The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) (9 page)

Small sneakers with bright pink ponies on them . . .

Too small.

I popped up, glancing over at Lucinda’s big, square feet in their bulky sandals.

“What is it?” Harvey asked, but his eyes widened like he knew what I’d just realized.

“Nothing,” I said. I tugged Lilly’s elbow and started to stand. “Just that we should go have that talk.” I tried to sound calm, but I was speaking fast. “So, we’ll be right back.”

Except I had no intention of us ever coming back down here, or waiting for the Nomads to arrive, because now I knew:

There was someone else here. Someone who owned those sneakers, who Harvey and Lucinda had kept secret from us. Someone small. A daughter maybe . . . and those bumps up on the roof—

“Whoa!” shouted Leech, jumping up.

Lilly yanked me back down to the couch. I turned to see her collapsing, her eyes flipping back in her head, and through terrible hacking sounds, white foam bubbling out of her mouth.

“LILLY!” I GRABBED HER BY THE SHOULDERS. HER entire body convulsed, her fingers a blur of twitches, eyes gritted closed, the white foam dribbling over her lips, across her cheeks and chin.

“What’s happening?” Leech asked.

“Okay, that’s—that’s just a dose, so . . .”

I looked up to see Harvey on his feet, aiming a two-pronged grilling fork at us. Lucinda had a serrated kitchen knife in one hand, and in the other, she had her finger on that necklace.

“What did you do?” I asked, my voice vibrating from Lilly’s spasms. She was calming though, and I heard a breath fight its way down her frothing throat.

“I released a dose of the neurotoxin that you all ingested.” Lucinda’s eyes flicked to the bottles of horchata. “It’s sap, from the curare tree, contained in nanocapsules. It was an insurance policy in case you refused to cooperate.” She held out her necklace. “One button for each of you. I press it, and y-you get poisoned.” She glared at us, but I saw the knife shaking in her hand.

“Now, you two,” Harvey motioned with his fork. His hands and voice were trembling, too. “You carry her and we head to the roof together. And if we go now, then Luce doesn’t hurt your girl anymore.”

“So what,” said Leech, “you’re forcing us to go to Desenna? We were—”

“We’re not taking you to Desenna!” Harvey snapped. “We’re trading you in for passage on the Ascending Stars. That’s our deal.”

“Deal?” I asked.

“With EdenCorp,” said Harvey.

“We’re sorry,” said Lucinda. “We really are, but, w-we have our reasons.” She slid her finger back over the pendant. “Now pick her up and move!”

I locked eyes with Leech, trying to read his gaze. We were not going back to Eden. Could we take these two on our own? I glanced down at the hilt of the knife in Lilly’s belt. But one move and Lucinda could poison us.

Leech started to bend over. “You take her legs,” he said.

“Um, okay . . .” Maybe he was thinking we should wait until we were on the stairs. That would be a good spot to try to get that necklace, dark and tight quarters.

“Luce, get our bags,” said Harvey.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lucinda turn and rummage behind the recliners. She hoisted two stuffed hiking backpacks over her shoulders.

I worked on grabbing Lilly’s legs, my arms wrapping around the stubbly skin of her calves. I glanced up and saw Leech bent over Lilly, but then he quickly scooped some of the white foam from around her mouth, and rubbed it over his own lips and chin. His eyes met mine, dead serious, his face slathered with the foam. I was about to ask him what he was doing when he lurched up.

“Uhh,” he moaned, clutching at his stomach. He started to shake and made a spray of Lilly’s foam with his lips.

“Hey!” Harvey looked frantically to Lucinda. “Luce! Turn it off! You dosed the boy by mistake!”

“What?” Lucinda dropped the bags and started fumbling at her necklace. “I don’t—I didn’t—”

“Aaaaa—” Leech made a convincing choking sound and staggered back. He slammed into our shopping cart, then spun around and lurched over it, making more retching noises.

“Turn it off!” Harvey shouted.

“I’m trying!”

I pulled Lilly up to a sitting position, to get her arm around my shoulders.

Leech reared up from the shopping cart, spinning back around, his eyes fierce. He cocked his arm back, a dark green object in his hand. One of the boccie balls. He uttered a guttural howl and hurled it.

The ball struck Lucinda in the sternum. There was a brutal thud and she crumpled to the floor, making a hollow sucking sound and grabbing at her chest.

“Luce!” Harvey’s eyes went wide and he seemed frozen in place. He never saw the second boccie ball coming. If Leech’s aim had been better, it might have killed him, but the ball glanced off the side of his head, making his eyes roll. He careened backward into the gas grill, sending it crashing to the floor, then staggered forward and fell through the coffee table in an explosion of glass.

There was a
thwump!
of air and light. Flames leaped free and raced across the carpet.

“Get the necklace!” Leech shouted. He saw me glancing at Lilly. “I got her.”

I darted around the coffee table to where Lucinda was flailing on the ground like a tortoise on its back. Her attempts to breathe made a dry, wheezing whistle. Her eyes were wide, hands clutching at her chest, her mouth gaping for air like a fish out of water.

I dropped down on my knees beside her and felt a moment of indecision and I hated myself for that, but I also couldn’t keep away the feeling that this woman needed help, that she’d been injured badly—

“Acchht! Acchht!” I spun around to see Leech on the couch, bending over Lilly, who was convulsing again. He had his hands by her face. Her arms were beating at his back.

“What are you doing?” I shouted, but he didn’t answer.

I turned back to Lucinda and flailed at the loose folds of her clothes and the moist, flabby skin beneath, blistered with lesions. Finally, my fingers hooked around the necklace chain. I yanked on it, and the pull of the chain hauled Lucinda up by the neck for a second before it snapped and her head thudded back to the floor.

Flickering caught my eye and I saw flames quickly sidestepping along the box-and-furniture walls.

I shoved the necklace in my pocket and stumbled to Leech and Lilly. Just as I got there, Lilly doubled over and vomited all over her own legs and mine, a swirl of white foam and brown liquid thick with still-recognizable chunks of pastry and tapir meat.

Leech turned away from her and stood up, breathing hard. “Okay, now me.” He looked up at the ceiling, took a deep breath, then started shoving two fingers down his throat.

I understood, now. He was trying to get the neurotoxin out. Leech bent over and vomited dark brown, lumpy fluid. There was no white foam, as his capsules hadn’t yet been activated.

“Your turn,” Leech said hoarsely. He started to cough. Smoke was clouding the air around us.

“Never done it before . . .” I looked up to the ceiling and put my fingers in my mouth. Where did you press? I had no idea I—

Weight crushed against my back and white-hot pain tore into my shoulder. Harvey growled as he tackled me and crushed me to the floor.

“You bastards!” He roared into my ear, his breath hot against my cheek. “We have to do this for Ripley! Otherwise I’d kill you, I swear to Tona—”

“Get off!”

Harvey was cut short by a thick thud. His weight left me. I flipped over to see Leech wielding another boccie ball.

Harvey careened sideways. Fresh blood seeped down from his hairline. He wiped at it, his eyes darting this way and that like they were out of sync with each other.

“You think you can use me?” Leech shouted at him, spit flying, his voice shredded from vomiting. In the weird angles of light cast by the fallen lamp and the flames, he looked insane, a wild creature. “You think you can use us?” He lunged and tackled Harvey.

I staggered to my feet and saw Leech straddle Harvey’s body. “Want to trade us like meat?” Leech shouted. “You think we’re worth nothing?”

“Nnn,” Harvey moaned weakly.

Leech’s hand rose high over his head. The boccie ball, already shiny with liquid from its last attack, glistened in the lamplight.

“Leech, don’t!” I shouted.

Leech’s arm hurtled earthward.

There was this awful sound, like something damp and fibrous cracking. I heard a patter as droplets splattered against surfaces, and then a horrid, soft moan oozed through the darkness.

I stood frozen, knees shaking. My shoulder burned. I saw the grilling fork on the ground, covered in my blood.

Leech stood up over Harvey. His shoulders were heaving with hard breaths, his head dropped. He turned and staggered back toward us, his blood-soaked weapon in hand.

“Uhhh,” Lilly moaned, sitting up. She wiped at her face. “Yuk.”

I could barely think. We needed to get out of here. I looked to the smoky ceiling and started shoving my fingers down my throat. They grazed against the back of my tongue, the weird smooth-but-hard of my throat, and the fingers felt foreign there, wrong, scraping and blocking. I fought the urge to pull them back out and pushed farther, gagged, gagged more, and then my insides finally convulsed and I doubled over and thick, mealy soup poured out onto the shards of what had been the coffee table. Squishy sour chunks clogged my nostrils and I coughed and heaved again and again. I looked down at the mess of spatter and for a moment had the dumbest thought, feeling guilty that I’d ruined the food. . . . It was like my brain wanted to think about anything other than all the awful reality around me.

“Quick,” said Leech, low and lethal, “before Eden comes.”

The fire had spread to the carpet, licking toward us, and I heard sharp cracks as it stampeded hungrily through the store.

Leech stalked over to the shopping cart, loaded his arms with the noodles, the can of stew, the pink blanket and pillow. The boccie ball was still tight in his fist.

I turned and held out my hand to Lilly. “Can you stand?”

“Yeah,” she croaked. She pushed up from the couch, wobbled, and grabbed my shoulder. The touch caused a fresh surge of pain. “Sorry,” she said when I flinched.

“It’s fine.”

Thick smoke wrapped around us. As we turned to go, I heard a weak moan from Lucinda.
Don’t feel sorry for them
, I thought.
They were going to give you to Paul
.

“Come on!” Leech shouted from ahead.

We ran through the clouds to the center of the store. Lilly and I were leaning on each other, hobbling along. I was seeing spots in my vision, and my body felt so tired, so empty. The rancid odor of vomit lingered with us.

We staggered up the stairs, leaning against the railings. Rounding the last flight, we saw the rectangle of pure blue sky. Leech hurried through. Lilly and I made our way up and out into the light, only to run right into Leech’s back.

“Shit,” he said.

We looked ahead.

The craft was gone.

“Aw no.” I ran forward anyway, looking around wildly. The roof was empty.

“Where did it go?” Leech shouted.

“No, no, we should have
known
!” I said. “I should have . . .” I scanned the horizon, but there was nothing.

Smoke was beginning to seep out of cracks and vents, obscuring the view. I ran for the edge of the roof. Maybe whoever had taken the craft had tried to fly it, and crashed. . . .

Then I heard a humming sound above us.

I looked up and barely had time to dive out of the way as the craft careened out of the sky on a steep angle. I hit the ground just before the ship landed with a tearing slam. It skidded across the roof, spinning half around and slamming into the low wall at the edge.

I jumped up and stumbled toward it. It looked empty.

A head popped up. A girl with frizzed-out blond hair. She was younger than us, maybe eleven or twelve, with a curveless body and bony arms sticking out from a teal tank top. Her shoulders were seared red from the sun. She looked around, dazed.

“Hey!” I could see already that one of the sails had come untied, and the mast looked bent.

She saw me and started looking frantically in all directions.

“Ripley!”

I turned and saw Lucinda at the top of the stairs. She had Harvey draped across her shoulder. Smoke poured out of the door behind her.

“Mom!” the girl shouted.

“Run, Ripley!” Lucinda wheezed, her voice gurgling. “They’re murderers!”

“No!” I pushed my weak legs, sprinting for the craft. Ripley saw me and screamed, her eyes wide, pupils adrift in seas of white.

“Please, no!” Behind me, Lucinda had dropped to her knees, sobbing, Harvey sprawled on the roof beside her.

“Don’t!” Lilly was grabbing Leech’s shoulder and keeping him from another attack.

“Ripley, RUN!” Lucinda screamed.

I had just reached the edge of the craft, could hear Ripley’s whimpering breaths, when her feet slammed the pedals. The craft lurched upward. I threw my arms over the side just as it whacked me in the jaw. I nearly lost my grip but managed to hang on.