SYLO (THE SYLO CHRONICLES) (24 page)

Tori didn’t flinch.

“Stop!” Quinn shouted.

I wasn’t sure who he was talking to.

Tori kept walking toward the soldier, who brought the gun back around to her.

“You are making a very big mistake,” he said.

Was his voice cracking? Was Tori right? Was he going to be the first to blink? He didn’t step back but he didn’t seem as confident as he had a moment before.

Tori stepped right up until the muzzle of the gun was pressed against her chest.

“The only mistake here would be if you hurt any of us,” she said, her cool unshaken. “Is that what you want? You want to be known as a kid killer? Your picture would be on the front page of every newspaper in the world.”

The soldier laughed. He actually laughed. It wasn’t maniacal or condescending. It seemed oddly…sad.

“Would it?” he said. “That would be good news.”

Quinn shot me a curious look.

“That’s good news?” he asked the soldier. “You want to be known as a kid killer?”

The soldier looked at him, then at me. His eyes focused like he was seeing us for the first time as something other than prey. He then spoke in a voice that was so soft I could barely hear him.

“It would mean people still cared.”

As he looked me straight in the eyes, I saw a brief glimpse of a real person. A person with a family and history and friends. It didn’t last long. His eyes quickly turned cold.

He looked back at Tori while reaching for his walkie-talkie. “Do us all a favor,” he ordered. “Take a step back and—”

Tori thrust her right hand forward, the hand that was in her pocket, and hit the soldier square in the gut. It wasn’t exactly a punch, but the guy reacted dramatically. His back went straight, he let out a pained gasp, and fell to his knees. Tori stepped out of the
way and the guy fell flat on his face. She quickly kicked the pistol out of his hand.

Quinn and I didn’t move. I can’t speak for him, but I was in shock.

“There’s line on the porch,” Tori shouted at me. “Get it.”

I didn’t move. I couldn’t even think.

“Go!” she demanded.

That kicked me into gear. I ran out to the back porch, found two hanks of heavy-duty line, and brought them back inside to find Tori kneeling on the soldier and twisting both of his arms behind his back. Quinn hadn’t moved.

“Hurry!” she ordered. “He won’t be down long.”

I fumbled with the line, unfurling it as quickly as I could and feeding it to her as she expertly tied the stunned guy’s wrists together.

“What the hell was that?” Quinn finally managed to say.

Tori reached into her pocket and pulled out a black device that she threw on the floor.

“Taser.”

“Where did you get that?” I demanded to know.

“Dad gave it to me before I went into the root cellar.”

She continued to truss the soldier.

“Why does he have a Taser?” Quinn asked.

“Same reason we have a shotgun. Those boats are his life. We protect them.”

The soldier moaned. The electric shock had stunned him but he wasn’t unconscious.

“Help me,” she said. “We’ll put him in the cellar.”

I was operating in a daze. The three of us half-dragged, half-lifted
the heavy man into the kitchen. Inside the pantry was a trap door in the floor that opened onto stairs that led down to a dark, damp chamber. We wrestled him down, feet first, until he hit the dirt floor.

“Lean him against the stairs,” Tori commanded.

The guy was still too stunned to resist. We sat him up while Tori looped the line under his arms and around the frame of the stairs. Her last move was to lash his legs together so he couldn’t kick. The entire operation had taken less than two minutes.

He was our prisoner.

“I told you,” Quinn said to me.

“Told me what?”

“It’s all about the knots.”

The guy couldn’t move. Tori had trussed him like a Thanksgiving turkey.

The soldier shook his head, trying to pull himself back to reality.

“That was incredible,” I said.

Tori began to tremble. It was as if the reality of what she had done had finally gotten through to her.

“You okay?” I asked, rubbing her shoulders.

She nodded quickly. “Yeah, I just gotta breathe.”

“We should gag him,” Quinn offered.

Looking around, I saw a worn rag that was draped across a work bench. It was filthy. I didn’t care. I grabbed it, rolled it up, stretched it across the soldier’s mouth, and tied it behind his head.

“The walkie,” Quinn said.

I snatched the walkie-talkie off his belt and jammed it into my back pocket.

“Can you hear me?” Quinn asked the soldier. “Do you understand?”

The guy focused on him. He was back with the living. He heard.

“We didn’t hurt you,” Quinn said. “Remember that.”

The anger in the soldier’s eyes told me that if he had the chance, he would not extend the same courtesy to us.

Tori leaned down and locked eyes with him. “And make sure somebody takes care of my horses. I’m holding you responsible.”

I think the guy wanted to take her head off, but she had trussed him so well that all he could do was shake with rage.

“Let’s get outta here,” I said and led them up the stairs.

Once the others were up, I slammed the trap door shut and Tori clipped on a padlock.

“That won’t keep him forever,” Tori said, “but it buys us some time.”

Quinn said, “Hopefully enough for us to get to the mainland.”

“Whoa, stop,” I said quickly. “You can’t still be thinking of escaping.”

Quinn looked me right in the eye and said, “Wake up, Tucker. They’re coming after us. They sent that guy for Tori, and I have no doubt that he would have shot us if she hadn’t saved our butts. There’s another guy at your house right now and I’ll bet you anything that somebody’s at my house too.” He reached down and picked up the soldier’s pistol. “They’re not going to stop until they get us, one way or another.”

I looked at Tori. She still seemed shaken.

“There’s no place to hide,” she said in a small voice.

The two of them stared at me, waiting for a response.

“I’m not like you guys,” I said. “We’re talking about changing our lives forever. I like things the way they are.”

“You mean the way they were,” Tori said.

“Yeah, the way they were,” I said wistfully. “I don’t want to believe my parents are doing anything wrong.”

“You think I do?” Quinn asked. “I’m their only kid. Same as you. You think I like knowing they’re part of some villainous plot? I can’t even begin to get my head around it. But people are dying, Tuck. That’s real. We can’t pretend like things are going to be okay.”

“They took my dad,” Tori said. “I’d do anything for him, but I can’t go blasting into that SYLO compound with a shotgun looking for him. I want to find people who will. I’m going—with or without you guys.”

Quinn looked me straight in the eye and said, “You promised me you were going to start taking care of the little things, remember? Well, sorry, we have to deal with a few big things first.”

I truly didn’t know what to do—other than to run home and demand that my parents tell me the truth. They had to have answers that would make sense and bring us back to normal. They were my
parents
. They watched out for me and complained when I wasn’t trying hard enough in school. My mother didn’t even want me to play football because it was too dangerous. How could they be part of a plot that could lead to my murder? I wanted answers and I wanted them to come from my mom and dad. That’s what I wanted. More than anything.

“So where does that leave us?” Tori asked.

I took a deep breath and said, “It leaves us in the dark and I don’t like being there. I want to know the truth…and I don’t believe we’re going to find it here.”

“So?” Quinn asked.

“So let’s get the hell off this island.”

T
he sun was setting, casting a warm orange glow over the calm ocean.

It was beautiful, but in this case beautiful was bad. As far as I was concerned, the sun couldn’t drop fast enough. There was no telling how long it would take the SYLO soldier to free himself and let Granger know that the three of us were on the loose and on our way to the mainland. Our best hope of getting out of there undetected was under cover of night. If we left too soon we’d be spotted for sure. If we waited too long, somebody might come sniffing around, wondering why our pal in the basement hadn’t checked in. It was going to be a race.

Tori reached up to the telephone that hung in her kitchen, pulled it off the wall, and yanked the jack off the end of the wire. At least when the soldier got free, he wouldn’t be making any calls.

“Smart,” Quinn said. “Any more phones?”

Tori shook her head. She grabbed two heavy coats that were hanging by the back door and threw them to us.

“It’s gonna get cold,” she said with cool efficiency.

They must have belonged to her father because they had the faint smell of the sea. Or maybe it was lobster. What they didn’t smell like was lemons. That was Tori’s deal. She picked up the shotgun and peered out of the window for the twentieth time, hoping, like us, that it had gotten significantly darker since she had looked twenty seconds before.

“Can you navigate?” I asked Tori. “I mean, I don’t want to end up in Greenland.”

She shot me a withering glare. It was all the answer I needed.

“I think we’re making a mistake,” Quinn said.

“Seriously?’ I shouted. “Now you’re having second thoughts?”

“No. I’m just saying we’ve got to do all we can to make sure we get there.”

“It’s not rocket science,” Tori snapped. “We head due west and pray they don’t see us.”

“But we can increase the odds of getting there and getting the word out,” he said.

“How?” I asked.

“By taking two boats,” Quinn announced with conviction. “Tucker and I spent the whole summer pulling traps for the Willards. I can handle either of those boats. You and Tori take one, I’ll take the other.”

“You want to go alone?” I asked, incredulous.

“Not really, but with two boats there’s a better chance of one getting through.”

“That’s a bad idea,” I said dismissively. “We shouldn’t risk both of the Sleepers’ boats.”

Tori laughed. “Are you serious? My father’s been arrested, killers are hunting for the three of us, and you’re worried about risking a couple of boats?”

“Well, when you put it that way…”

Tori flipped open a bench on the porch, pulled out two ICOM walkie-talkies, and tossed one to Quinn.

“They’re charged and good for about twenty hours. Range is good. Maybe twenty nautical miles. Stay on channel twenty-one.”

Quinn examined the device and powered it up. He didn’t need any instructions.

“I don’t like this,” I said nervously. “We should stay together.”

“No, he’s right,” Tori said sharply. “This is as much about getting the word out as about escaping. With two boats we’ve got double the chance.”

“Then I’ll take the solo boat,” I said.

It was Quinn’s turn to laugh. “No offense, Tuck, but with your navigation skills you’d be
lucky
to end up in Greenland.” He looked at Tori and added, “The one time he took the helm of the Willards’ boat, we ended up stuck on a sand bar for six hours waiting for high tide.”

“Well, you’re not exactly Magellan either,” I snapped at Quinn. “We’re talking about navigating five miles of ocean in the dark with the Navy hunting for us. Are you seriously up for that?”

Quinn chuckled nervously. “Jeez, don’t sugarcoat it. Of course I’m not up for it, but what choice do we have? I can get there.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” I said.

“No,” Quinn snapped quickly. “Stay with Tori because, well, because—”

“Because I’m a girl,” Tori said sarcastically. “It doesn’t matter to me. Go with your friend.”

I looked at the two of them, horrified that we had come to this point. I had to make a decision…go with Quinn or with Tori. I’m not sure why I made the choice I did because Tori had way more experience on the water than both of us put together. But it didn’t seem right to let a girl go by herself, which meant she was absolutely correct about my thinking.

“I’ll go with Tori,” I said softly.

“Whatever,” she said and strode off the porch. “I’m tired of waiting. Let’s go.”

She walked quickly across the scrubby grass that was her backyard, headed for the docks.

“Jeez, Quinn,” I said. “Aren’t you scared?”

“Terrified,” he responded with a nervous chuckle. “But I’m more scared about what’s happening right here. At least out there we’ve got a chance.”

“Has it come to that? Do you really think Pemberwick is…what? Doomed?”

Quinn looked out at the lagoon and watched Tori step onto the dock and board the forward boat.

“Doomed? I don’t know. But we’re in serious trouble,” he said with no trace of his usual sarcasm. “Whatever it is that’s happening here, I think it’s wrong that we haven’t been told the truth. If it’s as bad as we think it is, or even if it isn’t, we have the right to know. Getting out of here and reaching people on the mainland will force the truth to come out.”

“Yeah,” I said soberly. “If we make it.”

Quinn gave me a playful shove and said, “We’ll make it. We’ll have lobster rolls at Newick’s and hold a press conference. I like the idea of being a hero.”

I chuckled, but my heart wasn’t in it.

“So you’re going to get your wish,” I said.

“What wish?”

“You’re going to leave the island and do something people will remember you for. I never doubted you would. I just didn’t think it would be so soon.”

“What can I say? Destiny calls. I’ve already got the name picked out for the story I’m going to write about this adventure.”

“Really? What is it?”

Quinn gave me a beaming smile and said, “The Pemberwick Run.”

I had to smile too. “I like it.”

“I’m telling you, we’re going down in history, man. And it won’t be the only time,” Quinn said, with more than a touch of cockiness.

“I don’t doubt that either,” I said.

“Look, Tuck, I like it here too,” he said, turning serious. “I might complain and say I want to kick the sand out of my shoes and live in the real world, but Pemberwick is my home. I like the place. I want it to be home again.”