Over Ross’s shoulder, she saw the military boat, now just fifty yards away. The Armament worked for his father; they wouldn’t hurt him. If she had to guess, he didn’t care about that, though. He wanted to find his friend, and this ship threatened his ability to do that.
Panic welled inside her. She shouldn’t have brought him in the first place. It was foolish to think she was like the other corsarios. She’d known she wasn’t from the first night her father placed that bone-handled knife in her hand.
One hundred thousand to take him.
Double to find Adam.
There was no time for regret. If she was getting out of this alive, she had to move.
Swinging under the boom, she cranked the wheel to hoist the rest of the sail. It luffed in the wind, the clatter of rain against it so loud it made the rush in her ears seem like a gentle hush. The nose of her boat lifted with the extra push, and charged forward.
“Come on,” she coaxed, looking back over her shoulder. She could see sailors onboard now wearing white hats and slickers, twenty yards back.
“Come on, come on, come on.” She bounced on her heels, one hand on the wheel.
They started to pull away. Her sail was larger, faster, but she’d need to taper her speed before she crashed into an island. The fog thickened, swallowing her whole, hiding the other boat. She glanced down at the GPS. Half a mile and closing until she ran aground. Pulling hard to port, she set a course between two of the larger land masses, though from the fuzzy green shapes on the screen it was hard to tell what depths she faced.
If they were caught, she’d die in a cell. She’d never see the open water again. She’d never go back to Careytown or sit at the captain’s table. Never repay Gloria for taking her in.
“Can you outrun them?” Ross asked, close behind her.
She nodded.
Another wave hit the side of the boat, and he was tossed onto a side compartment. She could see him out of the corner of her eye, pulling himself up the rail, staring behind them.
“They’re coming,” he said.
She gripped the wheel tighter and searched the water behind him, but saw nothing.
“… TREACHEROUS WATER AHEAD. LOWER YOUR SAIL AND SURRENDER YOUR VESSEL.”
Two quick shots cracked through the sky. Marin ducked automatically, just as a bullet ripped through the top corner of her sail.
“They’re shooting at us?” he asked, voice suddenly frantic.
They were trying to slow her down.
She didn’t look back.
Swells of land rose on either side of her, visible only in pieces through the mist. Broken buildings climbed to the very tops of them, though no lights drew her eye. The northern islands didn’t get power. Farther south they were a little bigger, but only slightly more inhabited. This chain was the last wall protecting the mainland from the storms, and they suffered each time lightning lit the sky.
“LOWER YOUR SAIL AND SURRENDER.”
Through the mist, great hunks of broken brick and concrete jutted up—remnants of a city, broken by quakes and buried by the sea long ago. Her hands were steady as she yanked the wheel hard to port. They avoided the ruins by a hair above the waterline, but below something scratched against the hull, like the teeth of a giant sea creature, dragging from bow to stern.
She winced, feeling the scratch as if it were nails down her own back. Cursing her hurt wrist, she let the sails down to half mast one-handed, the rope burning her left hand bloody as it ripped through her grasp. The waves and plastic bottles bouncing off the wreckage made a loud, threatening clatter. Just before crashing head-on into a wall of brick, she slowed, and squeezed between two buildings no wider than a city street. This had to have been easier in the old days, when the waters were low and people could drive cars on the ground below.
Another turn, and then another. A straight alley came into view. The rain increased, great buckets of it dumping from the sky, making puddles on the deck. She couldn’t hear the boat behind her, and she didn’t know who might be waiting past the break.
Quickly, she locked down the wheel to keep a straight course and dove beneath it to the cabinet holding her supplies. She pulled out the small canvas bag, ripped out the duct tape, and dropped the rest of it at her feet.
“What are you doing?” Ross asked.
She didn’t answer.
Grabbing the tape in her teeth, she climbed the siding above the hatch and hooked one elbow around the mast. After a quick swipe of the water from her eyes, she felt her way over the half-folded sail, stretching higher, higher, finally standing on the boom itself to reach the place where the bullet had pierced the canvas.
She needed speed once she hit open water, and a hole in her sail wasn’t going to give it to her. Balancing with the arches of her feet curving over the rounded pole, she pulled out a length of tape and tore it with her teeth. She tried to wipe the beads of water off the sail with her arm, but the rain kept coming.
The tape slid uselessly off the canvas.
“Stick!” she demanded. Below her, Ross was still crouched near the back of the boat, leaning over the edge. In the back of her mind she knew this was a bad idea—he’d go over if he wasn’t careful. The water churned, frothy with white caps and trash, pummeling the sides of the channel. Even the strongest swimmer would be sucked under in seconds.
One more attempt with the tape, and it stuck. Not well, but enough to patch the canvas for now.
She swung down to the cockpit and hoisted the mainsail, watching the line of silver tape as it climbed higher and higher overhead. Every part of her worked—every part but her sore wrist. She used one hand to pull the line, then grabbed it in her teeth, tucking the rope’s slack beneath her armpit. The lighter pieces of twine turned red from her bloody grasp, but she didn’t stop.
Finally, the sail was up, and she tied it off in a hurry, running to unlatch the wheel. They hit open water a moment later, the islands drawing back on either side as the Déchet burst forward into the gloom.
From the south came yellow lights—two, then three. The Armament. She could hear the whine of their speakers, but couldn’t make out the words over her own drumming heart.
There was a space between them. She could make it.
“Hold on!” she shouted. The sails billowed, round and full. Faster she went, faster. The wind stung her face, the rain pelted her body. Trash clunked against the bow of the Déchet as the lights disappeared in the gloom behind her. A dark thrill pounded through her veins. Not even the Armament could catch her. She had wings, just like her mother had said.
Ross didn’t answer.
She looked back, but he was gone.
CHAPTER 16
ROSS TUMBLED backward, knocked over the edge of the deck by a well-timed wave. The warm water embraced him, instantly dragging him under, and though he kicked his legs, the liquid clinging to his clothes made his movements slow and clumsy. With a burst of effort, he succeeded in lifting his head, just in time to grab a breath. The sting of his eyes was so harsh, he immediately closed them. In the back of his mind he remembered that the water was dirty and acidic, and that swimming in untreated pools of it was dangerous. Still, he didn’t have much of a choice. He squinted as tightly as he could, seeing the back of Marin’s boat through his compressed vision. Above, he could still hear the rain, tapping against the surface of the water.
He kicked on, heart thumping wildly. He knew how to swim. He’d done it before, in the pool at Center, and in the exercise lanes at his house. But this was the open ocean, and the enormity of it made the fear a loose, hot thing, sliding through his body.
Marin was gone, but he couldn’t think about what that meant now. Land was behind him, and though it looked far, he could make it. He was going to make it.
Even now he felt torn, like Adam was slipping farther away.
His hands, stretched out before him, bumped into something. Automatically, he recoiled, blowing out half his held breath. He opened his eyes wider, fearing
the slick, smooth thing was alive, some kind of monster from his dreams—a giant fish, or a shark, things in the moment he forgot didn’t exist anymore in the wild.
But it wasn’t an animal. Before him was trash, a pillar of it swaying in the waves, stretching down toward black, monstrous shadows. Roofs of buildings, just twenty feet below his feet, broken to ruins.
It was a dead place, filled with things long gone. It was a nightmare, stealing the breath from his lungs. He’d seen pictures of this in school, but they didn’t prepare him for how small he would feel floating above it.
His eyes burned, and when he gritted his teeth, water flooded his mouth. He tried to spit it out, but there was too much. He needed air. He kicked toward the surface, but the light slid away, and everything went dim.
He kicked harder, stretching his fingers out, but they caught in something clothlike and slimy, which swirled around his hand as he pulled away. He tried to swim back, away from it, and bumped into the pillar again. When he turned, the trash surrounded him like a net and wrapped around his body.
His chest was on fire now. He tried to push through, but struggling just wound him tighter in the trap. Every movement made it worse. His comm was stuck in a tendril of cloth or soft plastic, and when he couldn’t jerk it free, he undid the clasp and watched as it was swallowed by the trash.
Something squeezed around his right ankle. His arms were stuck out to the sides. A glint of light shone through the shadows—the sky was above him, only five feet or so, but he couldn’t get there.
Air. He could hear himself screaming, even with his mouth closed. He twisted frantically, but couldn’t break free.
His head started pounding.
Vaguely he registered a splash above him, and a new dose of terror spilled through his veins as a dark shape materialized before him. Marin. Her hair floated around her face. She was wearing something on her eyes—goggles of some sort. A knife was in her hand.
He struggled, but she shook her head, urging him to be still. Her hand felt down his arm, running over his bindings. After a second she seemed to give up and kicked toward the surface, and if he hadn’t lost control before, he did then.
Don’t leave. Every part of him seized with that one, singular thought. Don’t leave me.
Another splash, and this time she had something else in her hand. A gray metal pot, upside down, that she was pushing toward him. When she was close enough, she hooked her leg around his immobile arm to anchor herself, then shoved the pot down over his head.
Suddenly, his hairline was no longer submerged, and he craned his neck back until his mouth found the pocket of air she’d brought from the surface. He gasped again, and again, taking small sips of dirty, salty water with each breath. Relief scored through him. His lungs expanded with every gulp.
She squeezed her leg around his arm, and he knew what she was going to do. He wasn’t ready, but it didn’t matter. One last breath, and she released the pot. It spun on its side before his face, a bubble of air escaping to the surface before the gray steel sunk like a rock.
Her hands were on him then. On his neck. Down his shoulders. She cut away the debris with her knife, and soon his arms were free. She swam back to the surface for a breath, and he tracked her through squinted eyes, never more thankful than when she returned.
She dove deeper, hands sliding down his waist, over his thighs, slicing away the plastic and cloth and rope. He didn’t think about the placement of her shoulder when she braced it between his thighs, just of the knife in her hand as it cut him free. Finally, he was clear enough to kick out, and she fitted herself beneath his arm and guided him toward the surface.
They broke through together, both drawing in loud, deep breaths before paddling toward her boat. She led with the knife and kept her other hand knotted in the collar of his shirt until they reached the ladder mounted to the back. He didn’t speak, just followed her lead and grabbed the bottom rung. His body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. Water sloshed them back and forth, making it hard for his weak legs to find their footing.
“Next time … you want to … take a swim…” she said, breathing hard. “Try not to … jump into … an iceberg…”
He turned to face her, eyes still burning fiercely from the water. Her goggles were pulled up over her forehead, roughing her wet hair up around the strap. Water dripped from her nose and her chin. Her small body bumped against his as another wave hit. Her eyes, dark and angry, caught his for one suspended moment before she looked away.
She’d saved him.
He started to climb up the ladder, and when he’d reached the top, he flung himself over the ledge, landing chest down in the cockpit. She started to come up after him, but hesitated before she could swing over the side. Behind her, a round yellow light sliced through the gray. She must have seen the reflection on her boat because she froze, and her eyes went round.
Ross pushed himself to his knees. The light spread into a giant white hull with a broad, rectangular sail overtop it. The boat was twice the size of Marin’s, with a glass-encased cabin above the main deck. People in rain slickers lined the outer railing. One held a gun. Another was placed behind a stationary weapon of some kind. As they drew closer, he could see the man swivel the metal nozzle in their direction.
“THIS IS THE ALLIANCE ARMAMENT,” a voice boomed through the closing space between the two boats. “PREPARE TO BE BOARDED.”
Before the voice had finished, a thick spray of water exploded from the metal contraption. It hit the back of Marin’s boat with a roar, just seconds before it swung toward the girl. As it pelted her back, her mouth opened wide, but she didn’t scream. Still, the pain and fear tightened every feature, and he reached for her without thinking.
Her hand, small and slick, slid free from his grip as she dropped into the water.
* * *
Ross sat on a padded bench in the air-conditioned cabin of the Armament ship, huddled beneath a thick wool blanket. A woman in a crisp white uniform with faint red rashes on her broad cheeks stood before him, scratching her furrowed brows.
“Tell me again how you got on that boat?” Captain Ingold had introduced herself just after Ross had been rescued. She was the shape of a brick, with rigid posture and the kind of fixed, stern expression that said she didn’t waste a lot of time laughing.
That boat—Marin’s boat—was currently being towed behind them as they made their way north. Apparently the weather was too bad behind them, near San Fran, where the base was located, so they were going to a sister station somewhere offshore in the Pacific.
Ross frowned as he glanced around the cabin. Half a dozen crewmembers attended to various jobs steering, pressing buttons, and turning dials, all of them stealing glances at him when they thought he wasn’t looking. This didn’t bother Ross as much as their weapons, hanging from their belts or strapped across their chests. In his visits to the Armament base with his father, Ross had never seen them dressed this way before. These sailors appeared combat-ready, and he couldn’t help but wonder if this had something to do with Marin.
Sitting a little straighter, he squeezed the bottle of eye drops Captain Ingold had given him beneath the blanket. They did help relieve the sting from the seawater, but his skin still itched.
“I was looking for a friend of mine,” said Ross. “Marin—the girl on the boat—said she’d seen him.”
“And you believed her?” Captain Ingold’s mouth made a small, straight line.
“If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gone with her.” Ross recalled the way the soldier sailors had heaved Marin from the water with a net. How she’d fought to escape it when they’d hauled her to the deck, getting more tangled, just as he’d been tangled in the trash when she’d rescued him.
“Where is she, anyway?” Ross asked, his voice quieter.
She’d saved him in that water. He’d almost died. It wasn’t like at the riots when for all she knew he was just another Shoreling. She’d made it clear she had no love for him or hi
s father, and still, she’d jumped in after him.
Probably just for the money.
“She’s in the brig,” said Captain Ingold. “Detained.”
Ross cringed. It had taken two men, one sitting on her back, smashing her face against the deck, to get her cuffed. He’d tried to stop them, but they’d cuffed him too.
Somehow they’d been a lot quicker to let him go. He couldn’t help wondering if that had something to do with that fact that she was a Shoreling.
“She’s all right, isn’t she?” he asked.
“She won’t be any more trouble to you, Mr. Torres.”
In order to stop them from hurting Marin, he’d told them who he was. There wasn’t much use hiding it. Once they’d done the retinal ID scan, they would have figured it out anyway.
“That’s not what I asked,” he said.
Captain Ingold gave a curt smile. “Tell me, did Marin mention anything about other people she might be meeting?”
He frowned. “No. Just that she knew where Adam was.”
“And Adam is?”
“The vice president’s son.”
She gave a short hum. “Yes. I saw that he went missing. He’s a Shoreling, isn’t he?”
Of course he was a Shoreling. Everyone knew the vice president was a Shoreling, so obviously his son would be. Ross didn’t understand why she felt it was necessary to point it out.
“He’s the vice president’s son,” said Ross, slightly concerned that an alert had not been issued that he was missing. “Adam hasn’t been found?”
“The alert was still active as of an hour ago.”
Ross sunk in his seat. He’d had a feeling that would be her answer, but he still needed to ask, just in case.
The captain crossed her arms over her chest.
“So the girl who abducted you knew the vice president’s son.”
“Hold on,” he said. “I didn’t say she abducted me. I just said she knew where Adam was.”
The way her gaze narrowed on him made him feel like he should probably consult his father’s lawyer before he said too much more.