Coiled Snake (The Windstorm Series Book 2) (31 page)

Faster!
I yell to the current.
Fly straight!

But I feel the current fight me. It wants to rise upward with the other warmed air. It wants to keep cycling through the storm.

NO!
I wrestle for control. Push with all my might. “
Tātu e.
”

I feel a rip in the sky as the vertical wind shear violently cuts through the hurricane’s core. The upper level winds are now traveling faster than the winds at the surface, and the convection spiral is torn apart.

For one breathless moment, the storm seems to fight back—the upper and lower winds attempt to synchronize their pace—but I keep urging my current forward, and then the core collapses completely.

In that instant, I feel a fury scorch the air, the wind carrying the emotion of its master. Then it’s gone, and with it, the force that was driving the storm. As the upper and lower currents drift further apart, I feel the wind returning to its natural state, and I know that the hurricane will soon die.

As soon as I release my hold on the pendant, the steady exhilaration that was pulsing through my body vanishes. Wearily, fingers slipping on the slick rock, I climb back down to the cave.

Everyone sits up when I enter the grotto.

“Kava, Kit,” Mokai says. “What the
pueha
did you just do?”

“Fixed it,” I pant. I realize I’m shivering.

“What, the bleeding hurricane?” Hana asks. The smeared paint makes her face look strange and alien.

I look around the room. Everyone is as bedraggled as I am. Cut skin. Dripping clothes. Exhausted eyes. The twins are huddled under a blanket Hana must have produced from her pack. Rye is sitting a few feet to the side. His wrists are bound, but he’s still alive. His face is hidden by the shadows. There’s no sign of Yingo’s body.

“What did you do?” Kai asks again.

“I stopped it.”

“How?”

“Talked to it.”

“You can windtalk?” Kai and Hana ask at the same time.

“I’ll explain later,” I sigh. “I’m really, really tired. Here, Kai. This is yours.” I hold out the tiki pendant.

“Where did you get this?” Kai asks, astonished.

“I found it after they took you prisoner. It helped me somehow.”

“Is it a wind charm?” Hana asks Mokai.

“I dunno,” he says. “’Spose it must be.”

“We should keep moving, right?” I say. “The ship—”

“We won’t make it, Kit,” Mokai says. “Not before dawn. Look at us.”

I sit down and lean heavily against the cave wall, relieved I don’t have to move but devastated my efforts have been in vain. “What do we do, then?”

“Rest up. Look for food. Hana only has two MREs left. Not enough for the five of us to last long on.” I notice he didn’t include Rye in his count, and I reflexively steal a glance in his direction, though I still can’t see his face.

“Then what?”

“We figure out a way to get home.”

“Any ideas?”

“You’re the mastermind here,” he jokes. “After all, you just killed a storm. And pulled off a prison break.”

“It was Hana,” I say. “Her plan.”

Hana practically glows under Kai’s admiring gaze. “Kit made the lasso things,” she admits. “And did the suicidal trick with the grenades—that wasn’t part of the plan.” She recounts what happened, beginning with Mokai’s capture. “After we dealt with that curly-haired Yakone, I just pretended to be taking the next shift on the tower. The rest was easy.”

“Lila?” We all start at the sound of Rye’s voice. “What did you do to her?” he demands. He’s leaning forward, and at last I can see his face. I immediately wish I couldn’t. An ugly mix of emotions sprouts in my gut when I see the concern and rage in his eyes.

“Put her in her place,” Hana says. “Same thing we’ll do to you. What d’ya say, Kit? Can I finally take care of this joker?”

I feel everyone’s eyes on me, Rye’s, the twins'.

“Wait,” I say. “I want to know what the Yakone were doing here.”

“Obviously, they were trying to get their hands on Yingo,” Hana says.

“But why?” I look at Rye.

“To protect him,” he answers.

“From what?”

“From you, apparently.”

“What did you need him for?”

“I’m not going to tell you,” Rye says.

“Fine with me,” Hana says, sliding in a new mag and cocking her gun.

“You Rangi are all the same,” Rye says contemptuously. “Reckless and hot-tempered, always eager to spill blood.”

“Better than being poxy bastards,” she returns. “Say hi to your friends for me.” She raises the rifle.

“Hana, stop!” I cry. “We need to find out what he knows.”

“What for? Yingo’s dead.”

“But we were sent to get him for a reason. He must have had some important information.”

“Probably did, but there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

“The other members of our
raiti
died trying to retrieve him,” I remind her. “Don’t we owe it to them?”

“It’s
his
fault they’re dead!” she snaps, jabbing her rifle in Rye’s face. “We defile their memories by keeping
him
alive. Besides, he’s already said he won’t tell us anything.”

“I won’t,” Rye confirms. “But I will offer you a trade.”

“We’re not negotiating with you.” Hana spits on the ground at Rye’s feet.

“You honestly think you’ll escape this territory before the Kaana catch up to you?”

“I’d say that’s our problem, not yours.”

“I can get you home. All of you.”

“Sure you can.”

“I was sent here as an ambassador, remember? And that means I have money, access to the tribe’s accounts.” When no one says anything, he sighs. “That means I can buy you plane tickets home. We just have to get to the nearest city.”

“Right,” Hana scoffs. “And as soon as we get there, you’ll contact your people. It’s just another trap.”

“Kill me, then.” Rye shrugs. “And good luck getting out of here.”

Hana glares at him, but I know she’s thinking the same thing I am: getting back to New Zealand is nearly impossible without money. Rye may be our only option.

We both look at Mokai. His lips are compressed, and his right hand is gripping his injured foot. “What do you want in return?” he asks Rye.

“After I buy your plane tickets, you let me go. Simple as that.”

“No credit card transactions,” Kai says. “No phone calls. No Internet. Nothing to give our position away until we’re safely at the airport.”

“Deal.”

“Fine.” He leans back into the rock.

“Kai, we can’t trust him,” Hana objects.

“Don’t worry,” Kai reassures her. “I’m not. Now what do you say to breaking out those MREs?”

We share the bland food among the six of us. The adrenaline I’ve felt coursing through me all day has vanished, replaced with a gnawing pit inside my stomach that my small share of the food does little to sate, and I mournfully regret the loss of my own pack. I consider diving into the sinkhole to look for it, but I’m terrified of what else I’ll find in the water. We’ll just have to hunt for food tomorrow.

As I look around at the other people hiding with me in this hollow, I can hardly believe where I am and who’s here with me, and the reality of what’s happened begins to set in. Of the ten people in our
raiti
, only three are of us are still here.

What was it Monkey called this? A suicide mission?

What was it for?
We didn’t even save Yingo.

At least we saved the twins. If you can call this saving—Maisy with a fever and a broken leg and all of us trapped in the jungle with no food and only a tenuous plan to escape. But at least I have them.

And how many people died for that to happen?

I look at Jack and Maisy, wanting to feel joy and relief, but I can’t shut out the images of my fallen team members and, along with them, the dead Kaana and Yakone left scattered through the forest, four of them put there by me. I felt such hatred for them before, but now I just feel numb. The people I killed, they didn’t personally capture the twins. They were just doing their job. Just like Monkey and Ostrich and Mafia and Junior and Sneeze and Rex were doing theirs.

I pull my eyes away from my siblings and allow them to rest on Rye. When Miri died and the
Wakemaunga
was destroyed, I vowed I would kill him if I ever saw him again. I would make him pay for the suffering he and his people caused. I imagine I can hear the voices of my slain comrades crying from the dust, demanding his life in retribution for theirs. A few minutes ago, I could have done it. It was my chance. But I didn’t. Instead, I argued to keep him alive.

What would Miri think?

I feel sick. Sick of my cowardice. But also sick of death. Of pain and hurt and grief. Sick of a war that’s barely begun. Sick of killing.

Maybe I owe it to Miri and Monkey and the little girl I carried in the
Wakemaunga
and all of the others to kill Rye. But if that’s true, what does Rye owe to his friends? Maybe he should kill me for killing them. And if he succeeds, or if I succeed, will other people need to avenge our deaths? At what point does the killing stop? Will it ever stop?

I peel off my wet clothes and huddle close to the others, the fatigue in my bones dragging me toward sleep. A part of my brain tells me I should stay on my guard in case the Kaana find us or Rye decides to attack, but at the moment I just can’t seem to care.

The morning is damp and thick and filled with pain. My back is throbbing, and I suspect I may have reopened some of the scabs. But my situation is nothing compared to Mokai and Maisy’s. Both of them are flushed and soaked with sweat, and Maisy is shaking uncontrollably.

“Is it an infection?” I ask Hana.

Hana has been tending to both of them since I awoke, applying what supplies she has in the med kit, doing her best to make them comfortable.

“We need to get them to a doctor,” Hana says, pursing her lips. “Soon, if we’re to prevent blood poisoning.”

“How are we going to do that?” I ask, keeping my voice low. “Do we dare windwalk?”

“We’ll have to risk it. We won’t make it on foot otherwise. Kai can barely stand up.” She glances toward him anxiously.

“We better get going then. I’ll go take a look around.”

In the daylight, it’s much easier to find handholds to climb out of the sinkhole, and I reach the top in a matter of minutes. As I study the compass built into the sleeve of the Kaana armor I’m wearing, I try to recall the map Mokai had of the jungle. I know there was a road somewhere to the west. A road should take us to people. If we can find a town, maybe we can find a doctor.

I pick a direction and feel for the wind to plan our course, but then my heart sinks. There’s nothing. Not a single breeze. The air is heavy and turgid.

I climb back to the cave, careful not to look in the water on the way down. “There’s no wind,” I say to Hana.

“Could you talk to it?” she asks.

“I could try,” I say.

“No,” Kai interrupts. “They’ve got a talker on their side too, remember? If you summon the wind, it could give away our position. Right now we’re on even footing.”

“You’re not,” Hana says, eyeing Kai’s broken foot.

Kai smiles weakly. “That’s why you’re going to be doing the heavy lifting, babe.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Guess we might as well tell you,” Hana says, looking at my brother. “We’ve been dating for a while now. Keeping it hush.”

“What?”

“We didn’t want anyone to get their pants in a knot, seeing as how Kai was my superior. Now, well, they can go bugger themselves for all we care.”

“But I thought you hated the
ahia
,” I stammer.

“I do,” she says. “And Kai knows it. Don’t you?”

My brother grins.

“Well, uh, congratulations,” I say.

“Let’s get going, eh.”

Hana unties Rye, and the three of us help Kai and Maisy climb out of the cave. Jack follows behind us.

“I’m hungry,” he says when we’ve all left the sinkhole. “What are we going to eat?”

“This.”

Rye’s voice makes me jump. He’s holding out a piece of bark, revealing a colony of wriggling bodies on the other side.

“Larvae?” Jack asks, eyeing the white shapes with distaste.

“Good source of protein.”

“He’s right,” I say. I force myself to pop one of the bugs in my mouth, swallowing it as quickly as possible. “Not bad,” I grunt.

Jack makes a face but takes some. So do the others. Hana finds another sinkhole nearby and fills up an aluminum canteen, treating the water with her purifying kit. Once everyone has eaten a few bugs and had some water, we strap Maisy onto Rye’s back.

“Are you gonna be able to carry her?” I ask him.

“I did fine yesterday,” he says. “And it’s not the first time I’ve done this, you know.”

“Just don’t drop her, okay?” I say, wincing at the reminder of our trip through the blizzard. The truth is, I remember all too well how strong his arms are.

We begin our trek. This time I lead the way, keeping Jack by my side. Rye follows with Maisy, and Hana supports Mokai at the rear.

Even though yesterday’s cyclone thinned parts of the forest, the going is as slow as I feared it would be, and I have to stop frequently to wait for the others to catch up. I continually check for a trace of the wind, but the sky remains still.

The air is swollen with humidity and the vibrating thrum of insect wings. As I pave a path through the undergrowth, my snarled hair falls damp and heavy into my eyes. I can feel more blisters building beneath the wet leather of my boots. I tear my thoughts away from my back, the way the wet bandages are rubbing against the opened sores.

“You okay, Jack?” I ask my brother, hoping to distract myself.

“I’m fine,” he says hoarsely.

I glance at him, soaking in his image. All arms and legs and freckles. His features are larger than I remember—nose wide, eyebrows thicker, eyes bigger—though his face is still growing into them. In a few years, he’ll be all grown up. No longer a boy. But right now he’s tired and scared and probably starving.