Renegade

by Antony John

  DIAL BOOKS

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  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

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  Text copyright © 2014 by Antony John

  Map illustration © 2014 by Steve Stankiewicz

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  John, Antony.

  Renegade : an Elemental novel / by Antony John.

  pages cm

  Sequel to: Firebrand.

  Summary: Thomas and his friends use their elemental powers as they fight the ultimate battle for their home on Roanoke Island in a dystopian future United States.

  ISBN 978-0-698-17580-8 [1. Fantasy. 2. United States—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.J6216Ren 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013043847

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Version_1

  To Edie

  Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  MAP

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ALSO FROM ANTONY JOHN

  CHAPTER 1

  A mile behind our ship a sleeker, nimbler vessel carved through the ocean. The crew of five stood against the prow rail, faces turned toward us. They couldn’t see us from so far away, but that wasn’t the point. Dare, my uncle, the pirate captain, just wanted us to see him.

  “They’re gaining,” said my friend Alice under her breath. She leaned against a crate for support. “They’re going to catch us. Soon.”

  I wanted to remind her that her element—the ability to heighten her senses—didn’t work as well hundreds of miles from our home on Roanoke Island. None of our elements did. But anyone could see that the other ship was lighter and faster.

  I raised my binoculars. Lowered them again. I didn’t need to see Dare’s colorful arms to remember the man. I only had to think of Griffin, my younger brother. He was resting below deck on a pile of blood-soaked blankets, his lacerated skin and open wounds a shocking reminder of the lengths to which Dare was prepared to go to get his hands on the solution—a mythical cure for the Plague.

  Plague. For sixteen years we’d lived in isolation on Hatteras Island, protected from the rats that had consumed the mainland and the disease that had decimated the population. Waterways, too wide for the rats to cross, had kept us safe. But water was no deterrent for Dare and his men. They’d burned our Hatteras Island colony to the ground, and driven us to neighboring Roanoke Island. When they’d seized that island by force as well, we’d taken to the ocean in search of a new home.

  We’d found it too: a self-sufficient colony operating in the remains of Fort Sumter, near Charleston. I’d dared to dream that the worst was behind us. But it had only taken a few days to realize that this new colony harbored secrets too. Once again we’d escaped, but not before Griffin had been bitten by rats; his friend Nyla, as well. We wouldn’t know for another day if they’d contracted Plague, but if they had, they’d be dead before the end of the week.

  “Thomas.” My older brother, Ananias, tapped my shoulder. “If we want to go faster, we need to get more out of the sails.”

  I looked at the massive pieces of dirty white canvas already pulled taut by the wind. “How?”

  He swept his right arm through the air, indicating the other elementals on deck. They were staring at the approaching ship too, and on their faces they wore the same expressions of defeat I felt on mine.

  “We need more,” he said.

  “More what?”

  “Wind. Helpful currents—”

  “Our elements don’t work well out here,” I reminded him.

  “Neither does my shoulder.” He pointed to the sling over his left arm, and the patch of dried blood where he’d been shot the previous evening. He’d always appeared strong to me—trusted by our Guardians, and confident in his ability to conjure fire—but now his voice carried a hint of desperation. “Our elements are all we have.”

  Before I could reply, Dennis approached us. At nine, he was the youngest member of the colony. Physically, he was doing better than the rest of us, but the events of the past couple weeks had taken a heavy toll. Gone was the sheepish smile, the trust in our Guardians, and the unshakable optimism, replaced by a cold, neutral expression that I couldn’t read at all.

  “Let’s combine,” he told me. “We can do more if we join our elements.”

  Until recently, I hadn’t even known that I possessed an element. Everyone else my age hadn’t realized it either. The Guardians had kept us in the dark, afraid that if I tried to use it, I’d hurt someone—maybe even a Guardian. Now I took Dennis’s hand and allowed my energy to flow, giving him extra power, boosting his element. He began to shape the air around us. A gentle breeze circled our legs and rose up, gathering force, until he unleashed it on the sails.

  The sailcloth strained but didn’t tear. The masts creaked but didn’t break. The ship lifted slightly in the water, and as the sound of waves crashing against the hull grew louder, I knew we were moving faster.

  Around us, everyone was still. No one spoke. They didn’t want to distract us. But with each passing moment it was harder to stay focused. Staring at the endless expanse of ocean before us, I wondered where we were going. Would Griffin still be alive when we next made landfall? How would any of us survive when we already knew there was no food and water on board?

  “Keep going.” Dennis’s voice was small, imploring. “Please.”

  I refocused, and the wind picked up again. But my energy was waning. During our escape from Sumter, I’d leaped from the fort into shallow water and sliced open my chest. Now, as my heart beat faster, pain flared through me. I tried not to let it show, but holding it inside just made me angry.

  “This is useless!” I shouted. I pulled away from Denn
is and broke the connection. “We can’t keep this up forever. We’re just delaying things, that’s all.”

  “What other choice do we have?” demanded Ananias.

  I had no answer for that. As our ship returned to a slower pace, I think that we were all wondering the same thing: What hideous things would Dare do when he captured us?

  I turned to Nyla’s brother, Jerren. Jerren was injured too—a bullet wound on his right forearm—but he was a Sumter native, which meant he knew about the vessel that was pursuing us. “Tell us about that ship,” I said.

  He exchanged a glance with Alice. They’d become almost inseparable during our short time on Sumter, and I got the feeling he was anxious not to step out of line now that he was among relative strangers. Alice responded with a brief nod.

  “It’s a reconnaissance ship, mostly,” he said. “Short-range missions. Good for intercepting slower vessels too.”

  “Intercepting?”

  “Capturing,” he clarified. He was sweating, and his dark skin had an almost reflective sheen. “Without your elements, we won’t outrun it.”

  “Maybe we don’t have to. As long as we keep moving, we don’t have to outrun Dare. He can’t board a moving ship. What if we conserve our elements until they get closer?”

  “Then what?” asked Dennis. He kept his hand outstretched, urging me to combine again.

  “Then we make sure that every time they try to pull alongside us, their ride gets a little more bumpy—extra wind, turbulent water.”

  Ananias was first to nod in agreement. Then Alice. Dennis too. My father, eyes still fixed on the trailing ship, gave a murmur of consent. Under different circumstances, I’d have been amazed to see us unified. But there was one omission: Jerren. And his opinion was the most vital of all.

  “What is it?” I asked him.

  Jerren hesitated, as if he were weighing up how much to tell us.

  “Give me the binoculars, Thomas,” my father said.

  I eased the cord over my head and handed them to him. Alice was already following his eyes, honing in on whatever it was he thought he was seeing. I kept my attention on Jerren, though. “Is there something we should—”

  Alice inhaled sharply. I spun around as a puff of smoke rose from the fast-advancing ship, followed by a noise like a clap of thunder. There was a moment of stunned silence, and Father yelled, “Get down!”

  I shouldn’t have hesitated. Shouldn’t have watched that plume of smoke, and wondered what it meant.

  As I dove for the deck, the explosion threw me several yards.

  CHAPTER 2

  I slammed into the deck, shoulder first. Ears ringing, head pounding, I fought to catch my breath. Beneath me, the ship slowly righted, though waves continued to crash against the hull.

  “What was that?” yelled Ananias.

  Jerren pulled himself off the deck. “That’s Dare’s way of telling us to stop and surrender.”

  “He could’ve hit us,” added Alice.

  “Could’ve, but didn’t. It was a warning shot, that’s all.”

  “That’s all?” repeated Ananias.

  Jerren touched his wounded arm gingerly. “I used to hear them saying they had weapons that could sink another ship instantly. I don’t think it’s an accident the explosion happened thirty yards away. A full-on hit would’ve blown us apart.”

  Dennis shook his head like he was woozy. Alice lumbered toward the stern rail to see what Dare was planning next. My father helped me to stand.

  “Dare won’t destroy us,” said Ananias. “He wants the solution, right?”

  “He can sink this ship without hitting it,” Father explained.

  Jerren nodded. “A close-range explosion might crack the hull so we take on water. When everyone abandons ship, Dare will stick around to rescue the solution from the wreckage . . . but only the solution. The rest of us will drown.”

  “You seem to know a lot about Dare’s plans,” shouted Ananias, grimacing from the pain in his shoulder.

  “Do you think I’m wrong? I’ve seen what evil people are willing to do to get what they want. My parents were killed by the man they trusted most of all. So you’d better believe it: If Dare wants Griffin, he’ll do whatever it takes to get him.”

  Ananias didn’t reply, but the way he bowed his head looked a lot like surrender. “Then let’s reef the sails,” he said. “We have to show Dare we’re—”

  “Down!” Alice shouted.

  The word was barely out of her mouth when another explosion turned the surface of the ocean inside out. I was tossed to the deck. Water poured over us in a deluge, while a wall-like wave tipped the boat sharply to one side. I slid across the wet deck and came to an abrupt stop against the deck railing.

  “The sails,” Alice yelled. “Dare has to see we’re giving in.”

  Dennis began working the mainsheet winches with Jerren. They reined in the massive ropes that raised the sails. I crawled to the next winch, where Alice was already turning the handle.

  “If we let Dare board this ship, we’re as good as dead,” I muttered.

  The muscles in her upper arms strained as she turned the winch. “Who said anything about letting him on board?”

  “What about the sails, Alice? We’re surrendering.”

  “No, we’re not.” As the sails tucked away, she locked off the winch. “We’re saying don’t blow us up. We’re saying come over here and let’s have a fair fight.”

  “Fair fight? They have weapons that can sink us.”

  “And we have elements.”

  “Not here we don’t. We’re too far from Roanoke Island for them to work properly. Even when they do work, they’re only good for a moment, and then we lose control.”

  I waited for Alice to fight back, to tell me I was wrong or unreasonable. It wasn’t in her nature to back down. But this time, she swallowed whatever she was going to say. “So what do you want us to do, Thom?”

  “I don’t know. I just know I can’t let them take Griffin. Dare’s pirates died trying to capture him on Roanoke Island. The Sumter chief was so sure Griffin’s blood could cure Plague, he almost killed him. The next time Dare comes face-to-face with my brother, Griffin’s dead, I’m sure of it. And I won’t let that happen.”

  “Nor will I,” she said gently.

  Alice cast an eye around the ship and took in the flurry of activity. Her mother, Tarn, tall and lithe like Alice, staggered on deck. She’d been below when the explosions occurred and must have fallen. A cut above her right eye was bleeding freely. She wiped at it with the back of her hand, smearing blood across her face. It didn’t hold her back, though. She began helping my father with the sails.

  Everyone was working as a team, but what good was that now?

  Alice puffed out her cheeks. “What if we hide in the secret passageway below deck? The one that goes from the captain’s cabin. Dare hid out there for days after we left Roanoke. He was a stowaway, and we never even knew it.”

  “Because we didn’t know the passage existed. But Dare sure knows about it. And even if we’re not found straightaway, we’ll have nothing to eat and drink. There are no supplies left on this ship, remember?”

  “What do you want to do, then?” she snapped. “All I hear is, there’s no food and the ship’s too slow and—” She broke off suddenly, eyes wide open. “Wait. You’re right!”

  “About what?”

  She didn’t answer, but spun around and shouted to Jerren: “How much food is there on the Sumter ship?”

  He shrugged. “They normally keep about a week’s worth. Why?”

  Alice turned back to me. “We need to switch ships.”

  I figured I’d misheard her. “What?”

  “Think about it. If we switch ships, we can go faster than them. We’ll have supplies, and weapons. They’ll have to give up the chase. We just
need the right bait to lure them on board.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Griffin.”

  “No way! They’ll capture him.”

  “Not if he’s not here,” replied Alice cryptically. She pointed to the ship closing in on us. “That’s a smaller vessel than this one, and the deck is lower. They’ll be able to see us from a distance, but when they get close, they won’t have a clear view of our deck. So here’s what we do: As they approach, we make sure they can see us . . . all of us. Then we disembark on the blind side as they get ready to climb aboard. When they don’t find us on deck they’ll figure we’re hiding below. While they’re searching for us, we swim around the bow and claim the other ship.”

  I watched the Sumter ship. Dare could attack at any moment. He wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t careless. He was a cold-blooded killer; anyone who stood in his way was brushed aside. Alice knew that as well as anyone.

  “There’s no way it’ll happen like that,” I told her. “It’d take a miracle.”

  “At this point, miracles might be all that’s left.”

  “In case you’ve forgotten, Griffin’s not the only injured person on this ship. How are Ananias and Jerren going to swim with gunshot wounds?”

  “I can make it,” said Jerren, joining us.

  “Taking Alice’s side, huh?” I huffed. “No surprise there.”

  Jerren flicked sweat from his forehead. “This isn’t about sides. Dare wants Griffin, and the other men want revenge. We ruined their colony. Released Plague-ridden rats. They’re not interested in taking prisoners. They want the solution, and they’ll take Griffin straight back to Sumter. The rest of us will die here.”

  “Forget it,” my father said, joining us. He must have been listening. “We’ll surrender. Appeal to their conscience. It’s the only way.”

  Alice snorted. “Dare kidnapped you and left you in a ship’s hold to die. The Sumter colonists locked you in a cell. How did appealing to everyone’s conscience work for you then?”

  A few weeks before, Father would have had the final say. He and the other Guardians would have gathered in private, talked it out, and told us their decision. But now he and Tarn were the only Guardians above deck, and it was clear that neither of them had an alternative plan to offer.