Rising Tide (35 page)

The pain is still burning and I can feel myself bleeding, but I give chase anyway. I can't let him get away.

He runs, as expected, to the back of the building where Diego and Rosie are waiting. I skirt around a stool that he tipped over, then through the door just as a gunshot echoes around me.

I see Hector sprinting away, to the western part of the island, where it's less populated. Where some of the ships are kept. Diego is on the ground, his gun in his hands, pointed in Hector's direction. Diego looks okay, as in not dying, so I continue, still trying to ignore the burning in my chest.

Hector's tall and has long legs, but he's really thin. I hope that means he's likely to tire before I do. But it's been a while since I've run anywhere, and my body has been through a lot lately.

I just keep thinking of Sergei and Miranda. And my enemies. The people who think they can fuck with those I care about. Those shadows who want to manipulate the world from the darkness. I can't let them get away with it.

I put on a burst of speed and close some of the distance. Hector is just ahead of me, skinny limbs pumping. His shoes are thin and worn. Another advantage I have on him.
Thank you, Mal
, I think. You helped me more than you know.

The distance closes and I'm just there, one big jump and I can get him. We're about to head down a light slope, and I want to get him before we hit it.

Then my boot catches on something—a rock, a root, whatever—and I go tilting through the air.

I'm still behind Hector, and I slam into him—hard—and together we smack into the ground with crushing intensity, a tangle of limbs and bodies. I feel my wind go and I'm rolling and the sky is whirling, and when I stop, he's on top of me in an instant—and there's something in his hands. Something long and thin.

Not a knife. A syringe.

And it comes to this again—disease, a worse threat than cutting or stabbing.

I grip his wrists and hold his hands away. I can see a bead of liquid on the end. What happens if it falls on me . . . ?

We're both breathing hard. I'm stronger, but Hector is letting gravity do a lot of the work for him.

Have I mentioned how much I hate gravity?

“Is that how you did it?” I snarl between gritted teeth. “Injections?”

He doesn't say anything, just bears down on me. His face is intense but also strangely emotionless. Calculating.

Then I hear another gunshot. For just a second, Hector's attention wavers, his eyes flicking up to see what's beyond me, and in that instant I force his hands to the side and get a punch in on his face, then another one. Then one on his ribs.

I throw all my weight to one side and he tips over. I grab hold of the wrist with the syringe and hold it down. Then Diego is standing over me, his pistol out. “Let go,” I say, and Hector, knowing he's beaten, lets go of the syringe. I grab it gingerly by the non-pointy end and snap off the needle. Then I pass it to Diego. “You have a pocket you can throw this in?”

He takes it, and I pat Hector down, taking away the knife—a curved, dangerous-looking knife, not the kind of thing I would expect from him.

“It's too late,” Hector says, his voice flat. “It's already far too late.”

Diego hands me some rope, which I use to bind his hands. “Where's Rosie?” I ask.

Diego shrugs. “She wasn't there when I got around the back.”

Fuck.

“I need you here,” I say. “But—”

“I know,” he says. “I need to go find her.”

Then we haul Hector up and start marching him back to Miranda.

I take a moment to examine my injury. As the adrenaline starts to fade, the pain intensifies. There's a gash across the very top of my chest, which scraped against the bone. It just missed my neck, which I assume was his original target. The collar of my coat must have deflected it.

“That looks nasty,” Diego says.

“It'll keep for a minute,” I say. “I've got Hector. You should go find Rosie.”

“Are you sure?” Diego asks.

I pull my father's revolver and hold it close to Hector. “I'm sure,” I say. “If he gives me any trouble, I'll shoot out one of his kneecaps. And we need to know where Rosie is. I'm starting to think—”

“I know,” Diego says. One big hand massages the back of his neck. “Okay. I'll go find her.” He takes a quick look at Hector, then tells me, “Good luck.”

“Same to you,” I say. Then, after he goes, I start marching Hector onward, the revolver close at hand.

Hector is silent all the way back.

“She's where?” There's this persistent buzzing in my head. A pressure. And the words just aren't making sense.

“We don't know where she is, Ben.” Diego's voice is level, but the look on his face says that things are far from right. It's tight, worn, and I see echoes of his torture in it.

“What did you do?” I ask, pointing at the third member of our group. Rosie. Her arms are crossed, and she's leaning back against the wall, not unusual for her, but there's something more in her posture and her face. Something I've never seen before. It looks like shame.

“Answer him,” Diego says, and his voice is steel. No give.

“I went to see Maya,” she says.

The pressure intensifies. “So while your brother and I were risking our lives to talk to Hector, when we could have used backup, backup that we were expecting, you left to go . . . tip off the other person we suspected?” My voice keeps getting louder.

“
You
suspected,” she says.

I step forward and narrow my eyes. “And how is that position holding up?”

She looks away.

“Stupid,” I say.

She doesn't respond.

“Tell me what happened with Maya.”

She looks up at Diego, as if for help, but his face is like his voice—hard.

“I told her I needed to talk to her,” she says. Her voice sounds softer than usual. Hesitant. “I felt I owed it to her to let her know that you would be questioning her. I wanted to . . .”

“To what?” Diego asks.

She meets his eyes. “To give her a chance to prove her innocence. To get out ahead of this.”

I cross my arms. “And how did that go?”

Rosie flushes. “She tricked me,” she says. “She kissed me, then . . . she took me by surprise, got the better of me. By the time I recovered, she was gone.”

It smells like bullshit. Little Maya against bad-ass Rosie? I'm about to attack that part of the story but then I catch sight of Diego's face, see the doubt carved into it. He knows she's lying, too.

“So she's, what, somewhere on the island? Or did you loan her the
Osprey
during this whole encounter?”

Rosie glares at me and steps forward, and I brace for the blow.

Then, “Stop.” Diego. It's not a shout, but it's certainly a command. I can almost hear a growl behind it. Rosie freezes. “Ben is not in the wrong here,” he says. “You are.”

She looks up at him, more shame on her face, and something else. Fear?

“Diego,” she says. “I thought I had something good. For the first time in . . . maybe for the first time.”

“I know you wanted this,” he says. “But you got played. It's as simple as that. A lot of people are hurting right now, and you let one of our best leads slip away.”

“We need to see if we can find her,” I say. “Let the Keepers know. See if we can dig her out.” It shouldn't be hard. There aren't too many places she can go. The only place she could swim to would be . . . the small island. Oh God, I think. Alpha.

“We need to find her, fast.”

“I'll go talk to the Keepers,” Diego says. “Get them out looking for Maya.” He looks at Rosie. “You're coming with me.”

She nods, her eyes down.

“Make sure you tell them they need to guard Alpha.”

Diego frowns. “The Feral?”

I nod. “That island is mostly deserted now. It wouldn't be hard for her to sneak onto it and try to break Alpha out.”

“What good would that do?”

“Do you want to find out if a Feral can swim that far?”

“Good point.”

“It may not be her plan, but these people like letting Ferals do their work for them.”

“What will you do?” Diego asks.

“I'm going to make sure our prisoner is secure and get ready to interrogate him.”

We put Hector in one of the quarantine cells because that seemed like the best place for him. Tamoanchan does have a prison, apparently, but that seemed too good for him.

I'm happy to see the two Keepers standing guard outside the cell. I'm surprised to see Miranda. “They let you out?” I ask.

She nods. “I convinced Lewis. The spread of the disease doesn't seem contained to people who were infected, and I told him I needed to talk to Hector.”

“Right,” I say. Of course she's the best person to ask him questions. She knows all the right ones. “Sergei?”

She shakes her head.

I don't press the issue.

“Where are Diego and Rosie?” Miranda asks. “I heard they helped you bring Hector in.”

“Not quite,” I say. I fill her in on what happened, and she spends a good part of the story shaking her head. “You're okay?” she asks.

I still feel the burning where Hector cut me. “I'm fine,” I say. “One of the Keepers helped bandage me.”

She nods. “So Maya's still out there?”

“For now,” I say. “We'll find her.” I try to inject my voice with an optimism I don't feel.

She looks at the door to the cell. “Then it's a good thing we have him.”

“Are you up for this?”

She looks back at me, and she looks weary. And far older than I've ever seen her look before. “I have to be.”

I put my hand on her shoulder and give it a small squeeze. She reaches up to it with her hand and gives it an answering squeeze for a moment. Then she pulls away and enters the cell.

I wait outside. I'm very bad at waiting, but I don't feel comfortable leaving Miranda without backup. Other than the Keepers, I mean. So I wait.

Miranda emerges about an hour later, looking even more tired and worn than when she entered. I look at her, the question plain on my face.

She shakes her head. “He wouldn't talk.” Her voice doesn't break, but it's on the verge.

“Not at all?”

She meets my eyes and hers are bloodshot. “Ben . . .”

“Go take a break,” I say. “Close your eyes for a moment. He's not going anywhere.”

“Ben, time is running out.”

“I know,” I say. “But you can't do anything here right now. We'll figure something else out.” She looks about to protest, but I say, “Go. You're no use to anyone if you're dead on your feet.”

She's silent for a moment, then she nods. “Just a short break.”

I nod and Miranda shuffles off, an invisible weight pressing down on her.

I'm considering going in to interrogate Hector myself when Diego and Rosie show up. After Miranda's frustration I'm hoping for a win, but then I catch sight of Diego's face. It's rigid.

“What happened?” I ask.

Diego glares at Rosie, and Rosie looks quickly away. Uh oh.

“Maya . . . got away.”

“What do you mean, ‘got away'?”

“While the Keepers were combing the island for her, she was sneaking onto a ship, the
Brightwing
, and using it to escape the island.”

“She stole an airship?” I ask.

Diego nods.

“How did they not shoot her down?”

“She had valid codes,” Diego says.

“How the hell?” I ask.

Diego shakes his head and rubs at his beard. “She obviously planned this for a while. Who knows what she's been secretly doing over the past weeks?” He shoots another glare at Rosie, and she looks like right here is the last place she wants to be.

I think back to my run with Maya, to the cache—she was there to see how everything operated—the island's network, its infrastructure. All she needed to do was charm or sweet-talk someone, and she'd have everything she needed to get a decent-enough lead. Unless . . .