Chapter 26
“What’s left for me? My wife and son died from the virus.
I have nothing to live for. I do have something to die for, though.
I want to destroy the people who made the virus.
They deserve to feel the same pain they inflicted on countless people just like me.
” – Excerpt from a letter written by Hiro Tanaka to ILF leadership
Briar
Once again, Vadim worked his magic on our limited food supply. My dinner plate has chunks of fire-roasted fish, spiced grains, and flatbread with guava jam.
I worked through lunch, and I’m so hungry I tear into tonight’s meal without even asking Amira how her day is going. It’s delicious. Vadim’s love of cooking shows in every meal we’ve had while on strict rations.
We can’t eat until we’re full—there’s just not enough food. So he does everything he can to make up for it with flavor and variety.
The Tiders have been with us for two full days, and it’s been rocky at times, but no one’s been injured.
On the first day they were here, Pax introduced me to Lee, one of his people.
Lee was a commercial fisherman before the virus, and he explained that the Tiders’ camp was on the leeward side of the island, with calmer waters.
Our camp is on the windward side of the island, which means our coastline has better access to fish. Because of our shield, the Tiders couldn’t access those waters.
We’ve always fished, but nothing like we are now.
Pax, Lee, and a few others quickly built two good fishing boats.
Lee worked with his hands bandaged from burns, only stopping when Ellison said he had to because of the blood soaking through the bandages.
Even then, he stayed on the jobsite to oversee the work.
Today, Lee took fishing crews out, and they returned with hundreds of fish. Vadim was thrilled to have fresh food to prepare. He’d been relying on our stores of nonperishables.
“I don’t know if I can even lift my hands to tweeze brows this evening,” Amira says.
“Long day?”
She sighs softly. “Those laundry bikes are no joke. Also, I carried wood from the collapsed housing block that was too heavy for me, but no way was I admitting that to the men.”
We depleted our supplies of gauze and bandages for burns, so Ellison is using strips of cloth now, and we’ve stepped up shifts on the bikes we use for laundry.
Pedaling powers them, but it’s so hot during the day that we’re running shifts all night long to keep up with the need for clean bandages and clothes.
I did a two-hour bike shift last night, and my quads are feeling it today.
At least half a dozen times today, I wondered what Marcus would say when he gets back. More times than that, I wondered why he’s been gone for so long. I don’t trust anything the Whitman regime says or does. They could be torturing him for information. If I had a way to do it, I’d go after him.
But I’m stuck here, completely in the dark about him.
I asked Wyatt to spar with me for thirty minutes today, just to get out some nervous energy. He’s good with blades, so it was challenging.
“Who’s that bitch staring at you?” Amira asks.
I turn to look. “Oh, that’s Marcelle.”
I return to my food, and Amira gives me a puzzled look. “And? Why is she always staring?”
“She tried to kill me when I first got to Rising Tide. She and some of her friends. They called me a baby killer.”
“I mean, one nice thing about these tats is that they’re a quick vibe check on everyone we meet.” She holds a hand out, looking at the black X inked on her brown skin. “She’s giving puritanical meth addict.”
I smile. “Her teeth were fine before. I think malnutrition ruined them.”
“Did you hear what Olin’s up to with the kids?”
Glad for a subject change, I say, “No.”
“He gave them all X-Men names.”
“What?”
“Nah, I made that up. It would be funny, though. He taught the Tider kids to sing ‘Baby Shark.’ Adele said it’s wild to see them doing the hand motions and goofy lyrics when they’re not even smiling.”
I laugh at the image. Olin hasn’t left the seventeen surviving Tider kids since they got here. None of their usual caregivers survived the volcano, so he and three women who teach and help care for our kids are trying to provide them comfort and stability.
As I’m about to eat my last bite of dinner, an alarm sounds.
“Code Red,” Amira says, reaching back to grab an arrow from her quiver. “See what I mean?”
I tell her she doesn’t need to have her bow and arrows on her every second of the day, but she says she feels naked without them.
“You were right.”
I take the handgun from my holster and point the muzzle at the ground, then tap the magazine firmly to make sure it’s seated and rack the slide just enough to confirm there’s a round in the chamber.
The Tiders in the Hub eating dinner are standing up, giving each other scared and confused looks.
“Is the volcano erupting again?” a woman asks. “Should we run?”
“Just stay here,” I tell them. “There are many things it could be.”
No one listens. The Hub’s doorway is immediately clogged with people trying to run out.
“Let us through, we have weapons!” I yell.
A man I don’t recognize makes a swipe for my gun. I elbow him in the face and he howls in pain.
“Everyone, get back! Get out of the way!”
This time, I’m pissed, and people listen. I don’t like being surrounded by panicked people. Amira grabs a fistful of my T-shirt to stay with me as I push through toward the door.
Finally, we make it through the doorway, and I scan the main camp area to see if I can figure out what’s going on.
A frantic male voice shouts over my radio and Amira’s. “Command Team One to the storage building! Now!”
I think it’s Wyatt. I run as fast as my legs will move, but several Tiders pass me. Aromium allows them to move at least twice as fast as me, if not more.
When I arrive at our concrete supply building, my stomach drops. A massive lion has its sharp gaze fixed on Georgie, one of our kitchen workers. Its head is dipped and its ribs are visible.
It’s very rare for a regular animal on the island to approach our camp. This one is aromium-enhanced, though—I can tell by its size. It’s also hungry, probably from the volcano wiping out so much of its prey.
Damn. We lightened camp security with the Tiders here because we need everyone for other work. But we didn’t account for nonhuman predators.
The lion takes two slow steps closer to Georgie, who’s holding a burlap sack tightly against her chest.
I could shoot it. But it’s so big that a single bullet wouldn’t take it down. I’m not confident I could put enough bullets in it fast enough to keep it from getting to Georgie.
“Don’t move,” a male Tider says to Georgie.
Nova’s about ten feet from me, an electrified stun stick in her hand. Wyatt is a few feet from her, and he doesn’t have any weapons.
“Nova?” I call out, keeping my eyes on the lion.
“I’m thinking,” she says.
“Thinking we’re fucked,” Amira mutters.
She’s not wrong. Aromium made the animal into a mutant that has to weigh at least seven hundred pounds. Our only hope is to attack it all at once, with every weapon we have, and hope we can take it out before it hurts anyone.
“Everyone, get behind me!” I call.
The Tiders who beat me here are in front of and beside me. They don’t move.
“Everyone, get shoulder to shoulder,” a male voice orders.
I exchange a confused look with Amira as the Tiders close ranks and form a human wall. The male voice orders them forward and counts their steps, his voice clear and commanding.
They’re not moving quickly or slowly. It’s just a steady progression, and within thirty seconds, they’ve passed Georgie. Niran is there, and he moves himself in front of her and helps her slowly retreat.
I keep my gun pointed at the ground as I watch, fascinated. I recognize Marcelle’s tiny frame and wild blond curls in the line of Tiders. Their backs are facing me, and if anyone’s getting attacked, it will be them.
Amira and I move to the side so we can see what’s happening. The lion is looking at the advancing Tiders, its head still lowered. The tip of its tail swishes and my heart stills as I wait for it to pounce.
But instead, it backs up a step. Then another one. The deep voice is still calling out numbers as they all walk forward in unison, some of them with their arms linked.
Nova’s stun stick crackles in the air. The Tiders keep moving, and the lion backs up several more steps.
“It’s working,” Amira says softly.
The lion is close to the edge of the jungle, but it doesn’t seem to want to look away from the Tiders.
It chances a quick look, then turns and jumps into the jungle, running away. Everyone lets out a collective sigh of relief.
The Tiders disband, none of them looking fazed. I approach the tall, dark-haired man who assembled them into the line.
“Thank you,” I say.
He nods. “It might come back. We can help patrol.”
I hesitate, because that would require giving them weapons. I’m not sure our truce is solid enough for that yet.
“Or not.” He shrugs. “But you took the shield down to help us, so it’s the least we can do.”
“We could use the help,” I admit.
“We can see better in the dark. We’ll ride the laundry bikes at night and patrol the camp.”
I consider. With all our people sleeping in the Sub, that might not be a bad idea.
“All we need is spears,” he says. “We can make them ourselves.”
“We have spears.”
I glance at Nova, who’s just a few feet away. She gives me a quick, slight nod.
“Okay, thank you,” I say. “We’ll take you up on that.”
“I’ll run it by Pax first.”
“Sure. Tell him to let me know either way.”
Everyone’s walking back to the central camp area, and Nova falls into step beside me.
“Can I talk to you?” she asks.
“Of course.”
“I’ll catch up with you later,” Amira says, walking toward Wyatt and Chance.
Nova is pensive for a few seconds.
“You okay?” I ask her.
“I’m worried about Ellison.”
I pinch my brows together. “Is she overdoing it? She has to eat and sleep.”
“It’s not that. She’s always overdoing it. There have been two times in the past few days where she’s told me she was going to be somewhere, but then she wasn’t there.”
“You know how it is for her, Nova. She’s always getting pulled in a thousand directions.”
She hums in agreement. “Right, but when I asked her later about the place she said she was going, she acted like she’d been there. She lied to me.”
Now I’m concerned, too. “That’s not like her.”
“No. I trust her, of course. I’m not suspicious of her. I’m just worried.”
“Yeah, I would be, too. But you know what my dad would say?”
She arches a brow, waiting for me to continue.
“He’d say I trust you is a complete sentence. Once you add the word but, you change its entire meaning.”
A smile tugs on her lips. “Wise man, your dad.”
“He was.”
“You worried about Marcus?”
“I’m trying to keep my mind busy with other things, but yes.”
“Ain’t love grand?”
Her wry question makes me laugh. I think it’s my first laugh of the day.
“So the Tiders are guarding our camp at night,” she says. “Never thought that sentence would come out of my mouth.”
“The supply building is made of reinforced concrete and the locks are solid. All our weapons are in the Sub.”
“I’m not questioning you,” she says. “I think it’s a good idea. Our people need to sleep.”
“Let’s just hope Marcus doesn’t get back at night.”
She scoffs. “We’d better leave a note for him in that grotto, or we could wake up to a mess.”
“I will.”
We’ve reached the center of camp. She looks around at the mixture of our people and the Tiders, most of them sticking by their own people, but a few talking to each other. The sun is starting its descent and the laundry bike riders are beginning their camp rounds.
“Don’t say it,” I warn. “It’s too soon to say this was a good idea.”
“I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say I’m glad you and Marcus worked things out. He needs you.”
She turns toward the Hub, leaving me thinking about Marcus and wondering where he is right now. And more importantly, how he is.