Frozen (12 page)

“It’ll be good to be off the open waters,” my father says. “The fog offered some cover yesterday, but today I feel we could be spotted for miles.”

“If the visibility’s that great,” Bo says, snatching up a pair of binoculars, “I can get my first glimpse of another domed city.”

“Really?” I say.

“Haven.” Bo turns the map toward me. The city is positioned at the tip of the more eastern bay, in a territory labeled Big Water. It’s a fitting name, given the massive lakes nearby.

“Clear day like this, there’s a chance you could spot the Compound, too,” Isaac says.

“What’s that? Another city?”

Isaac points at the map, noting an island in the middle of the Gulf, farther south. “Another area under Order control, and a water-treatment plant according to rumors. They take salt water and run it through a long desalination process so it’s drinkable, I guess. I’ve wanted to check it out, see if I couldn’t snag a little freshwater myself so I can stop relying on Badger, but the Order guards that island like a fortress. You ain’t setting foot on it unless they bring you on themselves.”

He straightens up. “Now if you’re truly after some sightseeing, you better do it while you’ve got the chance. Weather can turn fast out here.”

My father and Bo grab binoculars and skirt onto the small, exposed deck that circles the wheelhouse. I follow.

“You see that, Gray?” Bo hands me the binoculars and points north. I take a look, ready to shake my head, but then the sun breaks through the clouds and a beam of light reflects off something. A glinting dome on the horizon, no larger than my thumbnail.

“Haven?” I ask.

He nods. I admire the city for a moment longer, but the gleam of the dome is making my headache worse. I pass the binoculars back to Bo.

It’s cold again, given how we’ve been cutting northwest. The wind bites at my nose, my ears. Owen is still scanning the south, trying to locate the Compound, when I catch sight of Isaac through the glass windows. He looks panicked all of a sudden, tugging at the wheel, mumbling into his radio. He tosses it aside and yanks open the door to join us.

“You see anything to the south?” he shouts over the wind.

“Nothing but a few specks on the water; fishing boats, probably,” my father says. “Why?”

“This ain’t good, boys. This ain’t good at all.” Isaac rubs his forehead. “I just got a call from the Order. They’re wanting me to drop anchor along the nearest shoreline and wait to be boarded. Said they found it suspicious I left port so early yesterday and so they’re coming to me for an impromptu inspection. I told ’em I ain’t up to nothing, just wanted to leave early and try my luck in the western portions of the Gulf, but they’re sending a team our way regardless.” He scans the horizon, rubs the back of his neck. “There ain’t no one on our tail yet. We should make a run for it.”

“No, it’s too risky,” Owen says. “Soon as we’re along land, you should drop anchor like they say. We’ll leave. It gives us more ground to cover on foot than we planned for, but at least your story will check out when they board. And by then, our team will be too far gone for them to track us.”

“I wish that’d work,” Isaac says, “but the nearest bit of shore? That peninsula we’re approaching? It’s a lookout point. The Order’d be all over you in a matter of minutes. We’ve gotta sail farther up Border Bay before it’s safe to depart. Tomorrow morning, maybe. Tonight if we make great time.”

My father frowns and glances to the south. “How’d they find us?”

“That’s what worries me. We weren’t the only boat getting an early start yesterday—I saw half a dozen docks already empty when we shoved off—and it was foggy as all can be until a few hours ago. I don’t see how—or when—they could’ve identified us.”

“Which means . . .” Bo looks down at the deck.

“The damn Forgery,” my father says through clenched teeth. “I don’t know how . . . but if he . . . I’m going to . . .” He shoves his binoculars into my chest and storms off.

By the time we sit down to eat dinner, I’m nervous. Everyone is. We’ve spotted a ship to the south with the binoculars that looks larger than the other fishing vessels. Jackson claims he has nothing to do with it, but the boat is clearly following us, a shadow in our wake. It gains. Isaac worries it will be far closer than comfortable come morning.

I’ve never felt so completely and utterly trapped. There is nowhere to run but as far as the
Catherine
’s deck allows. There are no trees to climb, no boulders to duck behind, no caves to burrow within.

I decide I hate the sea. It is an unforgiving place.

The team eats in silence, my father staring at me from across the table. He looks oddly distant. His mouth does this weird dance, attempting to pull into a smile behind his beard but always falling short. He drops his chin down, staring at his unfinished meal, and swallows, hard. Then, without warning, he grabs Jackson by the collar. Several mess kits are knocked to the floor as Owen tugs the Forgery to his feet and hauls him outside. We all watch through the glass windows, rigid with shock.

“Are you positive you don’t recognize it?” Owen shouts. Jackson stands there, despondent, and my father brings a knee into his gut. “I asked you a question!”

Jackson looks to the south. “It’s too dark to tell.”

My father punches him and the crack of Jackson’s nose breaking is so clear I hear it from where we sit. “Did you call them? Did you tell them somehow?”

Jackson is bent over, gasping for air. Owen grabs him by the shirt and throws him against the glass windows of the wheelhouse.

“My son is on this ship. My son and eight other lives, and the only one I don’t care about losing is yours. I will throw you overboard if I have to. You call them off. You do it now!”

“I can’t. I don’t know how.”

Owen hits him again.

“I mean it,” Jackson gasps, coughing. His bound arms are held before his face, frantically trying to shelter himself. “I don’t. I can’t.”

But Owen is striking him again and again and finally I’m the one with enough sense to run outside and pull my father back. The Forgery’s eyes are already swollen shut, his face a bloodied mess. My father is stronger than me and breaks free. He lunges at Jackson again, but stops midswing, turns to face me.

“I won’t lose you because of him. I won’t let this monster be our end.”

He spits at the Forgery’s feet and walks back inside.

“We’re disembarking early,” he says to the group. Everyone is silent, not a word exchanged. Even Sammy refrains from saying something clever. “I don’t care if we’re questionably close to the lookout point; we need to get off this boat before they overtake us. Tomorrow, the moment there’s enough light in the sky to see the shoreline, we’re gone.”

Isaac nods and as Owen stalks off, Emma slips outside with her medic gear to tend to Jackson.

FIFTEEN

THE SUN IS BARELY UP.
The clouds hang heavy and ominous.

“Snow,” Xavier predicts.

But we all feel something far worse.

The boat on our tail is most certainly an Order vessel. It is gigantic, dwarfing our ship even at a distance. It is close enough that we can see the Franconian emblem on its side with binoculars—a red triangle with a cursive
f
in its center—but not near enough to make out anyone on board.

Isaac guides the
Catherine
toward what he’s picked as our departure point. If the cold wasn’t enough to remind us that we’ve been traveling north, the return of snow is. A thin layer covers what I assume is a sandy beach, and lines the branches of the few trees in the distance. A craggy outcrop of rocks to our left is clear of snow on account of the crashing waves. Isaac claims the rocks jutting from shore will offer us some protection; the
Catherine
will be able to maneuver into far shallower waters than the large Order vessel without hitting bottom.

It starts to flurry as Xavier loads the lifeboat. It is small, unable to support more than five in weight, which until now has never been a problem for Isaac. He claims he rarely fishes with a crew larger than four. Between our team and all the gear, it will take two trips to get everything to land.

We are on the deck, preparing to make the first run, when we hear a distant rumble. It is faint at first, like a rainstorm strengthening behind the shoreline trees, and then three cars break into view. I realize instantly what has happened. The Order boat has pushed us exactly where they want us.

We drop immediately, stomachs against the deck. I hear the vehicles come to a halt, followed by the opening and closing of doors.

“Isaac Murphy!” comes a man’s voice from shore. He must be using something to amplify his words because he sounds as though he stands on deck. “Captain of the
Catherine
. Show yourself.”

I hear the door of the wheelhouse slide open, and then Isaac’s heavy footsteps on the bridge’s exposed deck.

“Glad to see you’re finally willing to cooperate, Mr. Murphy. Now drop anchor.”

“Afraid I can’t do that,” Isaac calls out. “Anchor chain rusted out a few weeks back and I ain’t replaced it yet.”

“We’ve got records from a week ago stating the
Catherine
was in perfect working order,” the man continues. “Now, a person skipping inspection when they leave port makes me think they’re hiding something. Water, for instance. Water they might have bought off AmWest scum and are now looking to make a profit on. If this is untrue—if you’ve done nothing wrong—then you have no reason to fear us.”

“It’s got nothing to do with fear,” Isaac shouts, “and everything to do with how you ain’t got proof I’ve done something wrong. This is
my
ship. You can come aboard when I invite you, which’ll be never.”

The Order member lets out an amplified sigh. “Drop anchor now. This is the last time I will ask.”

“This is my property, bought with my own earnings, and you ain’t got no right to board it whenever you damn well—”

A single shot is fired. Birds flee from the nearby trees and I hear Isaac collapse.

That didn’t just happen. It couldn’t have. But when I look up toward the bridge, Isaac is slumped against the walls of the wheelhouse, motionless. Blood trails the glass window above him.

I mutter a curse, hear my father do the same at my side.

From the shore there are shouts. “Get the raft. We’re boarding and dropping anchor ourselves.”

“Like hell you are,” Sammy mutters.

Everyone looks at my father. He gives a single nod, and we scramble into position. Bree fires the first shots at the shore and my ears start ringing. There are no more than a dozen Order members on the beach and even though they fire back, we take out half of them easily. The rest crawl behind their vehicles for shelter. They shoot at us when they can, but the
Catherine
is a formidable piece of armor.

Sammy runs off, only to return with rags soaked in something that reeks.

“Diesel,” he says. “From the engine room. Think you could get one of these inside a car?”

I nod, not sure how a smelly scrap of cloth will help us, but after he wraps one of my arrows with a rag and strikes a match against it, it goes up in flames. One of the cars is set far out of range, but with a good shot, I just might be able to reach the others. Bree and Sammy cover me as I stand and take aim, fire. The arrow goes clear through the closest car’s window and buries itself into the seats, slowly burning the car from the inside out.

“Let’s get another,” Sammy says, and we repeat the process.

I send the second car up in flames and soon the Order members are running into the open. Bree takes them down like it’s target practice.

There’s a blast on the beach, so intense it sends me to the floor, arms over my head. When I recover, I find the first car I fired at a mess of flames and smoke, its windows blown out. Sammy whoops triumphantly.

“Did you know that would happen?”

He winks and ducks to the deck as the second car explodes. He readies an arrow for the final car, despite the fact that I think it’s beyond reach. Before I even can take aim, there is a monstrous noise from below. The
Catherine
lurches. We go sliding. I’m forced to let my flaming arrow drop into the ocean.

We are still in open water, far from the rocks that bordered the beach, but we must have run over something. The collision shifts the
Catherine
and she starts drifting into deeper waters, heading closer to the Order vessel at an awkward angle.

Just then, something strikes the walls of the wheelhouse, one of the few parts of the ship built with wood. It goes up in flames. I whip around. The Order vessel is nearly upon us, and apparently firing something as threatening as my burning arrows.

“Let’s move!” my father shouts.

Xavier, Bo, Jackson, and Clipper climb into the lifeboat. I grab Emma and shove her in as well. She barely fits, with all the gear already in the boat.

“What about you?” she asks, eyes wide.

“I’ll come later.”

Sammy and my father swing the boat over the water and start lowering it down by the pulley system. Emma refuses to let go of my hand.

An explosive noise erupts behind us. It is followed by a terrible screech as something fired by the Order vessel blows through one of the
Catherine
’s metal rigs used to haul fish from the ocean floor. The rig topples overboard, ripping itself free from the deck as it falls. The
Catherine
rocks violently and we lose our footing. Emma’s hand is ripped from mine. The lifeboat drops nearly to the water and jams.

“Cut the ropes.”

Xavier looks terrified by Owen’s words. “But how will you—”

“Cut them now, Xavier. That’s an order.”

“What if I can’t come back in time?”

“There’s an inflatable raft below deck. Now go! We’ll meet you on shore.”

Xavier and Clipper cut the ropes in unison and the lifeboat drops the last several feet into the water. Emma is still staring at me as Xavier fires up the boat’s small engine and pulls away.

“Bree!” Owen yells. “The raft!”