Nil (31 page)

Heesham looked at Thad, his face furious. “Bart left him there, bro. Bart was Miguel’s support, and when Miguel needed him, he bailed.”

Thad’s jaw ticked.

“Miguel couldn’t walk, and he was really out of it,” Heesham continued. “So I picked him up and started back to the City. We’d been walking for maybe an hour, when we heard a girl scream. A little girl scream, you know? At first I thought it was another monkey, a trick of my head. Then we saw a girl, running naked. She was fast, man, like the wind. Then we saw the wolf. Mangy-looking thing, it was after her. It happened fast. I had Miguel; Talla’s hands were free. She took my blade and went running. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to leave Miguel; he couldn’t protect himself. And I didn’t know if Talla could handle the wolf, and it was too late to follow.” Heesham took a deep breath, visibly struggling to hold it together.

“So I tracked toward the City. Alone for hours, carrying Miguel and keeping him talking. Then like a gift from Allah, an outbound flashed four meters out. I ran, said a prayer, and threw Miguel in. He’s gone.”

Everyone sat silent.

The moment was surreal.

The blue sky, free of clouds. The gentle breeze, making the trees sing. The ocean roaring, the fire crackling, the fish baking. Talla bloody and unconscious, Heesham bloody and furious. Miya, bloody and fragile, a wounded bird, curled by the fire. Miguel bloody and gone. Bart missing.

Julio came up from the beach, soaking wet. “Miguel made it?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Heesham’s face was blank.

Throwing his fist in the air, Julio shouted something in Spanish. Still grinning, he asked, “And Talla’s back?”

As Heesham nodded. Julio frowned, looking over our group. “Where’s Bart?”

“Don’t know,” Heesham said. “But when we find him, I get him first.”

“Take a number,” Rives said, appearing by the fire. His face was stormy. “Talla’s got a fever.”

CHAPTER

45

CHARLEY

DAY 35, TWILIGHT

Please let Talla’s fever break tonight
.

I’d never thought about what it would be like to be sick on Nil, and Talla was worse than ever. Floating in and out of consciousness, her skin burned hotter than a gate.

The past two days had been awful. Jillian packed Talla’s wound with deadleaf, but her fevered sleep stayed restless, and none of us knew how to brew Sabine’s deadsleep tea to help ease Talla’s pain. Too strong and it would kill rather than soothe; it was a risk no one was willing to take. Sabine’s loss had never been more apparent. Without the tea, both Rives and Jillian worked in shifts to keep Talla cool and comfortable, but Rives’s frustration was evident.

We need a doctor
, Rives vented to Thad after dinner tonight.
A real doctor, with real meds
.

Thad had gripped Rives’s shoulder.
We’re doing all we can. And she has you, and our prayers. The rest is up to her. Talla’s strong, Rives. Don’t count her out
.

Thad’s words made me feel better. If anyone could beat the fever, it was Talla. After all, she’d survived Rory, she’d fought the wolf, and she’d saved Miya.

Now she had to save herself.

CHAPTER

46

THAD

DAY 303, EARLY MORNING

Talla died last night.

She just didn’t wake up.

Bart
. I wanted to beat the coward into the ground, make him pay for Talla’s death. But he hadn’t come back. Maybe the traitor was too afraid to show his face, no balls to own up to what he’d done. Maybe he’d caught a gate. Maybe something had caught him.

I couldn’t help thinking that if he hadn’t bailed on Miguel, Talla might be alive. Miguel might never have been hurt, and Heesham would’ve been free to help Talla. A dozen other choices, a dozen other outcomes. But like Charley said weeks ago, the what-if game went nowhere.

I was so sick of the games. Nil’s games, head games.

Dead games.

“Ready?” Charley asked.

“No,” I said, taking her hand and walking anyway.

The burial ground sat at the edge of the Flower Field. We trekked as a silent group, all dressed in matching dingy white funeral wear. Our mourning clothes were our morning clothes, and our afternoon clothes and our night clothes. There was no getting away from them, unless Nil tossed a little luck and a gate your way.

Talla’s luck had run out.

Dressed in burial white, she rested in Rives’s arms, her eyes closed forever. Rives looked both stormy and empty, like he’d lost something he’d just found. Next to Rives, Johan’s head was bowed in prayer.

Once we were gathered, Rives nodded to Jillian, who was already crying. She placed a lei of flowers around Talla’s neck. “Sleep well, my friend,” she whispered. “I’ll miss you.”

As Jillian stepped away, Rives kissed Talla’s forehead, then looked up at Johan, tears streaming down his face. Seeing Rives’s pain, I nearly lost it myself.

Johan’s deep voice drifted over the group. “Heavenly Father, we gather to honor Talla, and in our hour of need, we call on your words.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want…”

Rives gently laid Talla in her grave. Heesham, Jason, and I began covering her with dirt, and as the black Nil ground swallowed Talla forever, pictures of past funerals flickered through my brain.

Today’s burial was so much worse.

“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures…”

Wrong!
my gut screamed. Talla’s death was wrong—out of order. She should have said good-bye to me, not the other way around. But with nine months left on the clock, Talla was gone, claimed by Nil forever.

The grave was level, a raw island wound. Quan had carved a sleek wooden cross as a marker. It made me thankful Quan had chosen to stay. But it was Rives who placed the cross on Talla’s grave.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me…”

The shadow of death
. It loomed larger than ever. I held Charley’s hand, holding tight to the goodness in my world—the goodness that had nothing to do with Nil’s shadow and everything to do with Charley. Because Nil was evil. Fate had brought Charley here, but it was Nil who would rip her away.

I watched Rives fall to his knees and sink into the fresh dirt at the edge of Talla’s grave. As he bowed his head, my blood went cold.
Will Charley have to bury me? Please, God, no
. And I prayed I wouldn’t have to bury her. I didn’t think I could survive it.

I prayed that I’d make it.

And that she’d make it.

And that somehow we’d live happily ever after on the other side.

But fairy tales were for little girls in polyester princess getups, not for seventeen-year-old boys daring to hope. And Nil was no fairy godmother, that was for damn sure. Still, I hoped, because I had to.

I tuned back just in time for Johan’s
Amen
.

“Amen,” Charley murmured. Her “A” sounded strong, like she sent her prayers up with a little extra power. Beside me, Jillian sobbed quietly. Rives stayed on his knees.

Charley dropped my hand. “Be right back,” she whispered. She walked up to Rives and touched his shoulder. “Come,” she said softly. “I’m not your twin, or your Talla, but I hate to see you hurting. We miss her, too.”

Rives looked at Charley, his eyes shockingly empty. “I’d just figured out who she was. It was like we always played each other, you know? But she’d finally let me in. I knew her, Charley. Talla was my girl. I can’t believe that’s her.” He pointed to the fresh grave.

“It’s not,” Charley said, kneeling. “She’s here”—Charley touched Rives’s chest, then his forehead—“and here. And you’re still with us. Take a minute, say your good-byes. Then come with us, okay?”

Rives looked at Talla’s grave. Slowly he lifted his fingers to his lips, then reached out and touched her cross.

My chest was so tight I could barely get air. Grief for Rives, grief for Talla, fear for me and for Charley, all twisting into one massive life-sucking terror. The shadow of death had never felt colder. Or closer.

“Thanks,” I told Charley when I could finally speak.

“For what?”

“For what you said to Rives. He’s solid.”

She slid her hand into mine. “He told me the same thing about you once.”

As a tribute to Talla, the girl who loved the water more than anyone, we grabbed boards and the group of us hit the water together. With each stroke, I thought of Talla. Of how she owned the water and dreamed of Olympic gold.
I’m
s
orry, Talla. You deserved more time.

Don’t we all
, the waves murmured, full of their adrenaline rushes.
Don’t we all
.

The swell pitched, rising like a mountain. Vaulting to my feet, I rode the line, going for speed, racing away from the shadow of death. Water flew under my board, then like a fast run downhill, the ride was over. The wave closed out, and as the foamball churned, for a second it looked like I was riding snow.

Then the wind kicked up, onshore and cross. Soon the sea looked like a washing machine, like the water was protesting Talla’s death, too.

“This sucks,” Rives said. “I’m going in.”

“Right behind you,” I said. I looked to my right, where Charley sat on her board. She’d gotten better, but she’d bust it bad in this chop. “Let’s bail, Charley. It’s getting rough.”

Sy flagged me down the minute we left the water. “Thad, got a second?”

Not really
. “Sure.”

“Listen…” Sy fidgeted on the sand. “I know you’re not Leader anymore, but there’s something I have to tell you. It was me!” he blurted. “I messed up the Shack and took the knives. It was Bart’s idea. He thought that if enough people doubted you as Leader, that we could nominate someone else.” Sy looked sick. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t right. I already put ’em back, but I just wanted you to know.” If possible, Sy looked even sicker.

“Thanks for coming clean,” I said. “That took guts. But from here on out, I’d be a team player and then some if I were you.”

Sy nodded like his neck was rubber.

As he took off, I weighed his confession. He wasn’t Bart; he was better than Bart, I realized. Younger, more honest. Sy might just make it after all.

“Everything okay?” Charley asked.

“Yeah,” I said, my eyes on Sy’s retreating back. “I think so.”

Charley and I caught up with Rives and Jason at the Shack. As we racked our boards, we were a quiet group. The only noise came from Heesham. He rumbled around the Shack, testing the weight of the remaining knives, grumbling about the small handles.

Then a twig cracked, loud and crisp, in the identical spot where Heesham had appeared two days ago.

The wolf
, I thought, pulling my knife.
It tracked Heesham. It followed the blood
.

Armed with a spear, Rives flanked my right side. Jason and Charley had my back.

As I raised my knife, the tallest, blackest boy I’d ever seen stepped out from behind a tree. Wearing leaves around his waist and holding a homemade spear tipped in black rock, he saw us and stopped. “Whoa.” Nature Boy took a step back.

The odds ran through my head, the same ones no doubt slamming through his.
Four to one.

“I’m Thad.” I held up my hands, splaying my fingers, even though I still held a blade. “Don’t freak.” As an afterthought, I asked, “Do you speak English?” Based on his “whoa”, I’d have guessed yes, but on Nil, nothing was a given.

“Yeah. I’m Ahmad.” He lowered his spear. “Where am I?”

“Nil City,” I said.

“You’re on the island of Nil. It’s some kind of parallel dimension,” Charley chimed in with a casual wave. Then she plucked the knife out of my hand and slid it into the sheath at my waist. “I’m Charley.”

Ahmad stared at her: Dex-shocked, but less vacant.

“Rives,” Rives said with a nod.

“Heesham.” He’d popped out of the Shack.

“Where you from?” I asked.

“The Sudan. But I live in Minnesota.” The boys sized each other up. Ahmad gave Heesham a run for his money. Taller and not as thick, with longer arms and legs, Ahmad looked like a first-round draft pick for the Timberwolves.

“Where were you when the gate hit?” I asked.

“Gate?” He frowned.

“The wall of moving air,” Charley offered. “The one that burned and knocked you out.”

Now Ahmad nodded. “Back in the Sudan. We were visiting relatives.”

I asked him about the days and the date, and learned Ahmad had landed on the north shore. He’d been here twenty-eight days. Straight up, I broke the news that the gates were his ticket home.

“Wait a second. You’re saying those gates, they take us back?”

“Yup. They’re the
only
way back.”

Ahmad threw back his head, laughing. “I’ve been running from those things for weeks. Thought they were bad, man. Evil, like the devil.”

No, that’s Nil
, I thought.

“Sick spear,” Heesham offered.

And just like that, we got our fifth rookie in two weeks. It was a Nil record.

CHAPTER

47

CHARLEY

DAY 37, AFTER NOON

When I was ten, my parents took us to see the Blue Angels fly over Jacksonville. At the start of the show, six planes took flight, then one peeled off, leaving a gap in the formation. My dad told me the maneuver was to honor the Blue Angel pilot who’d died after his plane crashed the day before during a routine practice flight. He called it the missing-man formation.

That’s what I thought of when we paddled out to surf after Talla’s funeral and there was a gap in the lineup. That’s what I thought of when we sat to eat lunch and the space beside Rives was empty. Talla’s presence had always been powerful, and her absence was just as big. She was our missing man.