Firebrand (21 page)

I
hit water but smashed onto the rocks that lay just below the surface. The pain shocked me awake again. I couldn't tell if I'd broken a rib, or sliced up my stomach—I just knew that I was in agony. Heat radiated from the wound, burning me up from the inside.

I surfaced after the others. Alice was only a few yards away. She'd let out the sail to slow the boat, but I couldn't reach the rope she tossed out to us. If I missed that rope, it was all over. She'd never be able to turn around before the guards regrouped.

Dennis and his mother lunged for the rope and caught it. Jerren did too. But the boat was drifting past me. I wasn't going to reach it.

Jerren loosened his grip so that his left hand slid along the rope. He clasped the very end and swung his right arm out toward me, catching a flap of my tunic. I shut out the pain in my chest and raised my right hand so that I was holding his arm too.

Something whipped into the water beside me. I wasn't sure what it was until someone fired the gun again. Bullets dashed against the surface of the water.

So much for not wasting ammunition.

Alice pulled on the mainsheet, but the boat responded sluggishly. The catamaran was a light craft, not made for five people, and I was acting like an anchor. Jerren eyed the side of the boat. It was so close, but without the use of his right arm, he was stuck. Bullets rained down.

“Jibe,” I said as loudly as I could.

“Don't be crazy,” shouted Alice.

“Do it!”

As water crashed against me, Alice yanked the tiller toward her. The boat began to turn, the rope drew closer to the side, and I was able to grab the back. I released Jerren's arm and he pulled himself to the boat and on board. “Abort the jibe,” I croaked.

Spurred on by the sound of a bullet cracking against the hull, Alice did exactly as I said for once. We'd lost almost all our momentum, but now the catamaran responded to her movements. Jerren slid to the back and helped me aboard too. I was almost onto the canvas deck when he cried out.

“What is it?” cried Alice.

I slithered beside him as he clasped his left forearm. “What happened?” I asked him.

He spat onto the deck. “My arm.”

Blood was trickling out, but it was impossible to know exactly where he'd been hit or how severe the wound was. “We'll get you to the ship. Look at it there.”

Jerren nodded. He knew there was nothing else we could do for him.

Alice tried to maintain balance and keep the sails full. The ship was a few hundred yards away, nothing but a shadowy outline in the darkness. It was so much farther away than the last time we'd seen it.

“Are we going to make it?” asked Dennis.

Alice didn't answer.

He tilted his head toward me. “Is Griffin alive? I saw that room. The rats. I wanted to tell you—”

“He's alive,” I said. I didn't add:
for now
.

I stole a glance behind us. Sumter was already fading into the darkness. The black reminded me of rats. Would the colonists get them under control again? For the children's sake, I hoped so.

I ran a finger across my chest wound and felt a loose flap of skin. The pain was excruciating, but I was almost relieved. A broken bone would take longer to heal.

Alice kept her eyes fixed on the ship. She didn't take the direct line, but moved quickly over the ship's wake and onto the calmer water it was leaving behind. Good thing too, because we'd be leaving the harbor soon and heading out onto the ocean, where the waves were bigger. By contrast, our water was smooth.

Little by little, we drew closer. When we were a hundred yards away, Alice began to veer right.

“Rope ladder's on the other side,” I wheezed.

“Forget the rope ladder. If we sail to port side, we'll be in the ship's wind shadow. We'll lose control of the sails. Stop dead in the water.”

Someone on board must have realized the same thing. As we crossed their wake and entered turbulent water again, the ladder was unfurled on our side. It touched the water and was dragged backward.

The waves must have been at least three feet high, too much for the catamaran. The ship's bow carved a channel through the ocean, creating wake that threatened to overturn us. Only Alice remained seated now. Even Dennis and his mother were lying down, gripping the frame tightly.

Alice eased us alongside the ship, but she was struggling to maintain control.

“Dennis, go!” she yelled.

Kneeling on the canvas, one hand around the metal frame, Dennis reached out and grabbed the ladder. Once he had a good grip, he looked back to check that Marin was following. Only then did he place his other hand on the ladder and begin to climb.

Marin went next. We'd saved her life, but she wouldn't even look at us. When she was halfway up, Jerren grunted. “We risked our lives for
her
?”

“Not for her,” I told him. “For Dennis.”

He peered at his injured arm and winced. “Your turn now.”

“Uh-uh. Not before you.”

I wrapped an arm around him and pushed him across the slick canvas. Once he had a grip on the ladder, I helped him get his footing. He climbed slowly, his left arm only good for draping over the rungs.

“Go, Thom,” Alice shouted.

I was about to reach for the rung, but stopped myself. “Wait. You can't reach the ladder and hold the boat steady.”

“Don't worry about me. Just go.”

My mind flashed back to Eleanor lying broken on the deck. I still didn't understand why she'd chosen to die, but there was no way I was going to let Alice follow her.

Once Jerren had boarded the ship, I pulled the rope ladder toward us. I grabbed the highest rung I could reach and shouted for Alice to place a hand on the lowest.

She transferred the mainsheet to her left hand. It was a risky move—now she was unable to control the tiller and sail independently—but it freed up her right to take the ladder. With a single defiant nod, she drove the tiller away. The catamaran whipped to the right and the wet canvas deck slid from right under us. I was left dangling as Alice plummeted into the water.

Her body banged against the side of the ship. She still had hold of the rung, but the fast-moving water dragged her under.

I coiled my right arm around a rung and reached down with my free hand. I couldn't get to her, so I grabbed one of the lower rungs and heaved that upward instead. Alice resurfaced. Gasping for breath, she slapped at the next rung. Then the next. A moment later, she swung a leg up and got a foothold.

Just as well, because I lost my grip on the lower rung. Alice crashed back into the ocean.

This time only her legs went under. Her head and torso stayed above water, and she continued her climb. With Jerren shouting encouragement from above, she followed me to the top, where someone dragged me over the side. I leaned against the rail and stared back at Sumter. There were tiny dots of light from the torches, and the faint echoes of the siren. But a mile separated us, and no one was following.

We'd escaped. Not without casualties, but still, we were free again. There wasn't room in my mind for anything but that thought.

I flopped onto the deck and lay there, not thinking, not even aware if I was breathing anymore. As I tilted my head, I caught sight of Ananias limping toward me, supported by our father. They knelt on either side of me, and hugged me so tightly that I wasn't sure which of us was crying.

I
woke up in a cabin, woozy and disoriented, stealing shallow breaths so that my chest wouldn't hurt so badly. I wanted to sleep longer, but every part of me ached. Outside, the sky was the deep, dark blue that preceded sunrise.

Rose was beside me, one thick bandage tied around her neck and another across her chest and around her torso. Her face was bruised.

She saw me watching her and frowned. “That bad, huh?”

I leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek. “You're alive. That's what matters.” My mind flashed back to the night's events. In the almost silence, it was difficult to imagine everything that had happened to us. “Where's Griffin?”

Rose tilted her head away from me. “They put him in a cabin with Nyla.”

“They're in quarantine—”

“No. Ananias says it's just so they can observe them more easily. The incubation period is three days.”

Three days until we'd know whether they were going to live or die. Less, really, because they'd both been bitten the day before.

“If he's the solution . . .” Rose began, but she didn't finish the thought. Until we knew for sure, there was always the other possibility. And what about Nyla?

“I have to go see him,” I told her.

“I know.”

She reached up and placed her hand on my cheek. I leaned in and kissed her, first on the cheek, then on the lips. She swallowed hard, and as our lips came together again, she opened her mouth. I opened mine too, and for a precious moment there was no ship, and no Plague, and no enemies or pain or death. It was just the two of us.

I left the cabin and staggered along the corridor. I knew where we'd taken Nyla the night before, but when I opened the door, Griffin was alone, sleeping. Apart from the blanket covering his chest and upper legs, he was naked. Every exposed piece of skin was covered in scratches and bite marks. It took me back to the room with the glass cube, and the sight of the rats crawling all over him.

Were we measuring his life in hours or days?

I'd promised to keep Griffin safe. We'd left Roanoke so that he might live normally, away from the pirates who'd risked everything to capture him. In the end I'd sacrificed him to Chief instead. Everyone else might have believed in a solution, but all I could see was a boy in pain, flesh scarred, body infected with the Plague.

“I'll look after him,” said Nyla.

I hadn't heard her enter. She looked so well, it was impossible to believe she might be sick too. “How do you feel?” I asked her.

“Scared.” She padded across the floor and knelt beside Griffin, watching him. Looking back, it was impossible not to wonder if she'd used their friendship as a way to learn about us, to find our weaknesses. But the way she gazed at him now was genuinely caring. She was as scared for him as for herself.

“I'm so sorry, Nyla. I wish there was something we could do.”

“You rescued us from Sumter. That's enough.”

I touched the wound on my stomach. Another scar to add to the collection. “So I found out about Jerren's element. What's yours?”

She didn't look up. “I don't think I have one. Jerren started twisting sound when he was young. Mom and Dad warned him to keep it a secret, so he did it in private. Then one day, he saw a bunch of guys hurting Mom. He didn't even think about what he was doing. He just turned sound on them until they knew something was wrong. It distracted them long enough for Mom to escape, but when they worked out it was Jerren doing that, they went after him. Dad threw some stuff on a sailboat and we all took off. He said it was better to die together than to sacrifice a child.”

“Did a clan ship really rescue you?”

“Yeah. It's incredible, but true. After that, Mom was convinced that we were destined to go to Sumter. That it was meant to be.”

The door creaked open and Jerren joined us. “I heard voices,” he said. Leaning closer to me, he added, “You look terrible.”

“Unlike you,” I replied, admiring his sling.

“Flesh wound, fortunately.”

“We'll both have scars.”

He shrugged. “Alice likes them, right? Could work in my favor.” He glanced at his sister, and peered around the door to make sure that we weren't being overheard. “Is Griffin really the solution?” he whispered. “Back in that room, they were ready to risk everything on him surviving the Plague.”

I had no answer for that.

“I mean, I hated Chief for what he did to my family, but he was still the smartest man I ever met. The most cautious too. I can't believe he'd have risked everything unless he
knew
somehow.”

“I hope you're right.”

Jerren closed the door and sat with his back to it, blocking anyone from joining us. “Look, there's something I need to tell you. Alice says . . . you need to know.” He gave a frustrated sigh. “You know that Dare came here about a month ago. Not a surprise, really—he stopped off every year to trade food and materials and news. But this time was different.”

“How?”

“Well, we've always known the pirates had an island base in the Atlantic Ocean. Kell reckons some of them are married. But this was the first time Dare brought a woman with him. Just one. And she was . . .
strange
.” He clasped his hands together. “The men all stayed away from her, like they were frightened. At first, I figured she must be Dare's wife because she was about the same age. But the way they acted around each other . . . no way they're married.”

“But you don't know for sure.”

Still seated, Jerren shuffled forward. “One night, she came to see Nyla and me. It wasn't an accident, either. She wanted us to be alone. She started asking us questions: Where were we from? How did we get to Sumter? What were our elements?”

My pulse quickened. “You must have done something.”

“No way. Nothing. She just . . .
knew
. And so we told her everything. We didn't even care if she passed it on to Chief, because we'd given up ever escaping. But when we were finished, she told us to be ready, that help was coming. She told us we weren't alone.” He took a deep breath. “After Dare left, everyone was talking about the woman. Kell told me he'd seen her before, years ago. Back then, Dare had called her the solution.”

I struggled to keep my voice even. “How long ago did Kell see her?”

“About thirteen years, he said.”

“Did the woman touch you?”

He nodded. “She held our hands almost the whole time. It was weird at first, but also kind of nice. Our mother used to do it. Maybe that's why we let her. She stared at us too, like she was looking right inside us. And even though I'd given up hope, I knew everything she said was the truth.” He shrugged. “It was a miracle. I really believe that.”

Yes, it was a miracle. A seer around Dare's age, mistaken for the solution and brought to Sumter thirteen years ago. What had Kell told us? It was simple math to work out that Griffin was the solution.

The woman had to be my mother. But she'd died the morning after Griffin was born. Murdered by her own brother, Dare.

That's what my father had told us, anyway.

Another memory returned then: of standing on a water tower on Roanoke Island, watching the pirates disembark in groups. I'd hoped that they would lead our families off the ship too, but Dare had kept them locked up on board. There hadn't been any women among the crew, I was sure of that. I'd have noticed straightaway.

Or would I?

The pirates had lowered a large wooden box into a cutter that day. They'd done it gently too, reverently, as if there were something or someone important inside.

Someone like Dare's sister.

“Are you all right, Thomas?” Nyla's voice was full of concern.

No, I wasn't all right. The day I'd seen the wooden box, I'd described it to Tessa. Had she foreseen who was inside? Is that why she chose to stay on Roanoke Island?

My head spun. I was so tired, and the hope I'd felt at hearing Jerren's words already felt like old news. The only thing I knew for certain was that I'd had a chance to kill Dare, and I'd left him behind instead.

I made a vow then: No matter what happened in the future, if Dare was alive, I would find him. And I'd make him pay for everything he'd done.