Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)(36)

The man in the cage across from me hisses. “Keep it down—they’ll come back.”

I ignore him. “I’m banged up but all right. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” he says. I know he’s lying. The last time I saw him, we were dragging ourselves out of a car crash. He was hurt so bad, he couldn’t even walk. I’m sure he’s got a couple of broken ribs but he doesn’t want me to worry. “Keep quiet. It’s not safe to draw their attention.”

“Dad, what are we going to do?”

His pause haunts me.

“Lyric, I love you.”

“I love you!”

The next few moments hover with anticipation. One of us should shout that we have a plan and that the other shouldn’t worry because we will all be safe and together soon. We should be sharing hope with one another right now, but all we have to offer is silence and uncertainty.

I sit back down next to Bex, pushing myself against the fencing so that I am as close to her as possible.

“Bex, I’m—”

“I’m sorry, Lyric,” she says, then breaks into a coughing fit. “I’m sorry for what I did.”

“Don’t be stupid,” I say. “I was being an ass.”

“I was so afraid of losing you, I held you back. If I had kept my mouth shut, maybe we—”

“We never had a chance, Bex. Doyle orchestrated everything. We were always going to end up here. Now we need to concentrate on getting out. Have you seen Arcade?”

She shakes her head.

“They keep saying I’m important. They want something from me,” I explain.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know, but if it gets us out of here, they can have it.”

“Don’t trust them,” she begs. “They’re all liars.”



I’m not always in a cage next to Bex. Sometimes I’m next to someone completely new, like Jacques, who hasn’t seen his son, Pierre, or his Sirena wife, Anna, in a year and a half. Sadie is a pale-skinned lady who was probably very pretty before they captured her. She tells me she’s thirty-two, but she looks closer to sixty. She hasn’t seen her husband, Mark, or her daughter, Breanne, in almost three years. Bruce is forty, and he and his wife, Raina, were friends with my mother. He hasn’t seen his wife or his three girls, Alexa, Dallas, and Priscilla, in a long while. He’s lost track of time since they locked him up. Robin was a schoolteacher who didn’t even know his wife, Beth, was an Alpha. He’s bitter about the deception and resentful that he doesn’t have a picture of his daughters, Tess, Emma, and Jane.

And then there are the ones teetering on the edge of mental illness, who can’t trust anyone or anything. They watch me, suspicious of my every move. They accuse me of being a spy.

“I don’t want to talk to you about what I’ve seen,” Kirsten whispers angrily. “You can’t fool me, Lyric. I know you tell them every word.”

“I’m not telling anyone anything. You have to trust me. We need to work together to get out of here,” I say. “You might know something that can help.”

I alienate more than a few of them with my persistence. A tall, graying man actually rats me out to a guard when they come to take us back to our cells.

“She’s planning an escape!” he shouts, pointing a wild finger at me. “Tell Mr. Spangler that I told you. Tell him I’m not a troublemaker. Ask him for more rations, please.”

“Good dog!” I shout at him, then feel remorse. We’re all doing things that aren’t in character these days. I should be more sympathetic.

A guard listens to the man, then eyes me closely, finally laughing as if he’s heard the funniest joke ever.

“Good luck, kid,” he sneers as he slips the noose around my neck. “The only way you’re getting out of this place is in a body bag, or maybe, in your case, we’ll flush you down the toilet, fish girl.”

One day I find Bex next to me again. She looks worse than the last time I saw her. She’s getting thinner and has trouble keeping her head up.

“You’re rocking the pixie cut,” she whispers to me, her voice no louder than a breeze.

I have to get her out of here.



Getting to go to the cages feels like a treat. They take me in the same rough way as always, dragging me like a wild beast and tossing me in before I can fight back. One day, as they lock the gate, one of the soldiers swats me on the nose with a newspaper, then throws it into the cage.

“What’s this?” I say.

“You’re front-page news.” He laughs.

I snatch up the paper and find a picture of a young girl. Her eyes are hollow, her cheeks thin and sucking. She’s wearing ragged, filthy clothes and is desperately skinny. There’s a feral look in her eyes. I’m confused. I don’t understand what this is about. I stand and bang on the gate, demanding that he explain it to me, but he laughs and walks away.

I look at it again, hoping for some clue, and then I read the headline.



CONEY ISLAND TERRORIST APPREHENDED. 17-YEAR-OLD LYRIC WALKER ARRESTED IN TEXAS. PUBLIC CALLS FOR DEATH PENALTY.





The girl in the picture is me. It’s the photo the guards took of me. I look like I’ve lost my mind.