screen.

  “We’ve got two on the port side coming fast,” Marin said.

  Ross scanned the horizon, but had yet to see any sails.

  “The Armament?” he asked.

  “Fast enough to be,” she said. “Another coming from the south, but farther off.”

  His stomach climbed into his throat. The radio beeped again.

  “They’re not going to listen,” he said to Adam, whose face was set in a grimace.

  “I know,” Adam said. “We have to turn back. We don’t have a choice.”

  Desperation pitted out Ross’s stomach. They couldn’t turn back. If they did, the Armament would know something suspicious was going on. He remembered too well the chase that had sent them barreling through these islands the first time.

  “We can make it,” said Marin.

  He glanced over at her, her lifted chin and determined gaze sharpening his confidence.

  “We can’t,” said Adam. “Those ships are blocking our path to Donner Cove.”

  “We’ll go straight to Noram Harbor,” said Marin.

  “You’re not serious,” said Adam. “Everyone will be at the park. There’s no way we’ll get by without being noticed.”

  The celebration to launch the first passenger-bound ship to Pacifica was taking place there. The president and vice president would surely be in attendance.

  Ross pictured it in his mind. The harbor was industrial, once the fishing industry’s main port, but now primarily used for the Armament. Ross had been there once when his father had given a speech about military recruitment. The “park,” as they had called it, was scarcely more than a dirt field between the car lot and the pier, and the shops that had once lined the waterfront had been since dedicated to mainland offices for the military.

  He might have been safe there, but Marin wouldn’t be, and after all that had happened, Adam might not be either.

  All at once, he felt the weight his father had once described. His friends’ lives versus the fate of more than five hundred innocent people.

  “The Armament’s going to know something’s wrong when we don’t answer the radio,” Adam insisted. “We plow through them, they’ll treat us as hostile.”

  He was right. Roan Teller’s staff would answer the call, or stop for the Armament, but that wasn’t an option. The delay, once the Armament figured out their cargo, would cost them too much time. Their only chance was to outrun them, and hope that this government official’s boat would offer some protection.

  “We can’t stop,” he told Adam.

  After a moment, Adam nodded. But Marin just stared straight ahead, eyes on the water before her. She’d already made up her mind.

  Part of him loved her just then.

  “You’ll stay with me when we dock,” he told her.

  She glanced up at him, and gave a quick nod.

  “Get on the lines,” she ordered. “It’s time to move.”

  He did as she said, taking the starboard while she covered the port side. Ross didn’t have to be told what to do—they moved as a team now, cutting across the bay with the wind filling their deep blue sails. Finally, it registered that the beeping of the scanner had stopped, and when Ross looked down, he saw that Adam was holding the entire contraption in his hands. Severed wires dangled from the back of the black screen.

  “Kind of annoying, right?” he asked.

  Ross grinned.

  The coastline rose like a mirage from a trash-filled bay, white stone and rust, dancing on the horizon. From the haze emerged two white sails, scaling the water, outstretched and filled with the breeze. They grew larger with each passing moment, until the Alliance flag waved clearly above them.

  Warships.

  “Faster,” Ross muttered, praying for stronger wind.

  Muffled over the distance, he could hear the magnified call of the first ship. It was probably announcing who they were, and requesting that Marin stop at once. She ignored them, barreling on, leaving a spray of water and white foam in their wake.

  They didn’t take that well, and pursued at full speed.

  “They won’t shoot at us,” Ross called to the others. He hoped it was true.

  Finally, they entered the harbor, just as the two ships closed in behind. He could see the ocean liner in the deepest part of the cavity, the red and blue banners hanging in stark contrast to the fat, white hull.

  They’d made it in time. Cool relief doused through his veins, just as his stomach twisted in preparation for what would happen next. Beside the ocean liner were two more Armament warships, and the patrol presence on land would surely be enormous.

  “There!” Marin pointed ahead to the farthest pier to her right, where the docking stations at the end of the floating walkway were empty. She steered in that direction, and as they drew closer, Ross could see the crowd that gathered on the field just beyond, pressing against a chain-link fence that blocked access into the park in front of the relocation ship.

  Rioters.

  He could hear them shouting now, over the waves, over the water. Over Marin’s orders and the boom of the voice from the warships ordering their surrender. Over the music at the park, where the band his mother had booked was playing.

  They were going to dock the boat right in front of the riots.

  “We’re going to land hard,” Marin shouted. “Brace yourselves, boys!”

  For a few long moments, it felt as though the land were racing toward them, not the opposite. The concrete pylons anchoring the ends of each finger grew larger as they neared, and though Marin tried to steer around the closest support, they were moving too fast to cut away without capsizing. Holding tight to the lines, Ross grit his teeth, and counted the seconds to impact.

  One. Two. Three. Four.

  They slammed into the closest pylon, rotating hard into the pier, which shattered with a groan and a series of snaps and cracks. Ross was thrown forward, toppling onto his knees, his grip on the rope the only thing preventing him from going overboard.

  Before they’d fully stopped, he jolted to his feet, and leapt down to the cockpit. Skidding on the shattered glass that covered the floorboards, he lunged toward Marin, who’d been thrown to her back in the collision. The steering console had fallen over her, the wheel pinning her to the ground. Blood beaded from a gash on her bottom lip, but there was fire in her eyes as he heaved the heavy wooden circle off her chest.

  “Quit playing around,” he said, the side of his mouth tilting up.

  Muttering a curse under her breath, she reached for his hand. When he pulled her up, she braced herself on his waist, fingers twisting his shirt in her grasp for one moment before they stumbled toward the side of the boat where Adam was waiting.

  “We’ll have to jump,” Adam said, anxiously peering over the edge.

  It was ten feet down to the rickety boards, now free-floating, unattached to the pylon they’d crashed into. Ross glanced behind them; the warships were approaching.

  “Go,” Ross told Adam. “Now.”

  Sweat dripped down Adam’s temples. “I can’t. My leg.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Ross assured him, though he had no way of knowing.

  Adam hesitated. Ross shoved him over.

  His friend landed with a cry of pain, and crumpled onto his knees. He meant for Marin to go next, bu
t when he turned, she was facing the opposite way, toward the cockpit, where the hatch door leading below deck had swung open. The handle hung, broken, having popped free from the lock in the impact.

  Standing in the doorway was Marin’s brother.

  Luc staggered out, crimson streaks gleaming on his dark forehead. His wrists were still encased in shackles, though the chain between them had somehow been severed. His gaze, glassy and wild, turned in their direction, and a small smile twisted his lips.

  Ross didn’t realize he’d reached for Marin until his hand twisted in the shoulder strap of her shirt. He didn’t know what he would do, what he might say. A white-hot rage raked through him, burning away all thoughts but one.

  Get away from her.

  “Guess you’ll have to go be a hero without me, terreno,” said Marin quietly, breaking the icy stillness of this new nightmare.

  She placed her hand on his, and patted it twice. Then reached for the knife at her belt.

  “No,” said Ross. Through the pounding in his ears, he heard Adam shouting his name from the pier below.

  “Don’t worry.” Marin rose to a stand. “My brother and I have a few things we need to work out. Family business, isn’t that right, Luc?”

  Luc inhaled the fresh air above deck, nostrils flaring.

  “Ross!” shouted Adam again.

  There was no good choice. He had to get to the Shorelings now, before the boat left, before the Armament reached them. But Luc was dangerous, and free. Who knew what had happened below deck. He might have killed Roan. Now, he might kill others.

  They could deal with this pirate, or they could stop more from becoming like him.

  “Come with me,” said Ross. “Leave him. He’s weak. He won’t get far.”

  She hesitated.

  “Come with me,” Ross said again.

  If she stayed to fight, he would stay to fight, despite the consequences. He would not leave her to face her brother alone. But on the mainland, she could change things. Make things better. There were bigger, more important battles they could face together, the kind that ensured that no one would ever be thrown out in the trash again.

  Air hissed through her teeth.

  “All right,” she said.

  A breath huffed from his lungs. It felt like they had beaten Luc, without even touching him.

  She turned away from her brother, and stepped to the ledge. He didn’t question if the decision to leave Luc was the right one. Time was against them, and when she lowered her stance to jump, Ross leapt.

  He hit the ground beside Adam a second later, tumbling to his knees. Jolting upright.

  Marin was not beside him.

  He looked up, and in her sad smile he saw that she hadn’t intended to come with him. That she would take care of Luc alone.

  “Goodbye,” she mouthed.

  And then she was gone.

  Gone.

  Like Adam had been gone.

  “Marin!” he shouted, banging his fists against the hull of the boat. The boards, unanchored, slipped back, a foot of water between the dock and the siding. He looked for the ladder, for a line, something to get back on that ship. His ribs felt like they were caving in on his chest, crushing his lungs. He knew what Luc could do—what she would do, if given the chance.

  Marin saw her brother as her responsibility, just as he saw his father as his.

  She was strong, but Ross feared that strength now, because if she killed him, here, on the mainland in full view of the Armament, there would be no going back. She would be a pirate forever.

  A sharp crack filled the air. The boards beside him splintered to pieces in a tiny explosion that threw him to the side. The warships were here, and were shooting at them. Ross should have called out, but they couldn’t hear him. Didn’t know who he was. Wouldn’t believe him anyway.

  “We have to go,” said Adam in his ear. “We have to move, Ross!”

  “Marin!” Ross shouted again, but he knew she was out of his reach.

  He would find her. He’d found Adam; he could find her.

  He pushed Adam toward the riots, just as another shot fired beside them. When Adam sidestepped, his leg buckled, and he fell to the dock. Ross pulled him back up, slinging his friend’s arm over his shoulders.

  “Leave me,” Adam said. “I’ll tell them…”

  “No,” said Ross, blood running cold. He would never leave Adam again.

  He charged toward the crowd, dragging Adam as best he could.

  They made it to the riot. To the thrashing, crushing mass of bodies. Though taller than most, Ross couldn’t see beyond their raised hands and waving signs to the fence, or beyond it, where his father would soon be giving a speech.

  He pushed aside his thoughts of Marin, or how they should have been together now. Instead, he gripped Adam’s arm over his shoulders, holding on to his friend like a lifeline, doing his best to protect him from the jabbing elbows and shoving hands of those around them.

  A woman screamed. And then another. It was just like the riots then, everyone moving in different directions, pushing, trampling each other to get away.

  “FACEDOWN ON THE GROUND,” boomed a male voice over a loudspeaker. In the background, dancing music still played. Relocation’s celebration continued.

  He shoved forward.

  “FACEDOWN ON THE GROUND.”

  A woman in front of him looked back, just before a soldier in a black uniform and face mask burst through the center of the crowd and knocked her down with a body-length shield.

  “Stop!” Ross shouted.

  She cried out in pain, and then crawled away through the legs and mud, hidden by the flashes of clothing and swinging weapons of the soldiers.

  Steeling himself, Ross turned and rushed toward the fence. He carried Adam’s weight, straining and sweating and focusing on one singular goal. To find someone who could bring them to their fathers.

  There were more uniforms around him now, everywhere, filling the spaces between the Shorelings, who shouted in pain and cried, and lay on the ground, their hands behind their heads, their clothes splattered with mud.

  And then Adam was ripped from his side. Ross tried to hold him, but his shirt stretched and slipped from his fumbling fingers.

  The fence was ten feet away, but he wouldn’t make it. Not without his brother. He raised his hands and stood, as tall as he could, surrounded by the black uniforms bearing the city’s emblem. His city’s emblem. The crest on his Center uniform. That hung in the house he’d lived in for seven years.

  “Get on your knees!” one barked through his mask.

  They didn’t recognize him. They thought he was a Shoreling. That he was dangerous. They didn’t even look at his face, or his hands, outstretched and empty.

  “My name is Ross Torres!” he said. “I’m the son of the president. I’m unarmed.”

  “Get down or I’ll shoot you!” said another.

  “My name is Ross Torres!” he repeated. Again and again.

  They knocked him to his knees.

  “My name is Ross Torres. I’m unarmed.”

  He wove his fingers behind his head, as they shoved him to the ground.

  CHAPTER 33

  MARIN TRAINED the knife on her brother’s chest, ignoring the calls of the Armament approaching from behind. As much as she’d wanted to go with Ross, to believe there was another life for her out there, a part of her had always known it would come down to this. The blood of the Original 86 ran through her veins, and it was time for her to face the captain’s table for judgment.

  “Looks like you finally gnawed through those chains,” she said. “Hope they broke every last one of your good teeth.”

  His lips pulled back, revealing the same yellowed grin.

  “Pried a screw free when you crashed us,” he said. “Lucky the links were already rusted.”

  A shot fired, hitting the pier somewhere below them. She listened for a cry of pain, but heard none. If Ross was hurt … if he’d come this far ju
st to take a bullet … It took everything she had not to look back over the side of the boat.

  Marin nodded to the open hatch. “The woman. You kill her?”

  “Not yet. She still owes me.”

  “Warships, you mean.” That was what Ross had heard—that Luc had asked Roan Teller for warships to fight in his battle.

  Luc rolled his shoulders back, watching her knife. They were only ten feet apart and the weapon felt heavy in her grasp.

  “The younger Torres told you,” Luc realized with a nod. “Got that one by the throat, don’t you?”

  The Armament was still calling their threats over the loudspeakers. Luc didn’t bother glancing in their direction, nor did he look particularly flustered. Maybe he still thought he was under Teller’s protection.

  He would not be for long. Not once Ross reached his father.

  “How’d you find us? I’m a little fuzzy on the details,” Luc asked.

  “You sent Picker to have me killed,” she said, ignoring his question.

  He gave a small wince. “You tried to let my prisoner go.”

  “He wasn’t yours.”

  “Sure he was,” said Luc. “You tithed him. He became property of Careytown.”

  She flinched. Took a step closer. Her brother wasn’t wrong. She had given Ross over, but only to keep him alive. She was not the corsario her father had always wanted her to be. She never would be.

  “I made a mistake,” she said.

  He only sneered, then took one step back, and another. It was then that she saw what he intended to do—jump over the edge, swim under the cover of plastic, probably to the riot where he could blend in and disappear.

  She wasn’t going to let him leave this boat. Not when he’d hurt Ross, and not when Ross still had work to do.

  This was her job now, she realized with startling clarity. To help Ross protect the Shorelings. To stop them from going to Careytown, and coming back like Luc. She couldn’t do the things Ross could, but she could keep him safe.