Nil Page 22

  So Talla and I had struck a deal. I’d promised Talla I’d look out for Nat on Search if Talla looked out for Nat tonight. She’ll have her own personal watch, Talla promised. I’ll pull an all-nighter if it makes her feel safe. As usual, Talla’s response was extreme, but it made me feel better. Looking over at Natalie, the sweet girl who’d watched over me on my first night in the City, and whose time was running out, I sure hoped I kept my end of the bargain.

  As we broke through the trees, twilight was falling. The sun hung low, brilliant and orange; torches in the sand flickered with firelight, less brilliant than the setting sun but powerful enough to cast shadows on the sand. The beach scene looked exactly how I remembered it from my first Nil Night, and the strange déjà-vu took me back. Recalling Rory hanging in the shadows, observant and wary, I glanced toward the trees, half expecting to see his ghost. Instead I spotted Rives making out with a girl I didn’t know. Her blond hair trailed down her back, and with a start, I realized it was Talla. Dang, I thought with surprise. I hadn’t seen that twosome coming. Then again, maybe it was just a casual hookup.

  Near the food table, Thad was talking intensely to Miguel. Behind them, an island band of homemade strings, reed pipes, and gourd shakers cranked up, and they didn’t sound half bad. The two large drums sat silent. It took me a minute, then I remembered the missing drummer was Samuel. Samuel, who’d caught a gate, giving us something to celebrate. Only there were fewer flower leis worn tonight, because Li was gone.

  By the fire, Jillian sat stiffly, her ankle wrapped in white cloth. Dex sat beside her, his skin as pale as Jillian’s ankle, except for his tattoos. He reminded me of a lost puppy. Granted, one that was over six feet tall and skinny, but despite the pierced zombie look, he seemed oddly vulnerable.

  When she saw us, Jillian waved.

  “Hey, Jillian.” I gave her a hug. “Sorry about your ankle.”

  “Me too. I’m just glad I didn’t break it.” She shuddered, and our eyes caught. Because then you can’t run, I thought.

  “Hey, Dex,” I said. “How’s it going?”

  “Fine, I guess.” His disinterest didn’t feel rude; it was like talking to a shock victim. Only now he stared at the drums, rather than the fire.

  “Do you play?” I asked, pointing to the drums.

  “Yeah. Me and my mates have a band. The Dead Reapers.”

  The name sounded a little redundant, but I wasn’t about to debate his band’s name. “Well, if you want to play, go ahead. It’s a free for all around here.”

  Confusion flickered across Dex’s face. “Really? I thought there were rules. The big bloke mentioned a contract?”

  “Covenant.” Natalie spoke up. “It just means that if you stay in the City, you agree to support the Search teams and pitch in. You can hunt gates by yourself, but it’s easier with a team as support.”

  “Totally,” Jillian said. “What if I’d fallen when I was out by myself? Sy practically carried me the whole way back. It can get crazy here.”

  Dex studied the fire. “Yeah. About that. Uh, I’m not quite sure, because I was still bent, but … the day I landed, I saw a big cat, with spots. Like a leopard.” He seemed bewildered. “I don’t know if it was real, but if it was, how bloody scary is that? I mean, there’re bloody leopards out there?” He pointed toward the island’s interior.

  “No idea,” I said, “and even if there was, there’s no guarantee it’s still here. Animals come and go just like people. But to make you feel better, there’re no snakes.”

  Dex looked stunned, like he’d never thought about reptiles.

  Thad whistled, drawing everyone’s attention. He raised his cup. “First, to Li. In her honor, let’s have a moment of silence.”

  Heads bowed, and for a long minute, only the ocean made a sound.

  “Now, to Samuel.” Hoots and hollers split the air. “You made it, man. Cheers.” Thad raised his cup. Everyone did the same, except Dex.

  “And we’ve got a rookie.” Thad turned toward us. “Dex, welcome to Nil. We’re glad you’re here, even though we’re sorry you’re here.” Dex managed a wobbly wave, his empty hands shaking.

  “To business,” Thad said. “First up, Search. Three teams leave at dawn. Elia’s heading out with Johan as Spotter, Raj as support. Miguel’s heading out with Bart as Spotter, Talla and Heesham as support. And Nat’s heading out with Jason as Spotter, Charley and me as support.”

  Looking supremely confident, Bart high-fived Sy.

  Thad’s face darkened, a change evident despite the black Nil night. “Second. The Shack was hit last night, and the metal knives are gone. All of them.” His eyes roamed the group. “Animals don’t steal weapons; people do. If it’s one of us, stop. Put the knives back; that’s all that matters. And if it’s not one of us, then whoever takes watch at the Shack, stay awake.” He glanced at Bart, who didn’t flinch. “We can’t afford to lose any more supplies.”

  Thad took a deep breath. “Last thing. I’m stepping down as Leader. I nominate Rives to Lead. He’s been a great Second. Any other nominations?”

  Bart’s hand shot up. “Sy.”

  Thad nodded. “Anyone else?”

  The fire popped in the silence.

  “Okay,” Thad said, “All in favor of Rives as Leader, raise your hand.”

  Over a dozen hands filled the air.

  “Hands down.” Thad said. “All in favor of Sy, raise your hand.”

  Bart’s hand flew up. Sy’s weakly followed. No other hands moved.

  “Hands down. That’s it.” Thad tipped his cup to Rives. “It’s all yours, bro. Who do you pick as your Seconds?”

  Rives stood. “Heesham and Talla. And Sy.” Sy looked shocked; Bart looked confused.

  Thad nodded. “Okay, that’s it. Take care of each other. Focus on the good, live in the moment. To now.” As Thad raised his cup, so did the crowd, and the echo of “to now” was deafening.

  As the City cheered, I realized Thad hadn’t mentioned the nameless girl, the one Rives and Natalie buried in the night. The omission made her even more lost. No recognition here, and no going home. Despite the fire, I shivered.

  “Speaking of now, Macy’s cooked up a little something, just for tonight.” Thad nodded to her. “When you’re ready.”

  “Thanks!” Macy beamed. “Okay, people, I’m gonna try something here. If I were you, I’d back up.” As everyone stepped back, I felt Thad’s arms slide around my waist.

  Macy nodded to Heesham, who threw her a stick about three feet long. Each end was wrapped in something thick, like twine or vine. She dipped each end in the fire and then twirled the stick like a baton. Flames swirled in the darkness, forming a circle of light. Macy tossed the stick in the air, caught it, and twirled it until the flames crawled toward her hands. When the flames kissed her fingers, Macy tossed the stick into the fire. As everyone hooted and clapped, she bowed, laughing.

  Later, as Thad and I left the beach, Macy’s act played in my head: a ring of fire swirling against the charcoal night. The flaming circle reminded me of a gate, a moving target full of heat, one that everyone was dying to catch.

  Like Thad, who had seventy-two days—to catch a gate, to save himself.

  And like Natalie, who had even less.

  If I was going to help them, time was running out. My charts were full of gaps and guesses, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something. That we were all missing something.

  And I’d no clue how to find it, or if I even could.

  CHAPTER

  40

  THAD

  DAY 294, DAWN

  The City was hopping.

  People running, people packing. People praying. Johan led a group in worship, making me wonder if it was Sunday. But the day of the week didn’t matter; the day count did. And prayers were good anytime.

  Spying Heesham packing food, I strode over. “Sham, got a minute?”

  He nodded. “What’s up?”

  “Last night Dex told Charley
he saw some kind of big cat, with spots. He was jacked when he landed, so the details are foggy, eh? He’s not sure it was real.” I paused. “But this is Nil, so I wanted to give you a heads-up before you went out.”

  “Appreciate that, bro. You tell Johan?”

  I nodded. “Stay safe.”

  “Got my protection right here.” He patted his thick wooden knife. Miguel had carved it for Heesham, and like the boy who held it, the knife was a beast. “You stay safe, too.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Heesham strode to Miguel and clapped him on the back. Bart stood by Miguel, shifting his feet anxiously. No surprise there, I thought. Bart hadn’t been on Search in weeks, and now that someone had finally picked him, he was a nervous wreck. At least Miguel had Heesham and Talla as support. Heesham and Talla would pick up any Bart-slack. And the truth was, as much as he annoyed me, Bart had stellar vision. He could spot a gate meters out, which was the point. Pull your weight, I thought, catching Bart’s eye and nodding. For Miguel.

  Talla was deep in conversation with Charley, then the two girls shook hands like conspirators. As Charley hugged Heesham, Talla gave me a fierce nod. Then, looking past me, her face softened. Two seconds later, Rives picked Talla up, swung her around, and kissed her, hard. Then Rives just held her. To my surprise, Talla actually let him.

  Good for you, man. I couldn’t see Talla’s face, but my gut told me it mirrored Rives’s, which was full of quiet emotion.

  Heesham whistled. He waved one finger in a quick circle and tipped his head toward Miguel. Talla let Rives go; Bart trailed Heesham like a puppy. Elia’s team gelled in thirty seconds flat.

  All three teams rolled out, each heading in a different direction. As we parted ways, I had the eerie sense that no team would come back intact. Hopefully that would be a good thing. The teams were balanced, which was good. And all three Spotters were sharp, which was even better.

  But like I’d told Heesham, this was Nil, and you just never know.

  CHAPTER

  41

  CHARLEY

  DAY 33, LATE MORNING

  “This is where I woke up on my first day,” I told Thad.

  We were standing on one of the tallest peaks, gazing at the sea of red. It struck me that the rocks were the exact color of Georgia clay back home. There was my mushroom rock, looking smaller than I remembered. There were the rocks as big as buses, and there was my blood, camouflaged on the red, but I knew it was there and remembered the pain. There was my hidey-hole, where I’d cowered in fear, and there was the path I’d taken when I’d chosen to run. To chase the last shimmer, only to fall short.

  I’d never been so happy to fail.

  “What’re you thinking so hard about?” Thad asked.

  “That I’m lucky I didn’t catch that shimmer my first day here. Because if I’d caught it, I never would have met you.”

  “Meant to be.” He smiled, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear. “So which way?”

  “East.” I pointed.

  Thad nodded. Cupping his hands, he shouted, “East!” Then he pointed. Natalie and Jason were just below us, and when they heard Thad’s shout, they gave a thumbs-up. We trekked down the rise and moved out as a team.

  “So this is where you found Kev’s clothes,” Natalie commented.

  “Yup.” I smiled. “Waking up here was totally freaky.”

  “Wasn’t it?” she agreed, nodding.

  Something awful occurred to me, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. “So we’ll wake up naked on the other side? Back in the world, who knows where?”

  “Probably,” Natalie said. “It’s not like these clothes go with you, right?”

  “Fantastic,” I mumbled. “Good times.”

  Beside me, Thad laughed.

  Jason was quiet. It was too close to zero hour for him to chat. The sun was high, and my gut tingled with an awareness of noon.

  I’d had six days to refine this tingle. When we’d left the City, we’d headed southeast, hoping to intercept gates. We were operating under the assumption that gates flashed on latitudinal lines, then ran north, longitudinally. Yesterday we’d finally spotted one in the southern black lava field: a single, too far away to catch. It was the first gate we’d seen.

  So after noon yesterday we’d changed tactics, and directions. Now we were chasing gates. We’d gone north, hoping to hit the next latitude, and in the end, we’d settled here. The red lava field, an open hot spot, where it would be easy to spot a gate if one decided to show.

  I wanted a gate for Natalie so badly it hurt.

  “Your sandals tight?” I asked Natalie.

  “Strapped and ready.” She grinned.

  “Be careful.” I felt like I was talking to Em. My words tumbled out—anything to give her an advantage. “This rock is a pain to run on. It shifts under you, especially the little pieces. Watch for cracks. Look for flat spots, okay?”

  She hugged me tight, saying nothing.

  I hugged her back. She had to catch a gate today, because today was the last day of this Search. Our supplies were dangerously low. So after noon today, regardless of what happened, we would head back to the City. But being in this field today—where it had ended for Kevin—felt right.

  Jason stopped. The field was eerily silent, just like I remembered. No air moved.

  “There!” Jason shouted, pointing. “Sixty yards, rolling left! GO!”

  Natalie was already running. The wall of writhing air shimmered in the Nil sun, drifting left.

  “Go, Natalie!” I urged. But I didn’t yell. Jason was her guide, not me.

  Ten yards left.

  Natalie sprinted, hurdling cracks as she ran toward the gate. Then she slipped. Her foot slid, she tumbled forward, and then hit the ground hard, landing between a pair of jagged rocks.

  “I’m stuck!” she cried, yanking on her foot.

  By the time we reached Natalie, she’d worked her foot loose. Scratched and bloody, her foot looked better than her sandal. It lay in pieces, torn in half. Yards away, the outbound collapsed and winked out.

  Her gate was gone.

  “Well, this sucks,” she said. “My sandal’s trashed.” Tears filled her eyes.

  “Take mine.” I rushed to get mine off, then I thrust it in her hand. “It’s big, but it’s better than nothing.”

  She looked at me, numb.

  Her hair lay flat; there was no wind to push it around.

  “Hurry!” I shouted, bending to help. The rush of urgency made me shake. “That gate was too slow to be a single! C’mon!”

  As Natalie scrambled to strap on the sandal, Jason yelled, “Gate at nine o’clock, rolling left. Forty yards!”

  Natalie jumped to her feet, then broke into the same awkward sprint I’d done naked. The moment was slow and fast; the past mixed with the present. She flew erratically over the rocks, shooting for flat spots as she gained on the shimmer.

  And then Natalie was there.

  Two feet in front of the shimmer, close enough for the gate to illuminate her face. She smiled, glittering tears running down her face. She waved, then stepped back into the gate, and the iridescent wall of air washed over her as quickly as the gate had washed over Sabine. Natalie flickered and faded. Then the gate collapsed.

  Natalie was gone.

  All that remained was a pile of clothes and two sandals. One sandal was hers, and one was mine, like two halves of a surreal island BFF charm. She was the best friend I’d had on the island, and I’d miss her. But I still had Thad.

  Thad.

  His hair rustled against his shoulders; the wind was back. Not whipping but gentle, barely noticeable unless you were looking for it, which I desperately was. Because I’d just realized that if another gate flashed right now, it would be Thad’s, and as much as I wanted him to catch a gate, to lose both Thad and Natalie in one day would be both awesome and terrible. I’d never considered we might have minutes instead of months, and the reality that I might lose him r
ight now was shocking.

  The wind stayed steady.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  Jason’s voice broke the awful moment. “That’s it. It was so slow, I thought it was a triple, but no dice.”

  I shook. With relief, with guilt, with happiness, with sadness, with too many emotions at once. I stood there, eyes closed, fists clenched, hating that I wasn’t prepared for this moment. I couldn’t stop shaking.

  “You did good, man,” I heard Thad tell Jason.

  Then Thad’s arms wrapped around me. “Hey,” he whispered in my ear. “It’s okay. Natalie made it because of you.”

  “No,” I said. “It wasn’t because of me. It was luck. But”—I bit my lip, furious with myself for not being ready to say good-bye to Thad—“never mind.” Taking a deep breath, I hugged him fiercely, then pulled away.

  Thad looked at me, frowning. “You’re wrong,” he said. “Your charts are good. Your theory works.”

  I was too shaken to argue.

  Thad reached for my hand. “Let’s get Nat’s stuff and go.”

  “I’ll get it,” I said. Without waiting, I followed in Natalie’s invisible footprints, leading to her clothes. As I lifted my sandal, an object fell and struck the rock with a brittle crack. It was Natalie’s white shell bracelet, the one she wore 24/7.

  I picked up the bracelet, picturing Natalie twisting it as she asked, You didn’t find anything else with the clothes, did you?

  Now I understood exactly what she’d hoped I’d found. When I’d snatched up Kevin’s shorts, something white had gone flying. Something as white and fragile as the bracelet in my hand.

  “Kevin made that for her,” Thad said. He’d come up beside me.

  “And he had one, too,” I said, knowing it was true. “Like you made our necklaces.” I swallowed, knowing one day I would pick Thad’s necklace off the ground, keeping him close until I could meet him on the other side.

  And it could have been today.