by A. W. Cross
After a moment of stunned silence, Paloma pointed at the door. “Ana, Pol! Go. Now!”
They obeyed, running to either side of the doorway then leaning against the wall and checking their weapons. Pol nodded to Ana, and they stepped out together, their weapons sweeping from side to side in the empty hallway. Confused, they took a few more paces, clearing the doorframe.
A figure reached out from the shadows and shot one then the other before they’d even realized she was there. They fell to the ground, convulsing, a white froth gathering at the corner of their mouths.
A man burst into the room, his weapon trained on Paloma. A dark-haired man with eyes the color of home.
James.
He’d come for her. Despite everything she’d said to him, despite how she’d left him, he’d come for her.
I was right. We are right.
“Put your hands on your head, Paloma.” He stepped closer as she obliged, her mouth distorting into an ugly smile. “Where is—”
He saw Pine then, but not before Sebastian took advantage of her distraction and captured her in a chokehold, the scalpel pressed to the base of her neck where her spine met her skull.
“Drop the gun,” he said to James, his voice low and nauseating in its calm. “Or I’ll sever her nervous system.”
James readjusted his grip on the gun but didn’t lower it. Beads of perspiration formed on his forehead, but his hand was steady.
“I said, drop it.”
The Crow came up behind James and put his hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, James.”
James jerked his shoulder as though trying to shake off an annoying fly. He kept the gun and his gaze trained on Sebastian.
“James, please.”
He grimaced and lowered the gun. Rage and fear burned in his eyes.
Sebastian laughed, taunting him. “I’m still going to kill her, you know.”
Several tiny forms scuttled across the floor. What are those? They looked like tiny insects. James kept his gaze on Sebastian, but The Crow subtly tracked the minuscule figures, a slight smile quirking his mouth.
As Sebastian and James stared each other down, daring each other to make a move, the insects reached Pine’s feet and crawled up Sebastian’s pant leg. Even when one of them climbed up the skin of his arms, he didn’t glance down.
The coward had turned his own sensors off.
Then one of them scrambled into his ear. “What— What’s going on?” He kept his arm around Pine but dropped the scalpel and brushed his hand against his ear. “What the f—” His eyes widened, and he pushed Pine away from him.
“No—” His head canted oddly to the side and one hand curled into a claw. He stared at Pine, uncomprehending, as both his pupils blew, like Ash’s had, the iris blackening as he dropped to his knees.
“You all might want to take cover,” The Crow said, ducking behind the overturned gurney as Blue spun back through the doorway.
James snatched Pine around the waist and knocked her to the floor, curling his body around hers.
“Pine, I—”
The air sucked out of the room as it filled with a strange hum, a low drone that swelled into a whine before splintering into dazzling shards of glass that pierced Pine’s skull and drilled into her brain. Just as she began to feel herself coming part, it stopped. Air rushed into the room again, a vortex that was at once silent and deafening. After a few minutes, James moved away from her, and she fought to sit up.
James and The Crow stood over a body on the floor. Pine, unable to stand yet, crawled to them.
“I’m a bit disappointed, to be honest.” Crow wore an almost childish pout. “I expected it to, you know, explode out…not in.”
James squeezed his shoulder. “It’s still a victory.”
“He’s dead?”
James crouched as he turned, and Pine crawled into his arms. “Are you okay, Pine?”
“Yes, I thought my head was going to explode.” And it still might, but only because I’m so happy you’re here.
James gave her a curious look.
“Didn’t you hear that? That— Is that Sebastian? He’s dead?”
“He’s dead.”
“I want to see.” She needed to.
“Pine, are you sure?”
“Yes. I want to see the end of this. I want to remember it.” James shifted to the side, and she finally saw the synadroid who would’ve happily taken her life.
The ruins of his face looked so unlike the man she’d met she couldn’t remember what he’d looked like. “How could he do it, James? What—”
The bark of a loudspeaker assaulted the island, followed by the undulating wail of a siren.
Blue stuck her head through the doorway. “Time to go, everyone. The cavalry is here, and we’re not supposed to be.”
“What about Paloma?” Sebastian might be dead, but Pine wanted the harbormaster to pay.
Blue dismissed her with a flick of her wrist. “Leave her.” She placed more nodes on either side of the door after they’d passed through, and a horizontal band of pale blue light flared. “She’s not going anywhere.”
Outside the compound, the sun was beginning to set, the sky a riot of red and gold. “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight,” muttered The Crow as they ran.
Pine’s shadow followed her through the brush and the thicket of trees, over the comatose bodies of her kin. What had happened to them? Were they dead? “James—?” She pointed to the bodies on the ground.
“They’ll be okay, Pine. We had to knock them out to get past them, but they’re not hurt, not permanently.”
So why do I feel like a traitor, leaving them here? “But what if Paloma—”
James gripped her hand tighter. “Don’t worry about that. Listen.” The keening of the siren had been replaced by the rumble of many pairs of boots. “Paloma won’t be able to hurt them.”
They came to the edge of a lagoon, the water still—and empty. How were they planning to escape? One glance at James’s calm expression told her this must be part of the plan, but—
Blue’s hand moved in her pocket, and a few seconds later, a translucent shell, iridescent like abalone, broke the surface of the water.
A submarine.
They must’ve come up through the bottom of the island.
I wish I’d known. I could’ve saved us all. She closed her eyes. No. They never would’ve come. Unlike you, none of the others had anything worth going back to.
The hatch opened smoothly, and The Owl stood in the doorway, waving cheerfully. “Right on time!” He gestured grandly to Pine. “Welcome aboard.”
She didn’t move, her mind a blur as doubt tried to grasp her around the throat again. What’s going to happen now? Once we leave this island, then what? With Joseph—
Then James’s arms were around her and she let him guide her aboard the vessel.
As the sub navigated back though the island’s catacombs, Pine clung to James, her head against his chest, absorbing the soothing rhythm of his heart. It echoed through her until she could almost believe it was her own. She closed her eyes. Whatever had happened didn’t matter now and she could deal with whatever the future held. She was on her way home.
“She told you Joseph was dead?”
“Yes. She said Paloma knew, but that she let us think he was still alive as a cover, so I could escape.” The bewildered look on her face tore at James’s heart. If he’d ever had doubts about her feelings for Joseph, they were now quelled. He’d never seen grief looking back at him so starkly before.
“Is that why you got on the boat?” Or was it because of me? But he couldn’t ask the latter, afraid the answer would crush the careful happiness growing inside him.
Pine buried her head in her arms. “Partly, yes. If he was gone…I didn’t know what would happen to me.”
“Pine, look at me.” When she tightened her arms around her face, he gently pried them away. “Please.”
Her strange eyes shone as he cupped her fa
ce in both hands and rubbed his thumbs over her cheekbones. “Listen to me. If anything happened to Joseph, I would take care of you. I will always take care of you. And not just because of him.” He gripped her shoulders. “You believe me, right?”
She gazed at him, the war between everything she’d thought to be true and what she wanted to believe playing out on her face.
He understood completely. A tiny part of him still hung back, wondering if she was truly here the way he wanted her to be.
The smile she finally gave him was tentative, but James was okay with that. They still had a way to go, but at least now they would have the chance.
“James? I need you to know…before you came to the island, I tried to leave. I tried—”
He didn’t need to know. She was here, and that was what was important. “It’s okay, Pine, I—”
“No. I need to tell you this, and I need you to believe me. I didn’t want to leave you, James. I thought— Well, that doesn’t matter now.” She clutched at his wrists, holding them fast.
He gently pulled one of his hands free and cupped her face again. “I know what you thought. And I’m sorry. I had my doubts too, Pine. But I don’t anymore.” He hesitated then, “Do you?”
“No. I don’t.” And in her smile was the truth.
He smiled back, and they stayed that way until Blue coughed pointedly behind them. They broke apart, but no awkward tension remained, and James couldn’t have been more grateful. He didn’t know what would happen between them now, but it didn’t matter. She was here, and that was enough. “Now what?”
“First thing is to find Joseph.” Blue was nonchalant, as though she hadn’t just helped rescue Pine from certain death. “Sorry to interrupt, but this boat is a borrow and time is ticking.”
Pine pressed her face into James’s hand. “But he’s dead.” Her voice cracked over the last word.
He ran his hand over her hair. “I think Paloma lied, Pine. Nothing has been found—either of Joseph or his vessel. And believe me, we would’ve heard. Wouldn’t we, Blue?”
“Yep. Even if Paloma tried to cover it up. I’m with James, Pine. I think Joseph is still alive. We just need to find him.”
Pine dropped her face into her arms again, and her shoulders shook. She was weeping as best she could, and his heart ached for her. He sat back on his heels, weariness vying with frustration. “I just wish we knew where to look.”
Pine’s shoulders froze. She stared up at James, her misery forgotten. “The storm.”
The Owl and The Crow had joined them, and James glanced around at the others. Was he the only one who wasn’t following? “What do you mean, Pine? What about the storm?”
“There was a storm when Joseph went missing, right? A strange storm, the man at the docks said, lasting only twenty minutes or so.” She stood and paced the length of the floor as she thought out loud. “Do you remember what I said, James, that I sometimes thought something brought the storm, rather than the other way around?”
Storm-bringing sea monsters. How could he forget? Dread surged inside him.
“What if I’m right? We synadroids always knew when a storm was coming, because we would see things, feel things before it happened. If I’m right, all we need to do is look for a storm.”
“But there’s no way every storm is unnatural,” Blue said, although James could see her mind already surging ahead.
“No, not most storms. A small, isolated storm like the one Joseph disappeared during. A storm that isn’t predicted by the weather sensors.” Pine looked at them expectantly.
Blue’s eyes darted around the sub as though calculating the odds. “I have no idea if you’re right, but it’s the best lead we have right now.”
“Is it possible, Blue? Not that I doubt you, Pine.” It just seemed like such a long shot.
“Absolutely. The ocean is huge, and I’ve seen some pretty weird things out there.”
“Can you find the kind of storm she’s talking about?” It was a tenuous plan at best, but if they couldn’t even locate the squall, they’d be dead in the water.
Blue raised an eyebrow at The Owl.
“Of course.” He looked almost offended. “Just tell me the parameters we need.”
***
Three infuriating hours later, they still hadn’t found a single unnatural storm.
“How far out are we looking?” James asked. “Like Blue said, the ocean is massive.” Too massive. Whatever had taken Joseph was probably long gone. But seeing Pine so focused, he kept his mouth shut.
“Far enough.”
James had known The Owl long enough not to feel slighted by his terse reply. We’re all exhausted. Fatigue lapped at him, threatening to pull him under. “I’m going to go lie down for a while—in the cabin.” The last thing he needed was to fall asleep on the deck and dream of whatever was out there, only to wake and find it staring back at him.
He squeezed Pine’s shoulder. She ran her hand down his arm, distracted, as she stared at Owl’s screen as though she could will the blink of a squall to appear.
James lay on the long tweed couch in the cabin’s modest living quarters. Slowly, he slipped into sleep, his mind sinking through deepening layers of dreams.
Pine waited for him at the bottom of the ocean, her skin alight, her hair spreading around her shoulders like a black sail. “I knew you’d come.”
“I’ll always come for you.” James gathered her into his arms, soaking in the scent of sun and seaweed. He inhaled deeply. I can breathe.
James ran his hands over her, her luminescent skin warm to the touch. She traced her finger over his collarbone, leaving a glowing indigo trail. Over his entire body she sketched, until all but a few inches of his skin were radiant.
The light covering him burned with an expansive warmth, and he tilted his head back and raised his arms, weightless. Pine brought her mouth to the few dark spaces left on him, over and over, leaving marks of brilliance he thought would blind her. But as Pine traced her lips down his chest, down his stomach, the darkness in the sea behind them expanded. Pine’s skin dimmed and grew cold, and James’s breath no longer came easily. “What’s going on, Pine?”
“It knows we’re here. All we have to do now is wait.” Her luminosity pulsed once then went out, plunging James into darkness and knocking the remaining breath from his body.
“We have to get to the surface, Pine. I have to breathe. We have to find Joseph.” Euphoria seeped into James as his mind grew light. He was going to suffocate.
“Don’t worry, we don’t have to find anything. It’ll find us. It always does.” Pine gave him an enigmatic smile.
Behind her, a behemoth rose, a vast, dark shape with cruel, glittering eyes and a miasma of violence. It glided toward them silently as James tugged at Pine’s arm, desperately trying to get her attention.
The great mouth opened, and Pine was framed by a ring of viciously barbed, inward-turning spikes. James wanted to scream, to warn her, but Pine held a finger to her lips. “It’s very old, James. Don’t scare it away. Don’t—”
Pine crashed into the cabin just as the giant teeth pierced her.
Startled awake, James tried to stand, his long legs tripping over each other and bringing him crashing to the floor.
“James!”
“Pine? Is everything okay? Did you find Joseph?” He sat up and leaned against the couch, rubbing his elbow where it had grazed the floor.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. But we found a storm. We’re heading there now, come on.” She was practically quivering with excitement, nearly pulling James’s arm out of the socket as she dragged him toward the deck.
The ocean beyond the translucent shell shot by them in distorted smudges, too fast for his eyes to focus on. Thankfully. “How fast are we going?” He tried not to sound disapproving.
“Again, James? Don’t ask what you don’t want to know,” Blue answered primly. “Like when we rescued Pine, we have to go fast if we’re going to get there in time.”
/>
He couldn’t argue with that. James turned away from the dizzying view to face Pine. “Are you ready for this?” He rubbed his fingers over his eyes, unsure whether the blurriness was from sleep or the scenery whipping past. “What’s the plan?”
“Crow kitted out a…well, I guess it’s a life-pod.” She wrinkled her nose, as though dreading his reaction. “When we get close enough, I’m going to drive it into the storm.”
Had he misheard her? “What do you mean, you? You’re not going without me.” Did she actually think he’d let her go on her own?
“James, this is just like the storm before. You nearly died. You’re staying here, where you can breathe.” She stood on her toes and cupped his cheek. “We don’t know what’s down there. I’m not willing to risk your life again.”
There were so many ways he could’ve argued. He could’ve ranted that it wasn’t her choice. Could’ve put his foot down and demanded. Instead, he gazed at her and simply asked, “Would you let me go on my own?”
She stared back. He already knew the answer, but he needed her to know. “No. I wouldn’t.”
“Well, then.”
Wordlessly, she brought his hand to her lips.
He cleared his throat. “Just so I’m clear, we’re going to drive a tin can into a storm that’s possibly the cover for a giant, man-swallowing sea monster?”
Pine gave him a pained smile. “Yes. But you—”
“Don’t say it again. I’m coming.” Despite his bravado, James’s knees turned soft, reminding him of a jellyfish he’d once seen wash up on the shore.
Pine’s voice, cutting through the dark water. “ Don’t worry, James, we don’t have to find anything. It’ll find us. It always does.”
“James? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I just—”
“We’re here.” Blue’s voice rinsed away the last remnants of the dream. “And it looks like we’re right on time.”
***
The Avenoir disappeared toward the choppy surface above them. The Crow had outfitted James and Pine with trackers; they would retreat to a safe distance then come back for them when the storm was over.