Island 731 (43 page)

Hawkins knelt down next to her. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

As he looked into Lilly’s yellow eyes, a warm breeze pushed by the explosion’s pressure wave surged past.

“Why did you save me?” she asked, looking down at herself.

“Your brother, Kam. He … was our friend.”

She smiled. “That’s what he said, too. But I’m not like you. I’m evil.”

Hawkins thought about it. “You’re
not
evil. The things that happened on that island had nothing to do with you. It doesn’t matter if you’re like us. You don’t just deserve to live, you deserve a better life.”

Hawkins could see she wasn’t fully believing him, probably because of what he’d said during their first conversation. “You’re not a thing,” he said. “You’re a person.”

“I’m more than a person,” she said, looking sad.

He nodded. “And that makes you amazing.”

She placed her hand on his cheek. He could feel the hardness of her retracted claws against his skin, but didn’t flinch. For her to survive in the modern world, and for him to keep her safe, they would have to trust each other. If news of her existence ever got out, the people who had just wiped out an island would no doubt come calling. “My name is Mark, by the way. I know I already told you, but figured I should probably introduce myself again. You know, so we’re not strangers.”

She smiled. “My name is Lilly,” she said and gave a slight bow. “Lilly Shimura.”

52.

O
NE
Y
EAR
L
ATER

Hawkins lay on his stomach, looking through a pair of binoculars. “Do you see her?”

“Nothing,” came the quiet but rough voice of Howie GoodTracks. Hawkins’s mentor and surrogate father lay next to him on the grassy bluff overlooking a rolling stream far below. “She is better than you.”

“She’s better than everyone,” Joliet added. She stood behind them, leaning against one of many pine trees that surrounded their hilltop position. She took a loud bite from an apple.

Hawkins shushed her and held a finger to his lips. “They’ll hear you!” He looked through the binoculars again, finding the deer by the stream. There were three of them. They drank in pairs while one always kept watch, wary of cougars, grizzlies, and human hunters. But no amount of vigilance could prepare them for Lilly. One of the deer was already dead, it just hadn’t realized it yet.

It had been a year since Hawkins returned to the Ute reservation. That they’d made the trip without being discovered was something of a miracle. They had been picked up by an oil tanker two days after escaping the island. The tanker’s sparse crew and lax captain hadn’t checked the contents of the heavy bundle carried by Drake when he had boarded the ship. Nor had they paid much attention to the rescued crew while they had quietly recovered on the three-week voyage to the Port of Los Angeles.

When they left the ship, Drake assumed his position as the
Magellan
’s captain and told a fabricated story about a storm that had capsized the
Magellan
. Thankfully, most of their wounds, including Hawkins’s side and Bray’s calf, had healed and didn’t require a hospital visit, which allowed Drake to leave out their less believable run-in with pirates. The police interviewed them one at a time, which allowed three of them to stay with Lilly in a cheap motel, but the interviews focused mainly on confirming their identities. Their rehearsed stories matched and once their credentials were checked out, no one questioned the validity of their story. They were free to go.

GoodTracks had been confused by Lilly—neither fully human nor fully animal—when Hawkins first introduced her and requested sanctuary for them both, but quickly decided her feline traits were a blessing. To the Ute, the puma, panther, and jaguar were symbols of strength, nobility, and guardianship. She would protect them as they protected her. She basked in the attention GoodTracks had once given Hawkins.

Joliet, Bray, and Drake stayed with them for a week before heading to their various homes. The last time Hawkins had heard from Drake was just over two months ago when he called to say he was heading to Japan to reconnect with family. “Uncle” Bray had returned during every school break. He’d blamed technical difficulties for his seeming disappearance and was now writing a book on modern bioethics, which featured several chapters focused on DARPA and a Senator Mansfield, who created and implemented the Mansfield Amendment that allowed black projects under DARPA’s umbrella to not only exist, but also to be hidden from the organization’s leadership. Mansfield had died in 2001, but Bray was determined to reveal his dark legacy and, more importantly, who had inherited it.

Joliet’s trip home lasted just a week. When she returned it was with a U-Haul truck. She’d tried to claim the move was to better study and keep an eye on Lilly, but the charade only lasted three months. She and Hawkins had been sharing a room since. Lilly had taken to calling them Mom and Dad.

It was a strange family. Perhaps the strangest ever. But it had worked so far. He and Joliet did their best to educate her, but found she didn’t need much help. She took to reading quickly and devoured books like she did meat. She was a hunter, of that there was little doubt, but her instincts were tempered by a sharp intelligence and a kind heart. Bray liked to say she had the look of a cat but the temperament of a dog.

They’d had no trouble hiding her from the outside world. The reservation’s mostly unpopulated 1,058 square miles gave her lots of space to roam and she could hear, see, and smell someone coming from a mile away. She knew enough to stay out of sight and understood what might happen if she were discovered. The biggest challenge had been her growth. Six months into her stay, she’d grown. Fast. Her body, mind, and emotional development surged forward and what had been a five-year-old girl soon became a young teen. She had yet to show any real signs of puberty, but it remained one of Hawkins’s greatest fears. If she was ever going to do something irrational, it would be then. But so far, she’d remained calm, trustworthy, and clear-headed.

All things considered, they’d managed to build a good life in the wake of surviving the island. Most importantly, they were safe.

C’mon
, Hawkins thought, looking through the binoculars.
Any second now
.

Lilly had become a skilled hunter as Hawkins and GoodTracks taught her everything they knew, minus the “be the most aggressive predator” theory—she needed no help there. But she’d learned discipline, respect for life, and skills that would serve her well if things ever became … complicated. So when an arrow didn’t fly from some unseen hiding spot, Hawkins became worried.

Joliet crouched next to him. “Where is she?”

Hawkins stood. The deer immediately saw him. They stared at him for a moment until one of them huffed. Then all three darted away, bounding through the high grass until they disappeared into the forest.

With their cover blown, there was no reason for Hawkins to stay silent any longer. Fearing Lilly might have left, he filled his lungs to shout for her. He never got the chance.

“Daddy!” Lilly’s voice was distant. Panicked.

Had she been discovered?

Hawkins jumped over the edge and ran down the grassy slope. Joliet and GoodTracks followed close behind. “Lilly! Where are you!”

“Here!” she shouted.

Hawkins ran as fast as he could, which wasn’t quite as fast as he could run a year ago. Several of his wounds still ached when he exerted himself, but concern for Lilly pushed him past the pain. He saw her crouched in a stand of tall grass.

She wore no clothes. She rarely did. They were not only uncomfortable for her, but her pelt of shiny, black fur hid anything people would consider indecent. She didn’t look up at his approach, but stared at the ground beneath her. He saw blood on her hands and arms.

Had she killed something?

Was she wounded?

She looked at him, panic filling her eyes. “Daddy, I don’t understand.”

“What is it,” he asked, his eyes searching her body for a wound. Her legs were bloody, too, but he saw no injuries.

“Look,” she said, and stepped back.

Hawkins stared at the ground beneath her.

Joliet arrived and gasped, a hand going to her mouth.

GoodTracks stopped short. He always made an effort to let Hawkins and Joliet handle Lilly’s problems the way parents might before offering his grandfatherly opinion. When no one said anything, he asked, “What is it?”

Hawkins turned around slowly. He didn’t know what to think. Or what to do. But the answer to GoodTracks’s question was a simple one. “Eggs,” he said. “Three of them.” He looked back at the clutch of brown spotted eggs, each the size of an oblong baseball. “They’re Lilly’s.”

EPILOGUE

“Over there!” Jason Bachman shouted, pointing at the distant chunk of debris. As a deckhand aboard the
Darwin,
his job usually entailed grunt work like cleaning the deck or fixing clogged toilets. So when the captain had offered him a chance to stand lookout for the day, he took to the role with gusto.

The
Darwin
had taken up the job left vacant by the missing
Magellan
and her crew—to study the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. They’d come with a full crew of fifty people and had already uncovered a great deal of evidence that should change the tide of public opinion and hopefully get some legislation pushed through.

“On top of the white tarp!” he shouted to the Zodiac crew who gunned the engine and aimed for the tarp floating atop a layer of debris. If not for the stark white tarp, he might not have recognized the shape, but it stood out as a clear silhouette in the noonday sun.

The Zodiac engine’s whine quieted as it approached the tarp. He watched through his binoculars as the three-man crew brought the basketball-size object aboard. The engine whined again as the small boat shot back to the
Darwin.

Bachman’s lanky legs carried him quickly to the port rail of the lower deck, where the Zodiac crew would hand their find to waiting scientists. He rarely got to witness discoveries as they were made. Usually only heard about them over dinner. But since he’d found the object, he’d be the one to bring it aboard.

He descended the stairs three at a time, startling the waiting scientists. Dr. Dan Mueller, a senior oceanographer on his third voyage with the
Darwin
, jumped at Bachman’s sudden arrival. “Geez, Jason, excited much?”

“Sorry,” Jason said. “This is a little more exciting than what I’m used to.”

Mueller frowned. “If you’d been hauling trash out of the ocean all day for the past month, you might have a different opinion. Oceanography isn’t as romantic a profession as some people think.”

“I find your enthusiasm refreshing.” Dr. Kim Hale stepped around Mueller and gave Bachman a pat on the shoulder. She motioned to Mueller with her head. “If he had just a fraction of your good nature, my job would be a lot more fun, too.”

Bachman blushed. Hale was pretty, not too much older than him, and had a smile that twisted knots in his stomach. He stammered for a reply. The whine of the Zodiac engine saved him from embarrassing himself.

The Zodiac swung around and pulled up alongside the ship. The prize had been wrapped in a towel and was offered up to Bachman. He took it with a smile and said “thanks.” As the Zodiac buzzed away in search of more treasures, Bachman knelt down, placed the object on the deck, and opened the towel.

“Huh,” Mueller said. “I don’t recognize the species.

“What do you mean?” Bachman asked. “It’s a turtle shell.”

Mueller sighed.

“Look at the peaks,” Hale said. “And the coloration. It looks more like a species of freshwater snapping turtle.”

“Snapping turtle?” Bachman said, screwing up his face. “What’s a snapping turtle doing way the heck out—”

Eight black legs sprung from the sides of the shell.

Before Bachman could shout in surprise, the thing was airborne. He felt something wrap around his waist and squeeze, then three sharp stings in his stomach. His head swirled with confusion and sudden exhaustion. As he fell to the deck, he saw the thing jump on Mueller. A tail wrapped around the man. And then a stinger, like a scorpion’s tail, emerged and jabbed the man three times. As the creature released Mueller and pursued Hale, who’d ran for the stairs, he screamed in agony. He didn’t know how. Or why. But he could feel it. Something was inside him.

Eating.

Growing.

He died ten seconds after they tore out of his stomach, which was long enough to hear Hale, and several others, screaming on the decks above.

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