Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)(16)

Eventually even she is tired, and we stop to make a camp. Arcade scans the horizon, then stomps off to find wood. When she comes back, we light the pile she’s collected with the flares. Soon we have a warm fire to huddle around. It doesn’t come a moment too soon. My clothes are thin, and my fingers are so cold, I can’t feel their tips any longer.

“Right about now, Ghost and I would lure fish out of the ocean to feed our people,” Arcade says of her time in the tent city back home. “It took some time to adjust to the taste of cooked meat, but I learned to tolerate it.”

“Yes, the protein bars are getting old,” I say, opening up one that is packed with peanut buttery taste.

“You would be wise to get some rest,” she says to me. “There will be more fighting before we get to Tempest.”

Arcade takes a blanket for herself, and a few things to eat from the pack, then lies down by the fire.

“I am not killing anyone,” I announce. “Not after what we saw.”

“Good,” Bex whispers back to me.

Arcade sits up and looks at me. Her face is painted with red flames and surprise.

“If you do not kill them, they will kill you.”

“I won’t do it,” I argue.

She shakes her head, then lies back down, turning her back to us.

“You don’t even realize it, do you?” Arcade says.

“Realize what?”

“You’re already dead.”

Bex edges toward me, taking my hand and squeezing it tight. She huddles close in the cold, and I offer her the sheriff’s pants, since she’s in shorts. We wrap ourselves up in the blanket as best we can and lie there listening to the creatures scurrying in the wasteland around us.

“Are you back?” I ask her, basking in her closeness.

She whispers a yes to me. “Stop being a jerk.”

“I’m trying,” I say softly.

“She looked like Shadow’s mom,” Bex says.

I nod. I saw the resemblance myself. She had the same round face and complexion. She could have been Mrs. Ramirez’s sister.

I take out my phone and turn it on, flip through the photo file until I find what I want, and then hand it to Bex. The screen illuminates her cheeks in soft blue memories and changes her face, turning her mouth from a worried line to a careful smile. She turns the screen so I can see a picture of her and her boy, Shadow Ramirez, our Tito, our sidekick. In it the two of them stand back to back, showing off their matching Halloween costumes from last year. Both are tricked out in fat gold chains, Kangol hats, tracksuits, and bright white Adidas, sans the shoelaces. Run DMC never looked so good.

I can’t help but smile, but only because I can see what’s really going on behind the silliness. It was taken before they admitted the truth about how they felt to each other, but you can still see it in their faces.

“He loved you so much,” I tell her.

Bex’s smile vanishes. She bites her lower lip to hold back tears, then rolls her arm across her face to hide her grief.

“I miss him too,” I say.

I wrap my arms around her, pulling her tight, trying to take on some of the anguish that bends her backwards. She sobs quietly, and I do too, thinking about the friend we lost and the future he took with him.

She cleans herself up, then hands me back my phone.

“I saw his picture,” she whispers.

“Whose picture?”

“Fathom’s. Maybe you should let her see it,” she says, tilting her head toward Arcade. “It might help her mourn.”

“She’s not mourning,” I say.

“You know better than that.”

Bex curls up all embryo-like, and soon she’s asleep, leaving me alone with the dying fire and my thoughts. Across from me, Arcade slumbers. I pass Bex’s idea back and forth in my mind as I watch Arcade’s chest rise and fall, until I just can’t stand it any longer. I don’t want her to see that picture. It’s all I have of Fathom, all I will ever have. Arcade had a whole lifetime of memories with him. She knows his secrets and dreams and his favorite kind of ice cream, and I know that people who live underwater don’t eat ice cream, but that’s not the point. He was hers, and in the end he chose her, and all I got were a few kisses and longing looks and one lousy picture! I look terrible in it too—my hair is sticking to my forehead, and neither of us is smiling. But it’s mine. She wouldn’t appreciate it anyway. As far as I can tell, his loss doesn’t mean that much to her. No, I want to keep it all to myself. I know how to treasure things.

I take out my phone and look at him until I’m too tired to keep my eyes open. Then I sleep, and I dream of him.





Chapter Seven


IT’S DAWN WHEN BEX SHAKES ME AWAKE.

“You were doing it again,” she says, referring to my dreams.

“Sorry. Was I talking?”

“Among other things.”

My face burns with embarrassment.

“Where’s Arcade?” I ask, looking around for her nervously. I want Arcade knowing what happens when I’m asleep even less than broadcasting it into the desert.

“She’s training. Give her some privacy,” Bex says. “I pulled up some maps and found a town about five miles from here. We should head in that direction. It’s called San Saba.”