New Year Island (67 page)

He reached the island’s high point, beside the wreckage of the fallen lighthouse tower. Leaning against the metal framework to take the weight off his leg, he scanned the island around him. To the north, in the barren rockiness of orange territory, nothing moved. Down on the beach—black territory—Dmitry dragged a log across the sand, toward a makeshift raft. Mason grinned, shaking his head.

He looked south, toward red territory, and his grin faded. Raising a hand to his forehead, he shaded his eyes.

The barricade was down. A section had fallen, or the seals had breached it, sometime during the night. Seals and sea lions humped across the open ground and lounged around the two houses. More poured through the gap in the barricade, scattering the fallen logs.

The houses themselves—the Victorian and the Greek Revival—both looked abandoned. Loose plastic sheeting flapped from the windows, dancing in the breeze. A section of plastic that had torn completely free blew across the flat ground, sending the seabirds in its path flapping into the air. The wayward plastic came to rest against the chicken coop, held there by the wind. Watching it slip free and blow away, Mason felt an uncharacteristic melancholy. Humanity’s tenuous foothold in this place would never be more than temporary. They did not belong here.

Nature had once again reclaimed its own. It was erasing all traces of them.

Near the chicken coop and the steps that led down to the beach, a small figure stood on the wooden walkway. Squinting, he tried to make out who it was, and finally recognized Camilla. Curly brown hair billowing in the swift breeze, she stood very still with her arms crossed, watching the houses.

She turned her face toward him. In the distance, he couldn’t see her expression. Her body language was guarded, distrustful.

He liked Camilla. He was amused to see that she had her purse slung over her shoulder and tucked under her arm, as if she were waiting for a cab on a busy Manhattan street. He waved to her. After a moment, she waved back. But slowly… tentatively.

“Santa came late this year,” he shouted. He held up the jug of water, displaying it. “Did he leave you anything?”

“Yes. I found some water, too,” she yelled back. “I was afraid to try it at first, but I couldn’t resist.”

He thought about the look he had seen pass between Lauren and Juan when they hauled the water back to shore from the boulder. The way she had counted the jugs, frowning.

“I’m pretty sure our Santa wears black,” he shouted.

She pointed at the abandoned houses. “I’m worried about Natalie and Veronica.”

Shouting back and forth was getting old. Mason limped down the slope toward her.

“I don’t think you need to worry about Veronica,” he said. “She’s fine. I ran into her yesterday.”

He looked down at his knee, swollen to the size of a grapefruit, and stopped to rest his leg. “Well, to be more accurate, I tried to run
away
from her yesterday. She looked like she was in great health when she broke my knee.”

“Oh god.” Camilla visibly cringed. “Why did she do that?”

“Someone took Natalie again.”

“No!”

“Veronica’s psychotic, and you’ve seen what she’s capable of. I think she’s decompensating—she’s definitely a danger to all of us now. You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

He started toward Camilla again, but she backed away toward the beach steps. He was surprised to find that her distrust made him feel hollow inside. Empty.

“You should let Brent take a look at your knee,” she shouted.

“I don’t think my HMO considers him an in-network provider anymore.”

“Mason!” But she kept her distance.

“Well, actually, I
did
ask him, but he ignored me. The good doc was a little busy shooting up at the time. I did snag some painkillers out of the first-aid kit, but only the ones he didn’t want.”

He laughed. “Like a kid with his Halloween candy—he let me take the apples and raisins but kept all the chocolate.”

Grinning, he looked at her purse again, and realized what she probably had in there.

He gave her a cheery wave, and limped back up the hill.

Camilla was full of surprises.

D
mitry peered through the doorway of the blockhouse. Juan stood with both hands flat on the table, frowning down at the map again.

“Don’t you get tired of staring at map?” Dmitry stepped inside to join him.

Most of the pen marks Juan had made on the map earlier, along the shoreline and bluffs, were now crossed out with thick X marks. Dmitry pointed at one.

“This is cave where you found generators,
da
?”

Juan nodded. “Other than the generators and the fuel, it was empty. The power cables from the houses were hidden under the dirt, running down over the bluff edge and into the cave entrance.”

“These other places—you think maybe you will find another cave?”

Juan indicated one of the pen marks. “This is the one you told me about, filled with concrete when they built the station.” His eyes narrowed. “Over the last couple days, I’ve checked ‘em all. I’m missing something.”

“What are you trying to find in cave?”

“A communications uplink. Or at least the jammer preventing our phones from working. Does your phone still have a charge?”

“
Da.
I am keeping it off.” Dmitry laid a hand on Juan’s shoulder. “Thank you for water, my friend.”

“The Coast Guard built the lighthouse and the two mansions in the late eighteen hundreds. You don’t need pumps and boilers to run a lighthouse.” Juan tapped the station buildings on the map. “So what were these?”

Dmitry had no idea.

“The big factory building—what was it for?” Pointing at the map, Juan covered his mouth with his other hand and coughed, turning away. But Dmitry didn’t miss the way he wiped his palm on his thigh, leaving behind a smear of red.

A weight settled over Dmitry’s shoulders. “I don’t know. Is not important now. We are building a raft, to get you to hospital—”

“Come with me.” Juan exited the blockhouse, and Dmitry followed him to the edge of the bluff. Juan pointed at the water of the channel. Shielding his forehead with one hand, Dmitry followed his finger to somewhere else. And then a third location.

After a season spent on the water, in the ORCA, his eyes were well trained.

“
Ras, dvah, tree, chetiree, poht, shest…
” With growing amazement, he counted the trailing wakes and gray dorsal fins.

Juan gripped his shoulder and spun him, staring into his face with a grim expression. “When I pulled you out of the water five days ago, that shark wanted a piece of you. You and I both know that’s wrong, but we saw it.”

There was nothing Dmitry could say.

Juan pointed at the water again. “Five days ago, there were only two or three sharks out there. Now, there are more—a lot more.” He turned away and limped back toward the blockhouse. “Your raft will just be the appetizer tray.”

V
eronica blinked. Her eyes strained at the gloom around her, opening wider and wider. She could feel them bulging from their sockets as she tried to see where she was. The uneven ceiling above her looked like rock.

She couldn’t turn her head.

The tendons tightened in her neck as she strained to turn her face to the side. She tried to open her mouth. She couldn’t move her jaw.

She was paralyzed.

She could barely breathe.

Rage coursed through her body. She would kill the person responsible. She would kill them all. Just as soon as she managed to get up.

A hollow chuckle sounded in the distance, echoing off rock walls of the small space around her. A rhythmic scraping noise drew closer and closer.

A new emotion crept into the mix of fury and frustration that twisted her face: fear. She rolled her eyes to the side as far as she could, staring, trying to pierce the semidarkness. She could see nothing.

“Ah, you’re awake, I see. Good. Because it’s that time again.”

Something moved into Veronica’s field of view, hovering an inch from her eye.

A needle.

Liquid dripped from the tip of the hypodermic syringe. Her eyes crossed, focusing on it, helpless to look away.

The person holding the syringe remained a dim, blurry outline leaning over her.

“Rocuronium only lasts an hour or so. Guessing the right amount for someone like you was tricky. Too little and you’d still be able move. Too much and you wouldn’t be able to breathe. You’re lucky I’m getting good at this. It took me quite a number of experiments until I started getting the amounts right.”

A hand cupped her breast. Then it trailed down her stomach, touching, exploring. Teasing.

I’ll tear you apart, you fucking animal. I’ll break you into little pieces.

Veronica strained to move an arm, a hand, a leg, a finger—anything. Her own body betrayed her. She was helpless, unable to protect herself.

“I think I nailed the correct dosage in your case. Now, as soon as we get a few uninterrupted hours, we can have lots of fun together. What do you think?”

Fingers probed at her roughly, where she was the most vulnerable.

Terror and fury vied for control in Veronica’s mind as her eyes followed the needle’s descent toward the jugular vein in her neck.

J
uan stared at the scattered rocks of Jordan’s cairn. Jaw trembling, he gritted his teeth and strangled the guttural sounds trying to force themselves from deep within his chest. His shaking fingers ratcheted into fists, clenching with a brutal force that sent spikes of pain stabbing through his side.

Nearby, the flag lay in the rubble, discarded. The broken
megalodon
pendant had been trampled into the sand. Rocks were strewn in all directions, radiating outward from the gaping, empty hole where he had laid her lifeless body to rest.

Jordan was gone.

“Come, my friend.” Dmitry’s sorrowful voice came from behind him. “This is bad, I know, but you must come now. We need to make plan.”

Shaking his head, Juan raised his fists to his temples, unable to speak. He squeezed his eyes shut against the desecration, seeing Jordan sitting on the cot in the blockhouse, the forgotten tears of an actress drying on her cheeks as she looked at him with frank curiosity. Jordan, wondering why her tears hadn’t worked on him the way they always had on everyone else. Jordan asking him,
“Can you catch me a fish?”

A shuddering breath exploded from his lungs. He lowered his arms and gripped the shaft of the speargun that had once belonged to her, but was now his forever.

I’ll catch you a fish,
he silently promised her.
I’ll go catch you some fish, right now.

And then he would drag whoever he caught back to the blockhouse, where the concrete walls would muffle their screams, and he would ask his questions again. But this time he would allow no evasions. He would tolerate no lies. He would fire up the portable generator and, with one hundred twenty Volts AC to help him get answers, he would learn everything.

He would find out
who
.

He would find out
why
.

Pressing a hand against his side and ignoring Dmitry’s calls, Juan stalked toward the blockhouse. The hole in his chest stung and burned, and he welcomed the pain. It was all he had now. It gave him focus. It would see him through this. And he would share it a thousandfold with whoever was responsible for bringing Jordan here.

Until he found that person, they would
all
share Juan’s pain—innocent and guilty alike. Because in the end, his father was right. If you hesitated, afraid to harm the innocent, it would cost you everyone you loved. It would leave you with nothing.

Leave you a ghost, cold and dead inside.

Dead but still standing.

• • •

Camilla stood in the doorway of the blockhouse, watching him approach. Her face was cold and unfriendly.

Juan shouldered past her, ignoring her. He grabbed the wet suit off the rack. He would spare no one in his search for the truth, but he would save her for last. As he peeled his shirt off, he could feel her staring at his back, not saying anything. The cold way she was looking at him now was new; she had never looked at him that way before.

“Where are you going, Juan?” So cold, too, her voice.

Shrugging into his wet suit, he didn’t answer.

“We’re all dying out here,” she said.

He tugged the lanyard, zipping up the back.

“When are you going to understand? This is not what we need from you.”

“I’ll take care of it.” He picked up the speargun again.

“No, you won’t. You’ll
die
, Juan. And so will the rest of us. We need to help each other.”

“What
you
need is to stay out of my way now,” he said. “Ask Jordan how well my help worked out for her. Ask Natalie.”

“Natalie’s
gone
. Don’t you care at all what happens to the rest of us? Mason’s crippled. Veronica’s gone insane. Brent’s killing himself with drugs. JT’s hiding under a rock.” She laid a hand on his arm. “We need a leader, Juan. We need
you
.”

He turned away.

“Mason’s ten times the man you are.” She sounded furious now.

“Go lay your guilt trip on him, then.”

“She told me.” The fury faded from her voice, replaced by bleak resignation. “She tried to tell me about you, but I misunderstood what she was saying. You’re afraid to let anybody in.” She grabbed her purse to leave and looked at him with disgust.

“Jordan was right about you. You’re a coward, Juan.”

The strength drained out of his legs, and he sat down hard on the cot. The bands around his chest tightened with crushing force. He couldn’t look at her, so he looked up at the ceiling instead. “What did she say about me?”

“She said not to trust you.”

He closed his eyes.

“I can see why,
now
.” Camilla gave a pitiless laugh. “But at the time, I didn’t understand what she meant. I thought she was telling me you were with Julian, because of what else she said.”