Chapter 46
“Flying bombers is a job with a beginning, middle, and end. The mission is clear. But working undercover can mess with your mind. We can reassign you at any time if it’s too much.” -- Decoded message from ILF handler Hiro Tanaka to ILF undercover operative Nightingale
One Week Later
Briar
“Did you hear about Chance’s new slogan for this place?”
Amira walks into Marcus’s treatment room in the Sub, setting her bow down on an empty chair.
“Not yet,” Marcus says, sitting up in his bed.
“Fifteen arms and unlimited possibilities.” She grins at me. “Perfect, right?”
I laugh because it kind of is. The day after the New America soldiers left, we held an election. Those of us who are leaving the island didn’t take part. A council of eight leaders was elected—four from the Dust Walkers and four from Rising Tide.
The eight of them have been meeting in private for several hours a day for the past few days, working out new rules and setting priorities.
The Tiders proposed that if they all agreed to destroy the aromium shield, a leader for the council could be elected from the four representatives from our camp. Chance got the job.
I understand why the Tiders wanted that, but it still scared me. They all agreed on another thing, too, though—everyone on the island, now and in the future, must get Ellison’s stabilizer.
It works even better than Ellison hoped it would. Marcus woke up within twenty-four hours of his first dose, and the others who have gotten the stabilizer have all reacted well to it.
The stabilizer allows people to retain the positive effects of aromium, like speed, strength, and less need for sleep and food, while eliminating the negative ones.
No more volatile rage, jealousy and thirst for violence. And no more primal need to fuck any willing partner to create aromium-enhanced babies.
We have a lot of pregnant Tiders in camp, but moving forward, the numbers should drop off.
“Chance is funny,” Marcus says. “Who knew?”
“Are you ever planning to get off your ass and help around here?” Amira asks him dryly.
He scowls while I roll my eyes and say, “Ellison says one more day of bed rest.”
“I’m fine,” Marcus says. “And the sooner we get this place back on its feet, the sooner we can leave.”
He and I are taking Pax, Olin, Amira, and Evander back to the mainland with us. Evander isn’t healthy enough for the trip yet, but he’ll have at least another week to rest and recover.
After his one-man sub docked in the grotto the day after Ingrid’s soldiers left, he somehow managed to crawl onto the beach, where one of our fishing crews found him. When they carried his badly beaten body back to camp and Ellison examined him, she said she didn’t think he’d make it.
He held on, though, and now he’s recovering well. He’s in a room not far from Marcus’s, but he only gives one-word answers when we try to talk to him. It’s clear the New America soldiers didn’t just brutalize his body, but also his mind.
“If Ellison lets Marcus take a walk, you guys should go to the garden,” Amira says.
“Why?” I ask.
She shrugs. “You have to go if you want to find out.”
“Ellison barely lets me get up to take a piss,” Marcus grumbles.
He’s not great at resting.
“You’ve taken a walk every day for the last three days,” I remind him. “And how about some gratitude for the woman who saved your life?”
“Of course I’m grateful.”
“Does he need to eat?” Amira asks. “He seems hangry.”
“He ate an hour ago. This is just his personality.”
“You being a bastard again?” Pax asks from the doorway.
“To what do I owe the displeasure?” Marcus fires back.
Pax comes in, moves Amira’s bow from the chair, and sits down.
“Just wanted to see your shitty face,” Pax says. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” I answer. “This is his last day of bed rest.”
“We’re taking a vacation tomorrow,” Marcus says.
“Who?” Pax looks between us. “You two? For real?”
“No,” I say. “He thinks we’re going to spend a night at the beach, but we’re not. He’s not ready yet.”
“I’ve been ready for six days,” he says, smirking.
He’s asked me to lock the door and “ride him into the sunset” at least once a day since he woke up. I keep telling him an elevated heart rate isn’t part of bed rest, but he won’t listen.
“Stop rubbing it in that you two are the only ones getting any around here,” Amira says, standing. “I’m going to visit Evander.”
“Thanks for doing that,” Marcus says.
“Olin’s been spending lots of time with him. He’s worried about him.”
“I think we all are,” I say.
Evander was adamant about coming back to the mainland with us. I think he still fears retribution from Island Three.
I don’t think it’ll come, though. We put the bodies of Ingrid and her dead soldiers from the sub on the beach for the animals, since so many of them are starving.
“What’s going on with Niran?” Marcus asks.
“He’s been working in the stables every minute he’s not sleeping or eating,” Pax says. “He doesn’t talk to anyone.”
The new council wanted to start fresh. Our command and security teams are no more. Nova is testing and interviewing everyone who wants to be on the new team, which will be for security only. The words command and commander aren’t part of the new Blue Arrow Island.
“I have to go, too,” Pax says. “It’s my day to get the stabilizer.”
Ellison wanted to start small, using it on just a few people a day. I spent a day beside Marcus in bed a few days ago, Ellison drawing a pint of blood from me to make more of her compound.
Pax volunteered to be one of the first, but Ellison wanted to get it into the pregnant women first. The Rising Tide kids will get it once everyone else has taken it.
“I heard one of the side effects is a shriveled-up dick,” Marcus says. “I ducked that one, so I think that makes you statistically more likely to get it.”
Pax scoffs. “My dick’s a legend. I’m not worried about it.” He winks at me. “Speaking of dicks, are we still meeting up later?”
Marcus swings his legs over the side of the bed and starts to get up. I run over to him.
“It’s a joke! Stop. I haven’t left this room to do anything but go to the bathroom, you know he’s just trying to get a rise out of you.”
I have to climb onto his lap to keep him in bed.
“Relax,” Pax says. “I’ll stop by again later.”
“Don’t,” Marcus snarls.
Pax closes the door behind him and Marcus grabs my ass, suddenly not angry anymore.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” he says, sinking his fingers in.
I can’t help the arousal that makes me inhale sharply. We came so close to never having a moment like this again. The island kept coming for us, and somehow, we evaded its wrath every time.
“Not yet,” I tell him, resting my forehead on his.
“Come on. Your blood healed me; just imagine what your pussy juice can do.”
I laugh and cringe at the same time. “Never use those two words together again.”
“Pussy nectar? Girlie goo? Cunt cordial?”
I scramble off his lap, still laughing. “Finally I get to meet the high school boy inside you who’s been holding on to those gems for years.”
Ellison opens the door, looking between us. “I can come back.”
“No.” I back away, my cheeks warming. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“Unless it looks like she’s trying to fuck me,” Marcus quips.
“I will kill you,” I say under my breath.
“Looks like you’re feeling better, Marcus,” Ellison says, walking into the room.
“Better than ever. I don’t think I need this last day of bed rest.”
“Let me check your vitals.”
I go back to my chair and sit down, my pulse still racing. Whether it’s from turning me on or pissing me off, no one has ever gotten me going like Marcus does.
Ellison takes Marcus’s blood pressure and takes his pulse, looking unbothered. After clipping a pulse oximeter onto his fingertip and taking his temperature, she smiles.
“Let’s finish today with modified bed rest. You can leave your bed and walk around, but no exertion until tomorrow. And then, start slowly.”
“I will.”
“You’d better.”
“What about sex?”
I shoot him a glare, but Ellison is unfazed.
“So there are varying levels of sexual exertion,” she says. “Keep it mild and you should be okay.”
“I always keep it mild.”
A laugh bursts out of me. It takes me over, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard.
It feels good.
An hour later, Marcus and I are walking around camp, my hand firmly locked in his. I don’t know why I was worried he’d overdo it with walking; we get stopped every hundred steps or so by people who want to talk to him.
He’s been the hot topic around camp for the past week. Everyone knows he nearly died protecting all of us, and the Tiders are especially grateful to him for protecting the kids.
I’ve overheard dozens of conversations from people who said they knew the clone wasn’t really Marcus, and I smile to myself every time. There’s no shame in being fooled; none of us even imagined human cloning was happening on another island nearby.
“His hair just wasn’t the same,” a Tider tells Marcus. “It was so obvious.”
“And his biceps were smaller, right?”
The woman’s eyes widen. “Yes! Much smaller.”
Marcus squeezes my hand, amusement twinkling in his eyes. “Thanks for the well wishes, Sammie. It’s good to be back.”
“Great to have you back.”
She beams at him, then at me, and we keep walking.
“Were you the only one the clone fooled?” he quips.
I roll my eyes. “Apparently so.”
It takes us a while, but we eventually make it to the garden. The volcano’s toxic smell has finally cleared from the air, and people are pushing wheelbarrows filled with soil and compost.
“You’re up!” Bastian, a garden worker, grins at Marcus, reaching out to shake his hand. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m good, thanks. How are you?”
Bastian grins. “It’s the best day we’ve had in the garden for a long time. Check it out.”
He points to the far end of the garden. Marcus and I go there; what we see makes me teary-eyed.
Neat rows of tiny, bright-green sprouts have broken through the dark soil. The garden is returning. Since our seeds are genetically enhanced, these plants will grow much faster and bear more fruit than pre-virus ones did.
“What kind of vegetables are they?” Marcus asks.
I release his hand and walk to the end of the row, pulling a small wood stake from the ground and reading the words on it.
“Tomatoes on this side.” I return the stake to the ground and go pull another one. “Spinach here.”
Salads, frittatas and sautéed spinach are right around the corner. The former Tiders aren’t accustomed to eating well and always having enough, but I know the newly formed, united camp will get there.
These sprouts are visual proof of the rebirth taking place here. The volcano’s destruction will be felt by the island for generations of wildlife, but hope also blooms. Now that the two factions have stopped fighting and united, everyone here is safer and stronger.
I was surprised how many people don’t want to leave. When they found out evacuation back to the mainland was possible, a few said yes, but most said no. The mainland is still at war, and women aren’t safe there.
All of us have changed. We’ve evolved for our own well-being. And I think the island will, too. Without blood soaking its shores anymore, the island can become something beautiful.
Not just beautiful to look at—the island has always been that—but a place of nurturing and growth; finally, for everyone who lives here, a real home.