Nil (12 page)

Rider
. I tensed.
Person, thing, or animal?

Natalie stepped slightly in front of Charley as a blur of red fell from the air.

Person
, I processed with relief. A boy. Nothing with fangs, nothing with claws. My knife slid back into hiding as the gate collapsed and winked out completely.

Slowing, I jogged up behind Charley, in time to hear her murmur, “Another kid.”

Before I could speak, Charley looked at Natalie. “What do you mean, no adults? No children?” Her voice was measured, carefully deliberate; it was the same tone I recognized from this morning as Charley worked to connect Nil’s dots. “Not in the City, or not here at all?”

“Not on the island,” Natalie said. She’d already ripped off her chest wrap and was draping it over the boy’s groin. He was still out cold. “The youngest person is Jason, who dropped in at thirteen. The oldest person to come through was nineteen. All of us fall somewhere in the middle. Like this guy.” Her arms folded across her chest, Natalie tilted her head at the boy. “Didn’t Thad tell you?” she asked Charley, her expression perplexed. “Only teenagers come through the gates.”

“And the occasional mountain lion,” Charley muttered.

“Don’t forget African lions,” I said. “We get those, too.”

She whipped her head around. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. We’re pretty sure gates regularly roll through the African plains.”

“The zebra.” Charley nodded. “Right.”

Rives tossed Natalie a piece of fabric. “Nice move, twin. You just made my day.”

“Then my work here is done,” Natalie told Rives, tying the material around her breasts in a flash. But her eyes stayed on Charley.

“Lions and zebras and teenagers, oh my,” Charley said in a tight voice. She was staring at the boy.

The boy moaned, drawing everyone’s attention but mine. I stayed locked on Charley, who frowned.

“Is he burned?” Charley asked. “I mean, can gates burn you? Mine felt like it. And he looks fried.”

Now that I looked, the boy did look a little crispy. His face was bright red, like his hair. Ditto for his shoulders.

“If the gate roasted him, it’d be a first,” I said. “I think he had a head start on his Nil tan.”

Charley nodded. “Poor kid. Now I know why you didn’t add
alone
to your ‘same song, different verse’ intro this morning. I guess not everyone wakes up naked and alone, just the lucky ones.”

“Lucky?” Natalie’s voice was sharp. She raised an eyebrow at me, and I mouthed,
Not yet
.

The boy moaned again and blinked.

“Seeing how you’re still introducing Nil to Charley, I’ll take this one.” Nat’s voice had a dangerous edge. “Unless you want to.”

“All yours,” I said.

The boy jerked up, making the wrap slip and exposing himself. Snatching back the cloth, he stared at us, shocked.

“Hey,” Natalie said in her gentle-but-firm Leader voice. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“Bloody ’ell.” His eyes flicked to Natalie. “Who the fuck are you? And where the ’ell’s my bathers?”

I actually felt bad for the guy. Charley had a point. His entrance on the beach in full view had to suck, worse than just waking up in a dark meadow by yourself.

“You nicked my clothes?” The boy looked incredulous. “And my watch?” He scooted backward on the sand, but struggled to stay covered.

“We didn’t take your clothes.” Natalie’s voice was soothing. “I’m Natalie. I know this sounds crazy, but you came through a wormhole, and your clothes didn’t make it. I’ll answer all your questions in a minute, I promise. But first, where were you when the heat hit?”

The boy flinched. “How’d you know that?” His accent was tough, like a brogue. He narrowed his eyes at Natalie. “Wha’ja do to me?”

“I didn’t do anything.” The edge crept back into Nat’s voice. “The heat, it’s a gate. A portal. A wormhole, and it brought you here. But where were you?”

The boy blinked. “Mykonos. On holiday.”

“Okay.” She nodded, smiling like normal Nat. “Do you remember what day it was?”

“What day?” The rookie looked thrown.

“Try to remember,” Nat urged, gently. “What day was it?”

He told her, and she nodded. “And the year?”

She nodded again. “Okay, like I said, I’m Natalie. What’s your name?”

“Rory.”

“Welcome to Nil, Rory,” Natalie said.

“Nil?” Rory frowned. “Where the ’ell’s Nil?”

“Good question,” Charley said.

Rory jerked his eyes to her, lingering on her legs before traveling north. Watching his lip curl into a smile, I fought the urge to knock him back unconscious.

“Who’re you?” he asked Charley.

“Charley. Been here thirteen days.” Her response killed all thoughts of Rory. How would Charley know the days were so important? “Just thought you’d like knowing you’re not the only one new to the freak show,” she added, smiling.

She doesn’t know
, I thought, strangely relieved.
She’s just being kind
.

Natalie spoke back up. “Nil’s an island. We all got here the same way you did, and we’re all trying to get home. Gates go both ways.” She smiled wryly. “Welcome to paradise.”

“Bloody ’ell.” The boy looked from Charley to Natalie, then swept the rest of us. When he passed over Heesham and Rives, he stiffened, and his eyes flew back to Natalie and settled, hard. “You think I’m a fucking
eejit
?” He glared at her. “That I’ll buy this Alice in Wonderland shit yer selling? What’re you blokes really after? Money?”

“Hardly.” Natalie sounded disgusted. “What we’ve told you is the truth. It’s up to you what you want to believe.”

“Bloody ’ell,” Rory said. “I’ve got no bathers, no mobile, no idea where the fuck I am or who the fuck you nutters are.” His fingers gripped the wrap so tightly they turned white; freckles popped out like dirt. “Fucking fairy-tale nut jobs.”

“Like I said, you’re on Nil,” Natalie snapped, “and it’s no fairy tale, let me tell you that. And if you wouldn’t mind, would you please stop using the word
fuck
so much? It’s getting on my fucking nerves.” Then she stormed away.

I was shocked. I’d never heard Nat cuss, let alone ditch a rookie.

“Be right back,” I told Charley. Then I glanced at Rives, who was eyeing Rory with a mix of contempt and pity. “Rives, you got this covered, eh?”

“Yeah.” Rives nodded. “Go.”

I had to jog to catch Natalie. “Nat, you okay?”

She turned, and I was stunned to see tears streaming down her face. “I can’t take it anymore. People come, people go. Jerks drop in, and Kevin’s
gone
.” Her voice cracked. “I’m done. I want out. I want Kevin, and I want to go home.”

She looked ready to break, or maybe she had.

“I know. Hey—” I moved to hug her, but she held up one hand. “No. I’m fine,” she said, sounding remarkably steady. “Get back to Charley.”

Charley
. I sucked as an island guide. I’d left her twice now.

“You’d better tell her.” Natalie’s eyes narrowed. “And I mean now. She needs to know.”

“I know. I was just giving her some time. To, you know, get adjusted.”

Natalie sighed. “There is no time. You know that.” She paused, then hit me with a hard Nat stare. “If you don’t tell Charley, I will.”

CHAPTER

16

CHARLEY

DAY 13, LATE MORNING

The boy named Rives led Rory away, steering him by the shoulder. Lips pursed, Rory looked like a mad blowfish, or maybe it was just his sunburn.

As I turned, Thad reappeared by my side.

“I think I need a new island guide,” I teased. His face kind of fell. “Kidding,” I said. “Is Natalie okay?”

“She misses Kevin.”

“I figured.” Then I remembered something. “Hey, what did Miguel show you?”

“A cow bone.”

“A cow bone,” I repeated. “Why?”

“I had to bury it.”

“Okayyy,” I said. “Did something bad happen to the cow? I mean, obviously the cow died. But was it bad?”

“Actually, no. The cow fell off a cliff. Everyone had steak for dinner.” Thad grinned.

“Huh.” I didn’t know what else to say.

I looked around the beach. The surfers had come in. I recognized one as Jason, the curly-haired kid who’d accused me of stealing Kevin’s clothes. The boys had stopped throwing their coconut football; the group around the fire had split up. Anticipation hung in the air as thick and heavy as Atlanta humidity in August.

And then it hit me: it was nearly noon.

“Is everyone looking for a gate?” I asked. “An exit gate?”

“Yeah.” Thad’s eyes roamed the beach. “They always come at noon, but that’s all we know. They pop up anywhere, but never the same spot two days in a row.” He ran his hand through his hair, clearly frustrated. “It sucks. Like trying to hit the lottery.”

I noticed no one watched the ocean.

“Do they ever come from the water?” I asked.

“Nope. Just across land.” Tension rolled off Thad in waves.

Heesham stood closest to us, about twenty feet away. Sabine stood near Heesham, her eyes as busy as Thad’s. Two other boys—one I recognized as Miguel—stood at the tree line; others were fanned to the right. Just as Natalie walked out from the trees with Li, the wind stalled, the sun felt hotter, and everything happened at once.

The sand at Sabine’s heels melted. Shimmering sand rose into the air behind her, then the sand fell, leaving wavering, iridescent air stretching over her head. Recalling the gate that brought Rory, I immediately saw the difference. This gate was like the ones in the red rock field: more translucent, less reflective—more like glass than a mirror, and this gate rose from the ground, whereas Rory’s gate had popped midair and dropped. This gate was an outbound. And it was right behind Sabine.

The gate was still rising when Heesham shouted, “Sabine! Run!”

Other voices: “Li! Gate!” It was a chorus. “Li! Li!”

To my surprise, Sabine leaped
away
from the gate, not toward it. At the same time, Li broke from Natalie, sprinting toward Sabine. Sabine twisting; Li running. The shimmering air streaked forward and rolled over Sabine. She cried out, the outlines of her body rippled and faded, the gate collapsed inward—and then it was gone.

So was Sabine.

Li stood five feet away, her face pale.

Heesham let out a cry like a wounded bear, shattering the weird silence. His face set in furious stone lines, he strode to the ocean, where he launched something small into the sea. Without waiting for it to drop, he took off running, up the beach. Alone.

The shift in the mood was shocking.

No one smiled. No one laughed. Other than Heesham, no one even moved. Only on Nil does a naked boy fall from the sky and no one bats an eye. And yet when that gate swallowed Sabine, everyone looked shocked.

I turned to Thad. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t people happy for Sabine? Did something bad happen to her?”

“No. It’s just—Li’s been here so long, that gate should have been hers. And Sabine’s a huge loss.” Thad shook his head. “Huge.”

Miguel and a blond boy I hadn’t met yet walked up. The blond boy’s face was a mixture of fury and defeat—like Heesham’s, but different. Less angry, more frustrated.

“Thad,” he said, in an accent I couldn’t begin to place, “you see? Our best healer, gone.” The boy snapped his fingers, then clenched his hair at the roots. His eyes sparked. “Sy brought this upon us. You talk to him. Make him
see
.”

Thad sighed. “I hear you, Johan. I’ll try.”

The boy nodded, slightly mollified.

Miguel cocked his head at the angry boy. “Ready, amigo?” After a quick triple count, they took off at a fierce sprint.

“My money’s on Johan,” Thad said. His tone was dull.

“You don’t have any money,” I said. “At least not here.”

“No, I don’t.” His voice still flat, Thad watched the boys race.

“Thad, look at me.” That got his attention. “You said everyone wanted Li to catch that gate. That it should’ve been hers. What did you mean?”

Thad glanced back at the boys, but not before a shadow flickered across his face, a soul-wrenching darkness at odds with the brilliance of the day.

“C’mon,” he said, “let’s walk.”

I didn’t move. “No. I don’t want to walk. I want to know what’s going on. And I want to know now.”

Thad looked at me, his golden hair falling into his eyes, his face set in hard lines. Then he sighed, and his face melted into the same defeat I’d just seen on Johan. “You’re right. You have to know. I was just—” Shaking his head, he gave a humorless laugh.

“Just what?” I asked.

“Being an idiot. Hoping to delay the inevitable, pretending for a minute it didn’t exist. But it does.”

“What?” I frowned, frustrated.

“Nil.” Thad sighed. “Okay, here’s the deal. You get here, as a teenager, somewhere between thirteen and nineteen. You have one year. To catch a gate, or—” He stopped, his sapphire eyes so full of fire I thought he might go up in flames.

“Or?” I prompted.

“You die.”

The bright blue sky remained cloudless, and the aquamarine ocean still crashed gently onto the white sand beach, but the scene was suddenly warped. Twisted, as I processed Thad’s words.

“What do mean, you die?”

“You die.” Thad’s voice was heavy; the fire was gone. “It’s like everyone has a personal window of time that the gateway to Nil stays open for them. It’s always one year. Exactly three hundred sixty-five days. If you miss that window, you’re done.”

“What do you mean, you’re done? You
die?
How?” I’d always been a stickler for details, and these seemed pretty darn important.

“I’m not really sure. I’ve never been with anyone on their last day, and most people Search alone at that point. Then we either find their clothes or their body.” Thad looked sick. “That’s why I asked you about the days, because it’s important to keep count.”

“Tick-tock,” I said, doing some quick mental math.

“You okay?” Thad’s eyes searched mine.

“Peachy. Eighteen is overrated.”