The Isle (23 page)

I
force my fear into the backseat, focusing on the end goal. I've got the perfect view—a near straight shot to the airlock, and below, the drainage tank.

“Here goes,” I say to Derek, nothing left holding me back.

I lay my sole into the pedal.

Inhaling, my head whips against the headrest. The Omni bucks forward. As it scrapes the window frame, the angle gets thrown; I readjust the wheel. We shoot through the water. Ahead, the bricks get closer and closer. My beamers shine on the airlock, the metal so bright it's like driving into the sun.

Any second now.

We're feet away. Three, then two, then—

Like a fist, metal flies into brick.

The Omni screams as the wall jigsaws apart. Somewhere between the bulding and the drainage tank, its nose crumples like balled-up paper.
Stupid alloy metals mixed in
, I realize too late.
Damn swanky mobiles
.

The headlights flicker twice, then go out. Brack water sprays in from a hole under the nose. Then, like a ball being hit by a bat, I'm swung again—this time sideways.

I slam into the opposite side of the pit, my head colliding with steel. Tiny bees swarm my vision, stinging the nerves behind my eyeballs.

“It's Lucas!” Derek yells over the screeching of metal on metal.

It happens again—

Over and over, my mobile gets clobbered, lodged between the building and the airlock's empty drainage tank. More water needles itself into the pit, stabbing me in the shoulder blade. Somewhere, a crack widens—the needle becomes a jetstream, and the mobile fills.
We've got to get out.

“I'm opening the moonroof now!” I yell to Derek, pushing the button—the plastic lifts. I squeeze out of the Omni, only to bump my head against the airlock above and land in water up to my knees. I turn to check on Derek.

He's . . . leaving?

He's trying to wiggle back into the alley, his body fighting brack water as it shoots through the hole in the building.
Why?

My heart takes over. It beats like a propeller picking up speed, faster and faster, until I'm afraid it will explode. It's not that I don't want to do this alone . . .
I
can't
do this alone
.

The tank's almost fully flooded—water wraps around my ribs. A long, high-pitched beep fills the airlock above. Again, my head bumps the grate. Treading in the brack, I turn . . .

. . . to find Kitaneh standing over me, locking the steel door to the basement. This is why she disappeared—she wanted to cut me off from the inside. The blade at her belt glistens under the fluorescent bulb.

“You led them
here
?” She kneels down, grabs me by my necklace, and yanks. Both lucky pennies—Aven's and Callum's—stab against my windpipe.

I gasp, but air can't make it in.

“You're weak—just like I told Derek. I knew it—the moment someone you love was threatened, you folded.”

Not true . . .
I think, digging my nails under the chain. Blood rushes to my head and black squeezes at my periphery.

Holding her apple-shaped face inches from mine, Kitaneh lifts me from the water. “I should have killed you when I had the chance,” she says, scowling. Dark and ready, she tips her chin.

I don't see Kitaneh reaching for her knife . . . or the blade's tip gouging my stomach.

I don't even see my blood as it spits against her chest—a jolt of bright red.

I feel only the hot blade slicing into me with liquid ease. It lodges deep inside as water slaps my back. I gag; both pennies continue to cut off air.

My heart powers on like something electronic. It beats at a pace I can't keep up with, like there's one long razor blade being dragged around inside my chest. Dizziness makes my
stomach twist, and the knife inside sets sunflares off in my veins—blinding bursts of crimson and canary.

Then, the necklace loosens. . . .

My leaden body drops into the brack, released without warning. I'm wrapped in liquid warmth, shivering. In the water my blood parachutes out of me—I watch it like I've watched my breath hang in the air on a cold day. A reminder of life. When the red stops, I'll stop too . . . but I'm not ready yet.

I'm not where I need to be.

I won't die here.

“
M
agistrate Harcourt, please read off the opening bids.”

On cue, everyone cheers.

A man, wide like a balloon, takes the megaphone from the announcer. His white shirt puckers, too tight at his waist, and hair pokes through the gaps between his buttons. He eats enough.

Behind him stand two men and one woman—each in green, wearing dark ties and beige wide-brimmed hats. A small gold shield on their breast pockets reads:
City of Falls, Ranger.
They're holding rifles, real rifles, across their chests, guarding a corridor. At its end, the sign on a plain, brown door reads:
Distributary
.

Where they must control the ducts . . .

Magistrate Harcourt reads off numbers too fast; I can't
understand him. When he pauses, people make megaphone-hands and hoot—that's how high the bids are. Their hollers echo over the reservoir.

The magistrate names places I've never heard of and some that I have. He pauses. “This week's winner is the township of Engle!” The round man laughs, bowing to the crowd.

Everyone claps, smiling at the closing bid.

Engle
. . . I try to remember maps from school—Engle's on the Mainland, only a few miles north of the UMI.

“Engle hasn't participated in our auction for quite a few months. We're glad to see they're back on their feet. Enjoy the fair, everyone!” Magistrate Harcourt says, winking. People disperse, some shaking his hand and thanking him.

Benny lays both palms on my shoulders.

Now
.

“Magistrate Harcourt!” I say firmly.

Hands clasped behind his back, the magistrate strides over wearing a wide grin. “Yes? How can I help you?”

He takes a moment to examine us. Ren used to tell me that the racers' girlfriends would look at her this way. He steps back. “You're not from around here.”

I glance at the others. Callum's still in his fancy suit, but Ter and I are in DI uniform, and Benny's wearing jeans so old they're brown.

Compared to everyone else here, we look like paupers.

Compared to everyone else here, we
are
paupers.

Seeing the UMI insignia on our uniform's arm patch, the magistrate takes many more steps back. “Get away,” he says, shuddering. “Leave. I won't have you infecting my
citizens with your virus. Guards!”

Callum approaches him—“I'm Dr. Justin Cory,” he says, holding out his hand. In his nice black coat and pants, the magistrate pauses. When it's clear Harcourt has no intention of shaking hands, Callum pulls an ID card from inside his jacket instead. “On my honor as a medical practitioner, I can personally attest to these people's health. No one here is sick, I promise.”

Magistrate Harcourt examines the card. “Why are you here?” I close my eyes, arms crossed behind me. The others think what I'm about to ask is crazy, and maybe it is. But that alone—is even
crazier
. This is everyone's planet and everyone's water, and people should take care of one another.

I swallow my doubts. I have to.

“We're here to ask . . . ,” I start. My voice breaks. I try again. “We're here to ask if you could open the aqueduct to the UMI. Please.”

“Excuse me?” The magistrate cocks his head, smiling.

I say it again.

He does a double take and points to the megaphone stand. “I'm sorry, did you not just witness the auction?” he asks politely. He thinks
I'm
confused—

He's the one who's oblivious.

That bitterness rises from my stomach up into my throat. Swallowing the anger, I walk to the north side of the dam and look out over the reservoir—inky water for miles.

“You have so much fresh, more than you need. So much more, that you built the dam higher to make room for it all.”
I stop to breathe, so nervous, my leg muscles are shaking. When I look up at the magistrate, he's red-faced, guiltily avoiding my eyes. “Just thirty miles south, people are spending all their money buying black market, preparing for the drought. Why
wouldn't
you want to help?”

Magistrate Harcourt scoffs, then claps his hands in laughter. His stomach shivers, straining the buttons even further. He scratches his head. “Child,” he says, and already I know I'm not going to like what follows. “That is not how the world works; no one likes to be asked for handouts. It's been decades since the disaster. Take some responsibility.”

“But
that's
not how the world works either!” I cry, wagging my finger at him.
He's blind.
“Sometimes the hole's too deep and you can't dig yourself out. The longer it goes on, the harder it gets, until the only way is for someone to help you out.”

Magistrate Harcourt stops laughing and shakes his head. “Have you heard the saying, ‘survival of the fittest'? None of this is my problem. A lion doesn't send back the goat, because he's the lucky one born with teeth. You have your rainwater—you're standing here; the collection systems must be working. These are
our
natural resources.”

Magistrate Harcourt's fat brown eyes glare down at me, as hard and unyielding as this dam.

“Put simply,” he continues, “this water is ours. If you want it, you will have to pay for it at auction, just like everyone else. The UMI is not my responsibility. I am sorry.”

He doesn't look sorry.
“So that's your answer?” My voice croaks, pitifully. I don't know what else to say. I could tell
him about Dunn's army—throw it in his face that they'll arrive on his doorstep in a few hours—but I'd never sell us out like that.

“That's all?”

He sighs, exasperated. The conversation is over. “Since you are already here,” he says with a false smile as he spreads his arms wide, “you may as well enjoy the fair.”

Swiftly, he drops his hands and his fake kindness. “But I expect you to be gone by morning.”

With those last words he shuffles off, not one glance back.

From some tent, a balloon bursts in the air. A girl squeals in laughter. The ding of some lively bell, the cheering chorus. Sounds blur together.

The happy fair goes on.

I
leave Kitaneh's knife in.

Once it's out, I'll bleed freely. Too soon for that.

My penny necklace weighs tons—it wants to sink me—and my eyes burn. Not from the salty brack, but from tears. I'm crying, swallowing water, and I need air. I clutch the hilt in my belly and using only one arm I swim up, reaching, fumbling for the grate.

I grab its edge—

Derek?

He's grappling with Kitaneh—he must've followed her into the apartment. He tries to restrain her from behind, but she jerks sideways. Too fast, he winds his arms tight around her body. She can't free herself. And now, she's got no knife to fight with.

Derek presses his mouth to her ear, struggling to keep her still. “Ren can do it. She can destroy the spring.” Kitaneh bucks, almost breaking free. Derek doesn't allow it.

“Impossible,” she spits back, but her voice is soft—like maybe she hopes she's wrong.

“Voss was my father. Emilce, my mother,” I say in a voice so weak it's hardly my own.

Derek's face drops.

Even with a knife in my gut, I find myself thinking crazy things . . . things that won't matter a half hour from now: I hope he might come to love me someday, knowing whose blood runs through my veins.

I'm barely able to hold on to the grate, but Kitaneh needs to hear the rest. “I didn't know until today . . . there's something with my blood—a protein—the right amount will kill the ecosystem.” I take deep breaths as my vision narrows and my toes go numb.

Kitaneh stops fighting. She slumps over Derek's arms, and I think if he weren't holding on to her, she might collapse.

“She'd be willing to die for this?” Her voice is hoarse as Derek lets her go.

I nod, salty tears gathered at the corners of my mouth.

Kitaneh's eyes redden and her tanned face pales. When she meets Derek's gaze, it's like watching someone discover birth and death in the same moment.

“So many centuries we've kept the spring hidden,” she whispers, staring into nothing. “Forever, it seems. Protecting humanity from their very own nature. Secretly . . .” She chokes on a feeble laugh. “Secretly, I'd hoped there was a
different reason. That perhaps, we weren't just hiding it—we were preserving it. For a better kind of human.”

Derek is quiet. He nods his head gently, like he too might've harbored that secret hope. Outside, a dull thud shakes the building's foundation—it must be Lucas and the remaining DI.

When my wrist buzzes, I barely feel it over the pain in my gut. Static fills the airlock. “Respond, dammit!” Chief Dunn's voice crackles through the comm's weak audio. “I've sent another unit to the last known GPS coordinates. They'll be there shortly. And Dane, if I find out you knowingly led my men into some kind of trap . . .”

I don't hear the rest. Dunn's threats don't matter no more.

Kitaneh reaches for the wheel, about to open the basement-side airlock. “Lucas can't hold them off alone. I'll let him know what you're doing. We'll keep them away for as long as we can.” Her hand lingers there.

She spins the wheel. “Do it.”

Pressing another button, the grate under Derek's feet retracts.

He jumps into the water and the airlock continues to flood. Taking one long inhale, he wraps his arm across my chest and leads me to the cave. I trail behind, too weak to swim on my own.

The sides narrow around us. I'm banged against slick rock. Without light, we're unable to see how tight the space has become and I tuck in my limbs to avoid getting bumped again.

The first air-hunger pang hits. This time, with a knife
fixed in my gut, it's harder to force back the ache. I malfunction, dizzied, swallowing back vomit. My throat contracts as my jaw clenches, but I defy the need to open my mouth. I kick, but almost immediately, my kneecaps ache. I just don't have the energy.

Derek's pulling me along faster than I could swim on my own, and soon, the cave widens, curving upward. I barely stick my tongue out, and it comes back with a sweet taste. Then, like an ice cube dropped into hot water, my skin melts into a new heat. I'm wrapped up in it, warmed straight through to my core.

For a split second, I'm too hot, anxiety-ridden—
this might not work.
My thoughts spirals toward every worst-case scenario.

I've led Dunn straight here.

It will never, ever end.

Air . . .

Derek and I gasp into the pitch-black cove smaller than Benny's cloud—a watery pool spotted with neon-green-capped mushroom stars. Fresh spills into my mouth. Out of habit, I spit as he cradles me against his chest.

“You're sure about this?” Derek asks, trembling under his wet cotton T-shirt.

“Too late not to be, ain't it?”

Water drips like rain onto my nose and between my lips. I blink, confused, because my face is above the surface.

I'm swallowing his tears.

“Go.”

A jab under my ribs sends shock waves throughout my
entire body. My teeth chatter. He's twisting the blade. I can feel the blood as it's wrung from me. I imagine red clouds like nuclear warfare covering every glowing organism in the cave. It surges over the algae and the spores, and every mushroom. My mind is a bonfire, searing against the underwater universe.

I cough blood and fire and smoke.

The basic drive to survive overrides my mission, as if my mind has pulled on the emergency brakes. My rib cage is a straitjacket. I buck against Derek's arms, springwater splashing onto my stomach.

Like a storm passing, the searing disappears. My flank stops throbbing, my breathing steadies.

The damn water.
It's healing me. How can I bleed out if it's closing up my wound?

It's too strong.

“Twist again,” I tell Derek. “Lift me from the water and hold on tighter.” If I can't fight the instinct to survive, he has to fight it for me.

Again, he rotates the hilt. It's a metal helix drilling my stomach, while my own helixes escape.

Did you know that the heart only gets one billion beats in a lifetime?

I told that to Aven once. Now I'm proving myself wrong.

Like flipping a switch, my eyesight turns off. Before, I was seeing by the light of a hundred million green plants. Now it's just an empty night.

From a distant planet, somewhere light years away, Aven calls my name.
Ren!
It's as though the rocky cave wall is
speaking to me. Derek hears nothing. I alone hear the whispering walls. They quiet, though.

The blade drills deeper.

My body burns up in the sky. All my thoughts are trapped under glass. I'm outside the glass. I see my sister, a bird, living on a branch out of my reach. She's happy. She looks away.

I open my eyes, or maybe they were open all along and only now they're working again.

The spring's green twinkles.

I cannot take this going and coming.

“Higher,” I croak. Derek raises me up. I'm lifted like a living constellation and hung on to the sky, where even dead things go to be immortal. Blood makes highways over my body, dripping into the pool.

Derek shakes. His whole body convulses over mine, sending ripples of blood-soaked spring water into green algae. It drinks the poison.

“I'm here, Ren. . . .”

He tells me I walked into his betting office like a bomb going off. That I made him cower and I made him laugh. He thought I was the toughest metal, but he was wrong. I was a mirror. He says words like
unfair
and
why her
, as my memory begins to melt.

Why am I in his arms if I can't hold them? Why does he have lips if I'm a ghost? Can a thought also be a kiss? I pretend it doesn't taste like a blank wall.

His name
. . .
what is his name?

“You're not alone,” someone sobs, but I don't hear anything—just a passing cloud giving up the rain.

I am dying.

In my ears, the howl of death dogs. I bare my teeth in reply:
Take me.
From the back of my throat, a gurgling pours out. My heart is a breaking clock.

I'm dissecting myself like the frog in Nale's classroom—examining what's inside.

In me are all the things Voss and I have in common: Our blood, yes, but in that, a desperate clinging to the ones we love. Our relentlessness—the way we don't understand the word
no
. And . . . the legacy we leave behind.

I'm dying for Death.

Even as I undo the damage Voss caused, I will betray humanity too. Except, I'll do it uniquely, in my own way . . . as a daughter should—by denying them my faith. I don't harbor Kitaneh's secret hope.

Was this the right thing?

The question will live longer than I will.

Along the cave wall, green stars flicker in the water. Red laps up against slick algae, bathing their stems.

I'm being emptied into the universe.

One by one, the stars go out.