“There you are, Blondie!” she cries out. “Come here!” She lifts a hand in greeting, but I keep going. I hear her calling my name, screaming for me to stop. But I will not. I lose her in the crowd, and keep running until I reach the ocean.
When I stare out at the water, relief washes over me.
I give myself one moment to catch my breath. When I get to the boat, I will ask my father to explain it to me. I will finally get my answers. I dive into the waves and start the swim.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER 48
ZEPHYR
The Pirates take turns beating me.
They laugh each time they stick a punch in my gut, or slam my skull with an elbow, or fist. I start seeing stars. I think I actually do piss myself, and the Pirates can’t stop laughing.
“We came here for the girl, but it looks like we got an extra treat instead,” the leader says. I’m seeing three of him.
“You think you can just get away with killing my men?” He spits in my face.
“Goh ew hell,” I say.
Once I actually do pass out, but they dump saltwater on my face, and it burns so bad I wake up screaming. I’m going insane. I think I see Meadow, her face frozen in horror as she looks at me through the shattered window.
Meadow is here. She’s here right now, and if these guys see her, they’ll do worse things to her than they’re doing to me.
But it’s good, because Meadow slinks behind the men, sticking to the shadows. I watch her head for the door at the opposite end of the cabin. She slides it open. I hear her gasp, and she leans down to grab something small and silver. She holds it up, and the flames make it dance with light. A seashell charm. For a second, she wavers. She bends over like she’s been hit in the gut. But then she straightens up, faces me, and smiles.
Then she disappears.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER 49
MEADOW
My family is gone.
There are Pirates on my boat.
The Pirates are beating up Zephyr.
How did he get here? I know the Pirates are here because the Initiative sent them to find me. Maybe they sent Zephyr here, too, so that he could finish me off.
My father will understand that if Pirates are here, it means the Initiative sent them. He will keep Koi and Peri in hiding. They’ll be someplace I don’t know about, some place I can’t find. The Shallows is miles wide, full of thousands and thousands of people.
I might never find them. I might never see them again. I want to scream, but instead I focus on the only thing I have left.
I slink past the men, sticking to the shadows. I head for the door to belowdecks. Just as I slide it open, a glint of silver stops me.
Peri’s bracelet.
I pick it up, fingers trembling. It feels like I have been hit in the gut. But there’s no time to waste. I creep down to the belly of our houseboat.
This is where my mother always disappeared, locking the door behind her. This may be my last chance to come aboard this boat, and I will not leave until I discover what lies behind the door.
I take it at a run, letting my body slam shoulder first into the old wood. The Pirates are shouting overhead, Zephyr is screaming. I pray they can’t hear me. The wood splinters. I see something silver behind it.
Confusion drowns me. I tear furiously at the wood, and in minutes, I have peeled it all away.
A steel door stands before me.
Everything that is left of my mother is behind this door. I have to know her secrets. I have to know what she knew.
I hear Zephyr scream in agony, and I tell myself I do not care. He deserves it. I turn and slam my fists against the door, and after a moment, I realize that there is an insignia etched into the metal.
It reminds me of my mother’s seashell charm. The very same one I have worn on my wrist since the night she left me, until I gave it to Peri. With shaking hands, I lift the bracelet so that it dangles just before my eyes, and there it is. The same pattern.
I press the charm up against the door. It fits. It locks into place, and suddenly there is a hissing noise, like compressed air being released. The door slides open.
The room is small—it’s a closet, really. The walls are covered with photographs. Charts. Newspaper clippings. Equations and symbols that make no sense to me. There is a Pad imbedded in a tiny desk.
When I touch the shiny black screen, it flickers to life.
I tap it again.
A photograph of the Commander, standing side by side, arm in arm with a woman and a team of scientists in white lab coats, appears on the screen. The woman holds a pair of scissors. She is poised to cut a red ribbon. The group is standing in front of the Initiative building I just escaped from. The woman is my mother.
I hear footsteps.
I look around quickly. There is an emergency kit in the corner of the galley. Inside are matches, and rope, and what looks like a container of fuel.
I unscrew the lid and dump it on the floor, splash it on the walls of the galley and closet.
I am getting ready to strike the match when something catches my eye. An envelope, tacked to the wall with all the other stuff.
Meadow it reads on the front. In my mother’s handwriting. Did she know I would find this here? Did she know I would discover a way into her locked room? I grab it and put it into my waistband.
The Pirate is stomping down the stairs, calling out my name, like he knows I am here. I can’t go into the engine room. I’ll be trapped. I sling the emergency kit over my shoulder and sprint into the hall.
Our eyes meet, and the Pirate smiles. I skid to a stop.
“Got her, boys! Down here!”
His eyes trail up and down my body. I rush at him. I let him grab me from behind as I try to pass, just like my father trained me to do. I let my body go slack. I swing my legs behind his knees, then put all my weight into the trip. He goes down easy, and lands in the wet fuel on the wooden floor.
He is heavy, and I caught him off guard, so I am able to scramble away and get to my feet before he does. I hold the matches out in front of me so he can see them.
“What are you gonna do, girl?” The Pirate throws his head back and laughs. “Are you gonna burn me?”
“Where is my family?” I ask.
The Pirate smirks. “They’re probably being skinned like rats. I betcha the little girl’s long gone by now.”
“You’re going to die,” I tell him. “You’re going to burn for what you are and who you serve, and no one in the world will ever miss you.”
I strike the match. The fire ignites instantly, and I drop the match to the ground. There is a whooshing sound, and in a flash, the Pirate, the floorboards, and the walls are all engulfed in flames.
I stand frozen for a second, watching my world as it is consumed by fire, listening to the Pirate’s screams as he burns.
Overhead, the deck starts to crack and buckle. The other Pirates are shouting. I hear their speedboat as it starts up. “Meadow!”
I whirl around and Zephyr is there, a broken piece of chair still tied to his wrist. He must have busted his way out of it, and now he is running down the steps toward me, his bloody mouth open in a scream, hands outspread for me. “Watch out!”
I look up just as the wood overhead collapses.
The last thing I hear is my mother’s voice, whispering my name.
And then everything fades away.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER 50
ZEPHYR
Meadow almost looks peaceful. I smile, because I’d like to see someone try and sneak up on her,
thinking they’d found an easy target. As soon as she felt hands on her body, Meadow would give a new meaning to the words dead wrong.
“You’re something else,” I say. It’s a huge mistake, because the second she hears my voice, her eyes fly open. She leaps from the sand and pins me. The air leaves my lungs before her fingers find my throat.
“You killed them!” She spits in my face. Her voice is ragged. So full of pain and confusion. I don’t fight back. I lay there with her body on top of mine and let her choke me. She stops when she sees I’m not fighting.
“Fight back!” she screams.
“Hit me!” she yells, and I close my eyes. By now the hole in my cheek has closed up. The injuries inflicted by the Pirates are just ugly bruises.
“You’re pathetic.” Meadow spits and rolls off of me and staggers to the ocean, stumbling over her own feet.
She collapses at the water’s edge and sits with her back to me. It’s still raining but not hard enough to put out the fire. In the distance, her houseboat fights to stay afloat as the flames eat away at it. But in minutes it sinks.
When the rain stops, she stands up and walks past me. She disappears into the trees. I hear leaves rustling, and see glimpses of her climbing.
I settle down against the trunk of a nearby tree and listen to her whimper for the rest of the night.
In the morning, we will have to hide.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER 51
MEADOW
I have watched the sun rise from the sea so many times that it no longer makes me smile.
The sky turns seashell pink. Then mandarin orange. Then a red so deep it reminds me of blood. It reminds me that everything I have ever known is lost.
Zephyr is still sleeping when I climb silently down from my tree. I consider slitting his throat. Snapping his neck. Getting it over with.
But I need to know where my family is. I have to know what he has done. So instead, as I pass him, I spit on his face, and smile to myself as I walk away. The beach is crowded as it always is, and I have to weave my way around sleeping bodies to reach the water.
The ocean is warm when I slip into the waves. The salt stings, but I don’t flinch. I’m almost healed by now. I let my hands dangle in front of me and stand motionless. A huntress.
When I feel the slippery touch of a fish gliding past me, I slam my hands together and dig my nails into its scales the way my father taught me to. I turn and throw it on shore and watch as it flops around on the sand.
Zephyr is beneath the palms. He does not look up when I approach and slam the fish down in front of him.
“Dagger,” I say, and he tosses it up at me without a glance. It is my father’s dagger. Having it back again makes me feel strong. I sink down across from him and begin to rip out the fish’s guts. “You tried to kill me.”
“I know,” he says as he piles sand over his feet, patting it down smoothly.
“So why did you save me from the fire? Why not let me die, finish off what you started?”
“I didn’t want to kill you, Meadow.”
“Why did you do it?” The feelings I had for him, just yesterday so strong, will never come back. “Why did you try to kill me?”
“Flux, Meadow. It wasn’t me.” He growls, and turns his back to me. Like a child. “It’s never me. I can’t explain it.”
I don’t know why I am still sitting here. Why I haven’t thrust my dagger straight through his heart. Maybe it is the pain in his voice. The way he just sits here. Broken, like me.
“Tell me where my family is,” I say. “Did you kill them?”
“No,” he says. “I went to the boat to find you.” He winces as he speaks, and reaches up to touch the scab on his cheek. “Your dad is proud of his fishing hooks.”
I nod. “And you expect me to believe you because . . . ?”
“Last night I had a gaping hole in my cheek. I was tied to a chair. Pirates were beating the living flux out of me, Meadow. Doesn’t exactly look like I had the upper hand in that situation, does it?”
I glare at him. I am not thinking straight. My father and Koi would never let someone get the upper hand. I am surprised Zephyr wasn’t cut into a million little pieces and thrown to the sharks.
“You blew up your own boat,” he says. “Why?”
“Some secrets need to burn,” I say. “Where is my family?” I look down at my wrist, at the charm. I can’t bear to think about Peri.
“They abandoned ship when the Pirates came.” Zephyr shrugs. “Left me to die.”
“You deserved to die,” I say. “And you still do.”
“I know. I wish you had just let me die the first time you met me.”
We sit in silence for what feels like forever.
“What do you know about the Murder Complex?” I ask finally.
Zephyr’s body stiffens. He turns, slowly, to look at me. “What did you say?”
“The Murder Complex.” I shove a piece of raw fish into my mouth and shiver a little as it slides down my throat.
“I . . . I don’t know.” He picks up a shell and throws it into the trees behind us. “I hear it sometimes. Those words. In my dreams. I hear it after I kill, like an echo. When I wake up covered in blood. It’s always there. But I don’t know why.”
“I found a secret Initiative building, in the everglades,” I say. “Ever been there?”
“I don’t think so.” Zephyr shrugs. There are dark circles under his eyes. He must not have slept last night.
“They were watching the murders on televisions or computers or something. And there were photographs. My mother was in one,” I say, drawing a swirl in the sand with my fingertip, “and so were you.”
“Me?”
Zephyr’s eyes are massive. He shakes his head. “No. It must have been a mistake.”
“I’m not blind,” I snap. “I know what I saw. And I know that they said you weren’t supposed to try and kill me, but you did try . . . and because of that, they’re going to bring you in. Both of us, actually.”
“Who is?”
“The Initiative,” I say. “You can stop lying. I know you’re in on some disgusting plan they have. Patient Zero.”
Zephyr gasps. “Patient Zero,” he whispers. He looks down at his hands like he’s seeing them for the first time. “I think . . . I think they turn me into a monster.”
“No. You’re a monster because you’re a monster,” I say. “And I’m not buying the fact that you don’t know what any of this means.” I stand up and start pacing. That’s when I notice a duffle bag at the edge of the trees. Zephyr must have taken it from the boat. I pull it toward me across the sand.
“I dream about you, you know,” Zephyr says, his back to me. “I dreamt about my parents, too. Before I killed them. And the old woman. The little girl. It’s like . . . like I know who’s next to die. And no matter what I do, I can’t stop it. I always kill them. Until you.”
His words roll off me like the crest of a wave. “Meadow?” he says, but I do not answer. “If what you’re saying is true, they’ll be sending someone else after us. They might even come themselves. We can’t just sit here and wait to be taken.”
“Just go away.”
He stands up and walks into the trees.
I start to wonder just how long I will last.
The envelope from my mother is in the duffle bag. I peel it open.
A key. She left me a key.
“450 White Ave.” is inscribed on the key. I trace the numbers, as if somehow they will whisper to me the secrets that they hold. I reach back into the envelope, eyes closed, my blood pulsing in my skull.
When my hand closes over another hard object, I take a moment to breathe. To promise myself that I will stay strong. I open my fist. It’s a silver Initiative badge. The symbol of the Eye stares back at me.
I drop it and scoo
t away from it on the sand.
There is a name inscribed into the metal.
COMMANDER LARK WOODSON, INITIATIVE SPC.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER 52
ZEPHYR
Meadow crashes through the trees when the Leeches finally come. They’ve all got these strange shiny black pads in their hands.
Like they’re searching for us on the screens.
Almost like . . . we’re being tracked.
“It’s for both of us,” Meadow whispers to me. She pulls me down into the undergrowth and we lie flat side by side. Her face has gone pale. Her Catalogue Number looks darker than ever. “The Initiative wants to find you and shut you down, whatever that means. They want me, too, for what I saw in that building.”
“Guess it’s our lucky day, huh?”
We wait while they question people on the beach. A woman points at Meadow’s fish bones. Probably selling us out in hopes of getting a big payday. It doesn’t work out for her. They spread out and walk into the trees.
They walk right past us, so close one of them almost steps on my hand. Some trackers.
We wait until we’re sure they’re gone. Then Meadow stands up, brushes herself off, and glares at me. “I’m leaving. Don’t follow me.”
But I do. I won’t let her go that easy. I don’t even care how pathetic that makes me. Stars, Talan would laugh at me right now.
“Whatever you think, you’re wrong,” I call after her. “I’m not a Leech, and I don’t know what the Murder Complex is.” She just walks faster, so I jog to keep up with her.
“As soon as you let your guard down, I’m going to kill you,” Meadow says. Her eyes are cold. “And don’t yell. We’re not clear yet.”