Chapter 19
CHAPTER
THAD
Charley looked better than ever.
With rest and a few decent meals, her coloring had improved, and when she smiled, her golden eyes sucked me in, like a potent Nil swell. Even better, there was never a lull as we talked, and we clicked in too many ways to count. Charley made me feel real again, and she made me feel.
It was a sick Nil joke.
Of course I’d meet the perfect girl here. Here where I had no future, where I only had a now. Here where hoping too much hurt like hell, so I’d tried not to hope at all.
“Thad?” Charley asked.
“Yeah?” I shook off my mental slush.
She was looking at the beach. Groups were scattered like shells.
Laughing, talking, eating, being together.
Just another cookout at the beach—and yet it wasn’t.
I wondered if Charley saw that, too. Had she figured out that Nil Nights were our way to blow off steam, to release some pressure before we imploded for good?
Because even with a daily dose of sports, the reality was exhausting.
Each day was a sprint. We chased food and hunted gates, staying one step ahead of hunger and every fresh Nil threat.
Running toward freedom and away from Nil, gunning to survive this day, because the next one might bring the gate with your name on it.
Or not.
Charley’s thoughts did not track mine.
“The thing with the Shack,” she said, turning toward me. “So it’s an inside job?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Did I say it was an inside job?”
“You didn’t have to. I assumed that since nothing was taken, someone’s trying to cause trouble, or maybe it’s just an animal. But either way you want to find out, right?”
Charley was incredibly perceptive.
“You got it,” I said.
She nodded, still looking thoughtful. “So are you in charge?” she asked. “I mean, is that your job? You’re the one who talked tonight, and everyone comes to you with questions.”
“For now. It’s a hand vote thing. Before me, Natalie was Leader; before Natalie, it was Omar, and so on. It’s just someone to help settle differences and to coordinate teams.”
“Why did Natalie quit?”
“She got Priority.” And once you have Priority, that’s all you do. Search. Pray. And run like hell.
“Priority?” Charley frowned.
“You get Priority at sixty days out. Then you’re off job detail. You’ve paid your dues, so all you do is Search, with full City support. People with Priority pick their teams first.”
“I thought you picked the teams.” She sounded frustrated.
“Nope. The Search Leader does, which may be a person with Priority, but not always.” One look at her face told me I was talking in circles.
“Okay, let me lay out the whole Search team deal. When a person goes on Search, they pick who they want to take. Jason’s the best Spotter, so he gets picked almost every time.
Timing gates is tricky. Jason’s got a natural instinct for how gates roll, the speed, stuff like that.
Plus, he’s the youngest kid here, and people want him to make it.
That’s the other reason he gets picked, to give him a solid shot when it’s his turn. ”
“And Spotters are the eyes, right?”
“Yup. Gates always roll north, never east–west. But you need all the eyes you can get to spot a gate rising and track its roll. Every second counts. And like I said, the rest of the team is backup. Like sherpas.”
Charley digested this information. “Do the gates appear in one spot more than others? I mean, is there a go-to spot to catch one?”
“Nope. Nil doesn’t make it that easy. There’re a few hot spots right now, but gates jump around. It’s like trying to catch lightning.”
“That stinks. It’d be good if we knew where gates were more likely to hit. If there’s a pattern.”
“Yeah, a schedule of outbounds would be great. We’re still waiting on Nil to deliver one.”
Charley smirked. “I’m serious.”
“So am I. If anyone’s ever figured out how to increase the odds of getting off this rock, they took the secret with them when they left.” And it doesn’t help us now, and now is all that matters.
“There’s something I don’t get. Y’all didn’t know if Kevin made it or not. If Jason’s the best Spotter, why wasn’t he with Kevin when Kevin caught a gate?”
“Because Kevin was down to his last forty-eight hours. He wouldn’t let anyone go with him, especially Natalie. He said he had to make it alone, and if he didn’t, he wanted her to remember him alive. His words.”
Charley was quiet, no doubt pondering Kevin’s choice.
Good luck, I thought. I still didn’t understand why Kevin went renegade.
In the end it worked out, but it seemed to me that Kevin caught a gate despite his choice, not because of it.
Ditching his team made no sense. It was like cutting off your hand because your fingers hurt. And Nat still went through hell.
“Okay, one more thing.” Charley spoke slowly. “When groups go out, what stops someone else from taking a gate? From skipping in front of the person with Priority?”
“Nothing,” I said. Her eyes widened, then narrowed.
“It happens,” I continued, “but it’s rare.
Stealing someone’s gate is island manslaughter.
You may not pull the trigger, but you’re damn close, because you’re stealing their best chance to leave—and to live.
And if you make it off, you’ve got to live with knowing you might’ve just sentenced someone to death, especially if that person had Priority.
Some people might be able to carry that weight around, but not most. Especially if you’ve stayed in the City.
You get to know people. You want them to make it. ”
Charley stared at her cup, running her thumbs over the rim.
“I saw the look on Sabine’s face when the gate grabbed her.
It was pure horror, and the last thing she would’ve heard was everyone yelling for Li.
Poor Sabine. But there wasn’t anything she could do.
” Her voice had dropped to an agonized whisper.
“No, there wasn’t. Because it wasn’t Li’s gate after all; it was Sabine’s. Nil made the choice.”
I couldn’t help thinking it was because of Ramia and that creepy bone cuff.
Because Nil had left Ramia and her bracelet exactly how Nil wanted, exactly how Ramia predicted: bone on bone.
Maybe Nil wanted us to wonder about Ramia’s fate; maybe we weren’t meant to know.
We were Nil’s pawns, her playthings. This was her sandbox, and it didn’t matter if we didn’t want to play.
Thinking of Charley, I felt a spike of fear.
She was looking away. I followed her eyes to where Heesham sat by himself, staring at the sea where he’d thrown the bracelet, a gift meant for the girl who taught him how to say love in French.
“Is Heesham okay?” Charley asked.
“He will be,” I said. “Tonight’s tough. He’d fallen pretty hard for Sabine.”
She nodded, like she understood.
Do you, Charley? Do you see how screwed up Nil really is? But I pushed Nil’s cruelty from my head, because I didn’t want to think about it tonight. Just one night.
“There’s something I want you to see,” I said, standing.
“What is it?” She tilted her head to look at me.
“You’ll see.” Smiling, I held out my hand, hoping she’d take it. Needing her to take it.
She took it.
I grabbed a torch and led her down to a stretch of black rocks, the same black rocks Jason had been chunking into the sea the day I met Charley. Some were tiny, like black diamonds. Others were pebbles, like slick gravel, or chunks. But one was as big as a table and just as flat.
“Cool rocks,” she said. “Thanks for the beach tour. I give it five stars.”
I laughed. “Five? Man, I was hoping for ten. But I do like these rocks.”
“Uh-huh,” was all she said, in that same velvet voice.
Chuckling again, I said, “Have a seat.”
She let go as we sat, which pretty much sucked, although it did help to have both hands to wedge the torch into the sand. Then I sat beside her, so close our hips touched, which was a fresh rush all its own.
The sun was a brilliant orange ball. It hung over the water, centimeters from the horizon. The fading light licked the ocean’s surface like fire.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” I said, “but when the sun sets here, it sinks fast. After it touches the water, it disappears in seconds. And just before it drops out of sight, you’ll see a green flash. Watch.”
For a few minutes, we sat side by side. Not talking, just being.
Now, Nil whispered.
The orange ball tapped the water, dropped, and dipped from sight. And there it was—the emerald flash. Then it was gone, like the sun.
“Wow,” Charley breathed. “That was cool.”
“Yeah. It’s like the sun’s last stand, like the day wanted to live a bit longer.”
I wanted to kick myself. I’d asked her not to talk about death, and here I was, doing it for her.
Charley faced the water, biting her lip, and I didn’t know her well enough to read her. But I knew I’d ruined the moment.
“Hey,” I said quietly, “you okay?”
She turned to me. Torchlight flickered in her eyes, like flames on the sun.
“Yeah. I was thinking about the green flash and how gorgeous it was, like everything else on Nil. More surreal island beauty. And I was thinking that you’re a heck of an island guide.
First the Crystal Cove, then the Flower Field, and now this. You do this often?”
“Never,” I said.
“So I’m just lucky?” she teased.
Not if you landed here, I thought. But I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Then I had the weird thought that right now, I felt lucky, which wasn’t just weird, it was insane.
“Hey, other than your family,” I said, “is there anyone special you’re missing back home?”’Cause if there is, I bet he misses you more.
“Are you asking me if I have a boyfriend?” Her smile was mischievous.
“Subtle, eh?” I laughed. Usually I wouldn’t come right out and ask, but here, I had nothing to lose but ignorance. “Well?”
“No.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
She shrugged. Her dark hair blew off her shoulders, making my breath catch.
“What about you?” she asked. “Any girl back home you’re missing?”
“No.”
“I find that hard to believe.” Her light tone matched mine.
“It’s true. There’s no one for me back home.”
Watching Charley smile, I was dying to kiss her. Hell, I was eighty-six days away from dying anyway, but something held me back. Something in her eyes.
Then she shivered.
“You’re cold.” I fought the urge to wrap my arms around this girl I’d just met less than forty-eight hours ago. “Told you that you were underdressed.” I grinned.
“I didn’t see any jackets in the Shack,” she said. “And the Gap was already closed.”
As she rubbed her arms, I made myself ask, “Do you want to head back to the fire?”
Say no. Say you’ll stay with me. Or better yet, kiss me, and you’ll forget all about being cold.