The Extinction Trials(96)

It reminded him of the head of a burning building—growing hotter, taking more of the air, closing in.

He should have said more to Maya. He should have said what he really felt, told her what she meant to him. If this was the end, that would be his greatest regret.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he was startled when his feet sank into the soft bed of silt.

He wanted to throw his head back and laugh with joy, he was so happy, but he clamped tight on the oxygen tank. How much had he used during the descent? There was no way to know without the suit.

He needed to take stock of his surroundings. He let the oxygen tank drop beside him, and he spun around, searching.

Visibility was minimal, but in the short distance he could make out with the naked eye, he didn’t see anything that might have been Garden Station. Or trees. Or the ruins of a city. He seemed to be in something quite like a desert on the floor of the sea.

He released one of the weights and paused to see if he floated upward. He kept untying them until there was a slight lift, one he could manage easily by hanging on to the tank resting beside him. He would have to drag it, and having the other weight gone would help.

He reached into his pocket and drew out the flashlight from the helicopter’s emergency kit. Now was another moment of truth. He clicked it on and was relieved when it shone into the murky darkness, a beam carving into the abyss.

Again, he spun, but there was no sign of Maya. They had entered the water at about the same time and roughly in the same spot, but Owen wasn’t worried. Not yet, anyway. He had expected himself to sink faster than her.

He waited, shining the flashlight back and forth, the beam like that of a lighthouse on the ocean floor.

He smiled when he saw Maya’s light lance out at his. He dragged the tank across the ocean floor, his feet sinking with each step. The effort was taxing, especially after the run from The Colony through the woods, but he trudged forward, knowing there were no seconds he could waste.

When he reached her, Owen could tell Maya was smiling around the mouthpiece. There were lines at the edges of her eyes, and her lips were curled beyond the nozzle.

He couldn’t take the line from his mouth, so he walked closer to her, leaned in, and pressed his forehead to hers. She pressed back. It wasn’t a kiss. Or a hug. But it was sort of perfect for this moment, on the bottom of the sea in a ruined world, as if they were the only two people left, sharing a love that needed no words and had a language all its own.

When he released the gesture, she stared at him, and he stared at her, and he knew precisely what she was thinking: Let’s finish this—together, right now.

He shined the light all the way around them. He saw only murky darkness, and no clear path to follow. But Owen had been in this situation with Maya before. And they had always found their way. Now they just had to do it again, one last time.





Chapter Seventy-Six





Outside the boat, Cara heard gunfire and missiles detonating. A crash came soon after—what she thought was a fallen helicopter crashing into the ship’s deck. She heard a giant splash in the sea, perhaps one or more containers spilling from the stacks.

The firing grew faster then, the explosions closer together. The ship shook, and she wound her way to the ship’s engine and crouched down.





The ocean floor was a wilderness—barren, dark, and unending. Maya and Owen marched across it, doing the only thing they could: shining their lights left and right and putting one foot in front of the other. Maya felt almost like an explorer in an alien world.

She wasn’t sure how long they had walked, but with each step, she knew their oxygen was depleting. There wasn’t a way to get more. They would either find shelter, or it would all end here.

Up ahead, her flashlight raked over a lump in the sea—a very human-sized lump. She reached over, nudged Owen, and focused the beam of her flashlight on it.

He stopped and stared at it a moment, and then he marched to the small protrusion in the seabed and bent and brushed the mud and sediment away.

It was a person, and they were wearing a diving suit. Owen methodically uncovered the torso and helmet, and Maya shined her light through the glass faceplate, at the dead man’s face. What stopped her cold was the small bit of shirt she could see: it was a black ribbed sweater, the same kind she had been given when she woke up in Station 17.

Owen focused on the man’s suit and seemed to conclude that his oxygen had depleted. That was an unnerving thought to Maya. In fact, seeing the dead man was, in a way, the sum of her fears brought to life. It told her that they weren’t the first to seek out Garden Station down here. And at least one person had died searching. Was there actually nothing down here?

She would have given anything to be able to talk to Owen then, to at least voice her fears. He glanced up at her, and in his eyes, she saw her own thoughts reflected: There’s nothing to do but keep going.

And so, they did, trekking across the seafloor, searching. They came across another body lying in the sediment. This one was wearing a slightly different kind of diving suit—more form-fitting with large goggles. Maya wondered if this individual was from either The Union or The Alliance.

They marched on, Maya’s fear growing now. Her legs were tiring too.

Up ahead, the beam of her flashlight raked over a large dark object perhaps a little taller than she was. It was oblong, and it was connected to an even larger object, which towered at least four times her height.