Chapter 4
“Are we burning this thing down or what? I watched five women get forced onto a transport earlier, off to bear more rotten fruit for the overlords. I joined the cause to fuck shit up, so when’s that part?” - Decoded message from ILF undercover operative Nightingale to ILF handler Hiro Tanaka
Marcus
Ellison’s grim expression as she walks out of her makeshift operating room in the Sub confirms the inevitable. She strips off her rubber gloves, drops them in a tall trash can, and moves toward Nova.
Nova’s just a few feet away from me. She opens her arms to her wife, and Ellison falls against her, a single sob escaping as she presses her face to Nova’s strong shoulder.
“She lost too much blood,” Ellison says softly.
“You did your best, love.” Nova holds her tightly, anchoring her as she gives herself a few seconds to break down.
It’s not her fault. Ellison was an oncology nurse practitioner before. She’s not trained to perform trauma surgery, especially not in a jungle island camp with no trained medical help and only the bare minimum medical supplies.
I’d finished one year of medical school when the world went tits up. I assist Ellison when I can, but it’s not the same as having another doctor or a nurse on hand. McClain was never a practicing physician, and he can’t do much in his current condition anyway.
During the beach fight, a Tider ran a spear through Carlyn, one of our farm workers.
It went through her lower back and exited her lower abdomen; there was never really any hope of saving her.
She was in agony, and we couldn’t have removed the spear without her bleeding out.
But Ellison never quits. The tiniest sliver of hope is all she needs to give something her all.
Clearing her throat, she straightens and takes a step back. When her eyes meet mine, I don’t see our camp’s only qualified medical provider. I see my friend of six years. Ellison’s empathy is her greatest strength and her greatest weakness.
I put a hand on her shoulder and say, “You gave her hope.”
Tears shine in her eyes as she nods. “I’m okay. Ready to go take a look at the newcomers.”
The people we saved on the beach are in our holding cell for now. That usually goes over like a lead balloon—getting them into the cell sometimes takes all the muscle we have, depending on how many people we get.
I get it. I’d fight it, too. But keeping them secure and apart from our people is essential until we can question and assess them.
I grab my radio, on the verge of pushing a button on the side to tell Stella to get a team here to take care of Carlyn’s body, when the radio crackles to life.
“Rook to Ares. Atlas is back in play.”
Relief and aggravation flood my system at the same time. Rook is the radio code name for Stella, the leader of Command Team Two. Ares is my call sign, and Niran’s is Atlas.
He’s back, which means he’s okay. I want to punch the fucker and then hug him.
I press the button on my radio and speak into it. “Ares to Rook. On my way.”
The Tiders don’t have working radios, as far as I know, but I still operate on the safe side by requiring our command teams to communicate in code.
My feet are heavy as I walk into the room where Carlyn’s body is.
It’s a wreck, even more blood on the table and floor than there was when I left.
I knew she couldn’t be saved, but Ellison wanted to try a blood transfusion.
I was going to pull a unit from myself, but she died before I got the supplies together.
I sit down beside Carlyn’s body and lightly put my hand on top of hers.
“I’m sorry.” My gut churns and I wonder if I made the right call. We traded her life and Max’s for around a dozen prisoners we’re saving from aromium. “You deserved better than this place. Thank you for your sacrifice.”
I didn’t know her well, but she was well liked by everyone who works our farming grounds.
With so many people to care for, we can’t all spend our days training to fight.
And not everyone is willing to, either. Most of our people work on farming, gardening, building, cooking, teaching, and other essential jobs.
A fiftysomething man named Lenny spends fifty hours a week repairing work boots and mending clothes.
Everyone gets a few hours of training a week if they want it. The command and security teams are the only ones who train all day, every day, unless we’re away from camp.
I stand up, covering Carlyn’s body with a sheet. The ever-present knot in my stomach aches, making me unsettled and fucking furious at the same time.
This place is sick. We’re all a bunch of lab rats. Our research wasn’t about destroying humanity, but things went off track and Whitman seized the opportunity to become a tyrant.
I never knew my dad because he took off when I was young. My mom busted her ass raising me alone, and she’d be ashamed of what I’ve become.
I sure as hell am. But I cram those feelings down deep because there’s work to be done. People to keep safe. An experiment gone terribly wrong to destroy.
Briar wants off this hellish island so she can find her sister, the only family she has left. I’ll get her back to the mainland if it kills me. It’s the only thing I have left to offer her.
Niran’s giving me a shit-eating grin when I walk out of the Sub a few minutes later, using a hand to shield my eyes from the searing blare of sunlight.
“We need to talk,” he says, turning serious.
Before McClain recruited me onto his team of scientists, most of my friends were bro-dudes. I was a quarterback in college, and my teammates were like family. Niran fits that mold: he’s tall, built like an athlete, and he’s got a joke for everything. Women are drawn to his carefree personality.
He’s one of my best friends, but I wish he’d take things more seriously sometimes. This place isn’t a game, and I don’t want to lose him. I’ve already lost too many friends here.
“Yeah, we do.” I put my hands on my hips, letting him read the aggravation on my face.
“What?” His brows drop with confusion.
“Where the fuck have you been?”
His face clouds with a dark scowl. “In a fucking tree, man. Starving and pissing into a bottle for days because I couldn’t leave without them hearing me.”
I scoff, running a hand over my jaw. “Sounds like you picked a great spot. You’re lucky you made it back in one piece.”
“Yeah, it’s always luck when I do something well, isn’t it?”
“Guys.” I turn to see Amira—all five feet, three inches of her—moving to stand between us. “Not here.”
She’s right. I head back toward the Sub door, calling out over my shoulder. “Let’s go.”
I meant just Niran, but Amira and Nova follow, too. Once we’re all in our meeting room with the door closed, Niran flops into a chair, accepting the canteen Amira offers him.
“You disobeyed my direct order,” I say, a muscle feathering in my jaw.
He glowers at me. “You underestimated me. Again.”
“Niran, damn it—”
“Fuck this nonsense bickering,” Nova says. “Give us the intel.”
I press my lips together, fighting my urge to throttle Niran. My emotions are running high from losing two people. I’ll give it a day and see if I still want to fight it out with him.
“There’s a new guy at Rising Tide,” Niran says. “He’s about seven feet tall and three hundred pounds of muscle.”
“I saw him on the beach.”
Niran nods. “He said Virginia had a biometric tracker and whoever’s in charge of this shit show on the mainland knew she was dead.”
Icy dread fills my veins. Before McClain abandoned our camp for more than a year, he showed me how to send electronic messages back to the mainland.
I’ve been lying my ass off, saying the experiments are on track.
The supplies keep coming on schedule. Now I have to wonder how much the regime brass on the mainland knows about what’s really happening here.
If they send in reinforcements, it might be the end of us.
“Five Tiders have died in the past week,” Niran continues. “People are turning on Pax. A group of level fours walking past my spot was whispering about a mutiny. They think they need to start picking us off so they can get our supplies, and they don’t think Pax is the right leader.”
They’re right. Not everyone in the original twenty-six was a scientist. Pax’s father was chosen because he was a billionaire congressman who had the connections to make bureaucratic wheels turn faster.
He was also objectively brilliant, his IQ the highest of all of us.
Aldous Thatcher had the power and leverage to make sure his adult children, including Pax, were taken care of by the Whitman administration.
Pax is a fighter. I got to know him well when I was a leader at Rising Tide. Virginia and I were both impressed by his resilience. Despite a life of luxury and indulgence before the virus, no one outworked him. Not even me. He could bring people together with his charisma.
He’s a solid second-in-command, but he didn’t have Virginia’s ruthlessness. She made decisions deliberately, never doubting herself. Pax is softer than she was.
“Chaos there is good for us,” I say.
“They’re getting desperate,” Niran says. “They don’t need as much food or sleep as us because of their aromium, but they do need some, and there’s nothing to eat. Pax makes sure all the fish go to the robo kids.”
The children born of two aromium-enhanced parents are the real experiment here. We were working on making more resilient humans, but when Whitman got a taste of what was scientifically possible, he twisted things to help him gain and keep control over everyone.
McClain and Briar are trying to build a stabilizer, or even better, an antidote to aromium. It takes a long time for aromium to bond with a human, meaning it can’t be stabilized or turned off. But the kids who have it in their bodies naturally are an entirely different, much more complex problem.
“What’s your read on this new guy?” I ask Niran.
“His name’s Theron. I didn’t get much from him because my amplifier can’t pick up anything anyone says indoors. He told Pax he’s there to help. I figured I should get back while I had an opening and let you guys know about him.”
“You did good work, Niran,” Nova says.
He nods in response. “I’m going to take a shower, eat and get a few hours of sleep, and then I’ll go back.”
“Someone else will take a turn,” I say.
He shakes his head. “It needs to be me. I know the good spots and I know their routines.”
“You sure you’re up for it? You look like shit.”
“A fucking lion got my food stash. I haven’t eaten since the last time I was here. Once I eat and get some sleep, I’ll be good to go back.”
“Do you want to take someone with you?”
He shakes his head. “It’s easier by myself. Less chance of getting caught.”
I nod. “You know how to signal for help on the radio without anyone hearing it.”
“I won’t need help.”
Aggravation flares in my chest. “But if you do—”
“Yeah. I know. Is that it?”
“Yeah.”
He turns and leaves the room, Amira following him. Nova closes the door and gives me a look.
“He just wants your approval,” she says.
I shake my head. “I’m not approving of him defying orders. What if he did that in a life-or-death situation?”
“I get it,” she says, shrugging. “But there aren’t many wins here, Marcus. He’s been hiding in trees for two weeks to get this information, and it’s good information.”
“I need to go talk to McClain,” I say, eager for a subject change.
I want to see how bad he looks, because it’s been a few days since I’ve seen him leave the lab. And I sure as hell won’t mind seeing Briar, too, even though she hates me. Our exchanges today reminded me why I gave in to my attraction to her in the first place.
She’s fierce and fearless. Sharp and sexy. She thinks I’m over what we had, but she couldn’t be more wrong. If dropping to my knees and begging could make her feel like she did about me before, I’d do it night and day.
I destroyed her trust in me. Even if she gave me her body and her heart, it wouldn’t be enough, because it wouldn’t be everything. I know what it’s like to get all of her. To see the shine of absolute trust and love in her moss-and-amber eyes. That’s nothing but a memory now.