Firebrand

  “What kind of something?” I asked again.

  “I don’t know,” Jerren snapped. “Dare just called it the solution.”

  Alice froze. So did I. I’d been worried about getting us thrown out of Sumter. Instead, Chief had simply been plotting how to lose us while keeping Griffin.

  “What’s the solution?” I asked, playing innocent.

  Kell laughed, which made him wince. “Nice try, Thomas. Actually, Chief thought it was you at first. But then a friend put us on the right track again. It was simple math, really.”

  “Who told you? Was it Marin?”

  “Help me get back to Sumter and I’ll tell you.”

  “Rats are getting closer,” yelled Nyla.

  I wrapped an arm around Rose and tried to drag her away. She couldn’t take her own weight.

  Alice crouched beside me. “We’ll carry her together,” she said.

  “No. I’ve got her. Just help her up, all right?”

  Rose groaned as Alice lifted her onto my back. She seemed unable to wrap her arms around my neck, let alone hold on tightly. I placed my hands under her and twined my fingers. Her shallow breaths warmed my neck as her head sank against my shoulder.

  Nyla sprinted around the corner. “The rats are splitting into groups. It’s like they’re trying to trap us here.”

  “You’ll never make it out alive, Thomas.” Kell swallowed hard. “Some people say rats can smell weakness. Right now, I’d say it’s your girlfriend they’re smelling.”

  When no one said anything, Kell seemed emboldened. He pulled himself up again and stared at Jerren, almost daring the boy to shoot. Jerren retreated, and Kell hobbled after him. “Last chance, Jerren,” he rasped. “Take me back and we’ll forget everything.”

  Jerren kept the guns trained on him as we backed toward the fort entrance. Nyla shadowed his every move. But Kell matched them step for step, his right leg dragging across the ground.

  “Stay back,” growled Jerren.

  “Or what? You’ll shoot me again?” Kell’s teeth chattered. “You chose the wrong side, boy. We had a visitor during the night, see? An old friend, you might say.”

  I flashed Alice a look, but she shook her head. “Dare’s dead, Thom. Kell’s just trying to rattle us.” Her hands were shaking, though.

  As we reached the tunnel that led out of the fort, Kell lurched forward, a grotesque smile stretching his sunburned skin. Jerren pointed one of the guns at Kell’s head. Still the man didn’t stop smiling. He simply eased forward until the barrel was pressed against his forehead. “Really think you’ve got it in you, Jerren? Really think you can be a killer too?”

  Rose was heavy against me as I stepped backward from the scene, but I continued to watch. Somehow I knew that Jerren wouldn’t kill his mentor.

  “We need to run,” murmured Alice.

  Before she’d finished speaking, Kell opened his mouth and bit on the barrel. He brought his hands around and placed them on the barrel too, so that when Jerren tried to pull away, he couldn’t. He’d be disarmed at any moment, I was sure of it.

  Jerren seemed petrified. Again he tried to pull away, but it was no use. He was crying too. After everything, this is how it would end for him. At the same place as his parents.

  Nyla reached around her brother and wrapped her hands over his. I figured she was trying to pull the weapon away too, but when she stood on tiptoe and kissed her brother on the cheek, something in the air shifted. And I knew.

  I tried to shout no, but the word wouldn’t come out. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because at that moment she pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER 31

  I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. I’d seen Kyte shot right in front of me, but I hadn’t realized what was happening back then. Plus, the Guardian’s wound had been so small. But there was no way to ignore Kell’s blood spattered against the ground, or the remains of his head, sliced open like one of Rose’s fish—gutted, discarded. It was gruesome.

  I had to look away, which is how I saw the rats were converging on our path. Even the sound of gunfire wasn’t enough to deter them anymore.

  “Run!” I yelled.

  Alice took Jerren’s arm and pulled him from the carnage. When he dropped the guns in disgust, Nyla calmly picked them up again. As the rats closed in on her, she adjusted the bags on her shoulder like there was no hurry at all.

  I looked her in the eye and she returned my gaze. As much as I hated Jerren for putting Rose in the cell with Kell, he’d never frightened me the way that Nyla did in that moment. As she left the bloody scene, she swung her arms loosely, a gun in each hand.

  I staggered backward through the tunnel, unable to take my eyes off the rats. They were completely still, just watching us.

  “They remember your flame,” said Nyla.

  When I was halfway down the tunnel they swarmed Kell’s body like flies on a horse. There were sounds of clawing and tearing. When one by one the rats turned away, they carried a souvenir with them: a piece of Kell’s flesh. Each one ate greedily. Then, sensing that they wouldn’t be able to fight the tide and return for more, they pursued us.

  I turned around and ran, pounding out one footstep after another as Rose bounced against my back, a dead weight.

  Nyla quickly passed me. She followed the others out of the tunnel and along a path. When it forked left, they followed it toward the beach. I could see the water sparkling just ahead of us.

  Jerren took another left turn and suddenly they were running parallel to the coast, hidden behind a row of trees and bushes. Sweat poured down my forehead. Rose moaned with every bump.

  “Go this way,” I yelled, veering straight toward the water.

  About thirty yards ahead of me, Alice spun around. “No! Someone’ll be watching from Sumter. We need to stay hidden.” Her face darkened then, and it wasn’t hard to imagine what she saw so close behind me.

  Jerren stopped too. “Fire a shot, Nyla. It’ll frighten them away.”

  “They might hear it on Sumter,” yelled Alice.

  Jerren raised his hands. “They won’t.”

  Nyla pointed the gun at the ground and a shot rang out. For a moment, Alice seemed to relax. But only for a moment.

  “Come on,” Alice shouted. “It’s less than fifty yards to the cove.”

  We were running across grass now. The footing was uneven and I stumbled but didn’t fall. My head throbbed with the sound of my breathing.

  From the corner of my eye I saw a rat just behind me. Then two. Then several more on the other side. They were flanking me, grouping in preparation for an attack. I had no idea what the attack would be like, only that it was inevitable.

  Alice waited for me at the tree line. Seeing the rats, she threw a stick. It landed beside me, knocking a few of them aside. But others took their place. They filed between my legs so that I almost stepped on them.

  Nyla turned to fire, but the gun just clicked. Empty. She tossed it at them instead.

  She and Alice sprinted through the trees and I followed right behind them. The change of direction caught the rats off-guard. The water was only a few yards away.

  “Thom, jump!” screamed Alice.

  I leaped forward and crashed into water only a few inches deep, Rose on top of me. My face was driven into the water and against the sand. My mouth filled with both.

  Someone pulled Rose off me and I pushed myself up to the surface, gasping for air. When I looked back up to the beach, the rats had formed a line along the water’s edge.

  I stayed crouched down in the water so that I could hold Rose. She was breathing, but her eyes were half-closed. The blood that had soaked into her tunic made the water around her cloudy.

  “Remove her clothes,” said Jerren flatly. “The salt water will clean the wounds.”

  He was right, but it was his fault Rose was i
n this state at all. None of this would’ve happened if he’d listened to us. The contrast between him and Rose made me sick—he hadn’t paid at all for his stupidity. Suddenly I couldn’t see anything but Kell standing behind Rose, the knife against her neck.

  “Here, I’ll do it,” he said when I didn’t move.

  “Get away from her.” I slammed my hand into his chest, knocking him backward.

  He bounced back up but I was ready for him, fists raised.

  “No way,” said Alice, stepping between us.

  “So you’re taking his side,” I snapped. “What a surprise.”

  She gritted her teeth. “Not even close.”

  She swung her fist around, catching Jerren square in the gut and sending him to his knees. “You knew this was going to happen, and you let us walk into it.”

  “I saved you,” Jerren moaned. “If I’d told you what Kell planned, you never would’ve come along.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And Chief would’ve had you shot. He thinks your parents are the dangerous ones—never would’ve sent me and Kell alone to deal with you if he’d known the truth.” He rubbed his stomach. “He’s scared of you all, especially your parents. And when Chief is scared, he doesn’t take any chances. Coming today kept you alive. Now you can help the rest of your families.”

  Alice joined me and together we lifted Rose out of the shallow water and onto the catamaran. We cleaned her wounds and used what was left of my tunic to bandage her neck. “We need to get back to Sumter,” I said.

  “Not in daylight,” said Jerren. “The guards will be expecting only one boat. And I’m guessing they’re only expecting one person too.”

  A rat ventured into the water then. Another too. Alice grasped my hand and we combined to make a flame. It was smaller than before, but enough to deter them for a while longer.

  There were still a few strikes until nightfall. What was happening to our parents right now? How long before the rats attacked again?

  Alice looked right past me to the shore. The rats formed a line at the water’s edge, waiting for us to return. “It’s not possible,” she murmured. “The way the rats work together . . . I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “That’s why we call these trips suicide squads,” said Jerren. “The rats here work together. No one knows how, but they’ve had years to learn. Chief says they’re adapting to the new world, and they’re doing it better than us.”

  Alice reached into her bag and removed the fresh-picked greens. “We should eat this. It won’t keep now it’s wet. And who knows when we’ll get something else.”

  She passed around handfuls of leaves. I didn’t even look at them, just shoveled them into my mouth and chewed over and over until I could finally swallow. I checked on Rose to see if she was awake enough to eat. She shook her head.

  Nyla barely ate at all. She sat in the water, watching Alice and me. Her expression was neutral, alarmingly cool.

  “So Alice’s element is fire,” she said finally. “But what’s yours?”

  I stopped chewing. Alice didn’t look at me, but I could tell that she was focused on me, waiting for my answer. My instinct was to play ignorant, but it was too late for that.

  “We’re not sure,” I said. “Until a week ago, I didn’t know I had an element at all. The Guardians have kept it a secret all my life. I think I can channel energy, but that’s about all . . . for now.”

  Jerren narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean: for now?”

  “The elements don’t work as well here. I don’t know why,” I added hurriedly. “Anyway, what do you know about elementals?”

  Nyla toyed with her food, but she still didn’t eat. “There have always been rumors. Even at Fort Dauphin, people said they saw things.”

  I mulled this over. I didn’t know exactly where Fort Dauphin was, but I was sure it was even farther from Roanoke Island than Fort Sumter. In which case, how had people’s elements worked at all? Were there more of us elsewhere?

  “So when we reach Sumter,” said Alice, “will our families be alive?”

  Jerren nodded. “I told you: Chief won’t waste ammunition, and he’s protective of the children. Doesn’t want them seeing anything bad.”

  The water was warm, but we were cooling down from our run now. The sun was obscured by dark clouds gathering to the southwest. We climbed onto the catamarans and lay across the canvas sheets.

  I beckoned Alice over to me. “What Kell was saying—”

  “No.” She huffed. “I know what you’re thinking, and Dare’s dead, all right? You saw him drown.”

  “I saw him go underwater and not resurface.”

  “Kell was just trying to scare us. Make us think we needed to keep him with us.” She waved a hand in the direction of Sumter. “Did you see another ship arrive during the night? If so, where’s it hidden now?”

  “Dare could’ve anchored it behind one of the islands,” suggested Jerren.

  “We’d see the mast. Unless you think he made the voyage in a cutter.” She gave a disdainful look. “Listen, this is exactly what I’m talking about. Kell wanted to get inside our heads, and distract us. It’s working too.” She turned to me. “You know as well as I do, there were no other ships back on Roanoke Island, right? And no boats big enough to make a voyage like ours, either.”

  “No, there weren’t,” I agreed, but my pulse continued to race.

  From the corner of my eye I noticed Nyla watching me. She opened her mouth, but it was a while before she spoke. “Does Griffin . . . see things?” she asked.

  Her question put me on my guard. There was no way she should have known about Griffin’s element unless he had told her, and he’d never do that. “What do you mean?”

  “Something happened before we left. Something . . . weird.” She clicked her tongue. “Chief came for him this morning before we left, and Griffin went crazy.”

  I froze. “Crazy, how?”

  Nyla seemed to be regretting the conversation now, but kept going. “He was holding my hand. It was the first time. Felt nice. Then Chief came over and patted him on the back. After that, his grip got real painful. I tried to pull away, but I couldn’t. It was like . . . he wasn’t even himself anymore.”

  So that’s why they’d kept Griffin away from me. He’d had a seizure, a vision of something terrible that was about to occur. I hated knowing that I hadn’t been there for him. Or that Nyla sounded so calm about it.

  “When we were in the fort,” I asked her, “did one of the rats bite you?”

  She didn’t answer at first. Then, slowly, she lifted the fabric of her pants. Though the water had rinsed the blood away, the wound remained visible: a bite mark just above her ankle.

  Alice dropped her food and began to clean it right away. Jerren tore his tunic so that he could bandage it. “It’s just one bite,” he said. “I’ve heard of people who survive.”

  Through it all, Nyla remained completely still, just watching me. So that’s why she’d been able to pull the trigger when her brother couldn’t. Once she’d been bitten, she must’ve guessed what Griffin’s seizure had meant.

  Strange to think that with Rose so hurt and broken, it was Nyla, still perfectly healthy, who was as good as dead.

  CHAPTER 32

  It was evening. The clouds had darkened throughout the afternoon as a storm rolled toward us. Occasionally we’d peer over the rocks at the edge of the cove and spy on Fort Sumter. It didn’t look any different. Whatever horrifying things were going on were hidden behind those thick, forbidding walls.

  Alice and I had repelled the rats twice more, but after each time, I’d needed to rest. No one disturbed me either. They knew that without me, Alice’s element wouldn’t stop anything.

  Rose drifted in and out of sleep. When she was awake, I fed her morsels of food and held her head as she washed them down wi
th sips of water. One time, she ran her hand around her neck and discovered that her pendant had gone, the cord no doubt severed by Kell’s knife. Such a small thing really, but it caused a round of silent tears. She gave up eating and remained perfectly still as I brushed her hair from her face and wrapped my arms around her. A moment later, she’d drifted back to sleep.

  Alice joined me. She held my hand, just as she had done back on Roanoke Island, but it felt different now. Same hand, same skin, same pressure as her fingers twined with mine, but this touch was all about reassurance and friendship. It was about letting me know she was on my side. Rose’s side too.

  I wanted to ask her about Eleanor, but not with Jerren and Nyla around. Besides, we’d seen enough death for one day. There was no need to revisit past horrors.

  “You should give her mine,” said Alice, running her pendant along the cord. “It would mean more to her, I think.”

  There was a deeper meaning to those words, and we both knew it. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” She loosed my hand and turned away so that I could reach the knot. “It’s a sheet bend knot though, right?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I could tell by your movements when you put it on me back at Roanoke. I was kind of pleased actually—it’s such a permanent knot—but now I think you were just nervous.”

  I didn’t reply. There was no need to confirm what she already knew to be true.

  Jerren wasn’t watching us, but he could hear every word. I wondered if Alice wanted him to know that something had happened between us, so he’d be jealous. But as I removed the cord and tied it gently around Rose’s neck instead, I realized that wasn’t it at all. She wanted him to know that she was letting go of whatever we had shared. Jerren would know the boundaries of our friendship now.

  “We should go,” announced Nyla. She hadn’t spoken since she’d shown us the rat bite, and hearing her voice startled me.

  Jerren stared at the sky. “Thunderstorm’s coming.”