To Best the Boys(57)

I shiver. It sounds like they found whichever boys were attempting to reach the island.





18

The sirens’ screams die down eventually, and Lute and I sit like that for the rest of the short night. Me beside him, his hand tucked around mine, listening for other hauntings and keeping watch on the camp below.

I’m not aware I’ve dozed off against him until I jolt awake in a clammy sweat from a memory playing out like a dream. Vincent had been studying a live virus that’d been causing strange behavior and death in the local cattle population. I’d been focused on the trials Da and I had created for the lung-fluid antibiotic.

“Here, Rhen, check this out.” Vincent had lifted a needle in gloved hands and waved me forward to peer into his scope where he injected some of the live virus into a dish of clean cow blood. Within seconds, the virus began attacking and dissolving the membranes of the healthy cells.

I glanced up and stared at him. It was incredible. Awful, yes, but incredible how such a small organism could act like an army and go to war against a healthy host.

He grinned, and his blond bangs slipped across his cheek. “We should test it against your antibiotics.”

I laughed and shook my head. “You know it wouldn’t work. And your father is probably wondering where you are by now.”

He leaned in and winked. “My father is chair of parliament. He couldn’t care less where I am right now as long as you and I are increasing my education.”

I blink and feel the memory bring up a small ache that feels unfair after Vincent’s behavior last night. I may never have been in love with him, but I did love the camaraderie we had. Or what I’d thought we’d had.

Lute shifts beside me. “You all right?”

“I am.” I slip my arms around my chest because I don’t want to talk about it, and as if sensing my mood, Lute simply tightens his arm around my back and goes silent. Until the memory ekes away and the sun slides up the eastern horizon, and morning dawns with her brilliant birdsong.

The moment we stand my muscles scream in fifty different places. Lute’s, too, by his expression. He grabs my hat and plants it back on my head along with a quick, shy kiss on the side of my forehead before he steps away and we hurriedly return to camp lest they come looking for us. I rouse Seleni, and Lute jabs Beryll and Sam. “Wind’s in our favor,” he murmurs to Sam. “But there’s gonna be a mean riptide.”

Sam jumps up, nods, and turns around to relieve himself. “We’ll have to work the sails.”

I cringe and avert my eyes—tapping the tent before I peek inside. “Mr. King, we’re—”

I go still.

Germaine, Rubin, and Vincent are gone.

What the? Their bedrolls weren’t even slept in.

“Um . . .” I yank the tent flap wide and scan the hillside. “We have a problem. The Uppers are gone.” I look at Lute. How did they leave without us noticing?

“Fools,” Sam snarls. “How long ago?”

“Long enough apparently.” Seleni is pointing halfway down the steep mountainside—where the three Uppers are scrambling for the lake—to a bank just beside a chain of willow trees where a grouping of boats are moored. Four boys are already there struggling to push one into the water. Apparently not everyone from the other camp attempted to cross last night.

“Kids can’t even set a proper mast.” Sam ties his pants and swings around to look at us. The next second he launches down the hillside after them.

We grab our water bags and scramble to follow him—and it doesn’t take long to realize the distance down the mountain is much farther than it looks. We hurtle and slip our way down the steep, grassy incline, and twelve minutes later we are sweating and heaving. By the time we’ve almost closed in on the Uppers, they’ve reached the vessels. They climb in and out of one, then another, before Germaine looks up and seems to realize we’re just behind them.

“Move!” he yells, and directs the boys to a third boat. Within seconds they’ve pushed it off the shore and splashed through the water to climb in. Rubin turns around and salutes us with a smirk plastered clear as day on his face.

“You know, I’m really starting to hate them,” Beryll says.

We make it ten more paces when a small explosive sound reaches our ears and a puff of smoke goes up from one of the boats they’d climbed in first, then left on the sand. A spark of flames surges up and catches the sails, and thirty seconds later the thing is engulfed. They must’ve used the coals from last night.

Seleni has just pointed to the remaining two boats when a cry rings out, and we look over to find a group of three boys from the other camp racing down behind us.

Beryll shoves ankle deep in the water and starts pressing his weight against the stern.

“It’s no good, mate. Someone got to it.” Lute indicates the gush of water pouring into the hull, then joins Sam and me in putting our weight against the other boat.

“Hate to interrupt, but either you hand it over or we’ll hurt your friend,” a voice calls. An accompanying screech from Seleni cracks the air.

We spin around to see one of the three boys pinning Seleni to his chest from behind, while in his other sleeve-covered hand, he holds bloodberries toward her cheek and mouth.

“Whoa. Come on, guys,” Sam says. “Let the kid go. We can all take the boat.”