Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Mara! No!” I scream, as she lifts the sword over her shoulder. I leap forward, tackling Sig, and pushing her out of the path of the sword that comes swinging down over us, right where Sig had been standing a moment ago.
We land on the ground in a heap, but quickly scramble to get back to our feet. Mara’s sword is embedded in the ground, her strike so fierce it pierced through the soft dirt. She yanks on the hilt, grunting and screaming before it releases, and she turns on her heel, stalking toward me.
“You!” she screams, the tip of her sword pointing directly at me. “You were trying to take him!”
“Mara, please, listen to me!”
“You fucking traitor!”
Her sword slices through the air, aimed right at my head, and I duck under it.
“Mara, stop!” I yell as she charges at me. I stumble backward, almost falling to the ground, trying to keep my eyes on her when I feel Sig grab the shirt at my shoulders and yank me away and back to my feet.
“We need to run!” she yells, and I don’t hesitate.
I turn and bolt.
Sig is steps ahead of me, her longer legs giving her an advantage. Leaves and branches tear at us as we push through the forest toward the open path, in the opposite direction of the lookout. We can’t go back to it; it would lead Mara straight there.
“Shit, we left Roley!” I yell to Sig. Mara’s steps pound behind me, and I push myself harder, trying to stay out of reach of her sword.
“It’s too late! We need to get out of here!
” Sig yells. I can barely hear her from the pounding of my feet and heart, the swish of the leaves as we fly past. We weave and dodge, trying to throw Mara off, but she knows Dawnlin as well as we do, if not better.
We burst through the tree line and sprint across the main path into the grassy plains that lead to the cliffs.
“Where do we go? We need a portal!” I scream at Sig’s back. She stumbles in front of me, then picks herself back up.
“They’re too far, and we can’t lead her right to one. We have to lose her!”
Fuck, she’s right.
If we lead her to a portal, she will know exactly where we can enter and exit. She’ll know how we get across the island. There’s no way of knowing how long she or others would wait for someone to use it. We’d be putting Castaways in danger. We—
Pain erupts in my arm and I scream, the intensity so strong I fall to my knees. The tip of a blade pokes through the front of my arm, and bile rises in my throat. I reach behind and pull the knife out, dropping it to the ground as another wave of pain comes over me and my mind spins.
Sig skids to a stop in front of me, her eyes wide as she yells at me, but her voice sounds far away. My ears ring and my stomach rolls. Squeezing my eyes shut, I shake my head.
Focus. You’ll die if you don’t.
Sig’s scream cut through the fog. “Behind you!”
I can’t think. I clutch my arm and blood oozes through my fingers as I roll to the side, just as another knife sticks into the dirt where I knelt.
“Castaway scum!” she screams as her sword drives down toward my head again. My eyes snag on my bow laying in the grass, and I reach for it, scrambling for some way to protect myself from her next strike.
My fingers wrap around the wood and I shove it above me, just as her hands come down again. The metal blade hacks into it, splintering the wood, and jarring my limbs, weakening me enough that I don’t know if I’ll be able to ward off another strike.
I have to get through to her.
“Mara, listen to me! We don’t hurt our own, remember?” I yell as I crawl backwards, the heels of my boots slipping on the slick grass under me.
“You aren’t one of us! You chose them!” She pulls a knife from her belt, eyes blazing down at me. “And now I’m going to bring you back to Dane, and he’s going to see you for the traitorous bitch you are.”
My arm slips out from under me and I fall, slamming my other into the ground with a cry. I can’t fight her off. My bow is broken and useless without both of my arms. I let go of it and try to move, try to scramble back away, when suddenly Sig is there, her fist slamming into Mara’s cheek.
The force of Sig’s blow whips Mara’s head to the side, and her knees hit the ground.
Sig stumbles forward, catching herself before she’s on me in the next breath, yanking me up to my feet as I scream in pain.
Our feet pound on the ground as we get farther away from Mara.
I hope Sig’s punch was enough to give us time.
“Cap taught you how to swim, right?” Sig says as she runs alongside me, not ahead any longer, her hand gripping my arm and urging me faster.
“Uh-huh,” I say, and her plan clicks in my mind.
We sprint through the grass, straight toward the edge in front of us. Mara is behind, screaming and giving chase.
Pain sears through me with every pump of my arms, but we don’t slow down.
All I can see is the edge, the expanse of water below.
My nightmare flashes before my eyes, the first ever I had here, with the Voyagers and Dane chasing me off the cliff.
The fear I had then, so different from the fear I have now, but it’s as if the island knew.
Was Dawnlin warning me?
“Don’t slow down! We need to clear the rocks!” Sig yells, and lets go of my arm. “Point your feet and take a breath. Do you hear me, Lennox?”
I can’t respond to her. I can’t do anything but run and think about hitting that water below. The edge gets closer with every step. I don’t think. I don’t stop. My foot hits the edge and pushes me into the air.
I’m weightless.
Wind whips at my clothes and hair as my arms and legs flail, running without purchase into what just days ago was my biggest fear.
The surface gets closer with every second, and I slam my legs together, pointing my feet and sucking in all the air I can before I crash into the abyss below.
The world goes dark.
My flailing arms are now sluggish, fighting against the thick force around them. What I thought was searing pain before is only worsened with movement and the salt of the sea.
This is nothing like the pool. There’s no ground under my feet, no way to stand when I feel overwhelmed, no Weston to save me. Rough currents flip my body over it self, and I can’t determine which way is up. I kick and kick, hoping it’s the right way.
Please be the right way.
My chest burns and squeezes. It’s too far. My vision blurs, and panic takes over my body as I fight the treacherous water.
Air.
I need air.
Kicking and fighting the urge to breathe in, remembering Jorn only yesterday, his lips as blue as the water I’m immersed in. I kick harder, toward the space above me, the space that is lightening.
The gasp that erupts from my throat as I break the surface hurts, and I heave the air in and out, the tears seeping from my eyes mixing with the rivulets running down my face.
Before I can get my bearings, waves crash over me, rolling me under again.
I flail, trying not to lose sight of the surface when fingers grasp mine and tug.
I squeeze them and hold tightly until I break the surface again, to find Sig bobbing next to me and clutching me to her.
“We need to get to the rocks,” she yells over the crash of the waves around us.
The weight of my soaked clothes pulls me down, and my arm is useless. Sig swims to the side with perfect strokes and I try to follow, kicking and paddling slowly behind her, trying to make it before the next wave comes crashing down on us.
We reach a large sharp rock jutting out of the sea, and I grab hold, clinging as hard as I can with only one arm as my chest still heaves breaths. I dare to glance up at the top of the cliff and find Mara pacing back and forth, scanning the water below.
“Shit, Mara’s still up there. She’s looking for us,” I say.
Sig walks her hands around the back of the rock, gesturing for me to follow. We sink low into the water, trying to stay hidden. I don’t know what she can see from her vantage point, but maybe she will think the water took us. She probably still thinks I don’t know how to swim.
Mara continues pacing until she lets out a feral yell, the sound muffled by the crash of the water around us. We wait a few moments longer after she disappears from the edge, pulling our shoulders farther out of the crashing surf.
“How’s your arm?” Sig asks.
“Pretty bad. I can’t really use it.”
Her jaw ticks and she looks past the rock toward the island. There’s no beach under the cliffs, the sheer face extending directly into the sea.
“We need to make it back. The entire way, I want you to think really hard about needing safety, alright?”
I nod. Is that how portals appear? Have the Castaways figured out how to ask the island for help? Is that how Weston snuck through the back of the cave when I couldn’t?
I’ll have to ask Sig later, because right now, I need to focus on safety. I won’t be able to swim around the island like this, so I have no choice but to beg Dawnlin to help.
Sig starts toward land and I paddle behind her with one arm, struggling to stay above the surface. I focus on safety, just like Sig told me to the entire way. The last bit of distance disappears as the waves push us into the cliff. We cling to the rock as waves pound at our backs.
We’re barely there a moment before the rock above us begins to shift, disappearing where we clutch it, forming a rock ledge that leads straight into the wall.
“Thank the gods,” Sig breathes.
She reaches over and yanks me up, my feet kicking for purchase to pull my body up into the opening. I gasp and grunt as I fall down onto my arm, rolling quickly to my other side to get the pressure off it.
Sig pushes herself over the edge, her upper body falling into the opening until she can crawl forward on her elbows. The moment we are both inside, the wall seals shut again and we’re cast in darkness. Neither of us moves, the sound of our panting filling the tight space.