Ruins

“I don’t want to,” Green mumbled. “I don’t want to.”

“It’s okay,” said Kira, her voice still muffled by her makeshift mask. She looked across the yard to the low stone dock on the island’s edge, where a boat, half-obscured by shadows and trees, rocked gently in the water. Her theory had been right. There really was a boat. And it was empty.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said. “We’re leaving.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Dark shapes moved in the water. Kira helped Green into the boat, pulling it as close to the little stone dock as possible before easing him down into the center. The night air was slowly clearing her head of the concentrated pheromones, but Green was still lost in chemical memories, curling into a fetal position down in the aluminum belly of the boat. Kira stepped over the slim black line of the water, but stopped with her foot in midair before turning, gritting her teeth, and walking back to the house. She needed a weapon.

She clambered back up the wooden stairs to the balcony, took a deep breath, and ran into the bedroom, feeling her way through the sudden darkness. The dead Partial lay on the floor, his rifle beside him, and she grabbed it and ran back out. She didn’t dare to breathe until she was back down the stairs, and sucked air greedily in the cool darkness of the wooded yard. When she reached the boat Green was still lying on the floor and panting, but his eyes were open. She stepped in carefully, trying not to think about what might be lurking in the water beneath.

“Where am I?” asked Green.

“Outside, on the boat,” said Kira. “Stay quiet.” She picked up an oar and dipped it gently in the water, all the time expecting a gilled Partial to grab it and yank, pulling her over the side. She untied the boat and it drifted away from the dock—ten inches, twenty inches, five feet, ten. The shore fell away sharply, the inky lake deep and impenetrable. Who was down there, watching? How many of them? What did they see or think? All it would take was one Partial, one pale and clammy hand, to reach up and tip the boat, and then both she and Green would be in the water, sinking and helpless, dragged down by dead-eyed monsters. She rowed carefully, evenly, not daring to rush. If the enemy Partials got suspicious enough to come up and check, they’d link their dead companions immediately, and Kira and Green would be exposed. The interrogators had rowed out to the island, and she had to make the others think that now they were rowing back, returning their weapons to dry storage before diving back down to their home.

Why would they live under the water at all? she wondered. They can obviously survive on dry land, at least for a while. Morgan and Vale had both told her that heavy gene mods can degrade a person’s sanity. Was that what had happened here—Partials living underwater, killing other Partials and nailing their hands to pikes like savages? How much of their minds is man, and how much is . . . something else?

Two hundred feet to the closest island. One hundred. Fifty. Twenty. A small wooden dock sat low in the water ahead of them, and beyond it another house lost among the trees. Her map was gone, and all her equipment, but she remembered the bay’s basic geography; if this was the large central island she thought it was, there would be a causeway about two miles down connecting it back to the western shore of the lake. They could cross there . . . if the causeway was still up.

Ten feet left. Five.

The boat bumped up against the dock and Kira leaped out, looping the rope around a short pole and reaching out a hand for Green. The wooden planks under her feet and the dark black water all around her brought back sharp, terrifying memories of the dock where she’d been captured, and she imagined another pale Partial bursting up from the lake to seize her outstretched arm, but nothing did. Green grabbed her hand and stood up, steadier now than before. She checked the rifle slung over her back, nervously reassuring herself that it was still there, and led Green up toward the house. The path here was well-worn, further proof that the Partials stored their water-sensitive gear on dry land nearby.

Which means there might be more of them waiting here, she thought. Kira tried to feel them on the link, but without the heightened awareness that came with combat or terror, the data—if any existed—was too weak for her limited abilities to detect. She whispered to Green. “Can you link anyone up here?”

“Not right now,” he said softly, “but they come here often.”