Nil Unlocked (23 page)

But the minute the thought crossed my mind, I dismissed it. The City didn’t know her, and City acceptance was crucial. Skye was too new, too untested. At least in the City’s eyes.

Skye’s face cooled into serious mode, like she’d suddenly realized she was wasting time.

“In case you haven’t heard, the other Search team is back,” she said. “They’re on the beach.” Skye pointed, not that I needed the guidance. “I was with Jillian when they came back. Two boys and girl.”

Raj’s team.
Three out, three back. I wondered if it was the same three.

“Thanks. I’d better go check in.” I almost asked if Skye wanted to come but didn’t. This girl didn’t need an invitation. She knew the drill.

She nodded and turned back to the Wall.

As I strolled away, I weighed her motto.

Think first, act later.

Not a bad motto at all, especially if I added
panic never
.

Turned out Raj’s team
was
back but not intact. Carlos was gone; he’d caught a gate on the second day of Search. Based on Raj’s description, it was like the single that took Sabine. Fast, directed, and unavoidable.

I strode up to the new kid, taking in his loincloth, healthy cheeks, nervous feet. Carlos had worn shorts. So where did this kid get his threads?

“Welcome to Nil City. I’m Rives.” I stuck out my hand, leveling my eyes on his. “Have we met before?”

“Don’t think so.” He dropped my hand fast. “I’m Archie. From South Africa. Have you been there?”

“Actually, yes.”
When I was two.
“But I don’t think that’s where we met.” I held his gaze until he looked away, and in his profile, recognition hit: This kid was one of the raiders I’d seen stealing our nets.

Foe
, I thought. But I held my tongue. Knowledge was power.

“Word of warning, Archie,” I said softly, watching him wrench his gaze back. “Watch your back. Nil’s a dangerous place.”

I looked around for Ahmad or Dex. Neither was in sight. Sy stood beside Michael, drinking from a gourd while Michael ate. In the late-afternoon light, shadows slashed across Sy’s cheeks. His cheekbones jutted like rocks, no flesh to soften their edges. Being thin made you weak, and weak here wasn’t good, especially when you weren’t strong in the first place. And Sy was nearly skeletal.

I walked over to Sy.

“Sy, got a minute?” I asked him. I nodded at Michael, who raised his wrap at me in acknowledgment. Michael was sharp, as watchful as me. I hoped he’d make it.

Sy wiped his lips and stood. “Sure thing.”

We walked toward the sea, out of hearing range but close enough for me to eye Archie. Talking with Raj, Archie had animated hands and restless eyes.

Beside me, Sy stared at the sea. He chewed one fingernail, not that he had much left to work with.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “You’ve lost weight, and fingernails don’t count as food. Talk to me.”

Sy shrugged, looking toward the City’s edge. “Remember when we found Bart? Remember those claw marks on his back?”

I nodded.

Sy’s eyes were haunted. “So do I. It looked like he’d been swiped by something. Like a cat.” He swallowed. “I feel like we’re being hunted, Rives, like in
Predator
. Here we are, in paradise, right?” He swept his arm around the white sand beach for emphasis. “Blue skies, cool breeze. White sand. Decent food, although it’s all self-serve, which gets old. And some of the girls are hot. Sometimes it’s so peaceful, I forget where I am. Then all of a sudden I think of Bart, and I almost hurl. Because now I know that catching a gate isn’t the hardest part anymore. It’s surviving until the next noon.”

“True. But you won’t survive if you don’t eat.”

“I know. But half the time I just feel sick.”

“I hear you. Maybe focus on the other half, all right? Go get a wrap and some redfruit. Johan’s team brought back heaps and it’s all ripe. And listen”—I lowered my voice—“keep an eye on Archie, will you?” I paused, long enough to decide to trust Sy with my suspicion. “I think he’s one of the raiders who stole the nets.”

Sy’s eyes stretched into saucers. “For real? So Archie’s, like, a spy?”

Spy.
The word sounded organized, implying a certain level of intelligence and stealth. If Archie was one of the raiders who crushed half the flowers in the field as they fled, he was as subtle as a bulldozer.

“Maybe. Just keep an eye on him, okay? But eat first.”

Sy walked away, his spine a little straighter, his shoulders back. Sy’s motto should be
Do more, worry less.
Then he might actually be okay.

Zane came over, smiling wide. “Hey, boss—guess what? Raj and crew brought back a chicken and a goat. Sweet, right?”

I nodded. “Sweet.” But I didn’t share Zane’s stoke. Because as twilight fell, so did the goat’s chances of surviving the night. Same for my odds of sleeping. Because I had a possible raider in camp, a hungry predator on the prowl, and fresh meat for the taking.

I sighed.

It would be a long night on watch.

Twelve hours later, I’d realize I was only partially right. The goat turned out to be completely fine.

CHAPTER

32

SKYE

DAY 4, WELL BEFORE DAWN

It was officially the weirdest Christmas ever. I was a stranger in a strange land.

Make that a completely freaky land.

This holiday even beat out the terrible tofurkey Christmas on the freaky meter. That Christmas was the first holiday after Mom and Dad split. We’d still spent Christmas as a family, with everyone acting overly polite and eating the awful organic tofu bird Mom had concocted and all of us pretending the “D” word didn’t exist. Ironically, my parents still weren’t divorced. But they weren’t together, either.

And this year, none of us were together.

The closest family I had here was Uncle Scott.
Haven’t you already established he’s dead?
my mind scolded exasperatedly.

Yup. I’m connecting with a ghost. Merry crazy Christmas.

I blinked in the dark, wondering what time it was. I closed my eyes like Rives had suggested, filtering the silence, listening for sounds of people moving. Nothing, at least nothing human made.

Breaking waves rumbled through the air like the best sleep machine ever. The air was cool, but Jillian had given me a cheetah pelt as a cover, a lovely yet creepy kindness that kept me comfortably warm. Around me, Macy, Brittney, and Kiera slept. We shared one of the bigger huts, complete with four beds and two tables. Despite the open sides, suddenly I felt cramped, almost claustrophobic.

Outside, I breathed deeply, taking in the space. Overhead, fire lit the sky, each star burning brilliant white in the clearest night sky I’d ever seen: no light, no humidity, no smog—no pollution of any sort to smother the clarity. The firepit’s glow dulled by comparison.

I stared at the night, at the stars my dad loved almost as much as the sun, my throat tightening.

“Skye?” Rives’s voice. Barely audible, his voice came out of nowhere.

“You’re sneaky,” I whispered, turning to face him.

“So I’ve heard. You okay?” Torchlight flickered across his face, cutting his cheekbones with shadows. The dangerous edge was back.

“Yeah. I was just thinking about my dad. He’d love the sky here.” I paused. “He’s an astrophysicist.”

“Impressive.”

It was, I knew. But right now Dad’s choice of profession seemed driven by this place, and I wasn’t sure whether it made his passion more, or less, impressive.

“He loves space,” I said simply. I glanced at Rives, automatically smoothing down my hair and feeling it spring right back. I’d lost my pieces of twine while I’d slept. Lovely.

“What are you doing up?” I asked.

“I’ve got watch.”

“Looking for a sleigh and reindeer?” I pointed at the sky.

“I don’t think Nil’s on Santa’s itinerary,” Rives said.

“Because we’ve been naughty?” Beneath the darkness, my cheeks burned.

Rives raised his eyebrows. “Something you want to tell me, Skye?”

“Funny.”

“You started it.”

“You first,” I dared.

He tipped his head, making his light eyes catch the firelight. “I stole a tricycle once.”

“No way.”

“I was seven. We were in London, and I’d never learned how to ride a bike. I saw this kid park his trike across the street. His whole family went inside a caf
é
, leaving the trike outside, and I thought,
Hey, I can ride that
. So I grabbed it and took off. My dad caught up with me, lectured me on the spot, and made me return it with a huge apology. The poor kid was crying. I felt terrible. Never forgot it, actually.” A smile pulled at his lips. “Count it as a lesson learned.”

“You’re definitely in trouble. No presents for tricycle stealers.”

“Look who’s talking. You stole a canoe.”

“Borrowed,” I said. “I
borrowed
a canoe.”

Rives grinned. “I thought we agreed on commandeered.”

I rolled my eyes. “So tell me about watch. Something tells me you’re not looking for reindeer after all.”

Rives’s face hardened. “I don’t know what I’m looking for, but it’s not friendly. Lately something’s been snacking on City livestock. We’ve lost two goats and a chicken. Odds are it’s a hyena or a big cat.” He paused. “We know there’s a leopard hanging out nearby.”

I thought of the tiger, and the snow leopards, melding my uncle’s Nil with mine. “My uncle’s journal spoke of the meadow. It was full of big cats. And”—I paused, hesitating to throw my uncle under the crazy bus—“there was a girl. In his first few days. She brought him clothes, and a gourd of water. She warned him to stay clear of the meadow, then she pointed him toward the City.”

“A familiar MO,” Rives murmured. “What else did she say?”

I pictured her, this girl who’d saved my uncle only to vanish as if she were an apparition. “Nothing. He never saw her again.”

Rives swept the perimeter with his eyes, even as I knew he’d heard every word I said. “That must’ve been a hell of a read,” he said. “Your uncle’s journal.”

“It was. So what’s with all the cats? Jillian gave me a cheetah pelt. It’s really warm,” I admitted.

“Want to hear a story?” Rives asked.

I nodded.

“Walk with me,” he said.

We started walking, mainly because I think it was killing Rives to stand still. He held the lit torch like Prometheus holding fire, his entire body tense. He didn’t relax until we started moving, and by “relax,” I mean the muscles rippling across his shoulders stopped twitching. Not that I was looking.

“There’s a story Natalie told me. She was the Leader when I got here. Kind yet tough and a get-it-done Leader, day in and day out. She taught me a lot. Anyway”—Rives exhaled, like he was mentally directing himself back on track—“one day she and Kevin and a few other people were sitting around, chilling out by the fire. Up walks a blond kid, streaked with dried blood, wearing a loincloth, and carrying a gutted cheetah around his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. Then he says, ‘Anybody missing a cat?’”

Rives paused, smiling. “That was Thad. And you’ve got the cat.”

Another Nil moment, another Nil time. Uncle Scott’s journal only told one story: his. I was slowly realizing how little I knew. “That’s crazy,” I said.

“That’s Nil,” Rives said. “And Thad.” He looked away. I could almost hear his thoughts.
He made it.

I hoped for Rives’s and Charley’s sakes that he did.

Rives stopped, tilted his head toward the darkness, which I noticed now was slightly less dark. Apparently satisfied, he turned back to me. “So why are you up? Didn’t care for the accommodations?”

“Oh, the Nil Inn was fabulous. Five stars. The cat quilt put it over the top.” I smiled briefly. “It’s just—”
That I don’t belong? And yet I do? That I’m here to do more than just escape?
That sounded pretentious, which I wasn’t, or at least I didn’t think I was. But I had an urgency, a
feeling
, that I couldn’t quite put into words.

Rives waited patiently, for which I was grateful.

“I feel restless,” I said finally. “Like I’ve got something big to do, and sleep is wasting time. It’s like the night before a big test, and I’m cramming, only I don’t know if the test is tomorrow or the next day or next week.” I sighed, feeling I sounded like cray-cray Brittney. At least I hadn’t asked about giraffes. “That made no sense. Sorry. Anyway, I couldn’t sleep.”

“I get it.” The intense air around Rives when I’d seen him walk out of the surf was back. “This place makes you want things you didn’t even know you wanted, makes you crave answers to questions you didn’t know existed.” His eyes slid to me. “Nil got to you earlier than most. But then again, the island had a head start.”

Abruptly Rives snapped his head toward the darkness. “Stay here,” he whispered.

Not a chance.

I followed Rives as he walked toward the darkness, casting his torch out in front of him. I eased my sling off of my shoulder and untied the rock I’d secured with twine. Weapon ready, I had Rives’s back.

Twin eyes peeked from the darkness, faceted and glistening and
still.
Tufts of white perked above them. I made out a familiar outline of brown and lowered my sling.

“It’s just a deer,” I murmured in Rives’s ear.

He jumped.
“Merde!”

The deer bounded away, spooked.

Rives’s eyes flamed green. “I told you to stay back.”

“And I chose not to.”

“I see that. Let me guess: On your report card, the teacher checked ‘needs improvement’ next to ‘listens and follows directions.’”

“I heard you just fine,” I snapped. “But it was an unnecessary direction to follow.”

“Was it?” Rives’s calm tone was dangerously cool.

“Yes.” I fought the urge to cross my arms.
Did he seriously think he could tell me what to do?

Rives’s jaw ticked.

From my right, Dex said, “Rives? We’ve got a situation.”

CHAPTER