Undertow (29 page)

“Lyric, we're going—now,” my mother says. “Bex, you have to decide. Are you coming with us or not?”

She's huddled behind the table like a frightened animal. “What else are you hiding?”

“Nothing, Bex. Nothing. Try to see it from my point of view. I didn't want to be arrested and disappear. I didn't want you to have to carry this crap around too. It sucks being me, and if I had to do it without you by my side, I don't know what I'd do.”

As I try to explain, my mother's phone buzzes.

“Your father is on his way,” she says, then shoves the couch aside. It flies against the wall and breaks into four different pieces.

“I am not going to miss the IKEA furniture,” she says.

Bex's eyes are bigger than hubcaps.

“She works out,” I say. I can explain all the weird things about my mother later.

Mom gets the money from the toilet tank and stuffs it into her bag. As she's returning, I hear a knock at the door.

“Is that him?” I ask.

My mother shakes her head. “He's halfway across town,” she whispers.

The second knock sounds like someone is slamming the door with a bat.

“We know you're in there, so just open the door,” a man shouts from the other side. Something about his voice is ex­cited, almost maniacal. “It will go a lot easier if you don't fight.”

“For us,” someone else shouts, and then I hear a large group of men laugh.

“Open the door, Mrs. Walker,” says another voice. It belongs to Mrs. Novakova.

“What do we do?” I whisper.

“Do you still have the gun?” my mother asks Bex.

She shakes her head. “It's gone.”

“What are you doing in there?” someone shouts from outside.

“We're coming out,” my mother says, then looks to us. “Stay behind me.”

“What if they have guns?” Bex asks. “Can you dodge bullets, too?”

She shakes her head. “This is the only way out.”

Each pound on the door sounds like an explosion, and they shake my stomach.

“There're three of us in here,” my mother shouts. “Two young girls and me. The girls have nothing to do with any of this. Don't hurt them. They're innocent.”

“Just open the door, freak,” another voice shouts impatiently.

Someone starts kicking the door in and gets help from his goon squad. We watch in horror as the deadbolt is torn out of the wood and the door flies open. In walks a man with a bat. He's got a shaved head and a paunchy belly, but his arms are thick as tree trunks. He's wearing his red shirt, just like the seven other thugs he brought with him. Mrs. Novakova stands in the hall, peering in and looking defiant and justified.

“No more hiding, fish head,” the leader says.

“Who is hiding?” my mother asks.

He grins and slaps the end of the bat into the palm of his hands. “This is going to be fun.”

My mother moves so fast, I squeak with surprise. She's a blur, and before the man can react, she has his bat. She breaks it over her knee and throws the two ends across the room. As his eyes bulge in shock, she snatches him by the front of his red shirt and gives him a shove. He flies through the doorway, crashes into the hallway wall, and explodes through the plaster into the apartment on the other side.

His gang charges into the room, swinging their weapons and stabbing at her with knives. She weaves away from every attack, ducking and dodging, and delivering her own vicious destruction. Bones crack, noses are broken, and kneecaps are crushed. She kicks one of the punks so hard in the leg, it snaps and the man topples over.

A lucky swing with a pipe slams into her shoulder, and she hunches over, gripped with pain. She may be as strong as Superman, but she does not have skin like steel, and while she's recovering, the others pile on, tackling her in an effort to drag her to the floor. If they get her down, she won't be able to fight back. I cry out for her, sure that they will kill her, but again she races across the room at a speed my eyes can't track. There's a flurry of punches and the men fly across our apartment. They smash into our cheap furniture, turning it into trash and splinters. One man flies headfirst into the air conditioner, and it tumbles out the window, vanishing from view.

“C'mon,” my mother demands, grabs my father's pack, and leads us through the door and into the hall, tossing men twice her size out of our way. Soon it's just the three of us and Mrs. Novakova. The old woman cowers before us, her eyes full of terror but still full of disgust.

“I did what I had to,” she barks.

My mother rears back and kicks the old woman. Her fleshy pudge of a body flies down the hall ten yards and slams into the wall, toppling a potted plant.

“Bex, decide,” my mother says as she pushes the Down button to call the elevator.

My friend looks from her to me, dumbfounded, afraid, probably convinced she's going crazy.

“Come with us!” I plead.

“No more secrets?” she asks.

“There's a lot to tell, but I won't keep anything from you,” I promise.

She turns her back on us and I whimper.

“You're going to have to put that other backpack on me. It's huge,” she says.

My mother flashes me a smile, then helps Bex hoist the pack over her shoulders.

When the elevator opens, we pile in and I press the
L
button. The doors close.

“When we get outside, we're going to have to run,” my mother explains. “Leonard has a car. Once you see it, get into it and keep your heads down.”

The elevator doors open, and the three of us dash as fast as we can with the heavy packs until we're outside, and—just great—it's raining like crazy and the wind is intense. As promised, my father's squad car squeals to a stop right outside. He gets out and opens the doors, then tosses our packs in, helping my mother get into her seat while Bex and I scamper into the back.

“We've got to be at the blockade in five minutes,” my father says. “Chuck and Nick know we're coming.”

“Who?”

“Doyle set it up,” he says.

He turns on his flashing lights and siren, then guns the engine and rips down the flooded road. The car blasts through a red light, hydroplanes, but avoids a spinout.

“Denver, right?” Bex says.

I turn and nod, then feel my body jerked, my head snapping back violently as something slams into our car. Glass shatters and metal screeches, but we're still moving. I look to my left and see a pickup truck full of Niners trying to drive us off the road. They make another attempt, scraping the doors. This time their bumper catches ours and they yank it off the back of the car.

“Leonard, there are more of them,” my mother screams, and then my whole body is upside down. I slam my head on the roof of the car and then onto the back seat. Something in my shoulder burns. The back window implodes and showers me with glass, and there's an odd calm, as if the entire world has stopped what it was doing to see if we're okay. All I can hear is the steady rotation of the tire outside my window and the clicking of the turn signal.

“Dad,” I whimper.

He lets out a terrible groan. “I'm here.”

“Mom?”

She's breathing hard. “Yes, I'm okay. Can you get out?”

“I can,” Bex says as she pushes her door open.

My window is shattered, so I slide out onto the street, totally discombobulated but with enough sense to not put my hand in all the shards of glass. I'm wobbly but I can stand, so I help my mother out and then my dad. He cries out in agony and collapses on the asphalt, wrapping his arm around his abdomen.

“I'm sure I've broken a rib,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Leonard, you need to stand,” my mother begs.

“I don't think I can.”

“We need to get him out of the street,” my mother says.

My mother takes his hands and I take his feet, but before the two of us can hoist him, I see the pickup truck again. It is stopped in the middle of the street, facing the opposite direction. Its taillights flash red and the tires squeal as it comes back our way.

My mother and I hurry my father to the sidewalk as the truck spins around, doing a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, then revs its engines as it tears toward us. My mother steps back into the street, clamps her hands down on our wrecked car, and much to my surprise gives it a hefty push. It skids down the street on its roof, sending up sparks in every direction, then slams into the truck before the driver can react. The truck topples over on its side, crushing the men sitting in the back. There's an explosion, and both vehicles catch fire.

“The money!” I cry.

“It's not important,” my mother says.

“Do you at least have the ID?”

Mom shakes her head. “They were in my pack.”

My father groans and I lean down to him. “It doesn't matter anyway. The guards at the blockade are watching for us by now. We're stuck.”

“There's one place we can still go,” my mother says, turning her gaze in the direction of the beach.

My father shakes his head. “That's a terrible idea.”

“The Alpha?” I ask.

“We have to,” my mother says. “We've got no other options.”

“They'll try to kill you,” my father says to her.

“We have to try!”

“Can we decide?” Bex says, pointing down the street. There are cop cars coming right at us.

My father tries to stand but collapses again. “Go without me.”

“We don't split up!” I shout.

“I can't walk.”

“I'll carry you,” my mother says.

“No, you can't move me. The bone could impale an organ. I'm better off with the police,” he says.

My mother shakes her head. “I won't leave you. They'll take you to that camp!”

“Then you'll just have to rescue me,” he says.

My mother gives him a kiss. “You are my selfsame,” she says.

“Take care of your mother, Lyric.”

“NO! We're not leaving!”

My mother latches her hand onto my wrist and drags me. I fight and scream, but there's no use. I can't break her grip. Bex follows, and the three of us zigzag down alleys to avoid cop cars. It's slow going because the trash and filth are everywhere and I am putting up a tremendous struggle. I curse her while she drags me up the ramp, but she doesn't stop, even when we are confronted by a mountain of muck and garbage stacked for miles in both directions. It's made from hundreds of years of lazy people's waste: bicycles, toys, dirty diapers, rusty cans, soaked clothes, license plates, car tires, and a billion broken bottles stacked four stories high. Foster and the rest of the soldiers who are supposed to guard this boardwalk are gone. I hope they ran off and aren't buried alive under this heap.

Unfortunately, the heap is blocking our path to the beach.

“We have to get their attention,” my mother says, then releases a booming thrum just as loud and long as the one I heard the night the Alpha arrived. It shakes the air and causes goose bumps up and down my arms. For an excruciatingly long moment we stand beneath the wall, waiting for some kind of response. My mother calls out again. Still nothing.

I hear footsteps on the boardwalk and turn to see that the missing soldiers are back. They run in our direction, aiming their rifles at us and shouting something I can't make out.

“They're coming!” Bex says.

One of the men fires his gun into the air. Now I can hear them telling us to get on the ground, but there's water there, seeping out from under the wall, pouring over my shoes, swirling around the three of us, and then a section of the trash spills out and flows past us, revealing an archway to the other side. Standing in it are twenty of the biggest, most heavily armed Selkies I have seen so far. They carry spears and bark something at my mother that she responds to in their language.

Terrance Lir appears in the opening.

“Summer, you realize what this means?”

“What does this mean?” I ask.

She nods. “I'm ready, but you have to take in my daughter and her friend.”

Terrance gestures to the guards. They snarl but step aside, and my mother pushes me through the door. Bex follows, and before the soldiers can get us, the water returns. It swirls around the trash like it's alive.

“How?” I shout.

My mother looks just as surprised as me.

“That was me,” Ghost says. He's standing right behind us with his glowing metal glove, gesturing toward the trash that rises off the ground and into the hole in the wall, sealing it tight.

Suddenly, two Selkies clamp their hands on my mother's arms.

“No, leave her alone!” I cry, and charge at the giants.

One of the guards turns to me and pushes me hard enough to send me tumbling to the ground. He says something brutal in his ugly language, but I don't need to know what he said to know it was a threat.

“Don't fight them,” my mother says. “They let us in, and they can change their minds if they want to. I'll be okay.”

“Where are they taking you?” Bex shouts.

“I'll be okay,” she says over and over again. “Terrance, please keep an eye on them.”

I turn to Terrance. “What is happening?”

“Your mother is a traitor,” Terrance explains. “She has to face the high accuser.”

“Who is that?” I ask.

“The person who will decide whether she gets to live or die.”

T
he moon is a glaring spotlight in an angry black sky.
I can see it in our ceiling-less hut, arranged by Terrance, and built by Ghost and his . . . I don't know what to call it; magic glove? It glowed bright on his stringy hand, and the water obeyed him like a well-trained puppy, carving sand into a shelter. Unfortunately, the roof is nothing more than a ratty sheet I pulled out of the enormous garbage wall. The rain is still coming down, befriended by a frosty wind that sets my teeth chattering. But these are the least of my worries. There is no word of my mother or father, and Terrance has not been back with news since we knocked on the front door and asked to be let in.