Contents
* * *
Title Page
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Acknowledgments
Also Available
About the Author
Copyright © 2015 by Michael Buckley
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
[email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.
www.hmhco.com
Cover illustration © 2016 by Shane Rebenschied
Cover design by Lisa Vega
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-0-544-34844-8
eISBN 978-0-544-63375-9
v1.0216
For Sarah Landis, who guides this ship
ALLEGED CONEY
ISLAND TERRORIST,
LYRIC WALKER,
STILL AT LARGE
BY VIDA FARGIS, NEW YORK TIMES REPORTER
CONEY ISLAND, NY—LYRIC WALKER, THE SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD SO-CALLED CONEY ISLAND TERRORIST, IS STILL AT LARGE AND CONTINUES TO ELUDE FEDERAL MARSHALS AND LOCAL POLICE DEPARTMENTS. THE FBI ONCE AGAIN HAS CALLED FOR THE PUBLIC’S ASSISTANCE IN TRACKING WALKER DOWN, DOUBLING ITS REWARD TO FIVE MILLION DOLLARS FOR ANY INFORMATION LEADING TO HER CAPTURE AND ARREST. TODAY THE AGENCY REASSERTED ITS CLAIM THAT IT IS EAGERLY PURSUING EVERY LEAD.
“[Walker] is allegedly tied to the deaths of nearly fifteen thousand people, as well as the disappearance of another four thousand. Bringing her to justice is the agency’s top priority,” FBI director David Winslow explained. He said the search has been hampered by the fact that the department is “working in a vacuum.” “We know she’s out there, but we need everyone’s help to find her,” Winslow stated.
Winslow pointed to the FBI’s twenty-four-hour tip line and website. He also stated that every police precinct in the United States is on heightened alert for Walker because of her alleged involvement in the destruction of the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Two weeks ago a massive tidal wave slammed into the community, causing countless deaths and billions of dollars in property damage, shortly after local police attempted to arrest Walker and her parents, Leonard and Summer Walker, on suspicion of espionage as Alpha terrorists. Credible evidence suggests that the wave was not an act of nature but the result of a weapon created by Alpha scientists.
A high-ranking official in the State Department who was not authorized to speak on behalf of the president complained that the failure to locate Ms. Walker is making law enforcement officials look incompetent.
“This girl has no family outside New York City. She has no credit cards and, as far as we can tell, no cash. Yet she’s somehow managing to stay off our radar,” he said. “We’ve gotten tips from New York all the way to Texas, but the police can’t make an arrest.”
Some reports allege Walker is traveling with a friend named Rebecca Conrad and an Alpha female who goes by the name Arcade and is rumored to be a member of the Triton clan.
“How hard is it to find three teenage girls, one of whom happens to be from a completely different species?” the source continued. “I won’t lie. This is frustrating. I know the American public is frustrated.” The source added that the young women “are making us look like fools.”
Recently appointed NYPD chief Albert Hand says his department has officers working overtime with military officials, sifting through surveillance-camera footage from the city and surrounding states.
“We’re going through video from banks, ATMs, convenience stores, libraries, anywhere there’s a camera.” Chief Hand says it’s “possible, though unlikely” that Walker remains here in New York. “We believe she is headed to the Southwest and has eluded the roadblocks that many states have constructed to keep out East Coast refugees. We’ve been working hand in hand with departments in New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania to find her. People need to be patient. We’ll catch her. It’s impossible to hide in modern America.”
Chapter One
SHE SITS AMONG THE CACTUS AND STONES AS THE RISING Texas sun ignites the edges of her silhouette. Her eyes are closed, her legs crossed, as if she is meditating. But the only higher plane she’s trying to reach involves killing and maiming her enemies. She barks at her fish god, the one she calls the Great Abyss, repeating an endless diatribe that deals with ripping out entrails, and severing heads from necks. This is how Arcade prays, and it can take hours. I was out here waiting when the temperature dropped and my bones froze stiff. Now the sun is rising and the air is broiling and I have run out of patience. We’re supposed to be training. We’re supposed to be getting ready for Tempest, but nothing happens until the Great Abyss gets an earful.
I kick a stone, a passive-aggressive reminder to her that I am still here.
I kick another.
“Come on!” I growl, giving up on the passive.
She opens her sharp blue eyes and stares at me. They form narrow slits that I’m sure would shoot lasers if they could. I have broken her unspoken rule—no talking when she’s doing her fiery-religion thing.
“The Great Abyss is owed praise for his favors,” she says. “He is the giver and the taker, the creator of all things, the beginning and the end of this world, and it would be wise for you to kneel and prostrate yourself before him.”
“I don’t believe in the Great Abyss.”
“The Great Abyss does not need you to believe in him. He is, whether you accept his existence or not. Dismiss him at your own peril.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“Do humans not have a god of their own you could speak to?”
“We’ve got hundreds of them, but the one I picked isn’t much of a talker,” I say as I raise my hand into the sky. My palm is encased in a thick metal glove that wraps around my wrist and exposes the fingers. With just a thought, it explodes with power and energy, turning my whole arm into a supernova of bright blue light. I smile. It wasn’t so long ago that I was terrified of this thing, but now I’m digging it—a lot. Wearing it makes me feel intimidating, like I’m an Amazonian warrior. I feel dangerous, gigantic, and five hundred feet tall. “We’re wasting time! If I don’t break something, I’m going to go crazy.”
“You want to break something, little minnow? Then break me,” Arcade says as she climbs to her feet. Once there, she ignites her own glove, and without warning, the ground heaves, first left, then right, bucking me like I’m a pesky flea it wants to shake off its hide. A crevice opens beneath me, and mud, silt, and water belch through it, rocketing high into the sky and knocking me to the ground.
I should have seen that coming.
I bear down on my thoughts, turning Arcade’s geyser into a baseball bat as big as a man. I fill it with sand and stones, and then I swing for the fences, right into her rib cage. The impact knocks her off her feet and sends her flailing across the dusty field. She lands with a bone-crunching thud that would kill a normal perso
n. Arcade is made of tougher stuff. She is a Triton, a warrior from an undersea empire flung to the surface by war and horror. Before she set foot on land, she lived her whole life in an inhospitable environment that made her stronger and faster and meaner. My attack was no more than a swat in a pillow fight. She runs toward me, roaring in my ears, with her glove leaving a comet’s trail behind her. It’s her turn to clobber me.
Two weeks ago, I would never have stood my ground like I do now. When Arcade agreed to train me to fight, I was still clinging to the quiet little girl I had been for so long. When she demanded that I think of myself as a weapon, I just couldn’t do it, even though I knew it was confidence and passion that fueled the crazy weapon on my hand. Don’t ask me how it works. All I know is the more badass I feel, the more damage I can do. But getting over years of invisibility wasn’t easy, and my cowardice held me back. Now that wall I built around me is falling down. Now I’m feeling like the wild thing I was always meant to be. Which is convenient, because now we’re in Texas, where Tempest is, where they are keeping my family. Anyone who gets in my way has a big frickin’ problem on their hands. Even Arcade.
Oh, wait—here she comes.
A huge watery fist materializes before me and catches me in the face. I flail backwards, end over end, like a pickup truck just hit me in the mouth. I crash onto my back, hard. Pain stampedes through my hips, neck, and chin. I see stars, and I’m suddenly not sure where I am.
Arcade stands over me, impatient and unsympathetic.
“Get up!” she demands. “Do you think the soldiers at Tempest will give you a chance to recover? They will shoot you where you lie, half-breed.”
I hate when she calls me that word, which is exactly why she does it. She knows it sets me off. She’s asking for it, so I wrap water around a nearby boulder, one that would take ten men to heft an inch, and use the liquid to wrench it free from the soil. It hovers between the teacher and the student. I want Arcade to see what I’ve learned, let her think I will fling it at her if she doesn’t stop insulting me, but her eyes are full of smiles. She’s calling my bluff.
Furious, I send it sailing in her direction. It’s too fast to dodge, and it slams into her with all the power of a subway train. Her body is flung fifty feet away, narrowly missing a patch of wild cacti when she lands. I’m sure I’ve killed her this time. I scamper to my feet in a panic and rush to her side.
“You are the only person in the world who bleeds when she attacks someone else,” she says.
I reach up and touch my nose. It’s wet, and when I look at my fingers, they are smeared in red. I’m not sure why this keeps happening. It seems if I go overboard with the glove, it breaks something inside my head. It’s probably killing me.
“Maybe I need a break,” I confess.
“A break?” she scoffs. “An Alpha does not need a break. Your mother’s blood runs through you, Lyric Walker. Can’t you hear its call for war?”
“My mother was a yoga teacher!”
“Your mother is a Daughter of Sirena. She fought off a pack of barracudas when she could barely lift her own head. Her father was Lan, hero of the Trill campaigns. There are songs about him that will be sung for generations. Your grandmother Shar was also known throughout the hunting grounds for her bloodthirstiness. She once defeated an Orlandi chieftain in hand-to-hand combat, all with a broken arm.”
“Trill? Orlandi? Are they Alpha clans?”
She shakes her head. “There are other empires, Lyric Walker. Did your mother teach you nothing?”
“I didn’t want to know,” I confess. When I found out my mother wasn’t a human being, I avoided everything about her past. I didn’t want Summer Walker the Underwater Barbarian. I wanted Summer Walker wearer of cutoff jean shorts and flip-flops.
“There are many things in the sea, Lyric Walker. Be thankful that you have only seen a small number of them.”
I shudder. I’ve seen enough to give me nightmares for the rest of my life.
“So you knew my family?” I ask. “All my mother really told me is that they were important figures in the Alpha government. I didn’t know they were famous.”
“As counselors and consorts, they were widely regarded, but it was their warrior instincts that earned them respect. You dishonor them with your halfhearted efforts.”
“I’m getting better!” I argue.
Water ruptures from the soil and curls around my neck like an anaconda. It jerks me off the ground nearly ten feet. I dangle and kick for freedom. She could kill me right here. She just might.
“Better is not good enough, Lyric Walker,” she says casually, as if she’s not strangling the life out of me. “We march to Tempest to free our people. Your pathetic efforts will intimidate no one. Is there no ferocity in you?”
The air slowly leaves my lungs. My legs search for land that isn’t there.
“Your city has been demolished. Your friends are dead and gone. Enemies roam your lands. Soldiers have taken your people, torn them from the arms of their mothers, all to cut them open and see how they work! Does none of this burn your passions? Where is your fury?”
“I can’t breathe!” I croak.
She frowns, and just like that, the water releases me. It rains to the ground, taking me along with it, and I land in the sand, gasping for oxygen. She stands over me with the sun behind her, so I cannot see her expression, but I don’t need to see it to know it is full of disgust.
“I have fury.” I choke.
“Then why don’t I fear you? Do you know why I am so much stronger than you with this glove? It’s because, as the humans say, I have scores to settle. My people were obliterated, reduced from millions to thousands. We suffered the indignation of living like rats in your surface world, to be spied on and attacked by human filth. We humiliated ourselves, cowering on your beach, and it was all for nothing! The Rusalka found us. We were easy targets. They slaughtered even more of our people, taking us from thousands to hundreds, and among those broken souls was my selfsame. Fathom’s death will not have been in vain. This weapon I wear burns bright with revenge, and I will use it to crush those responsible—the Rusalka, the prime, and the people at Tempest.”
Fathom. Hearing his name is a punch in the belly. In the two weeks that Arcade and I have traveled together, she has never mentioned him once, not in passing, nothing. I’ve been smart enough to keep my mouth shut too. After all, we’re both in love with him. I suddenly suspect that all this training is an excuse to get me out into the middle of nowhere so she can kill me. She would be justified, I suppose.
“He’s not dead,” I croak.
“Of course he is,” she says, watching me like I’ve said something crazy. “The prime and his consort cut him down in the water. If the Rusalka didn’t track him and feed on his body, then the sharks devoured him for sure. No, he did not survive. He has gone on to join the Great Abyss.”
I’m incensed by her certainty that the boy we both love did not survive. I saw the wound on his side and the blood that leaked from it, and I saw the goodbye in his eyes when he kissed me and swam away, but I can’t give up hope. I cannot accept a world in which he’s not alive.
The glove glows brighter on my hand. Yes, I do have something that fuels it. It’s regret for not holding on to him tighter. I should have held him and never let him go. I was a fool to respect their relationship. She didn’t . . . doesn’t love him. When you love a person, you don’t shrug your shoulders at their loss. You don’t just move on.
A funnel of water shoots out of the ground and catches Arcade, catapulting her into the sky. I wrap her in silt and mud and bring her down to the ground like a pile driver. This time I don’t hold back, so when she hits, there’s a bang I’m sure can be heard for miles.
I walk over to her limp body as she recovers. Instead of a fiery anger, I see the faintest hint of a smile.
“There is a fighter inside you, Lyric Walker,” Arcade says. “Tempest may tremble before you after all.”
I hear
someone clear her throat behind us. When I turn, I find Bex standing a few yards away, holding my empty backpack. She’s wearing a miniskirt, a Superman T-shirt, and a pair of Mary Janes that add two inches to her already-tall frame. She’d look hot if it weren’t for the impatient crease between her eyes.
“We’re out of food,” she says. “If you’re done killing each other, we need to go shopping.”
Chapter Two
I KNOW IT’S NOT SOMETHING I SHOULD BRAG ABOUT, but I’m really good at shoplifting.
Of course, I had to learn the hard way. My first attempts were embarrassing. I was too nervous, fumbling with my backpack and looking around suspiciously. I got caught six times in a row! On one of my first tries, the Korean owner of a convenience store chased Bex and me into the woods with a shotgun. We had to hide in a wetland all night while he shouted Korean profanities and mosquitoes dined on our skin.
Anyway, I learned some things from those experiences, like to avoid stores where the guy behind the counter is also the guy who owns the shop. This is how he pays his bills, and it means a lot to him. Big chain stores like 7-Eleven and Wawa don’t pay their employees enough to care if you walk out with a case of Slim Jims, so they don’t when you do.
Making a list is also helpful. My mom used to make them when we went for groceries at C-Town. She said it helped her stay focused. She was right. The stores I’m ripping off have a rainbow of colorful distractions and can hypnotize you with their endless varieties of corn-syrup-soaked foodlike products. When I go in, I know what I want to take, and if it isn’t on the list, then it stays on the shelf.
But the real secret to my success is what I call the four simple steps:
1. Find a store with a male cashier, somewhere between the ages of nineteen and fifty-five.
2. Dress Bex in some hoochie clothes.