by Grayson Crew
Fin unclips himself before undoing my straps. We drop out onto the tall grass. After a short walk we’re at a beach village of wooden huts with thatched roofs. It’s like a clean, calm version of the camp.
Fin walks me down a main path through the center toward a hut on the outskirts. People are coming and going with baskets of food.
“Don’t mind if they stare,” says Fin. “It’s been a while since we’ve allowed a newcomer. Ana was the last one.”
We get to the furthest hut, Fin opens the door with a grand gesture. “I radioed in, asked them to squeeze another sleeping mat in here. I know it’s tight already, but there’re no free huts right now. We’re going to be roomies, bro!
I’m not smiling, but his enthusiasm almost makes me want to. Almost. But smiling feels wrong. Like a betrayal.
“Showers out back, but don’t worry, this one’s got its own toilet inside. Sweet right?”
I nod.
He grips my shoulder. “I’m chatty in case you didn’t notice. I’m thinking you’re not. I guess that makes us the perfect match.”
Inside there’s a couple sleeping mats, but these aren’t like the ones in the camp. These are soft and clean, with sheets and pillows.
“I hope you don’t snore. I hate snoring.”
“I don’t snore.”
“Then we’re cool. So, I know Captain’s waiting for you—we radioed in and gave him the lowdown—but you can shower up and eat some grub first. I was thinking he could wait until tomorrow, but with all that just went down on Dovehaven and from what that girl said you could do, Captain wants to talk with you before the day end. Here’s a towel for the shower.”
“What did Jael say I could do?”
He pauses. “She said . . . well first I gotta tell you that she was pretty weird. Said something about knowing who I was—she knew my name before I told her.”
“The Whispers told her,” I reply, “She’s still listening.”
“Well . . . she said the same thing about you and that you breathed the water in the fountain, and that we couldn’t let you die. That we had to find you before anyone else did. When I radioed Captain, he said he knew her and that he knew you. So I grabbed the only pilot we had on our side and went after you.”
“Does any of this make sense to you?”
“Enough for me know that Captain trusts you, so that means I trust you too. Plus . . . I need friends.” He smacks my shoulder, then points me to the shower.
I rinse off, change into fresh clothes Fin lends me and eat a quick bowl of chicken and rice. Then, we’re on our way to the Captain.
“When’s the last time you slept?” Fin asks.
“I don’t know.”
We approach the edge of the camp and come to a small path that cuts through the brush and foliage.
“You seem to know a lot about Dovehaven.”
“A little bit. All this mess comes down to a fountain or a pool somewhere deep in the island. That’s the haven.”
“Why is it called a haven?”
The havens used to be safe places. Paradise.”
“What changed?”
“The Whispers came in and wiped out everyone. Not sure why. Captain said I wasn’t to go any further. Follow the path, and he’ll be waiting for you. If you’re in the ocean, you’ve gone too far. Until then, just stay on the path. I’ll see you back at the hut.”
And that’s that. I stop to take a breath. Take in everything around me. The palms and ferns in the underbrush. Pines and other trees raising up to a canopy that’s drips water on me every few steps.
I can smell the salt in the air, the sweet-smelling flowers in bloom, rotting fruit, and seaweed from the high tides. Fin said this Captain guy knows me. Who knows.
I think about running. Running through the brush and into the jungle. But I’m sick of running. For better or worse, I have to meet this guy. I’ll pray for better.
I make my way until the brush opens to a sun setting behind glassy waves. Standing in the sand is a man in a dark uniform and bright, white sneakers. He turns to face me.
Hiro of the Havens
“West,” he says. At first I think it’s a Whisper, but it’s him. His voice.
“Sir,” I say before realizing I’m not walking anymore. First is a wave of hope, because he’s here, my guardian. But then something else comes up.
I don’t think of him, I think of the Whispers. I’m boiling inside. He says something else, but I don’t even know what it is.
My face is hot, my fists are clenched. This makes no sense. I should feel happy, but I’m boiling with rage, out of nowhere, like some locked room in my heart just got unlocked, releasing a horde of monsters into my mind.
I look at him and I see my family. I see all the death that came from listening to Hiro’s voice. Whisper or not, it was his voice.
If I hadn’t made everyone climb that ladder, if I hadn’t let Cliff go alone to search the house, if I hadn’t let Violin out of my sight, if I hadn’t put Kettle on that boat, if I hadn’t listened to anyone, but especially not to Hiro, they might all be alive.
I killed them all and Hiro helped me do it. A bomb explodes inside me.
I charge at him and swing for his face, but he dodges. I’m screaming and swing again. Miss. There’s a piece of driftwood. I pick it up and charge him like a battering ram screaming how much I hate him. That he’s a murderer. He killed everyone. He’s to blame. I hate him. I want him to die.
He’s fast. Coming behind me he pins my arms and shoves me into the sand. I hear others running in from the bush. I try to see, but Hiro is too strong.
“No.” he says to someone. “Go back to the base. Now.”
“Captain, he’s infected, you know that!”
“Just do what I say.”
I hear their footsteps fade.
“West,” Mr. Sheldon says in a low voice. But it just ticks me off more. That voice. The one that calmed me, saved me, guided me. That same voice guided me to every choice that killed my family, my friends.
“You’re a killer!” I scream at him. “You’re a bloody killer!” I wrestle an arm loose and elbow him in the jaw. With a kick I knock him back and stand.
“West!” He shouts. And that does something. Like a key turned a lock. He doesn’t sound like the Whisper. The Whisper never shouted.
Standing across from me, I see the pits in his skin. The creases from stress. He’s not a Whisper. He’s just a man.
“What the hell are you doing here!” I cry out.
“Everything is going to—“ he starts, but I cut him off because I don’t care what he has to say. I only care about what I have to say.
“You lied to me!”
“You are out of line!”
When he shouts again, I calm down. I can handle shouting. It’s the calmness. I don’t want to ever hear that Whisper again.
He must have caught on, because he looks at me differently. It’s hard to describe, it’s like there’s this anchor that just set hold on his heart. I can see it, dragging his face expression down.
“You need me to scream at you, don’t you?” he says.
I don’t answer, but I think that’s answer enough.
“I’m not going to yell at you. And I won’t allow you to yell at me. My transfer was a ruse, a cover. At the Facility I was a Guardian to get access to information. I got all the information I needed so I was appointed commander of my own base with the Movement. If you had just stayed at the Facility, I could have extracted you later.”
The anchor lets go of him and grips me. A hot flash of blood rushes through every vein as I realize that I don’t want to hurt him, I want him to hurt me.
“I want you to hit me,” I say.
“I’m not going to hit you.”
“Just hit me!” My rage boils through me, coming out as sweat and tears. I charge at him again ready pound every bit of rage into him, but I can’t go through with it. He grabs my fist. Collapsing in the sand, now I’m begging.
> “I’m so sorry! I killed them. Oh my god, I let them all die. Oh my god, forgive me. Please kill me. God, please kill me.” My eyes are streaming. He folds around me like a shield.
“Listen to me, son,” he says after a long moment, when my breathing has slowed again. “I need you to look at me.”
I lock onto his eyes, like I’m trying to launch all my rage and failure out of me and into him.
“I need you to listen carefully. Are you listening?”
What does he think I’m doing?
“And I need you to trust me. Do you trust me?”
Yes, but I don’t want to. “Yes,” I say anyway.
“Your friends, the ones you say died.”
“They were more than my friends,” I interrupt, “They were my family.”
“West. People near the havens . . . they don’t die.”
What is he talking about? “They died. I was there.”
“I know you were there, but the havens, they’re immune to death. The ones who die, don’t really die.”
Then it hits me like a wave, the Shadows. “My God, they didn’t become . . .”
“No,” He finishes for me. “No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying something else. Right now, they’re just . . . sleeping.
I don’t know whether to laugh, vomit, cry, or punch him in the face.
“West,” he looks straight into me, “I want you to help me wake them up. I want you to help me kill death.”
He pulls something silky and yellow out of his jacket pocket. My heart leaps, then drops, then aches itself into a black hole.
The ribbon. Violin’s ribbon. The girl from the chumming. Kettle. Hiro places it in my palm then wraps his hands around mine.
“How did you get this? Is Kettle . . . .” I want to ask if she’s alive, but I can’t stand to hear what I know is the answer.
“West,” he says, holding my hands firmly. “The haven chose you. You survived its crucible. Please. Will you help me?”
End of Book 1
