When she stepped forward, her rage electrified the air. “His name was Richard Straid.”
Color washed over Shade like a breaking wave, leaving him brown-skinned and tattooed again. He reached into his pants pocket. “Him?” Shade held up a photo — Richard’s. “Found it in the minisub we hauled in yesterday.”
With a cry, Gemma shot forward. “Give me that!” She jammed her arm between the bars.
“Gemma, no!”
A smile floated over Shade’s mouth as if he was pleased by her spunk. But within a blink, his expression iced and he grabbed her by the throat. “Get the key,” he bellowed at me. “Now!”
When I didn’t move, he tightened his grip on Gemma’s neck and forced her to face me. The despair in her eyes tore at my heart.
“If you’re not back in five minutes,” Shade warned in a voice as deep and cold as the abyss, “she’ll no longer be breathing.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
“Like hell I’m going back in there,” the ranger spat, sweating and shaking as he loaded his sub into the moon pool. “If that girl is too stupid to stay back, she deserves what she gets.”
“He’s going to kill her if you don’t open the cage!”
“You tell me what that was.” The ranger rounded on me.
“What?” I asked, confused.
Grimes grabbed a fistful of my shirt and gave me a shake. “Doc was right, wasn’t he? Living down here does something to you people.”
“Doc never said that!”
“No? I got a report in my office by Dr. Metzger that says otherwise. That was Doc’s name before he changed it to Kunze.”
I gaped at him. Doc wrote that article? Was that what he meant about trying to tell the truth of what happened in Seablite?
Smugness took Grimes’s anger down a notch. “Didn’t know that, did you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, steeling my expression. “Whatever name he goes by now, Metzger was proved a fraud.”
“No, boy. The government called him a fraud so people would keep on immigrating subsea. But I know better.” Grimes pulled me close. “Now you tell me what that outlaw can do.”
I struggled to free myself from the ranger’s grip. “He can change color. That’s all I know.”
“But it could be more. More than changing color …”
I thought about Zoe and her power to stun a shark with electricity or fry a man. I nodded.
The ranger released me so fast I stumbled backward. “You got one, too, don’t you?” he spat. “A Dark Gift.”
“No. I —”
“Shut up.” His glare was packed with hatred and fear. “I’m not going back in there.” He yanked a tazer from his holster. “Hit him with this and he’ll let her go real quick.”
“Shade is using her as a shield and the cage is backed into a corner. There’s no way to get him without hurting Gemma.”
“You’re the freak. You figure it out.” Grimes jumped onto the bumper of his sub and threw open the hatch.
Furious, I grabbed hold of the sub’s hitching line. “Give me the key.”
“So you can let him loose? Not for all the space in the ‘wealth. I’ll send a ship of rangers back to get him.”
“Think this post is bad?” I yanked the hitching line and sent Grimes lurching to keep his balance. “If Shade kills a girl while in your custody, imagine where they’ll send you next.”
With the key gripped in my fist, I raced through the storage bay. When I rounded the corner at the end of the aisle, I saw Shade had moved Gemma next to the door of the cage. The outlaw smiled at me while she kept her eyes down.
“Where’s the ranger?” he asked as I neared the cage.
“Grimes wants nothing to do with you.” I held up the key.
He smirked as if I were a small child elaborating on a big lie. “He’s outside, waiting for me to step through the door, gun in hand,” Shade guessed. “Question is, did he have time to call in more guns?”
“I brought the key, now let her go.” I drew back my hand to throw him the key.
Shade slammed a shoulder into the bars. “Don’t. You come here.”
I inched closer. “It’ll be okay,” I whispered to Gemma, even though Shade stood right behind her. As soon as I got the cage door unlocked, he shoved it open. Before I could jump back, he grabbed my arm and threw me to the far side of the cage, all the while keeping a grip on Gemma. Stepping out, he took hold of her with his other hand and kicked the door shut. The heavy lock snapped into place.
“Don’t leave him in there!” Gemma cried.
Ignoring her plea, the outlaw led her around the corner and out of sight. I heard him say, “Call to the ranger and tell him you’re coming out alone. Then push open the door.” He said more but his words were too muffled to make out.
The storage bay door creaked open. I pressed against the bars. “Grimes, he’s out there! You just can’t see him!” But the only response I got was the swoosh of the storage bay door swinging shut in the distance. I kicked at the lock on the cage. The scene played in my mind: Shade, camouflaged against the metal foam walls, slipping down the corridor to steal a sub and escape.
The silence stretched out forever. Would he take Gemma as a hostage? I shuddered at the thought. Suddenly the storage room door banged open and running feet slapped the hard floor.
“Ty!” Gemma sprinted around the corner with the key in her hand. “I’m coming!”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
“Shade knocked him out with his own gun,” Gemma explained as she slipped her hand under the ranger’s jacket.
“Don’t bother checking for a heartbeat. He’s breathing,” I said, getting to my feet. “Just make sure his head isn’t bleeding. Be right back.” I ran down the corridor and into the enormous wet room, where there was a viewphone. I called Doc and gave him a quick rundown of what had happened.
“I’ll sound the alarm and tell the others that Shade is loose,” he said. “Stay with Grimes. I’ll be right there.”
By the time I ran back down the passage, Grimes had not only woken up but was struggling to stand. “Let go of me,” he snarled at Gemma, who was trying to hold him down.
“You’re hurt,” she said.
“Doc is on the way down,” I told him. “He should take a look at your head. That was a bad blow.”
Pushing Gemma’s hands aside, he heaved himself to his feet. “My head is fine. And so’s my memory,” he said, casting me a meaningful look. “So don’t try to tell me —” A Klaxon horn cut him off as it screeched through the entire Trade Station, announcing a Red Alert. Even if Grimes claimed his memory was fine, he looked confused now.
“That’s for Shade,” I explained. “He escaped….”
The ranger wheeled around and headed for the wet room.
“Where are you going? Doc’s on his way.”
“And he ain’t going to find me here,” Grimes said over his shoulder.
Gemma’s eyes met mine. “Well, it’s not much of a bump.”
Still, I followed Grimes to the edge of the moon pool, glancing around the wet room as I went. What if Shade was hiding somewhere in here? Being the middle of the night, the Access Deck was deserted. Anyway, most people moored their subs along the inner docking-ring of the Surface Deck. I could imagine the chaos up there right now, set off by the Red Alert. Not that there were many people aboard the Trade Station at this hour, only those drinking in the Saloon or bunking in the Hive. The Klaxon horn had surely interrupted their R & R.
“You’re leaving us with an outlaw on the loose?” I demanded as Grimes climbed into his sub.
“You’re the idiot who let him out,” he replied and then ducked into the cockpit and slammed the hatch.
“That doesn’t excuse you running away,” I shouted, though I knew he probably couldn’t hear me. As his sub sank under the water, I looked around the empty wet room and didn’t see Gemma. The image of the blood-soaked wet room in her brother?
??s rig floated up in my mind and a chill settled over me. I hoped Gemma had returned to the Service Deck and joined my parents.
When I finally made it to the dining hall, I found Hewitt and our families there. Ma rushed over to me. “Doc said you two were okay, but he didn’t have time to give us the whole story. What happened down there?”
“How did Shade escape?” Lars demanded.
I ignored their questions and scanned the empty tables in the dining hall. “Gemma isn’t here?” I asked, trying to curb my panic.
“No. Not since she left with you,” Ma said.
Behind us, the door swung open and Jibby entered. “I’ve never seen a place clear out so fast.” Raj barged in right behind him.
“Who’s left?” Lars asked.
Raj shrugged. “Us.”
“Did you see Gemma anywhere?” I asked.
Both shook their heads.
“I’m going to check the Surface Deck,” I told my parents.
“We just came from there,” Jibby said. “It’s deserted.”
“You should have seen it.” Raj smirked and unholstered his harpistol. “All them boats and subs launching at the same time, over one little escaped outlaw. Cowards.”
“How’s Ranger Grimes?” Pa asked me.
“He left.”
“Left?” Shurl asked. “With a prisoner on the loose?”
“Wouldn’t even wait for Doc to bandage his fool head,” I replied.
“Looks like we’re on our own.” Raj sounded oddly happy about that fact as he loaded miniharpoons into his gun.
“I just don’t comprehend how an outlaw that size snuck up on Grimes,” Lars said. “The ranger may be a bigot but he ain’t blind.”
When the group looked to me for an answer, my stomach twisted. “I was locked in the storage bay. I didn’t see it.” Which was true, but Gemma was right: Withholding information was a form of lying. “I need to find Gemma,” I said and slipped out of the canteen.
I raced down the corridor, only to turn the corner and see the elevator doors closing. I pounded the call button. Eyes pinned to the screen, I was surprised when the elevator stopped at the Recreation Deck. But Raj had said the Trade Station was empty except for us….
When the elevator finally returned, I saw the name on the adult ID card jammed into the slot and knew exactly who’d gone to the Saloon, even if I didn’t know why. The card belonged to one Ranger Matt Grimes. Nice. Gemma had pickpocketed an unconscious man.
The moment I stepped onto the catwalk, I spotted Gemma three stories down, pacing the Saloon floor. The whole place was dark and deserted, though half-full tankards littered the tables and seaweed cigars smoldered in the ashtrays. I ran down the first stairladder and paused at the top of the second. Just as I opened my mouth to call down, a movement behind her tightened my throat. A dark figure peeled away from the window. Shade! Advancing on her, he brightened with each step.
“Behind you,” I croaked. But it was too late. Like a striking cobra, Shade’s hand shot around her face and covered her mouth. Straddling the stairladder’s banister, I slid to the first catwalk. I had no weapon. No way to stop him from hurting her. I hit the grilled floor and sprang to my feet. “Leave her alone!”
Shade turned her to face him. I dashed toward the opposite side of the hanging platform to the stairs that led to the Saloon floor, chancing a look over the rail as I ran.
As Gemma gazed up at Shade, his skin smoothed out and his dark color drained away — including his coiling tattoos — leaving him pale. But not albino. Aside from his bandaged wound, only his feather-shaped bruise marked his skin. My own arm ached along the points of my matching bruise. I skidded to a stop at the top of the last stairladder. Why wasn’t she struggling to get away? Shade’s grip on her was loose. Gentle. He glanced up. As his eyes found me they blanched to solid white and then the centers blossomed into blue. And all at once, I understood.
Shade was Gemma’s brother.
He was a very different Richard than the one in the photograph, but even with his shaved head and bulging muscles, the man standing before her was obviously her brother—pale, freckled, and blue eyed. When his transformation was complete, Gemma threw her arms around him and I felt sick to the core. Had she known he was Richard all along? The way she was hugging him sure meant it wasn’t new information.
Unable to tear my gaze from their reunion, I descended, moments replaying in my head, taking on alternate meanings. The dark figure on the docking-ring—that was Shade watching Gemma pull off her disguise. Maybe that’s when he recognized her. So when the Specter chased us, he wasn’t after me; he’d been trying to catch up with Gemma. And last night, when he’d invaded our homestead, he’d come for her.
Nausea gave way to anger, as I realized how I’d been duped to aid in his escape. My feet hit the Saloon floor with a dull thud, echoing the feeling inside my chest. Gemma whirled and saw me. After a moment of silence, it was clear she didn’t know what to say, so I filled in the words for her. “That was a great act you put on tonight. You really had me believing you were scared out of your skin.”
“I didn’t know he was Richard! Not until you went to get the ranger and we were alone.”
“Right,” I said, even though there was nothing right about any of it.
“How could I have known?” she asked and then turned to Shade. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were last night?”
“I wanted to get you alone. The rest of the world thinks I’m dead.” He shot me a hard look. “And it better stay that way.”
What did his not-so-subtle threat matter? I now believed Gemma didn’t know who he was until half an hour ago, so I felt somewhat better. Not a total sap.
“You spilled your own blood inside that sub?” Gemma asked him. “But Doc said no one could lose that much and live.”
“He saved it up,” I guessed. “Froze it, pint by pint, over time.”
Shade grinned. “Knew you were a smart kid.”
“What good does it do you?” I asked angrily. “You’re still wanted as Shade.”
“The rangers ain’t my worry. I got a bigger threat hanging over me. You got the same one, you just don’t know it.”
“Like I’m going to believe anything you say. The Commonwealth is pulling out of the territory because of you and your gang.”
“Best thing that could happen. You don’t want to be dependent on the ‘wealth, kid.” His tone turned sardonic. “Someone might take advantage of the situation.”
I glared at him.
“Ty, please,” Gemma begged softly. But I couldn’t bring myself to think of this outlaw as her brother. Even light-eyed and freckled, the man radiated danger, had Shade’s hypnotic voice.
“You get the money I sent?” he asked, giving her braid a tug.
She nodded.
“It’s clean. Not stolen. Put it away for school.”
“School?” she scoffed. “I’m coming with you.”
Surprised, he dropped her braid. “This is a visit, nothing more.”
“I didn’t come all this way and risk getting eaten for a visit. You said we’d have a home of our own someday. With our own quality-time room.”
A faint smile pulled at his lips. “You were little when I said that.”
“So? Remembering it got me through the weekends when all the families were together,” she said. “And the holidays. I didn’t mind being alone because you said that when you were grown we’d do all the things that real families do together.” She crossed her arms as if to shore up her composure. “On your twenty-first birthday, I waited for you. I had your present and a cake and my bags packed….”
I glanced at Shade but reading his face was like trying to gauge how the stone deities in my room were feeling.
“And when Doc said you were dead and I —” She paused. “Anyway, I was alone again, only this time I didn’t have the hope of being with you to make it okay.” She met his gaze head-on. “Were you even going to tell me you were still alive?
”
“You know I would’ve,” he said and even sounded like he meant it. “But that changes nothing. You’re going back to the Topside tonight.”
“Why can’t I live with you on the Specter?”
Shade threw back his head and laughed. It was a deep, rumbling sound like an underwater earthquake. “Live with outlaws?” he snorted. “That’s why I gutted fish for three years?”
Gemma stiffened but before she could argue further, a crack echoed through the Saloon and a blinding spotlight caught us in its beam.
“Freeze!” commanded a voice from above as boots clanged on the ladder. Whirling, Shade raced for the window while another spotlight snapped on and followed him. Positioned on the first catwalk, the beam was so bright it was impossible to tell who held it.
“Look at him!” someone shouted as Shade’s skin turned translucent green. Though he blended with the window behind him, the spotlight brought out his contours and kept him from disappearing entirely. The second light found him and illuminated his lower half, encased in dark pants.
Storming forward, Shade lifted a bar table and threw it at the man on the stairs who was holding one of the spotlights. With a cry, the man dropped the light and jumped out of the way, landing with a thud. Shade tore toward him, darkening as he went. The beam of the other spotlight chased him across the Saloon as he knocked aside tables and kicked over chairs. The man on the floor screamed as his harpistol flew from his hand, snatched by a nearly invisible fist. Shade paused over the prone man … Lars.
A deadly sharp harpoon punctured the top of a metal bar table, sending me and Gemma scooting back.
“Stop shooting,” a voice bellowed from the first catwalk. A familiar voice. Although the person was no more than a shadow on the first catwalk, I knew it was Doc.
“Jibby, your wild shots are going to sink us,” another voice barked. Raj.
These weren’t rangers here to arrest Shade. These were men I knew.
With a running leap, Shade climbed a vertical strut. Hand over hand he went, with Lars’s pistol tucked into the waistband of his pants. When he reached the first catwalk, he flipped over the railing. Illuminated by the spotlight, he advanced toward the second stairladder, blanching with each step until his skin glowed ivory white and his eyes burned red. “Move,” he growled, putting a foot on the bottom rung.