Frozen

21

SHE SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN SO HARD ON him about his boat—Nat felt a little bad about that—because even with her inexperienced eye, she noticed that, like the LTV, Wes had improved upon its structure to fit its new environment. He had upgraded the hull, attaching layers of steel and carbon fiber paneling over the old aluminum shell, and every inch of the craft was painted—splattered, really—with shades of gray and black paint, a camouflage meant to mimic the dull sludge of the ocean.

The crew cabin was outfitted with bunks, the beds nothing more than metal mesh hammocks strapped to the walls, each with a blanket. The room next to it had a big plastic picnic table bolted to the floor, near a black charcoal grill. The ceiling above the grill was open to the sky, so the smoke could escape, and piled next to it were a few wood crates filled with food stores they had brought on board for the journey.

The ship offered little privacy and no amenities, but what else was new. Unless she was tossed in solitary, back at the center she had had a cot in the middle of a room the size of a gymnasium. She found a corner bunk that looked unclaimed and threw her pack on the rough blanket. She peeked through the dirty porthole. Outside, the gray sky was nearly indistinguishable from the gray waters of the Pacific. The toxic sea never froze but seethed with poison, occasionally glistening in the dim light of day, glowing in iridescent colors. It could be beautiful if it wasn’t so deadly, its shimmering waves swirling with clouds of orange and green, the waves dancing on occasion with slim wisps of fire, yet another product of the ocean’s unknown chemical cocktail.

She heaved herself up on the hammock and rested her head against the wire mesh. But after a while, she felt claustrophobic in the cabin and wandered out to the upper deck. She found Wes leaning against the rail, staring out at the dark water.

“Find something?”

He pointed to a distant spot in the middle of the ocean surrounded by large black ink dots.

“What are those? Island groupings?” she asked.

“No—those are trashbergs.”

“Trash—oh, like icebergs?”

“Made of trash, yeah.” Wes smiled. “The ocean’s full of them.”

Nat had seen it on the nets, how the pre-Flood oceans had once been flat and blue and empty. Now the Pacific was packed with junk, clouded with chemicals, dense and cluttered with trash, a floating Garbage Country. It was a briar patch, the perfect place to hide, the perfect place for slavers to loot and prey on pilgrims and refugees.

“Think we’ll make it?” she asked, almost as a challenge.

“Sure hope so,” he said, with that signature grin of his. “I need those credits.”

She smiled at that. “Sorry about freaking out about the boat earlier . . . I was just . . . anyway, it was rude of me,” she said.

“No harm done.” He smiled and scratched the scar on his face. She hadn’t noticed it before, the thin white line above his right eyebrow.

He must have noticed her staring. “Souvenir from Texas. I fell in the avalanche, and Shakes accidentally hit me with the ice pick while digging me out. I thought he was going to kill me instead of save me.” He laughed.

“Nice one.” She smiled, liking the way the scar made him look at once more dangerous and more vulnerable. “Sounds like that happens to you a lot. Bet your girlfriend wasn’t thrilled, though.” She wasn’t sure why she said it, but it came out before she could think.

“Who said I had a girlfriend?” he said, raising his scarred eyebrow. His dark eyes crinkled.

“No one,” she said.

“Well, I don’t anymore, if anyone’s interested.”

“Who’s interested?”

“Are you?” He looked her straight in the eye.

“I could ask the same of you,” she scoffed.

“So what if I was? Interested, I mean.” He shrugged.

“It wouldn’t be a surprise,” she said. “I’m sure half the crew has a crush on me.” She rolled her eyes. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, but it was fun to rile him up a little. So he was interested, was he? About time he admitted it.

“Only half?”

“Well, I don’t like to brag,” she said coyly.

They stared at each other and Nat felt the pull of those warm brown eyes of his, the color of honey and amber, playful and glinting. She faced him so that they were inches away from each other, their bodies almost touching. They were outside in subzero weather, yet she had never felt so warm.

“What are you doing?” he asked finally.

“Same thing you are,” she replied.

He shook his head. “Don’t start something you can’t stop,” he warned.

“Who says I want to stop?”

He stared at her and there was a long, fraught silence between them, and for a second she was scared to breathe. Wes turned to her, leaning down, his face so close to hers, it looked as if he was going to kiss her, but instead he changed his mind at the last minute. He wasn’t looking at her anymore; he was staring at the stone she wore around her neck.

He pulled away and looked back at the churning waters, tossed a pebble from his pocket into the ocean. “What do you want, Nat?” he asked.

“I could ask the same of you,” she said, trying to keep the hurt from her voice. Did he know about the stone? Why had he stared at it like that? You can’t trust a runner. They’ll sell you up the river for a dim watt.

He frowned. “Listen, let’s start over, can we do that?” he asked. “Why don’t you tell me something about yourself, something that’s not in the official records, something Farouk couldn’t dig up about you.”

“So you can get to know me, you mean? Why?”

“Why not? Like I said, it’s a long road ahead of us.”

Maybe he was lying and he did have a girl back in New Vegas. Maybe he had more than one. Or maybe he really only wanted to be friends. Nat couldn’t figure out which possibility bothered her more.

“Go on, tell me something,” he said. “Tell me about the first time you were in the Pile.”

“How did you . . . okay, fine.” She inhaled. “You’re right. I’ve tried to get out before. This isn’t my first trip through the G.C. I was an orphan, just like you’d guessed. I was living with Mrs. Allen then—the lady who raised me. It was her idea to try and get us out of the country when I was six years old. She wanted a better life for both of us, lost her faith in the RSA.”

Wes leaned his chin against his hands. “What happened?”

“The runner who’d taken all our money didn’t pay the right bribe at the first checkpoint, so after the guard waved us through, he called in the border police and we got hauled in for not having visas.”

“In our business, we call those donkey men,” said Wes. “Clueless guys who don’t know the deal.”

“They took her away, and I never saw her again,” Nat said softly. Mrs. Allen wasn’t her mother, but she was the only mother she’d ever known. Her eyes misted a little. “Mrs. A found me when I was a baby. She says I was a DFD,” she said, hugging herself tightly. Dumped for Deployment.

“Your folks were soldiers then.” Wes nodded.

“That’s what she told me.” Mrs. Allen had explained to Nat that it happened a lot, people leaving their kids, not wanting to take them wherever they were stationed, thinking it was kinder to leave them than to bring them to the front lines; abandonment as a form of love. “I guess they were army. I don’t know. I have no idea who they were.”

“So what happened to you?” Wes asked.

She shrugged. “The usual. Ward of the state. I grew up in a group home.” She didn’t mention the real reason her mother had abandoned her. The reason Mrs. A had tried to hustle her out of the country.

“And I thought Shakes had a sob story.” Wes smiled.

“Worse than mine?” she asked.

“Ask him to tell you later, it’s a doozy,” he promised. “Must have sucked, growing up like that,” he said. “Group homes are no joke.” He shot her a sympathetic glance.

“Yeah, well.” She nodded. “At least it’s over now.” She was touched by his concern, even though she was sure there was an ulterior motive behind it, especially with the way he ran hot and cold toward her. She was a card player, she knew the deal. “Now it’s your turn. Tell me, Wes, why’d you take this job? I’m not paying you enough—not for the risks that are out there. What’s in it for you?”

“Maybe I want to see what’s out here, too,” he protested. “If there’s such a thing as paradise—I don’t want to be left behind.”

But Nat knew there was something behind his smile. Something he wasn’t being honest about. She tucked the blue stone underneath her shirt.

That made two of them.

22

WES WATCHED HER WALK AWAY FROM THE railing, then went back to staring out at the water. He wondered how much of her story was true. Who was she, anyway? She said she recognized him from somewhere, and Wes wondered whether she was right and he had just forgotten. But he was certain that he’d remember meeting Nat. He scratched the scar on his forehead. Funny how she’d wondered about it, just like Jules. That story about Shakes and the pickax was a lie. But maybe one day he would tell her the truth. The one he’d never even told Jules.

On his first date with Juliet Marie Devincenzi, she’d laughed when he’d told her the story of the avalanche, all that rigmarole about how he’d made Shakes feel guilty about the scar.

Wes was still on deck by the rail when Shakes found him, staring at a photo he’d pulled from his wallet.

“Put that away,” Shakes said with a grimace. “Let sleeping dogs lie.”

“I know, I know,” Wes agreed.

“Look, boss, Jules was all right, but . . .” Shakes shrugged.

“But?” Wes asked.

“You know why,” his friend reminded him. Shakes had never liked Jules very much and blamed her for some of their trouble.

Wes put away the photo. “You think she really died at the Loss?”

“It’s what I heard. What’s the problem, boss? She left us high and dry after that Dreamworks hit. I mean, rest in peace and all, I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but she messed you up good.”

“No, man.” Wes shook his head. “That’s not how it went down.”

He’d met Jules right when he’d gotten out of the service. She was already running the cards then, a real pro, and she needed some muscle, a driver, a getaway car, and she’d picked him for the job, having heard that he’d made his name as a death jockey and knew his way around New Vegas. Jules had been a few years older. They hit it off immediately.

Wes had never been in love until Jules, didn’t even know that’s what he’d been feeling, until he was in over his head. She loved him, too—he would never forget that. He would have done anything for her at one point, but she’d asked for something he couldn’t give.

“I never told you, but she wanted to get married, get the license, the whole deal,” Wes told Shakes. “She wanted to get out, too. She always talked about escaping to the Blue. She believed in it. But she was willing to make a go of it anywhere, in K-Town, or Xian maybe, she had some friends who lived in Shangjing.”

“And you didn’t?”

“No.” Wes shook his head. “K-Town’s not any place to live, and since we wouldn’t merit visas, I didn’t think we’d be able to hack it as illegals in Xian.” But there was more. His sister Eliza was out there somewhere, and he couldn’t leave without finding out what had happened to her, whether she was even still alive.

Juliet had said she understood, she hadn’t pushed it. So they stayed in New Vegas, and slowly, imperceptibly, whatever love had existed between them began to fade, and they fell apart. Jules had wanted out—and he’d let her down. Wes found he couldn’t live with her disappointment. It stared at him in the face every day. He couldn’t choose between them. Jules or Eliza. It ate at him, destroyed the love he felt, left him furious and stymied. Shakes got it wrong; Wes had broken up with her, not the other way around, right before the Dreamworks casino gig. After that, they stopped speaking and never ran a job together again.

He pulled out his wallet and stared at her photo again. He hadn’t wanted to feel close to anyone else after that. The crew began to call him a priest and joke he was celibate. He didn’t care. He began to think that maybe the boys were right about him, that he’d given up on that sort of thing, that he was no longer interested. But something in him sparked to life when he’d met Nat, and he felt the beginnings of something familiar . . . not just an attraction, but the embers of an emotion he had suppressed for so long. She wasn’t his girl anymore.

Natasha Kestal.

He couldn’t be with another girl who needed so much from him. He had nothing to give. His heart was as patched together as his ship.

Nat.

Jules.

When he heard that Juliet had died at the bombing, he didn’t want to believe it, but it had been at least a year since he’d seen her. A long, lonely year.

He wondered what would have happened if he’d kissed Nat, if he had risen to the dare—he’d seen the look in her eye, the invitation—and more than anything, had wanted to accept. He was glad he had restrained himself, had not let her win; she was playing with him somehow, and he wouldn’t give in to that game. He was playing one of his own, as Shakes reminded him.

“So, boss, you ask her about that stone yet?” his friend said. “Ask her where she got it? What it is?”

“In time, my friend,” he said, thinking of the sparkly blue sapphire Nat wore. “In time.”

Maybe he should have kissed her. Wasn’t that what he was after? For her to fall for him so he could take what he wanted? So why hadn’t he?

23

AFTER THEIR CONVERSATION THE OTHER day, they avoided being alone together. Wes kept himself scarce, eating his meals by himself and hardly leaving the captain’s quarters. Nat tried not think too much about it, or why she had instigated that almost-kiss in the first place. She had hoped he would take a shine to her so that he would think twice before messing with her. That was all it was, so why did she feel so strange? He was nothing to her . . . and yet . . . she had wanted him to kiss her because she had wanted him . . . If only they were already at New Crete, so she would be rid of Wes and his ship and her confusion.

She took to reading her book up by the transom in the afternoons, and for the next few hours she was engrossed in the story. Daran and Zedric came up as well and sat away from her, at the bow of the ship, their legs dangling over the edge. Daran gave her his usual smarmy smile, and asked if she wanted to join them, but she shook her head and went back to her book.

After her eyes tired, she put it away and looked down at the ocean. It was black and oily as usual but underneath . . . she saw a glimmer . . . a flash of color? What was that?

A fin?

A fish?

But there were no more fish in the seas, everyone knew that.

But it was a fish. It had to be. She saw its brilliant red flash flit through the water. “Did you see that?” she asked, pointing.

Daran squinted at it. “A redback!” he said. “It’s got to be! I’ve seen photos of ’em from before. That’s crazy—nothing’s supposed to live in this water!”

“Nah, it’s not a redback. It’s one of those eels,” Zedric said.

“No, it’s a redback, jackass, that’s not an eel; that’s a fish, or you’ve got frostblight.”

Daran was right, it was a fish. It looked like pictures she had seen of salmon in facsimisushi restaurants.

Nat marveled at it. “How did they get that coloring?”

“Got me,” Daran grunted.

“It’s camouflage,” Zedric informed him. “When the water was green-blue the fish were, too, to blend in, but now that the waters aren’t blue, neither are the fish. They’re changing along with the water.”

Daran chuckled. “I don’t know where you get this stuff, bro.”

The three of them sat in companionable silence. Nat was glad; the Slaine boys gave her the creeps, Daran especially. She was about to return belowdecks when she heard Zedric yelp suddenly. She turned and saw that there was a white bird perched on the ship’s antenna.

“What is it?” Zedric asked.

“It’s a bird,” Nat explained, wondering how he knew the name of an obscure fish and yet had no idea what a bird was.

“He’s never seen one,” Daran explained, a bit embarrassed for his brother.

“Neither have I,” Nat breathed. Aside from the polar bears, the only animals she’d ever seen were from the old newsreels on the nets, or in surviving picture books. Pets were an indulgence, a rarity, and zoos were nonexistent in New Vegas. Supposedly the government kept animal and nature preserves in the enclosures, costing hundreds of thousands of heat credits while the rest of the population froze, but she’d never been to one.

The small white bird was beautiful, its feathers fine and lustrous, its black eyes bright with curiosity. As it spread its wings, it suddenly changed color, turning pink, yellow, and turquoise, the swirl of colors bright against the gray fog. Magical. It jumped onto Zedric’s arm and began to dance on his shoulders. Nat smiled.

It was a miracle to find such vibrant life in the refuse and swill of the dark, polluted ocean. The bird hopped from Zedric’s palm to Nat’s and greeted her with a friendly peck. Then it unfolded its wings, puffed up its chest, and began to sing a wondrous song, echoing across the water.

A beautiful song, and Nat was enchanted. But the boys heard the song differently. They held their hands to their ears and howled in pain. Zedric was doubled up and Daran’s face was red.

“STOP IT! STOP THAT THING!” Daran cried angrily. “It’ll call the wailer!” He reached into his cargo pocket and pulled out his pistol, aiming for the bird.

“NO!” Nat cried, trying to protect the creature. But it was too late. Daran’s bullet met its mark, and the bird let out a plaintive cry as it fell to the deck, blood flowing from its white breast.

Nat knelt to revive it, but its small lifeless body was already cold. Dead. It had been so beautiful, and now it was gone. She looked up and glared at the soldier. “You killed it!”

“Hey—” Daran said, stepping back.

But Nat was upon him. She had only meant to push him a little, but without her laying a hand on him, he flew across the deck, nearly tumbling over the edge.

“Daran!” Zedric yelled, and he pulled his brother back to safety. He dragged Daran onto his feet, breathing heavily. “What happened?”

“She did it,” Daran said, pointing to the girl in their midst.

The two soldiers stared at Nat, who was still holding the dead bird in her hands. She was cooing to it. Come back to me, come back to me, my little friend.

“Downstairs, now,” Daran said. Nat looked up and saw that the two of them had their guns pointed her way.

“Move it!” Zedric yelled.

As gently as she could, Nat dropped the bird into the ocean and marched downstairs, wondering how she would get out of this one.

“Don’t touch her!” Daran warned as they hustled Nat into the crew cabin and shut the door.

“Everyone, calm down,” Nat said, thinking fast. “That was an accident—it wasn’t me—the ship lurched.” She’d never been alone with them before, and Wes was nowhere to be found. Where was he? And where were Shakes and Farouk? In the engine room, she realized, where they would never hear her.

“I didn’t do anything!”

“Yes, you did!” Daran said, waving his pistol, his face menacing. “I felt it. You pushed me—but with your mind. I should’ve known.”

“We never should have taken up with this crew; everyone said Wes was crazy—soft—and now we know for sure!” Zedric was close to hysterics. “What are we going to do? We’re all going to die!”

“Shut up!” Daran urged his brother. “Calm down, no one’s going to die. But we have to make sure.”

“Make sure what?”

“That she’s marked.”

“I don’t—I swear—I’m not marked,” Nat said, horrified. “Look at my eyes!”

“You could be wearing lenses,” Zedric said. “I heard about those, they cover up the colors, turn marked eyes gray.”

“I’m not!”

“Prove it,” Daran said. “Show us you’re not marked.” He leered.

“What do you mean?” Nat asked, feeling shivers up her spine. She’d noticed Daran had locked the door behind him; she was alone with them, and Wes was all the way at the other end of the ship. She was so freaking stupid. It was true what she’d said—she hadn’t meant to push Daran—she didn’t know how to control her power. She wasn’t even sure if she could summon it now—the voice in her head was silent; it had abandoned her once again.

Daran glowered. “I said, prove it.”

“No. No. No way.” Nat shook her head. “Are you serious? Is this a joke?”

“Go on now . . . show us you don’t have it,” he grunted menacingly, ripping her jacket off her shoulders, and his brother actually grinned.

“No!” She tried to appeal to them in a different way. “You guys don’t want to do this. You know what they say about what happens when you come in contact with—”

“Hold on. My, my, what is this?” asked Daran, zeroing in on the stone around her neck that had come into view when her jacket was torn. “What do we have here?”

“You heard what Shakes said,” Zedric said.

“Oh yes, we did. Old Shakes talks too loudly, and we heard him ask Wesson about the stone. You can hear everything they say by that railing. Wind carries sound up to the helm, don’t it, Zed? What did Old Shakes say? ‘Did you ask her about the stone, boss?’” he said, mimicking Shakes’s voice in a cruel fashion. “And we all know what stone it is, don’t we?”

Daran was so close she could feel his breath on her cheek, and she shuddered in revulsion. “Oh, I get it, you don’t like me, but you’d hand out the lot to him, wouldn’t you? Hand yourself on a platter, most like, to our fearless leader,” he said, and stepped even closer, peering at the stone. “Just like Wesson to hold out on us again, right, Zed? Not much of a boss, is he? Keeping this from his boys? When we could be back in Vegas now, rich as kings—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nat said, covering the stone protectively, taking a step backward.

“Give it here,” Daran growled. He reached for the stone—

“DON’T TOUCH IT!” she screamed, and in an instant, she was fire and flame, and her eyes blazed green and gold, burning away her gray lenses, and Zedric was screaming and Daran was holding out his hand, which was on fire.

Someone kicked the door open and Wes stood at the entryway. “What’s going on in here?” he asked, and when he saw what was happening, with one powerful move, he slammed Daran hard against the wall.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Wes growled, his voice soft and dangerous.

“Taking what’s rightfully ours,” Daran sneered, his hand smoking and red. “Look what she did! LOOK WHAT SHE DID TO ME!”

“She’s marked! She’s a monster!” Zedric cried, cowering from the corner.

Daran grunted and Wes stared him down, his dark eyes flashing with a piercing anger. He slammed Daran against the wall again, so angry he couldn’t speak.

“You knew what she was and you brought her anyway,” Daran accused. “She got a treasure greater than god and you let her keep it!” he seethed. “You didn’t even try to take it away from her! What kind of runner are you?”

Wes punched him in the face and Daran crumpled to the ground.

“SHE’S ROTTING!” Zedric screamed.

“SHUT YOUR MOUTH!” Wes ordered. He turned to Nat, who was back on her feet and had put her jacket back on. “You okay?”

She nodded. Wes moved to help just as the boat began to heave sideways. Boxes slid across the metal floor; the hammocks and lamps swung wildly.

“Trashbergs that weren’t on the map, has to be,” Daran croaked from the floor.

“Shakes can’t hold the wheel alone,” Zedric said nervously, eyeing his brother, who shrugged.

Wes glared at his soldiers. “LEAVE! But we are not done here,” he promised, as the boys brushed past Nat on their way back up the stairs.

24

“YOU ALL RIGHT?” WES ASKED, WALKING slowly toward Nat, keeping his balance as the ship lurched starboard. “He didn’t—hurt you—did he?”

“No,” she said bitterly. “Don’t worry, I’d never let him touch me.”

“The boys only know what they’ve seen on the nets. I could toss them overboard now, but they’re the only crew I’ve got,” he said. “I’m sorry I can’t do more than promise I’ll make damn certain they keep away from you for the rest of the trip.”

She shook her head. “How long have you known about me?” she asked, her fingers shaking a little as she zipped up her jacket, making sure the stone was hidden underneath many layers once more.

Wes gazed to the ceiling. “I didn’t know, but I suspected.”

“You didn’t care? You don’t think you’ll—catch it? And rot?” She pulled her jacket closed, zipped it to her neck.

“No,” he said softly. “That whole thing is bunk anyway. You can’t catch the mark. Either you’re born with it or you’re not, right? It’s not a disease.”

She was still shaking from the heat and the fire—she could have killed Daran. Worse, she wanted to kill him, wanted nothing more than to set him ablaze, and she felt the shame then, of being who she was, a monster. She didn’t say anything about the stone, although Wes knew about it, that was clear. So why hadn’t he tried to take it from her like Daran had?

“That’s why your friend—Mrs. A—tried to get you out of the country, wasn’t it? Because you were marked.”

Nat raised her green-gold eyes to his dark ones. “I was three years old when I understood people were afraid of me.” She told Wes about playing in the neighbor’s apartment that day; Mrs. Allen sometimes left her there when she went to work. Nat didn’t like the boy she was meant to play with—he was older and mean, pinching her when no one was looking, making sure she never got the cookie she wanted, telling her she had to stand in the corner for a myriad of trivial infractions. She was scared of him, and one day he told his mother a bald-faced lie, that she had been the one who had thrown the ball through the window and let the cold in. Then when his mother left the room Nat pushed him. She hadn’t laid a hand on him, but she had pushed him with her mind—slammed him across the room, so that he hit his head on the wall and he crumpled to the carpet, wailing.

“She did it! She did it!” he’d screamed.

“I didn’t touch him!” she’d yelled in her defense.

“Did she push you?” his mother demanded.

“No,” David had said. “But she did it.” He’d looked at her with those mean black eyes. “She’s one of them.”

After that, Nat was no longer welcome in their home, and when Mrs. Allen found out what had happened, the old lady began planning their escape.

“They sent you to MacArthur, didn’t they? When they caught you at the border?” Wes asked, lifting her chin with his fingers and softly wiping away the tear on her cheek. His skin was rough against her smooth face, but she found comfort in his gentleness. “That’s where you’re from. You broke out.”

“Yeah.”

He whistled. “I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t put me in there.”

“So that’s why we couldn’t find anything on you,” he said. “Farouk’s pretty good on the nets; I thought it was strange you didn’t have an online profile.”

“They keep us off it. It’s easier to disappear someone if they’ve never existed,” she said.

“MacArthur’s a military hospital. You were part of the gifted program?”

She looked up at him, startled. “You knew about that?”

He grimaced. “Yeah. I ran one of the first teams.”

“We might have worked together, then,” she said.

“Is that why I look familiar?” he asked.

“Maybe.” She hesitated. “I was under Bradley. My commander.”

Now it was Wes’s turn to look unnerved. “He was mine, too.” He knitted his brows. “What kind of work did you do for him?”

“If only I could remember,” she said. “They mess us up, you know, to keep things confidential, to make us forget . . . they used to put us in ice baths, to freeze our memories somehow. I don’t even know who I am, what my real name is,” she said bitterly.

“I like ‘Nat,’” he said with a smile. “It’s as good a name as any.”

“So, now you know what I am for sure, what are you going to do about it?” she asked.

“Take you where you want to go. You’re headed for the Blue, aren’t you? You can admit it now.”

She exhaled. “Yes.”

“Well then, that’s where we’re headed. I’ll take you there or die trying. Okay?”

“Okay. I’m fine, you can go now.”

“You’re sure?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“So you keep reminding me.” He sighed. “Listen, maybe it’s best if you get out of the crew cabin—you can bunk with me in the captain’s if you’d like.”

“Thank you,” she said, and she found herself giving him an awkward hug, surprising them both. She pressed her cheek against his chest. This was not like the other day, when she was toying with him. She wanted to hug him because being close to him made her feel better. She never realized how tall he was; she only came up to his chin, and she could hear his heart beating underneath the many layers he wore.

“You don’t need to thank me,” he said, patting her back somewhat stiffly. “I’m taking your credits,” he joked.

“So you keep reminding me,” she said quietly.

They stood in the middle of the room, simply holding on to each other, and she found solace in the warmth of his embrace. “You knew from the beginning, didn’t you?” she whispered. “That I was marked?”

“If I did, does it matter?” he asked. “You don’t have to hide anymore. Not on my ship, at least. Besides, it would be a shame to cover up your eyes.”

She felt his breath on her cheek. “Why?”

“Because they’re beautiful,” he said. Their faces were inches apart, and she trembled in his arms. He leaned in and she closed her eyes . . .

Then the ship lurched to the port side again, throwing them against the far wall. They heard an unbearable sound—like a scratch on a chalkboard—a high-pitched whine of discord and then a grinding crash, as they parted from each other.

“Go,” she said, pushing him away. “Go!”

Wes shook his head and cursed as he ran out of the room to see what had happened to his ship.

25

THE SOUND GREW LOUDER AND MORE unbearable. Wes held his hands to his ears as he ran up the deck toward the bridge. He hesitated for a moment, paralyzed, when he saw what had happened. It was worse than he’d thought. Towering above him were two floating mountains of junk, twin trashbergs composed of rusted machinery. Souvenirs from a dead civilization and a different way of life—leather luggage with gold lettering, chromed espresso machines with complex levers and dials, soap bottles with French labels, and designer sunglasses—things Wes had heard about, but never seen. It was all junk now. The metal rusted, the leather faded, the paper rotted with mildew, even the plastic that was meant to never degrade had now cracked and melted. It all blended to make a new kind of landscape, a mountain of floating refuse.

First Daran and now this—could his day get any worse? Or was he just irritated that he’d lost another opportunity to kiss her? He’d meant what he said, but he was surprised at the depth of his feelings for her. He’d been worried when he hadn’t seen her reading on the upper deck—and the lack of the Slaine boys disturbed him as well—and when he’d heard the screams he feared the worst—and to see her like that, her jacket torn off her shoulders . . . he could have pounded Daran’s head against the floor until he was still. Wes felt sick and ashamed of his crew, and wondered if he’d made the right call to take on those boys.

Farouk stood by the navigation system and looked up nervously as Wes approached. “They weren’t on the radar—I swear it—they came out of nowhere,” he said.

“How bad is it?” Wes asked, directing his question to Shakes, who was at the helm.

Shakes couldn’t answer, as he was throwing his full weight to pull the wheel starboard with the help of Daran and Zedric on either side, the three of them fighting to steer the ship as the trashbergs squeezed Alby between them, the piles of broken steel and shattered glass digging a long ugly gash along the ship’s hull, biting into the thick metal.

“Move!” Wes yelled as he took the helm. “You can’t steer your way out of this!” He pulled on the gearshift levers. The two engines and their propellers were side by side, and he figured if he threw one into reverse and the other forward, they would force the boat to pivot.

But the hull continued to tear. Wes powered both engines as high as he dared.

“She’ll hold!” Wes said. “STEADY NOW!” The bow was starting to turn, forcing half the ship to push through a mound of trash. He scrambled to keep his balance as the trashberg pushed from below, lifting the front of the boat precariously out of the water.

“We’re losing her!” Shakes warned.

Wes glared at the wheel. “Not on my watch! HOLD ON!” He jammed both engines into reverse, and the hull vibrated as he fought for control of his ship; the screeching grew louder as the boat pushed against the behemoth. The water behind them began to bubble as the propellers spun wildly, captured in their own wake. It looked as though the trash mountains would claim their ship for their own.

Shakes yelped as a wave of debris tumbled over the deck, but that was the worst of it. Since the engines were both taken from ex–military tankers, they would tear the boat apart before they stopped turning. But Wes understood he could make use of their power by jamming the starboard engine back into forward while he let the other rev in neutral for a moment. He was using the two engines to pull them out of the trashbergs by force alone.

They watched as broken refrigerators, rusted toasters, waterlogged couches, and a coffee table missing two legs fell from the sky, crashed onto the floorboards. The furniture slid together, forming grotesque living room sets before washing back into the ocean as the ship tilted to the other side. A moldy Barcalounger remained on the deck, its leather pocked with holes.

Wes kept a firm grip on the wheel, wrestling with the breakers, and steering away from the trashbergs until they were in relatively calm waters.

Farouk slapped him on the back. “We did it.”

He nodded and relaxed his hold. “Take it,” he told Shakes. “I’ll check out the damage.”

Once on the deck, he saw Nat there, helping the boys clean up. The Slaine brothers were smart enough to keep their distance, he noticed sourly. He would have to deal with them later. Put the fear of god into them if they thought they could get away that kind of crap on his watch.

“How bad is it?” Nat asked, pulling a scarf around her neck.

“We got stuck in the middle of a trashfield.” Wes sighed. “We’ll need to go around; it’s dangerous running too close to them. We could end up stuck on a pile of junk, or worse, buried underneath one.”

Shakes came out to help and pushed a lounge chair off the deck and into the churning waters. “Guess your trip just got extended,” he said.

“Wonderful.” She sighed.

Wes wiped his forehead with his glove and peered over the railing to study the long ugly gash on the side of his boat. “Luckily it didn’t hit the inner hull.”

“Otherwise?”

“We’d be sunk, literally,” Shakes said cheerfully. “But don’t worry, that hasn’t happened yet.”

“Good thing I don’t charge by the mile or you’d be in trouble,” Wes said, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.

Nat started to laugh, but her laughter quickly turned into a cough. She buried her face in the crook of her arm. “Well, it’s not a perfume store, that’s for sure.”

Wes sighed. The trashbergs smelled even worse than the ocean, and the thought of extending the trip even farther would be a challenge for everyone, but he couldn’t let it sink their spirits. “Looks bad, but we can patch it up, can’t we, Shakes?” Wes asked.

“Not like we haven’t before.” Shakes nodded. “We’ll get right on it.” He stared at Nat. “Hey—you look different,” he said. “What is it?” He squinted at her face.

“My eyes,” she said shyly. “You can’t see the difference? Really?”

“Our friend Shakes is colorblind.” Wes winked. “It’s all right, Farouk will fill him in,” he said, as the youngest boy openly gaped at Nat, but said nothing.

“Come on, don’t stare,” Shakes said, pulling Farouk away so they could return to the bridge, leaving Wes and Nat on the deck. As the boat drifted out of the trashberg’s shadow, they were able to see the full extent of the garbage mountain.

“It’s endless,” Nat whispered, fascinated by the immense ziggurat of rot and decay and discards in front of her.

“Continents of junk,” Wes said.

Nat shook her head, troubled by the sight of all that waste. The world was irretrievably broken, filled with refuse, from Garbage Country to the poisoned oceans, and the rest was an uninhabitable frozen nether land; what kind of place was this to grow up in? What kind of world had they been born into? “Is it like this—everywhere—in all the waters? Surely in some places the waters are clear?” she asked hopefully.

Wes narrowed his eyes. “Maybe. If the Blue is real.” He removed the locator from his pocket and began to punch in a new course on the blinking green screen. He had nabbed the satellite phone from an abandoned LTV a few years back in garbage land. It was military-grade and had the ability to track and plot a course from live satellite data. If he was caught using or trying to sell the thing, it would mean his head, but he kept it for emergencies. “We’ll have to go way out of our way to dodge ’em. Some are ten or fifteen miles across and there’re bigger ones swirling all around.”

As the boat plowed slowly through the churning waters, the surf was wilder on the far side of the junk mountain, and dark, filthy water rose in waves and washed over the deck again.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Wes said, holding out his hand to help her avoid stepping in the toxic wash.

She took his hand and they picked their way down to the lower cabins. “I’ll take you up on your offer, if you don’t mind,” she said, as they walked down the stairs and he let go of her hand. “To move, I mean.”

Wes nodded. “Sure.”

Nat watched him silently, wondering what would have happened if the ship hadn’t hit that trashberg . . . if they had been able to . . . if he had . . . what difference did it make? At least he hadn’t tossed her overboard when he found out the truth about her. Wasn’t that enough? What did she want with him anyway? She couldn’t be feeling what she was feeling, if she was even feeling anything for him.

Even so, she moved her meager possessions over to his cabin. Instead of hammocks, the captain’s quarters had a real bed. One bed. One small bed. “Um, Wes?” she asked.

“Yeah?” he asked, pulling off his boots and sweater, so that his T-shirt pulled up above his belt and for a brief moment she saw the hard muscles on his stomach.

“Never mind.” She put her stuff away in the hold and climbed into the bed, making sure to stay all the way to the right side so that she was almost falling off.

“I’m not going to try anything, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said, sounding amused.

“Who said I’m worried?” she said, as he scooted in next to her. Their bodies were only inches away from each other, and when she turned to him, their faces were so close on the pillow they were almost touching.

“Good night,” he whispered.

“Sleep well.” She smiled and closed her eyes. They were sheltered from the toxic wash, but down below, the rocking of the ship was worse. She leaned over the edge of the bed and dry-heaved. If there was any thought of romance right now, it just went out the porthole.

“Here,” Wes said, handing her a metal bracelet. “Strap it on. Helps with seasickness.”

Nat wiped her mouth and accepted it with a grateful smile. Her stomach fluttered, which had nothing to do with the sea. “Thanks.”

“It’s not as pretty as that good-luck charm you’re wearing, but it should do the trick,” he said.

Good-luck charm?

He meant the stone she was wearing. She didn’t say a word, but she was troubled. Wes was not Daran. But she couldn’t be certain . . . did he want to keep her safe? Or did he just want the stone?

26

INCHING ALONG THROUGH THE MURKY water was like wading through tar, sticky and scummy, while the smell of rotting garbage permeated the air. The days felt like weeks. Each day was the same as the one before it: gray skies, dark water, along with the rhythmic drone of the waves lapping against the sides of the boat.

The crew spent the time playing with their handhelds, drinking too much moonshine, blasting their metal reggae, bored and listless. Nat gave the brothers a wide berth and they kept to themselves anyhow, hanging around the isolated areas of the ship, whispering to each other. Once in a while she would hear them whoop and wondered what they were doing. She noticed Zedric shooting her apologetic glances every now and then, while Daran was a ghost; whatever Wes had said to him had worked. He couldn’t even glance in her direction. She was glad to see his hand was still bandaged. Burnt.

She assumed Wes told Shakes and Farouk about her since they didn’t ask her any questions, or maybe, like Wes, they didn’t care that she was marked, at least that’s what she hoped; she gathered they were too busy trying to keep the ship together to pay attention. Wes didn’t say anything more about the stone she wore, and she didn’t bring it up. The boys filled their days repairing the hull, patching the hole by welding a few layers of steel plate that Wes kept in the storage room just for this type of eventuality.

Nat found there was little respite to be had; when she was down in the sleeping holds the rocking of the ship made her ill, and when she was up on deck the smell was worse. The crew took to wearing bandannas over their noses like bandits, and Nat was glad she had remembered to bring her silk scarf from home. It still smelled like the bottle of perfume she’d left on her dresser, although she didn’t know if that even helped, since after a while she began to associate the sweet smell of jasmine with the putrid stink of decrepitude.

The mood among the soldiers was grim, after the adrenaline rush of saving the ship and their skins had subsided. The crew was touchy and grouchy: Daran and Zedric were resentful on top of it, and even Shakes, who seemed a cheerful soul, was often jumpy and irritable. Since the voyage was going to take twice as long as they’d planned, their rations were even more meager than they had expected. Everyone was seasick and hungry, and after a few days Nat learned to live with a throbbing headache and light-headedness.

That morning, she found Shakes at the galley kitchen, munching on a piece of bark.

“Can I have a piece?” she asked.

Shakes nodded, handing her a twig. “It helps with the cravings,” he said.

Earlier, Wes had allowed everyone one quarter of a steak-and-egg-pancake breakfast wrap. He cut the thing in sixths and let it warm on the engine cover for half an hour before doling it out. That was it. While they ate, Nat told them that back before the floods, fat was a sign of poverty, and the rich flashed their status by going on extreme diets—juice “cleanses” and spa vacations where they paid for the privilege of not eating. None of them believed her.

She crunched the piece of wood in her mouth and spit it out. “How can you eat this?” She coughed.

Shakes smiled. “You’ll do anything to survive.” He took the bark back, his hands trembling a little.

Nat opened a can of Nutri. There was enough in the storeroom for centuries. She took a sip, tasting the flat, lukewarm liquid.

She watched as Shakes’s hand jittered holding the bark, fluttering nervously like a hummingbird’s wings.

“Do you take anything for that?” she asked. “I heard they’ve got a new drug now that helps with the shaking from frostblight.”

“Oh, this?” Shakes asked, lifting his hand up and watching it tremble. “I don’t have FB like the boss. I’ve had this since I was a baby.”

“Wait—Wes has frostblight?” she asked.

“Yeah, you haven’t noticed? His eyes bother him sometimes,” Shakes said.

“I hadn’t.” She felt an ache for Wes, now that she knew. It’s not a disease, he’d said, about being marked. No, not like his. “I’m sorry for thinking you have it.” Nat was embarrassed.

“No, don’t be. It’s an easy mistake.” Shakes smiled.

“What happened? Wes told me your story was a doozy.”

“It is. He tell you I have a brother?”

“No.”

“I do. An older one. Patrick. Our ’rents were good people. Rule-following civilians, not like us,” he said, smiling. “They got a license for both of their kids. They wanted more than one. Expensive, but they could afford it. They wanted Pat to have a sibling, a playmate. One day there was a knock on the door.

“It turns out Mom filled out part of the license application wrong. Secondary offspring license denied. I was illegal, and not a citizen. You know how it goes, the country gets low on a quota and they start looking for excuses to collect. Who knows if Mom ever actually made that error. But it didn’t matter, Population Control was on the case. I was three, four months old? I’m not sure. Anyway, the repo man grabbed me and made for the door, while Mom grabbed my other leg and the two of them get into tug of war right there on the balcony. They’re pushing and pulling and somehow the guy drops me, and I hit my head right on the concrete. Bam!”

She covered her mouth in horror, but Shakes only grinned, clearly enjoying the story.

“I start to convulse, right, and the repo man freaks out; they can sell babies on the black markets for good money, just another way to keep the war machine going, but no one wants a defective one. They don’t want me anymore, they tell Mom and Dad. They don’t even apologize, and they stick them with the hospital bill, too.”

“Ouch.”

“My parents didn’t care—they got to keep me.” Shakes smiled. “Course it bankrupted them, which is why I had to volunteer.”

“That’s horrible,” Nat said quietly.

“That’s life.” He didn’t seem too perturbed. “I get blackouts, too, sometimes seizures; everyone thinks it’s just frostblight, so I get to pass as normal.”

“Not sure ‘normal’ is the right word.” Nat smiled.

He chuckled. “Many won’t disagree with you there.”

“So are your folks still around?” she asked.

“Just my dad,” Shakes said.

“Are you guys close?” she asked. She knew she was prodding, but she was always curious about the people who still had parents.

“Not really.” Shakes grimaced and tossed the twig into the bin. “We never were, I guess, since he never forgave my mom.”

“For dropping you?”

“For having me,” he said. “He’s not a bad guy, but you know how it is.”

She didn’t, but she nodded sympathetically “So they tried to take you away—like they did Wes’s sister.”

“Wes’s sister?”

“He said they took her away because his parents hadn’t applied for the second-child license.”

“That what he told you about Eliza?”

“Yeah.”

Shakes didn’t say anything. He only looked confused. “But I thought . . .”

“Thought what?”

“That they got a pass on it. You know, the law makes an exception in their case. Because Eliza and Wes . . . they were twins.”

“Huh.” She didn’t know what to say to that.

“He always told me that . . .”

“That what?”

Shakes tossed the twig away. “Nothing. Forget I said anything,” he said, looking nervous.

She saw his discomfort and changed the subject. “So what are you guys going to do after this?”

“After we drop you off? Go back to working casino security I guess. Maybe by then, they’ll have forgiven old Wesson.”

Nat smiled. “Thanks for the bark.”

“Anytime,” Shakes said, giving her a salute.

27

DARAN WAS TRYING TO TAKE THE STONE, and she was struggling, but this time, there was no escape, and he was jeering at her, and laughing, and she was so cold, so cold, and there was nothing she could do, the fire would not start, and the little white bird was dead, and there was no one to help, no one to break down the door, she was all alone, and he would take it away from her and then he would toss her overboard to die, and she was angry, so angry, but there was nothing, she could do nothing, and she was weak and helpless, furious and frightened and she was calling . . . calling out . . . and there was a terrible noise, screeching . . .

Wailing . . .

She awoke to the sound of loud shrieking echoing through the cabin walls. Nat fought through the haze of sleep and saw Wes standing, paralyzed in the middle of the room, shirtless in his pajama bottoms, listening.

“What is it?” she whispered. It was a long, high screech, a ghostly howling, unearthly, like the sound in her dream. She was cold, so cold, like in her dream, so cold.

Wes shook his head and pulled on a sweater, and she followed him as they walked out of the room to find the rest of the crew standing stock-still outside their quarters, listening to that strange, horrible sound.

“Wailer,” said Zedric, his voice cracking.

The shrieking continued, and Nat thought Zedric was right, there was something about the sound that felt like grief, the sound of keening—later, she would liken it to the moans of a mother who had lost her child—it was a whining, a doubled-down sort of pain.

“Wailer. Like funeral wailers,” Nat said, thinking of the elaborate funeral rites that had become the norm for those who could afford it, where professional mourners were hired to wail and cry and pull their hair to show the level of wealth and the depth of bereavement of the family. The more elaborate the show of grief, the more expensive. Like everything nowadays, it was a tradition that started in the Xian and trickled out to the rest of the remaining world.

Nat had worked as a mourner once, walking in front of the funeral casket of a high-level casino boss; she’d learned the tricks to faking a good cry—a few drops of Nutri to start the tears flowing, then a little imagination—and she was soon sobbing away. It wasn’t that hard to tap into the sadness she carried inside. The pit boss who’d hired her was impressed, offered her a steady gig as a griever, but she was done. She’d been emotionally exhausted after the experience, had wrung her soul dry for some exec who didn’t care that his staff had to pay the cost of their own uniforms and housing from their tiny paychecks.

“It’s out there,” Zedric repeated, then crossed himself. “Coming to get us—”

Daran smacked his brother on the head. “Get a hold of yourself, man!” He turned angrily to Nat. “I told you—I told you that bird would call it! That bird was a bad omen!”

Even Shakes and Farouk looked nervous, but Wes scrunched up his face with disdain. “Wailer’s just another bogeyman story. To keep people out of the waters.”

“Just because no one’s seen it doesn’t mean it don’t exist,” Zedric said sullenly.

“You’re right, people have only heard the cries.” Wes nodded. “The wailer is a myth as old as this dead sea.”

“What is it?” Nat asked.

“Some kind of animal, they say, like a dinosaur, a Loch Ness thing, although it would be a miracle if there’s anything that’s survived in this ocean.” Wes mimicked drinking a glass of water. “If you swallowed a pint of that poisoned water every day, you’d screech like that, too.”

The sound continued to grow louder, and Nat thought she could make out words in the awful noise, that the wailing made sense somehow, that it was communicating, sending a message across the ocean. Then it was silent, and Nat held her breath, hoping it would go away.

The sound was so familiar . . .

“And if it’s not an animal, what is it then?” she asked.

“People. Dead people,” Wes explained. “Some say the wailer’s a phantom of all the spirits of those that have been taken by the black waters. The pilgrims the slavers deceived and dumped, or the souls of the slaves that were tossed overboard when they were of no use to their masters anymore, or they didn’t fetch a good price at the flesh markets. They’re trapped together, cursed to haunt the dead oceans forever.”

Nat shuddered at the thought. So the wailer was just another type of thriller—except one that could swim. So why did she feel as if she could understand it then—almost as if she felt its pain? She began to shiver violently, her teeth began to chatter, and she felt as if she might faint.

“Nat—what’s wrong?” Wes asked, and he held her, rubbing her arms with his, enveloping her in his embrace. “You’re shaking . . . you should go back to sleep.”

They stiffened as the air filled with long, low moans, echoing off the cold water. The screams grew in volume, and the sounds were no longer far away, but louder, closer and closer.

“It’s here!” hissed Zedric, just as a large boom resounded from the ceiling.

“Something’s hit the ship!” Farouk yelped.

“What now,” Wes muttered, releasing Nat and running toward the steps heading to the upper deck to see what had happened, but he was thrown backward as another boom echoed through the cabin, and now there was the sound of tearing—a ripping, horrible noise, loud and angry—as if the ship were being torn apart piece by piece.

“WHAT THE . . .”

The boat lurched as the first engine died, and started to spin in a broad arc, rolling hard to one side as the remaining engine drove them in an out-of-control circle. A moment later the second engine failed abruptly and the ship coasted to a stop.

“The engines!” Shakes cried as Wes leapt to run upstairs, but Farouk pulled him back. “Stop! We don’t know what’s out there!”

“Let me go!” Wes said, as he pushed Farouk away.

Nat followed him up the stairs.

“Stay back!” he yelled.

“No—if there’s something out there—I might be able to help!”

He shook his head but didn’t argue.

They ran up to the deck together and looked down. There was a massive steel engine hatch on the aft deck, tossed upside down like a tortoise shell. The other hatch was sinking quickly into the dark waters. Only bolt holes remained where the hatches had been torn from their mountings. In the bilge, the starboard engine was nothing but a smoking black void—a broken hose leaked gas and water into the pit. There was a hole in the bottom of the ship where the propeller had been torn free and water was pouring into the cavity. The port engine was still in place, but impossibly damaged. Its thick steel housing had fused together, melted, as if it had been run through a blast furnace. Shards from the motor were strewn all over the deck. One engine had been torn deliberately from the ship, and the other one completely burned.

“There!” Nat said, pointing out to the distance, where the darkness coalesced into a massive, horned shape above the water.

“Where?”

“I thought I saw something—” But when she looked again, a faint light shone through the clouds, and whatever it was vanished. She blinked her eyes—was it merely a trick of the light?

The rest of the crew crept up on board. Daran kicked at the remnants of the motor while Zedric muttered voodoo prayers under his breath. “The wailer did this . . . we’re cursed,” he whispered.

Shakes sighed. “So much for the trashbergs.” The massive trash mountains were the least of their concerns now.

“We’re stuck!” Farouk groaned. “Without an engine we’re dead in the water.”

“Looks like it.” Wes nodded, frowning.

Nat was silent as the crew contemplated the latest disaster.

They were adrift in a vast poisonous arctic sea.

28

NO ONE SLEPT. WHEN MORNING FINALLY came, Nat found the crew gathered on the deck. Wes had ordered them all back to bed the night before, the Slaine brothers grumbling and peeved, Farouk whimpering a little, at the latest setback with the loss of their engines. Only Shakes and Wes appeared untroubled.

“This is nothing.” Shakes smiled. “When we were in Texas, we went for a month without eating, right, boss?”

Wes shook his head. “Not now, Shakes.”

“Right.”

The boys were rigging a sail and Nat watched as Wes drove a bent crowbar underneath a plate in the center of the deck and heaved the square of steel upward. Zedric raised two more panels in the same manner.

“Secret compartments?” Nat smiled.

“It’s a runner’s boat,” Wes said with a grin.

Nat looked down through a crisscross of metal braces into the hold and saw a water-stained cloth wrapped around a steel mast.

A sail.

She was impressed. “You knew this was going to happen?” she asked.

“No, but I prepare for everything. You can’t sail the oceans without one.” Wes shrugged. “Never thought I’d need it, though. I never thought Alby would turn into a fifteenth-century ship. All right, pull it up, boys,” he ordered.

Shakes smiled. “See? I told you, we’ve got options.”

“Yeah, we’re not dead in the water just yet,” Farouk said. “C’mon, Nat, you know we got game.”

“Farouk, stop flirting with the lady and help me with this,” Wes grunted, and the boys struggled to erect the makeshift sail.

“Nice work,” Nat said, walking over to put a hand on his arm—an affectionate gesture that was not lost on him. Or the crew. She felt Wes stiffen under her touch, as if a jolt of lightning had sparked between them.

“Who’s flirting with the lady now?” Shakes laughed.

Nat blushed and Wes’s smile deepened.

There was a moment of solidarity and Nat felt that after the ugliness of what happened earlier, things had settled. The sail caught wind, and for now, everything would be all right.

That evening, Nat retired to her bunk in Wes’s cabin. Wes was already sleeping in the bed, an arm thrown over his eyes. He slept like a kid, she thought, looking at him fondly. The ship was moving silently through the ocean, the rocking had stopped for a moment, and Nat was glad. She turned her back to him, quickly changed into a T-shirt and climbed in next to him.

“Good night,” Wes whispered.

Nat smiled to herself. So he wasn’t as out of it as she had thought. She wondered whether he had watched her change, whether he had seen her out of her clothes, and she realized she didn’t mind—she was more than a little intrigued by the idea . . . all she had to do was turn around and put her arms around him . . . Instead, she fiddled with the stone around her neck, and the moonlight caught its glow, sending a rainbow of colors around the small cabin.

“What is that?” Wes asked, his voice low in the darkness.

Nat took a deep breath. “I think you know . . . it was Joe’s.”

“He gave it to you.”

“I asked for it,” she said. She could sense him stirring in the dark, next to her, and now he was sitting up, staring at the stone.

“Do you know what it is?” he asked.

Nat felt a reckless inhibition take hold, and the voice in her head was seething—telling her to keep silent—but she did not. “Yes,” she said finally. “It’s Anaximander’s Map.”

The smugglers and traders named it after the ancient Greek philosopher who charted the first seas. But on the streets they just called it the Map to the Blue. The pilgrims believed that the Blue was not only real, but that it had always existed as part of this world, merely hidden from sight and called different names throughout history—Atlantis and Avalon among them. They swore that the stories that had filtered down through the ages—dismissed as myth and fairy tale—were real.

She watched him absorb the news. She had always assumed he knew she had it, and that it was the real reason he had taken the job. Runners like Wes knew everything there was to know about everything in New Vegas. He might be a good guy, but he wasn’t stupid.

“You know the story, don’t you?” Wes asked. “How Joe won it in a card game.”

“I don’t, actually.”

“They said the guy he won it from was shot dead on the Strip the next day.”

Nat was silent.

“Why do you think he kept it for so long?” Wes asked.

“Without using it, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think it’s real?” he asked.

“He did live an awful long time; you know what they say, it’s supposed to be . . . well, keep you young or something. Anyway, look for yourself,” she told him, taking it off and handing it to him.

Wes took the stone and held it gently between his thumb and his forefinger. “What do you mean?”

“Hold it up, look through the circle. Do you see it?”

He did, and exhaled, and Nat knew he saw. “Joe didn’t see it. He looked through it and saw nothing. Maybe the map wouldn’t reveal itself to him somehow. That’s why he never used it, because he didn’t know how.”

“This is incredible,” Wes said.

“How long till we get there?” she asked.

“I’m guessing ten days,” Wes said, studying the route. “More or less.” He told her that, as many runners had guessed, New Crete was the closest port, but many ships had crashed or beached or gotten lost in the dangerous waters of the Hellespont. This route sketched a hidden, winding passage through the uncharted waters, to an island in the middle of an archipelago. There were a hundred tiny islands in that grouping; no one knew which was the one that led to the Blue. Except for this map.

He gave it back to her to hold.

“Don’t you want it?” she asked, almost daring him.

“What would I do with it?” he asked her, his voice soft.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

For a long time, Wes did not answer. Nat thought maybe he had fallen asleep. Finally, she heard his voice. “I wanted it once,” he said. “But not anymore. Now I just want to get you where you need to go. But do me a favor, okay?”

“Anything,” she said, feeling that warm tingle all over again. He was so close to her, she could reach out and touch him if she wanted, and she wanted, so very badly . . .

“If Shakes ever asks you about it—tell him you got it a five-and-dime store.”

She joined him in laughter, but they both froze, as the sound of the wailer broke over the waves again—that awful, horrible scream—the sound of a broken grief—a keening—echoing over the water—filling the air with its mournful cries . . .

That thing, whatever it was, was still out there. They were not alone.