I scramble across the sand, but Zephyr is way too fast. He grabs a fistful of hair and pulls me to my feet.
I stumble for a moment, then whirl around, and in one motion, pull his shirt over his head and slam his face down into my knee. There is a flush of warm blood, and he groans as he staggers back.
My feet skid across the sand. I grab my dagger, and then I am sprinting away. I can hear Zephyr behind me, like he is not hurt at all. Like he is a machine.
I jump up on the boardwalk and turn left. The town looks safe enough, but I am running blind. I bang on the door of a house. It is reinforced with a metal cage.
“Let me in!” I scream. “Someone help me!”
No one comes, no one ever comes. I huddle down in the shadow of an old car. A man with a child raises a homemade knife in my direction. “Scram, girl,” he hisses. “Get out of here or I’ll gut you like a fish.”
I turn and run. The sky is covered in clouds. Zephyr slams into me, clawing for my dagger.
His nails rip at the skin on my cheeks and I scream, writhing beneath him. But he is strong. Determined. Deadly. I lock my legs around his neck, slam him down sideways into the concrete; sink my fist into his face. “Zephyr, please!” I yell, as I leap up and stagger away from him, my whole body trembling. “What are you doing? It’s me, Meadow!”
That only makes it worse. He lunges for me. I twist to the side and leap at him. My fingers close over his throat. I slam my head into his. The world starts to spin. Zephyr falls, crushing me. The air rushes from my lungs and soon I am gasping.
In the distance, I can hear the train rumbling, barreling toward us.
We both freeze, and it’s as if he already knows my next move. He sits up, pulling me with him. I choke down a breath before he slams me back down, grinding me into the pavement.
I squeeze his chest with my thighs, until he can’t breathe either. Then I stab him. When he growls and rolls away, I scramble up and run, heading for the tracks.
Mind over body. Mind over body. The sound of my father’s voice makes me strong and focused. I will not die like my mother. I will not leave my family to face this world without me.
But then I look back at Zephyr, at the horrible expression on his face, like he hates me, wants me dead, wants to see my blood splatter the concrete as my head explodes. And he’s still coming. Again.
The train keeps coming. I can see the trail of smoke rising from its back. I push myself harder. Zephyr is right at my heels. I stretch my arms wide. I take a deep breath.
And jump.
I slam into the carriage. I cling to a metal rung as my feet dangle above the ground.
“Do not resist!” Zephyr screams. The train takes a curve, and my body swings to the left. I see Zephyr, clinging to the next train car.
He pulls a knife from his waistband and lets it fly, the blade spinning at the perfect angle to sink itself handle-deep into my neck. I drop quickly to a lower rung and the knife barely misses me. The train keeps moving, racing down the tracks faster than I remember. The ground blurs.
I start to climb, one hand over the other, heading for the roof of the train. But Zephyr knows where I am going. I reach the top seconds before he does, and start running.
The wind slaps me in the face. I crouch low and keep moving, and when my car ends, and a dark gap stares up at me between it and the next one, I close my eyes and leap. My knees slam into the metal roof of the next car and I scramble to my feet again.
I don’t know how many times I leap from one train car to the next, roll to my feet, and start running again.
The train rumbles over a bridge. I can see the waves far below. The wind is angry, blowing my hair back from my face, stinging my bloody knees.
I turn to see Zephyr leap onto my car. He rolls over once in a fluid motion, and then rises to his feet.
He is fire. Furious.
I have seconds to jump.
I turn around and launch my dagger. The blade spins wildly but with a menacing ring that brings a smile to my lips. He does not scream as it sinks into his thigh. I turn and jump, fly away from the train. It soars past above me, carting Zephyr off to the other side of the bridge. He is too late, and I am free.
We can only survive. We do not need anyone else. The world lives off hate.
And that is exactly what I feel for Zephyr James.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER 32
ZEPHYR
“Kill.
Destroy.
No escaping.
No turning back.
This is what we must do to survive.
Purge the Earth.
This is the Murder Complex.”
The voice is too loud. Like the sound of the train that still rumbles beneath my feet, and I don’t know how I got here, don’t know what I’m doing. I scream for help. Where is Meadow? I want to launch myself from the train. That would be better. Anything is better.
I want to die.
My body is not my own. My mind is not my own.
I’m being controlled, like a machine. Remember your training. Remember that what you are doing is for the greater good.
Training? What training? I’ve never been trained in anything other than ignoring Talan.
Who is Talan? I think I see a girl’s face in my mind, but she slips away before I can grab her.
I am perfectly balanced on the top of the train, even in the wind. I’m good at this. Really good.
Find your target, and end it. That is the job, and you must do it well.
That’s what I’m going to do.
When I close my fingers around her disgusting throat, I won’t leave until the warmth rushes from her body. Until she’s cold. Gone. Only then will my mission be complete. Only then will I have done my duty.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER 33
MEADOW
This will be the first time I have hijacked a boat.
I will hold a blade to a man’s throat and see the fear in his eyes. Maybe make him jump overboard, then speed off and leave him to drown.
My father has trained me and this world has made a monster of me.
So when the yacht floats past me, a black shadow as silent as the night, I do not even think. I reach for the dinghy that floats behind it.
I need to rest. I need to catch my breath. I need to heal.
I imagine Zephyr stretching bloodied hands from the deep. Grabbing me. Pulling me under the surface of the waves so that I can no longer breathe, so that soon, I am with my mother.
I swing myself into the dinghy. I peel off my shirt and start to rip at the seams, until I have a few strips to fasten around my bleeding knees. I take a deep breath and remind myself that soon I will return to Peri. I will never be so stupid again. I will never trust anyone but myself or my family.
I lie back and catch my breath. I fight the tears, because crying will mean that Zephyr has won. Crying will mean that I actually care. I should have buried my dagger in his heart.
Gone. My dagger is gone.
I sleep.
Slowly, I haul myself along the line that connects the dinghy to the boat. My strength comes from inside, from a place I keep locked away until I need it most, just like my father taught me.
I haul myself onboard the yacht. It is quiet and still dark out. The waves lap gently against the hull.
Fire spreads through my muscles as I rise to a crouch and look around the yacht. It is two stories, stark white and smells of bleach, as if it has been freshly scrubbed. This boat is nothing like mine. No one should be allowed to own something this nice.
And that’s when I see it. The large eye painted on the side of the first-story cabin.
I must be on the far side of the Shallow
s.
I hear voices coming from the second story, the clinking of glass. Laughter. Everything is so peaceful. I feel as if I have been dumped into another world.
I should not be here. I should turn around and dive back into the waves. But despite myself, I’m curious. And I need a place to hide.
Slow and silent, I tiptoe up the stairs. My heart is beating so fast I can feel it pound in my ears. I swallow the lump in my throat and slide up against a porthole.
The Commander of the Initiative sits just a few feet away, with his back to me.
I try not to gasp. I know it is him. I would recognize him anywhere.
So many nights I have dreamt about taking a sharpened arrow and letting it fly through his eye socket. Then I would claw out his brains with my fingernails and feed the rest of him to the fish.
I watch him relaxing in a plush leather armchair, a glass of some bubbling liquid clutched in his pale fingers. Initiative officers surround him, and they are laughing. Celebrating. But celebrating what?
I take a step closer, to get a better look. I think they are watching a movie. I have never seen one before. My mother said they were beautiful, that they took you to other worlds. But now, as I watch people run around on the screen, slinking through the darkness to fight each other with knives and metal poles, I think this is not a world I would want to go to. Because I already live in it.
The officers cheer. I look from them to the screen, then back again. Just in time to see a bloody man with brown hair stagger across the screen. His face is pale. His arm is mangled and dripping blood like a faucet.
It is Zephyr.
I almost scream, almost stumble back. Because the Commander and his men are not watching a movie.
They are watching something real on a live feed.
Suddenly the screen goes black.
“What happened?” The Commander motions to one of his men. “Fix it. Now!”
The screen stays black.
They radio something in. I do not hear the answer, but I hear the soldier address the Commander.
“Headquarters is having the same issue. It seems like all the cameras are down, sir.”
I stumble away. I have heard enough.
I am vaguely aware of the tears that blur my vision as I creep down the stairs. I huddle underneath them, behind massive wooden crates. I fall on my side and hold my knees to my chest. I do not want to think about the reasons for the killing, for the pain, the loss, the destruction.
But I know what I saw. I think about my mother, about the way her face would twist and she would run her fingers through her hair, anxious, as we listened to the Initiative’s announcements on the radio. As soon as they spoke of the murders, she’d switch the volume off. She’d scoop up her radio and take it down to her office, leaving my mind screaming with questions I never had the courage to ask her.
Is this what they were doing when she was murdered? Watching it play out from the safety of this very yacht? Doing nothing to help her. Laughing and partying and wagering. Placing their bets on how fast she would go, on whether or not she would scream or cry.
I hold my hand over my mouth so I don’t vomit.
I peer out between the crates, toward land. I wonder vaguely where Zephyr is, if he is still out there, hunting me. Or if the world took pity on me and let him die. He looked pretty bad.
The yacht is closing in on land now. I can just see the Initiative’s marina up ahead, with its cluster of massive, seafaring beasts.
“Go, Meadow,” I whisper.
It is the creaking of the door overhead that gets me moving, the footsteps on the stairs. They will find me, and know what I saw. Kill me. Slit my throat and dump my body overboard.
I wonder if Peri will cry like I cried when I discovered my mother was dead.
I bite down on the inside of my cheek, forcing the blood to run over my tongue. The taste spikes fear back into my soul. There are crates here. There are places to hide. I squeeze myself toward the back of the space, find a crate with rusting nails.
The voices overhead are loud enough that I think I am not heard.
I pry the heavy lid off and slip inside.
My knees are squished up against my nose and my neck feels like it is about to snap in half. There is hardly any room to breathe. And oh, it is so hot in here.
Steaming hot. Sharp objects poke and prod me. I sniff, and realize I reek. But it is not me. My hair is still wet, and I smell like saltwater. The scent surrounding me is so strong it is making my head spin. I let my hands slide from my cramped calves.
A sticky substance clings to my fingers.
I realize what I am sitting in.
Blood.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER 34
ZEPHYR
When I was a boy, I got lost. I remember seeing my mom’s face smiling down at me. I turned away for one second. When I looked back she was gone.
I cried like a girl. I got shoved and rocked by the crowd. I felt like I was drowning in a sea of people, and no matter where I turned, I only sunk deeper. That’s when the Leech found me.
All I can remember is her voice. The voice was soothing, like a breeze on a cool spring night.
“I’m lost,” I choked out through my tears.
She got down on one knee. I think she might have smiled, and wiped a tear from my cheek. “All you had to do was ask for help,” she cooed.
I told her my mom taught me never to speak to strangers.
The memory isn’t fully tangible, so it’s sort of like trying to hold water in my hands. I can remember the way her Catalogue Number wrinkled up, though. I never forget a number.
“I am not a stranger, Zephyr.” She smiled. I hadn’t told her my name. “The Initiative knows you. Perhaps better than you will ever know yourself.” She took me by the hand and towed me along with her. I followed in silence.
I don’t remember what happened next. My past is all muddled.
I knew without a doubt that she could be trusted.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER 35
MEADOW
I have to get out. I can’t breathe. I am trapped. If I leave I will die. If I stay I will die. I reach up and slide the lid of the crate sideways, just enough so I can breathe. Then I lift my head, just the slightest bit, and get a look outside. A pair of feet is stomping toward me across the deck.
“This one, here,” a man’s voice says as I duck back down, and I am certain that they’ve caught me. I hear what I assume to be his knuckles rapping on the lid of my crate. This is it. In seconds I will be dead.
The man starts to lift the lid, and for a moment I am staring at the face of an Initiative worker. But he doesn’t notice me. He turns away just before I move, just before I twist his neck until it snaps.
“Don’t open it, you asshole!” Another voice calls out. “It’s full of Pins. That one goes to the warehouse.” The lid slides back over me, and I am plunged back into darkness. “Nail it shut. I swear this hardware is useless.”
A hammer pounds two nails into the wood over my head.
Two nails, locking me in place, alone in a bloody crate.
But I am not alone. I am sitting on old Pins.
The only place this crate will end up is in an Initiative building.
I hear the whining of something loud overhead. I test the lid of the crate, but the nails hold. It will not budge. My heart sinks. There will be no running.
I hear groaning, and then I am moving, with the sticky Pins pressing against my shorts and my legs. I close my eyes and try to think of the ocean, of Peri, of my mother.
Despite everything my father taught me, I am going to end up just like my mother.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT F
OR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
CHAPTER 36
ZEPHYR
I see Meadow’s face. Her soft skin shredded because of me. Her silver hair matted, covered in blood, and it’s my fault.
I don’t want to hurt her. I never do.
But I fluxing have to. I have to do exactly what the woman says. I trust her. She saved me once. She could do it again.
As I run, I pass others who are the same as me. I wonder if they can hear the screaming in their heads, too. We look into one anothers’ eyes for a fleeting second as we pass on the streets, and are reminded of our mission.
I see Meadow’s face again. Skitz, it fills me with a rage so deep that the only thing I can do is destroy everyone in my path.
The woman, Lark, tells me to stop. “Abort mission, Patient Zero. Abort.”
She is angry. She’s trying to pull out of my mind but I hang on with everything I have. It’s all I have left.
Meadow made me look like an idiot. She’s ruined my mission. Her existence still threatens the Initiative.
If I can’t find her, then others will pay in her place.
A man steps in front of me. “Are you okay, son? You’re bleeding everywhere.”
I don’t answer. I leap for his chest. I still have Meadow’s dagger, so I use it. Then I slam into him. I hear his head hit against the pavement with a satisfying crack, and I smile.
Lark is furious. It hurts me to disappoint her, to deviate from my mission and take things into my own hands.
“Abort mission. Abort!”
But this time, I don’t want to listen to her.
My mom said I was strong enough.
And I am.
I snap a young woman’s neck and sprint for the next hopeless person within my reach.
The Murder Complex Page 10
