Renegade (2 page)

I
slammed into the deck, shoulder first. Ears ringing, head pounding, I fought to catch my breath. Beneath me, the ship slowly righted, though waves continued to crash against the hull.

“What was that?” yelled Ananias.

Jerren pulled himself off the deck. “That's Dare's way of telling us to stop and surrender.”

“He could've hit us,” added Alice.

“Could've, but didn't. It was a warning shot, that's all.”

“That's
all
?” repeated Ananias.

Jerren touched his wounded arm gingerly. “I used to hear them saying they had weapons that could sink another ship instantly. I don't think it's an accident the explosion happened thirty yards away. A full-on hit would've blown us apart.”

Dennis shook his head like he was woozy. Alice lumbered toward the stern rail to see what Dare was planning next. My father helped me to stand.

“Dare won't destroy us,” said Ananias. “He wants the solution, right?”

“He can sink this ship without hitting it,” Father explained.

Jerren nodded. “A close-range explosion might crack the hull so we take on water. When everyone abandons ship, Dare will stick around to rescue the solution from the wreckage . . . but
only
the solution. The rest of us will drown.”

“You seem to know a lot about Dare's plans,” shouted Ananias, grimacing from the pain in his shoulder.

“Do you think I'm wrong? I've seen what evil people are willing to do to get what they want. My parents were killed by the man they trusted most of all. So you'd better believe it: If Dare wants Griffin, he'll do whatever it takes to get him.”

Ananias didn't reply, but the way he bowed his head looked a lot like surrender. “Then let's reef the sails,” he said. “We have to show Dare we're—”

“Down!” Alice shouted.

The word was barely out of her mouth when another explosion turned the surface of the ocean inside out. I was tossed to the deck. Water poured over us in a deluge, while a wall-like wave tipped the boat sharply to one side. I slid across the wet deck and came to an abrupt stop against the deck railing.

“The sails,” Alice yelled. “Dare has to see we're giving in.”

Dennis began working the mainsheet winches with Jerren. They reined in the massive ropes that raised the sails. I crawled to the next winch, where Alice was already turning the handle.

“If we let Dare board this ship, we're as good as dead,” I muttered.

The muscles in her upper arms strained as she turned the winch. “Who said anything about letting him on board?”

“What about the sails, Alice? We're surrendering.”

“No, we're not.” As the sails tucked away, she locked off the winch. “We're saying don't blow us up. We're saying come over here and let's have a fair fight.”

“Fair fight? They have weapons that can sink us.”

“And we have elements.”

“Not here we don't. We're too far from Roanoke Island for them to work properly. Even when they do work, they're only good for a moment, and then we lose control.”

I waited for Alice to fight back, to tell me I was wrong or unreasonable. It wasn't in her nature to back down. But this time, she swallowed whatever she was going to say. “So what do you want us to do, Thom?”

“I don't know. I just know I can't let them take Griffin. Dare's pirates died trying to capture him on Roanoke Island. The Sumter chief was so sure Griffin's blood could cure Plague, he almost killed him. The next time Dare comes face-to-face with my brother, Griffin's dead, I'm sure of it. And I won't let that happen.”

“Nor will I,” she said gently.

Alice cast an eye around the ship and took in the flurry of activity. Her mother, Tarn, tall and lithe like Alice, staggered on deck. She'd been below when the explosions occurred and must have fallen. A cut above her right eye was bleeding freely. She wiped at it with the back of her hand, smearing blood across her face. It didn't hold her back, though. She began helping my father with the sails.

Everyone was working as a team, but what good was that now?

Alice puffed out her cheeks. “What if we hide in the secret passageway below deck? The one that goes from the captain's cabin. Dare hid out there for days after we left Roanoke. He was a stowaway, and we never even knew it.”

“Because we didn't know the passage existed. But Dare sure knows about it. And even if we're not found straightaway, we'll have nothing to eat and drink. There are no supplies left on this ship, remember?”

“What do
you
want to do, then?” she snapped. “All I hear is, there's no food and the ship's too slow and—” She broke off suddenly, eyes wide open. “Wait. You're right!”

“About what?”

She didn't answer, but spun around and shouted to Jerren: “How much food is there on the Sumter ship?”

He shrugged. “They normally keep about a week's worth. Why?”

Alice turned back to me. “We need to switch ships.”

I figured I'd misheard her. “What?”

“Think about it. If we switch ships, we can go faster than them. We'll have supplies, and weapons. They'll have to give up the chase. We just need the right bait to lure them on board.”

“And what would that be?”

“Griffin.”

“No way! They'll capture him.”

“Not if he's not here,” replied Alice cryptically. She pointed to the ship closing in on us. “That's a smaller vessel than this one, and the deck is lower. They'll be able to see us from a distance, but when they get close, they won't have a clear view of our deck. So here's what we do: As they approach, we make sure they can see us . . .
all
of us. Then we disembark on the blind side as they get ready to climb aboard. When they don't find us on deck they'll figure we're hiding below. While they're searching for us, we swim around the bow and claim the other ship.”

I watched the Sumter ship. Dare could attack at any moment. He wasn't stupid and he wasn't careless. He was a cold-blooded killer; anyone who stood in his way was brushed aside. Alice knew that as well as anyone.

“There's no way it'll happen like that,” I told her. “It'd take a miracle.”

“At this point, miracles might be all that's left.”

“In case you've forgotten, Griffin's not the only injured person on this ship. How are Ananias and Jerren going to swim with gunshot wounds?”

“I can make it,” said Jerren, joining us.

“Taking Alice's side, huh?” I huffed. “No surprise there.”

Jerren flicked sweat from his forehead. “This isn't about sides. Dare wants Griffin, and the other men want revenge. We ruined their colony. Released Plague-ridden rats. They're not interested in taking prisoners. They want the solution, and they'll take Griffin straight back to Sumter. The rest of us will die here.”

“Forget it,” my father said, joining us. He must have been listening. “We'll surrender. Appeal to their conscience. It's the only way.”

Alice snorted. “Dare kidnapped you and left you in a ship's hold to die. The Sumter colonists locked you in a cell. How did appealing to everyone's conscience work for you then?”

A few weeks before, Father would have had the final say. He and the other Guardians would have gathered in private, talked it out, and told us their decision. But now he and Tarn were the only Guardians above deck, and it was clear that neither of them had an alternative plan to offer.

“Inviting them to board our ship is crazy,” Tarn said.

“And trying to outrun their ship is impossible,” replied Alice. “So I say we give my plan a try. Worst-case scenario, they catch us in the act and do what they planned to do to us all along.”

In the silence that followed, I looked at the worn-out faces around me and realized that they'd already resigned themselves to exactly that fate.

F
ather and Ananias returned to their posts. Jerren too. “I still don't see why those men will go below deck just because we're not here,” I told Alice.

“Actually, you and I
will
be here.”

“What?”

Alice looked around to make sure we weren't being overheard. “They
know
us, Thom. You were Chief's favorite back on Sumter, and the way these men see it, you betrayed his trust. The moment they see you, they'll be focused on revenge, which means they won't be focused on anyone else. We're just trying to give everyone a chance to get away, right?”

She was right. The chief of the Sumter colony had singled me out and spent a lot of time with me. It was obvious now that he'd been probing for information, but to the rest of the Sumter colonists, it must have appeared as an act of kindness. And how had I rewarded that kindness? By pushing Chief to his death.

I pursed my lips. “I thought you said that Griffin's the bait.”

“He is. You're just the distraction.” She gave an anxious smile. “We'll be waiting for the men as they board. They're going to force us to tell them where everyone's hiding. We'll hold out just long enough that they don't get suspicious. Then we'll take them below deck . . . and strike.”

“Strike?”

“Oh, come on.” She rolled her eyes. “You know what we can do when we combine elements. Your power plus my fire . . .”

“And if it doesn't work?”

“Then we'll have given Griffin and everyone else a chance to escape. We'll have drawn the men away from all the other weapons on that ship too.”

With the sails reefed, we were gliding to a stop. The warm southwesterly breeze fluttered the edges of the canvas like a hummingbird's wings thrumming to hold it precisely in one place. In contrast, the Sumter ship continued to slice through the swell. The men on board were fanned out against the prow railing, each one straining for a better view of their prize.

I admired Alice's decisiveness, but I didn't share her optimism. What if the Sumter men fought back? What if they weren't interested in taking prisoners at all? They could shoot us on sight.

And what about Dare? He was a seer. What if he'd already foreseen her plan?

She waited for me to say that I was in. Finally, with no alternative to offer, I did exactly that. “All right,” I said. “I'll go tell everyone downstairs what's happening. They'll need time to prepare.”

“And I'll join you in a moment.”

I ran below deck, my wounded chest throbbing with every stride. I stopped in front of the door to Griffin and Nyla's cabin, and gathered myself. If Alice's bravado was just an act, it was one I needed to copy.

My brother and Nyla lay side by side in the cramped cabin, nothing but a few dirty blankets between them and the dusty floor. Nyla gave a weak smile as she saw me. Griffin couldn't even manage that.

Neither of them showed signs of Plague yet, but it was hardly a consolation. On Sumter, Griffin had been imprisoned inside a glass cube with a pack of rats—a brutally efficient way to determine if he was the mythical solution. With his hands and feet bound, he hadn't been able to move away or fend them off, and I'd been too slow to stop the attack. Now his entire body bore the evidence of that encounter. Being deaf, he wouldn't have heard the sound of his own cries, but they must have reverberated through his skull just as powerfully as they'd seared through me.

We. Leave. Ship,
I signed to him.

To my surprise, it was Nyla who signed back:
What. Is. Explosion?

For someone who'd only begun learning Griffin's sign language a few days ago, Nyla had uncanny understanding. She was already more fluent than some of the Guardians who'd known Griffin his entire life. It was a clear sign that she cared about communicating with him more than they ever had.

Sumter. Ship. Following. Us,
I signed. There wasn't time to explain any better than that.

Where. Go. Now?

Other. Ship.

Nyla looked at me like I was crazy, which was probably justified under the circumstances. She obviously had other questions, but struggled to find the signs. As long as she was with Griffin, she preferred to sign, rather than exclude him.

Griffin rolled onto his side and met my eyes at last. He looked tired and worn, much like the tunic he wore: stretched and beaten and bloodied until it was barely recognizable as the thing it used to be. I felt tears forming, but held them back. My brother needed strength, not weakness—we all owed him that.

Where. Journals?
he signed, his gestures fluid but painfully slow, as if he were signing through water.

I wasn't sure I understood.
Journals?

Journals,
he repeated stubbornly.
Logbooks.

Who cares?
I wanted to sign. I couldn't believe that with everything else going on, Griffin was still thinking about the logbooks we'd found in Dare's cabin on our journey to Sumter, and the journals we'd found buried in the sand near our Hatteras Island colony. We were fighting for our future; the past had never seemed less important to me.

Where?
he repeated stubbornly.

How could I tell him that the journals and logbooks were back at Fort Sumter? In our haste to escape, no one would have thought to retrieve them. Who would have been able to, in any case?

Then I remembered something. The previous evening, Alice and I had discovered our colony's third and final journal—the one that promised to unlock our final secrets.

We. Find. Missing. Journal,
I explained.

Griffin's face brightened. He didn't seem as tired anymore.
Where. Journal. Now?

Cabin,
I answered, pointing along the corridor.

Griffin shuffled as if he was about to stand, but I raised a hand to stop him.
Prepare,
I said.
We. Leave. Soon.

I ran along the corridor to the cabin where I'd spent the night. My closest friend, Rose, was still in there, stretched across the floor. Her cropped blond hair was matted, clothes soiled with blood from cuts on her neck and a gaping wound on her side. She'd suffered a brutal knife attack on Sumter. Seeing her now, stoic and immobile, it wasn't difficult to imagine that she could have died.

“Dare's catching up to us,” I said. “We have to leave the ship.”

Rose inhaled, and released the breath in a long sigh. “I can't.”

“Didn't you feel the explosions?”

“I just . . . can't.”

She'd suffered so much over the past day, but there was no way I was leaving Rose on the ship.

I knelt down and slid my arms under her. It was a risky thing to do. Unless I was combining, my element seemed to work itself into people, hurting them. It was the side effect of my element—the
echo,
we called it—and it was what had kept everyone at arm's length my whole life. Even now, as I lifted her up, I could feel my element pulsing lightly. The only reason Rose didn't pull away was probably because the discomfort was negligible compared to the rest of her pain.

She ran her fingertips gently across my chest. “You look rough,” she said.

I raised an eyebrow. “We've both looked better.”

Smiling bravely, she coiled her arm around my neck, and rested her head against my shoulder.

I kicked the door open and stepped into the corridor. Only then did I remember the journal I'd promised to retrieve for Griffin. I turned awkwardly and peered inside. The floor was bare, except for a blanket.

There was no time to waste, but I had to find that journal. So I slipped back in and flicked the blanket away. There was nothing underneath.

“What are you doing?” Rose whispered.

“Where's the journal? I have to find it.”

“Last time I saw it, it was right next to me.”

I wanted to leave. There wasn't time for this. But how difficult could it be to find a journal in a cabin as small as this?

I looked again, but someone had taken it. And from experience, I knew better than to think it was an accident.