Marcus frowned and glanced at Kira, but steered farther out into the water. The mainland was a distant line on the horizon now, barely even visible. Samm watched it intently, giving Marcus minor course corrections when necessary. Kira and Xochi and Jayden lay in the bow, draped uncomfortably over the fiberglass benches, trying to get some sleep.
It was Marcus who first spotted the storm.
“How long have we been out here?” he asked, his hand still guiding the rudder. “Is the sky supposed to be that dark this early in the morning?”
“Wind’s picked up as well,” said Samm. “It’s cooler than it was a few minutes ago.”
“I’ve seen a few of these sound storms from the shore,” said Jayden, sitting up. He looked worried. “They get pretty heavy out here, or at least it always looks that way.”
“I’ll turn toward shore,” said Marcus, but Samm stopped him.
“We’re passing rebel territory right now,” he said, looking at the map and then peering back out to the north. “It’s not safe.”
“Have you seen the sky?” asked Marcus, pointing to the thick gray clouds. “That’s not exactly safe either.”
“This boat barely fits us,” said Kira. The water was choppy now, bucking the boat gently as they plowed forward through the waves. “If it gets too rough out here, we’ll flip right over.”
“We can’t go in,” Samm insisted. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Then everybody hold on,” said Marcus. “This is about to get a lot more exciting than we’d planned for.”
The storm raced toward them, and they to it; Kira felt fat drops of rain on her face, mingling with the salty spray of the sea. They pulled out their blankets and cowered under them for shelter, but the rain seemed to be coming almost horizontally with the wind. The sky grew dark above them, an eerie half-light, and the small boat started rolling with the waves.
“I’m going closer to shore,” said Marcus, turning the rudder before Samm could protest. “It’s impossible to see in this storm anyway — no one’s going to spot us.”
The storm grew worse, the drops giving way to thin, slashing knives of rain. Kira gripped the side of the boat tightly, holding on to Xochi with her other hand, certain that each new wave would be the one to dump them over the side. She was soaked to the bone. It was nearly as dark now as it had been last night.
“Get us closer to shore,” she shouted to Marcus, grabbing Xochi’s arm even tighter as another wave lurched the ship up and sideways.
“I’m going straight toward it already,” shouted Marcus. “Or at least I was last time I could see it. I’m just afraid the ocean’s trying to turn us around.”
“We’re too heavy,” shouted Jayden. “We have to lighten the load.”
Kira tossed her backpack over the side, keeping her guns and strapping her medkit tight around her shoulders. Xochi dug through her bag and Marcus’s, salvaging what ammunition she could, then threw the rest over after Kira’s. The boat rocked violently until it seemed to Kira that they were being tossed around almost at random. She had no idea what direction they were pointing, or where they were going, when suddenly a giant rock appeared through the rain ahead of them. Marcus swore and turned to the side, trying to miss it, but another wave of rain slashed down and covered it again, plunging them back into the same gray chaos as before. She thought she saw a tree to her left — a tree, in the middle of the ocean — but it disappeared so quickly she couldn’t be sure.
“Hold on!” she shouted, useless and obvious, but she felt powerless and had to say something. The wind roared in her ears and blew mad shapes through the rain around them. Another yacht reared up, missing them by half an arm’s length, and then they were once again lost in the roiling limbo of the open sea.
Marcus was shouting, but she couldn’t hear the words. He pointed, and she turned to look; the rain was so fierce she could barely see, squinting her eyes almost shut to keep out the rock-hard pellets of rain. She saw it too late, but doubted there would be anything she could have done anyway — a massive black wave, as high as building, crashing toward them from the side. She had just enough presence of mind to take a breath and hold it, and then the wave struck and the world went away.
Space became meaningless — there was no up or down, no left or right, just force and pressure and acceleration, ripping her through a cold, seething nothingness. She lost her grip on Xochi’s arm, then found it again, clinging desperately to the only solid thing in the universe. The wave carried her farther, dragging her through the formless void until she thought her lungs would burst, and suddenly she was in the air, tumbling. She took a breath just in time to hit a wall of water and have it knocked out of her again. She held fiercely to the arm, never letting go, irrationally certain that it was the only thing keeping her alive. The second wave passed and she bobbed up from the water, sucking in a long, desperate breath half mixed with seawater. She choked and breathed again. Another wave crashed down, and she was gone.
Rocks. Heat. Kira woke with a start, trying to get her bearings, disoriented by the sudden change from angry ocean to solid ground. She coughed, spitting up slick, salty water.
“You’re alive,” said a voice. Samm. She looked around, finding herself in some kind of marsh next to a low rock wall. Samm knelt against it, looking out with the binoculars. Beyond the wall, the sea lay still and placid.
“We’re on land,” said Kira, still trying to process the situation. “What happened?” She looked around in sudden panic. “Where are the others?”
“Over there,” said Samm, pointing across the water. Kira crawled toward him, her legs too weak to stand, and clambered up to lean against the wall. “The big building, just to the right,” he said. He handed her the binoculars. “I wasn’t sure it was them at first, but it is.”
Kira searched for the big building he’d pointed to, then looked to the right, probing slowly across the landscape. She saw movement and snapped onto it, looking carefully: three people. She couldn’t see them clearly, but she was fairly certain she recognized their clothes.
“We’re all alive, then,” she said, staring at the one she thought was Marcus. “I grabbed someone underwater. I thought it was Xochi.”
“It was me,” said Samm simply, still scanning the horizon.
Kira crouched next to him. “What is that, an island?”
“The other side of the bay,” said Samm. “It looks like the storm dropped us right where we needed to go — though obviously in two separate groups. I guess we can’t complain too much.”
“This is Greenwich?”
“Close enough,” said Samm. “If I’ve got our location right, your friends are actually closer than we are.”
“We need to signal them,” said Kira. “They keep looking out to sea — they don’t know we’re over here.”
“Too dangerous,” said Samm. “Even if you could shout that far, any Partials in the area would hear you first and get to us first as well.”
“We can’t just let them wonder.”
“If they’re smart, they’ll head inland, looking for anything that can tell them where they are. We can go up around the bay and find them.”
“We can find another boat and row over there—”
“No we can’t,” said Samm firmly. “This is close to Greenwich, but it’s south, and that means rebel territory. They watch these waters, looking for D Company — the only reason they didn’t see us come in was the storm concealing us. If we row out across the bay, we’ll be spotted for sure.”
“Then won’t they be spotted as well?”
“Not if they wise up and get out of the open,” said Samm. “They’re actually safer here than we are — I’ll automatically link to any other Partials in range, but you humans are effectively invisible. No one expects to find humans on the mainland, so we don’t look for them; we rely too heavily on the link. If those three stay smart, they can move through the entire area without being caught.”
