Backs Against the Wall (Survival Series) (13 page)

“Why do you hate
Pretty in Pink
?” Ryan asks me out of nowhere, his quiet voice breaking the silence we’ve been sailing in.

I
grin, my eyes staying lazily fixed on the rippling surface of the water in the moonlight. It’s hypnotic, like fire.

“Because
the girl is an idiot.”

“We’re all idiots when it comes to love,” Trent says philosophically.

I glance back at him, surprised. He smiles at me with is creepy, real boy smile on his Pinocchio face.

“Why was she an idiot?” Ryan asks, ignoring Trent.

“Because she chose the wrong guy to love. It makes me angry.”

“We don’t choose who we love, love chooses us,” Trent tells me.

I turn fully around to face him. “What is with you?”

“Nothing. Are we not discussing this?”

“Discussing what?”

“
Love.”

“No,” I reply quickly, not sure why I feel embarrassed by the word.

“We’re talking about the movie,” Ryan tells Trent pointedly.

“That’s what I was talking about,” Trent insists.

“No,” I tell him, shaking my head. “You were talking about real life and I’m beginning to wonder just what kind of nautical adventures you’re reading? Are they the type with half naked women falling over the arm of a shirtless pirate kind of ‘adventure’?”

“You mean lady porn?”

“No!”

“That’s what you were describing,” Ryan says.

“No, it’s not.”

“Do you read lady porn?” Trent asks calmly.

I pause to cool down, to collect myself and not give anything away. To get angrier is to be too adamant in my denials and they’ll never believe me. And they’ll know that, yes, I do have lady porn. Sue me!

“Anyway,” I say tightly, “I get annoyed with
Pretty in Pink
because her best friend is in love with her but she brushes him off to date some rich guy who then brushes her off for his friends because they’re snobs and they look down on her because she’s all poor and crap.”

Ryan frowns. “That’s the whole movie?
Sixteen Candles
was way better.”

“Of course it was, but that’s not the end of the movie. The guy comes groveling back, apologizing for sucking and her best friend forgives her even though he still loves her and everyone lives happily ever after. Everyone but the friend. It’s stupid. She chose the wrong guy.”

Ryan nods thoughtfully. “Can I just hate it with you instead of committing two hours of my life to watching it?”

“No, it’s all or nothing. You have to feel the anger, Ryan. You have to live it with me to really appreciate the hate.
You have to yell at the screen and tell her she’s dumb.”

“You can’t hate by proxy,” Trent agrees. “That’s lazy.”

“Can’t we watch
Sixteen Candles
again?” Ryan pleads.

I shake my head. “Not until you live the hate.”

“Lame.”

“No, you know what’s lame? Watching you cage fight three Risen
blindfolded
.”

That right there, that’s a
mic drop. That’s an end of discussion because there’s no coming back from that and smart guy that he is, Ryan knows it.

After almost an hour of sailing, we see light i
n the distance. Nothing direct, just the yellow haze of civilization spread out and thriving. It’s the burn of electric life humming in the perfect darkness of a world gone dead. It’s strange. Eerie. And we’re headed right for it. I feel anxious. Like we’re headed somewhere I used to know but forgot about. Somewhere I’m not so sure I want to go again.

I glance at the Lost Boy ahead of me,
then at the one behind me as the tall white sail snaps in the cold air above us. I want to tell them to turn the ship around, to take me back to Neverland.

I want to tell them I’m not ready for this.

“This is weird,” Ryan whispers.

“I don’t like it,” I agree.

Something floating in the water smacks the hull of the boat, startling us all. We fly past it, fast on the wind, but I look back to see a large, round object floating in the water. It’s painted hot pink.

“What was that?” I ask.

“Buoy,” Trent answers, his eyes fixed steadily forward. “Fair warning, there are more coming.”

He’s not kidding. We pass by another not long after. This one is bright green. Then a yellow. A blue. A white.

“What are they marking?”

“Water depth?” Ryan suggests.

“Maybe,” Trent says, not sounding convinced.

If he plans on telling us what he thinks they are marking, he never gets the chance.
We’re nearing the shore. I can see it building in front of us, a black mass against the dark sky. The lights glow from far inside the island, but out here there’s nothing. Nothing but the strange buoys, the sound of the water lapping against the shore and the group of men standing submerged up to their knees in it with weapons in hand.

They appear out of nowhere. Shadows in black stepping out of the night, w
aiting patiently with clubs, spears and machetes held confidently. These weapons haven’t seen the constant use ours do in the city, but it doesn’t mean they don’t know how to use them. You can see it in the way they hold them. These are still hunters. Killers, as we all now have to be because we no longer have the luxury of someone else doing the dirty work for us. Military, police, hunters, farmers. Everyone who took lives for our safety and comfort are dead and gone. Or they’re us now. I wonder what I’d classify as, other than scared.

This is a huge unknown, sitting in this Hive boat in front of a group of mysterious men on an island I’ve never heard of. One that Marlow was way too interested in
yet unwilling to approach himself. One that Crenshaw helped build once upon a time. One that he calls Elysium, Heaven, but that right now feels more like something sinister and better left forgotten.

Trent drops our sails. I’m surprised how quickly we lose momentum. I’m thrown forward, right into Ryan’s back. He doesn’t look back but he reaches for me subtly, keeping his movements hidden in the hull of the boat. I weave my fingers through his until our hands are loosely tangled together. I’m shocked by how much that small contact actually helps. How steadier I feel.

“You’re lost,” a man calls out calmly.

“Is this Vashon island?” Trent calls in reply.

“It was.”

“What is it now?” I ask.

I can feel eyes on me. It’s my voice. It just told them I’m a girl and I wonder what that changes for them. If it puts me in more danger or less.

“Nothing for you. Turn this boat around and go back the way you came.”

“We came looking for help.”

“You came to the wrong place.”

“That’s not what Crenshaw said,” I say clearly, playing the only card we have and hoping it lands.

“I don’t know what a
crenshaw is and I don’t care,” he says, his voice turning cold. “Turn it around. Leave.”

“No.”

He takes a step closer, his machete cutting through the water as he approaches. I can see him better now. He’s stocky. Strong. Probably about 30 or so but he looks young enough, healthy enough, to be a problem for me with my messed up arm and an exhausted Ryan with an injured shoulder. I realize as I watch him approach that it was a big mistake coming here like this. In the dead of night in a boat full of injured people with no clear idea of how we’ll convince them to help us. Everything with The Hive happened so fast, we didn’t take time to think this through. To plan. But we’re in it now and there’s no going back.

I swing my feet out of the boat,
slipping off the side to land in the water. I stifle the gasp that begs to explode out of me when my body registers the cold. I’m only in it up to my thighs, but it’s enough to make me want out. Cold and wet means sick and dead in my mind.

“They’ll leave, but I’
m staying,” I tell him, working to keep the tightness out of my voice. “We need help. I want to talk to your leader.”

“Joss, we’re not leaving you here,” Ryan insist
s angrily.

“He’s right, because you’re all leaving,” the guy agrees.

I hold out my hands, pressing my wrists together firmly. “I’m not. You’re taking me with you back to your camp or whatever it is you have here. You can bind my hands and search me if you want, but you’re taking me back with you. Either that or I’m walking out of this water onto that beach and you’ll have to kill me to stop me.”

The g
uy looks at my wrists pressed together. He smirks. “I didn’t bring my handcuffs with me. Sorry.”

“You’re also not completely stupid. You don’t leave the house without a weapon, a piece of flint and a rope of some kind.”

His smirk becomes a scowl. “We don’t live like that anymore. I’d like to keep it that way, which is why you’re leaving.”

I step toward him. “Not until I talk to someone.”

He glares at him, his eyes shining hard in the faint moonlight. I’m beginning to shiver from the cold. From the wet, and I don’t know when or where I’ll get a chance to dry off and warm up. That scares me more than anything.

“Please,” I say softly, my eyes imploring.

I see it when he sighs. When he decides to help me. I wonder if it’s because I’m a girl or if it’s because he remembers what it was like to be me out in the crazy or if it’s just because he’s cold too and wants to get back inside. I don’t know and I don’t care. What matters is that he nods reluctantly, gestures for some of his boys to come to the boat to secure my boys and leads me up to shore.

“Do you have any weapons on you?” he asks
, sounding bored and annoyed.

I nod, seeing no point in lying. I’ll be searched anyway. It’s then that it dawns on me that I was never searched going inside The Hive. Even to speak to Marlow. I remind myself to ask Ryan about it later.

“An ASP,” I tell the guy, “and a knife.”

“Take ‘
em out. Toss ‘em on the ground over there.”

I do as he says. I can hear Trent and Ryan being asked to do the same with whatever they have. Farther up on the shore, three men with crossbows watch us all patiently, their weapons raised and ready.

“Is that it? Nothing else you want to tell me about?”

I shake my head. “That’s it.”

“I’m going to frisk you now. If I find any surprises, you’re getting your knife back in your chest. Got it?”

“Got it.”

He searches me carefully. It’s not the obscenely thorough inspection I got from the Colonists, but it’s for real. He’s quick. He never lingers inappropriately anywhere, but his hands touch me in places that no guy has ever touched me before. I’m tense, having to remind myself over and over again not to punch him in the throat. Finally, when I’m blushing and shaking from more than the cold, he steps away. When I meet his eyes, they’re tight but apologetic. Good to know he feels as weird about what just happened as I do.

He picks up my weapons then gestures for me to walk up the bank. I hear him fall in step behind me a few paces back. He’s giving himself space between us. Breathing room in case I try anything.

“That way,” a guy with a crossbow tells me, gesturing with his weapon.

I follow his directions, cutting left to walk al
ong the shore. I hear them all walking loudly at my back and it makes me sick to my stomach but I don’t turn around. I don’t make any unnecessary moves. First, it’s dark and I can’t really see where I’m going. Second, I don’t want to get shot.

Eventually they guide us inland on a
well-worn path that drops us in a parking lot. There are several abandoned cars, all parked with such orderly precision in the faded white lines that it makes me anxious. Chaos I can understand. This is just weird.

We walk for quite
awhile in perfect silence, the sound of our feet on the dirt packed earth the only break. That and the crickets. It sounds like they’re everywhere, something that freaks me out. I can’t listen for the sound of approaching Risen in the brush over the noise of theses bugs and the constant crunch of so many men’s feet behind me. But then I guess there might not be any Risen here. That, like the straight lines in the parking lot, makes me anxious and angry.

Eventually we walk along an old driveway until we meet a fence. One of the guys goes up to it, speaks into a gray box and a few seconds later the black iron creaks, groans and swings open slowly.
Once we’re ushered inside, I look over my shoulder to watch the gate clang shut behind us. It’s tall and imposing, but push come to shove, I’m pretty sure I could climb it. I will absolutely
not
be held captive again.

This area is all open field. There are trees scattered around the edges of the proper
ty, but for as far as I can see there are fences. There’s also the dark shape of a building looming in the distance, a scattering of lights on in each floor. I start to sweat thinking of all the people probably bustling inside. How many are sleeping in a huge room full of beds? How many will swarm us the second we walk in the door? How many voices and bodies will bombard me for the next few hours or days that I’m stuck here trying to do the impossible?