Astral Tide (The Otherborn Series) (3 page)

“And she told you all this?”

“Told me the whole story after…well, let’s just say she didn’t leave out any details. It’s not a difficult route, just long,” Zen added.

“How you do it, I’ll never know.” London sighed.

“I’m a poet, London. It’s not that hard.” Zen waggled his brows at her. “Come on, admit it. You find me irresistible.”

“I find you deranged,” London countered, grabbing the keys from Eric’s hand and rising to leave with Zen. “Good luck, kid,” she said looking down on the boy. He really would be safer here than with them, she tried to comfort her conscience. If Keziah and the other bayou Outroaders cooperated, the Tycoons might go easy on them. Maybe.

Zen held his hand out for the keys. “Your turn is over,” he chastised her. London passed them to him. That’s when he noticed the blood on her sleeve. He grabbed her arm. “Are you hurt?”

“No. But Clark is.”

Zen’s eyes traveled over London’s swelling cheekbone. It was probably purpling already. He gave her a curious look. “London…what did you do?”

“You didn’t see him out there?” she asked, getting nervous.

“No. I saw some blood in the dirt. I didn’t have time to sort it out. I needed to find you and the keys.”

“Crap. He must have crawled off for help.” London pulled on the stained sleeve. She was still trying to hide the scars from her old cutting habit.

“Did you kill him?” Zen asked bluntly.

London nodded. “I think.”

“Good. Because if you didn’t, I will.” Zen wrapped an arm around her. “Come on, it won’t be long before someone finds him. We’ll cut through the swamp to get to the truck. I know a way.”

London let Zen lead her away, tucking her guilty sleeve against her. She wasn’t sure what scared her more. The gators in the swamp. The Outroaders who would come for her head when they saw what she did to their scout. The approaching Tycoon convoy of black plated trucks and guards with guns that worked. Or herself.

THE WATER WAS disconcertingly warm. It made London uneasy, like they were wading through body fluids. The stench of it wafted, sour and fishy, up to her nostrils. She gripped Zen’s arm tighter, her fingers digging anxiously into his impressive biceps.

“That’s kinda starting to hurt,” he said in response to her raptor-grip.

“Sorry.” London eased up. “I just can’t see squat in this piss-water. It makes me nervous.”

“Are you shuffling your feet like I told you?” he asked her.

“Yes, but I don’t see how that’s supposed to help. I don’t think the gator’s gonna care one way or another if I step on it or bump into it.”

Zen chuckled. “The water’s not even up to your waist. Would you relax?”

“I’m plenty re—” London screamed, frantically clawing her way up Zen’s back until her arms circled his head and her legs were wrapped around his chest. “What was that? What was that?”

“Dammit, London! I can’t see.” Zen shoved at her arms until he’d uncovered his eyes.

“Something touched my leg! SOMETHING. TOUCHED. MY. LEG.”

Zen started laughing. “It was probably just a turtle. I’m sure whatever it was, you scared the bejesus out of it by now.”

London did not find this amusing. “Just get me out of this water,” she begged.

Fortunately, they were nearing a palm covered embankment. Zen hoisted her up the slope and dropped her unceremoniously on her butt.

“You’re hopeless,” he told her.

“Screw you. Besides who says something like ‘bejesus’ anyway? What does that even mean?” London wrinkled her nose and fisted her hands.

Zen shrugged. “I don’t know. Maggs says it all the time.”

“Can we please leave your conquests back in Bayou Camp Four where they belong? I really don’t want any reminders of the trail of broken hearts we’re leaving in our wake, thanks to you.” London hopped up and punched him in the arm.

“Yeah, sorry,” Zen said. He looked at her sideways, like he was studying a lab experiment.

“What?” she said.

“How do you do it?” he asked her, his jolly expression gone. “How do you just forget?”

London sighed and wrung out her sleeves. The swamp water had washed out a lot of Clark’s blood, but a faded, dirty red ring remained. “I haven’t forgotten. I couldn’t forget Rye even if I wanted to.”

“Sometimes you seem like you have. You haven’t looked twice at anybody else since New Eden.”

“Because of Rye!” London said. “He was my best friend. And my first love. You don’t find replacements for those easily.”

London felt agitated. When the dogs attacked Rye outside of New Eden, she never imagined that it would take more than seven months before she would find a way back to check for him. The attack looked bad, like he’d never survive. But London held out hope. Zen had promised her that night that they would return and if Rye was still alive, they would rescue him. But, as it turned out, they needed
things
to do that. Important things. Like a plan. Like weapons. Like knowledge. Things they hoped they could gather quickly among the Outroaders. Things that managed still, seven long months later, to elude them. London was beginning to believe that the others had given up hope. She wondered sometimes if Zen had meant his promise to her that night, or if they were just desperate words to console a girl who was trying to throw herself from the truck.

They were moving forward slowly through the tangle of hanging vines and clumps of fan palms waving in the breeze like giant green hands. When Zen spoke again, the tension in his voice had eased a little.

“Is that what you think Maggs is? Any of them? Those girls aren’t replacements for Avery. They just…they help me forget. Even if it is only for a couple hours.”

“I know,” London admitted. It’s why she didn’t give him too much hell over it. If she could have found solace from the pain, even for an evening, she would have taken it, no matter what shape it came in.

Zen had been obsessed with Avery while they were all friends in Capital City. No one was really sure what went on between them, or how much. But Rye had been her touch-stone for years, since she was a kid. She found it hard to believe Zen could come close to what she was feeling. That’s what he didn’t understand. A warm body next to her in bed wouldn’t fill that deep space Rye left for even a second. When she fell for him, she fell hard and fast. She’d kept those feelings to herself for a long time because she didn’t want to jeopardize their friendship. In the end, it was their Others that brought them together. It seemed the only one who’d loved Rye longer than London was Si’dah. Or rather, she’d loved Roanyk, Rye’s Other, since before they came to this world, reincarnating in the forms of a couple of human teenagers with a penchant for pre-Crisis punk music and city-issue smokes.

Besides, Zen thought Avery was dead. It was only natural he should try to move on. But Rye—something in London wouldn’t let her believe that about him. Maybe it was Si’dah. Maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t seen him in the Astral since the dogs took him down outside of New Eden. When Degan was murdered here, his soul returned to the Astral, where it was trapped. But Rye hadn’t appeared as Roanyk or himself in any of their dreams. Didn’t that mean he was still alive? Somehow, she’d find her way back to New Eden to check. Even if she had to leave the others to do it. But she’d be no use to Rye dead or captured and for now, she needed her friends and their truck for protection.

Zen placed a hand out to stop London. “Sssshhh,” he whispered low.

Together, they ducked behind a massive fan palm and listened. The rumble of trucks could be heard in the distance. The camp was only a thicket of trees and a short swim to their left.

“It’s the Tycoons,” Zen whispered.

“Duh,” London said. “Let’s go. We need to get out of here.”

But Zen acted like he didn’t hear her. “Do you hear that?”

She didn’t hear anything yet. “No. What?”

“Exactly,” Zen looked at her, his gray eyes sparking with revelation. “No gunshots.”

“So.”

“So what do you think that means?”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass, Zen. We need to go. Kim and Tora are waiting.” This was too close to their headhunters for London’s comfort.

But Zen was already scooting forward on his belly, alternating between a crawl and a slither as he inched his way closer to the camp.

London’s heart rate was picking up. She was ready to leave Bayou Camp Four, Clark, and the Tycoons behind. But she couldn’t just dart off without Zen. Carefully, she eased herself forward behind him, keeping low and trying to be as quiet as possible.

When the swamp water kept them from getting any closer, they stopped and listened, looking for signs of life between the trees across the water.

“This is dangerous, Zen,” London whispered but he only put a finger over his lips. What was it about broken hearts and death wishes that always made them go together?

They could hear the slamming of doors and shuffling of feet. There were voices, though it was hard to tell what they were saying. The tones were strictly conversational, no shouting or screams of any kind.

“I’m gonna get closer,” Zen said. “I need to see.”

London mouthed
don’t,
but he pecked her on the forehead and started into the water. London stayed put. Fire couldn’t have convinced her to get back in that murky swamp stew.

She watched Zen near the opposite bank and sink down to his chin, so only his head was exposed. He moved along the bank until he found a clearing in the brush he could see through. Whatever he was seeing, if anything, she hoped it was worth it.

When he finally started making his way back, there was an expression on his face she’d never seen there before. He pulled himself out of the water and crouched on the shore. His face had gone sickeningly white, paler than her once powder-white complexion—life as an Outroader had built a bit of bronze up on her shoulders and across her nose. He wouldn’t speak. He just took her hand and began leading her away from the edge of camp.

By the time their truck was in sight, London couldn’t hold back anymore. “Zen, what the hell happened back there? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“I did,” he said turning on her. “I saw Avery.”

London swallowed hard.
Shit.
“Oh Zen, I’m so sorry. It’s just that—”

By now Tora was at their side and Kim was in the truck, thumping the steering wheel impatiently.

“She was working for them, the Tycoons. Helping them,” he said, dazed.

“I know. I…well, you were so in love with her, and—” London tried again, but Zen didn’t appear to be grasping any of it. “Wait. Did you see anyone else?” It was selfish of her, she knew, but she had to ask. If Avery was with them, maybe…

Zen didn’t respond.

London tried to shake his arm. “Zen, did you see Rye? Was Rye with them?”

Again, he didn’t respond. His eyes seemed to be staring into oblivion.

“Zen! Did you—” London started, but stopped.

“No,” he said, his eyes cold as granite, cutting her off.

“Are you sure?” she started again, but Tora put a hand on London’s shoulder to quiet her. London slumped, defeated. For a second she’d allowed herself to hope.
Stupid.

“How was she helping them, Zen? What were they doing?” Tora asked.

Zen turned to Tora as though seeing her for the first time. He blinked and told her, “They were taking them.”

London scowled. “Who? Taking who?”

Zen looked back at her. “Eric…” his voice trailed off.

The shock had clearly rattled him. She should have expected something like this. It was a jack-ass thing to do, lying to him. She thought she was protecting him but like most things, London had only managed to get it backwards at best.

“Eric?” she repeated. “Why would they take Eric?”

“Eric and the others,” Zen said this time.

“What others?” London asked.

Zen and Tora answered in unison. “The dreamers.”

THEY RATTLED UP the abandoned ranch road, slowing to move around the patches of overgrowth that swallowed chunks of the concrete whole. They had a general direction figured out, which would have to be enough for now. Once Zen had some time to process that his ex was not dead, but a backstabbing traitor, they would ply him for the rest of the details on how to find the Mesa Camp.

“So that’s how they’ve been finding us over and over again,” Kim speculated. “Avery’s been helping them all along.”

“Looks like it, though we still don’t know how exactly,” Tora said.

“That bitch!” Kim spat.

“Hey!” London said with a thump to the back of his head. She nodded sidelong toward Zen’s hunched figure in the back of the truck.

“Sorry,” Kim muttered.

“You should go back there,” Tora said to London. “He needs you right now.”

London hunkered between Kim and Tora and chewed at her bottom lip. “I know. But he’s going be so pissed when the shock wears off. I can hardly stand to look at him. I feel terrible.”

“You were trying to spare him,” Tora said. “He’ll understand.”

London exhaled and ran her fingers through the dark tangles that had grown to the middle of her back. Tora tried to talk her into a trim, but she’d seen the hack-jobs Outroaders liked to give one another in the name of hygiene and misguided fashion, and she was not about to let the Seer near her with a pair of scissors. She pulled her hair over one shoulder, plaited it into a loose braid and secured it with some elastic she kept in a pocket. Then, she climbed over the seat to be the friend Zen needed her to be, for once.

“Hey,” she said quietly as she seated herself next to him on the floor.

“Hey,” he replied, refusing to look up.

“It’s okay if you hate me,” London told him. “I deserve it.”

Zen raised his head and leaned it against the truck wall. “I don’t hate you,” he replied without looking at her. “I don’t know what to feel right now.”

London plucked at her sleeve.

“Did everyone know except me?” he asked.

“Pretty much,” London answered. At first, only she, Rye, and Tora had been privy to Avery’s deception. Rye and London because they were the ones to discover Avery in New Eden, living like a prized parakeet in a gilded cage. Tora because her Sight had revealed the truth to her as they searched. Eventually, Tora told Kim.