Renegade (12 page)

R
ats can't climb a ship, right?” Dennis shouted. “The sides are curved. Slick.”

“That's right,” said Tarn. She sounded unsure, though. Like me, she was probably racing through any and all possibilities. Unfortunately, precious moments passed before she yelled, “They'll climb the anchor chains.”

I lumbered to the bow winch and began turning. It must have used a gear system, because the handle turned without much effort. Nyla raised the anchor at the stern. In mirror image, we spun our handles around as Tarn and Dennis scurried around the deck.

Before my anchor was clear of the water, a shot rang out from the shore. There was a long moment before I recognized the sound. I dropped to the deck.

The chain unraveled, sending the anchor crashing back down.

Nyla had reacted the same way. “We're out of range,” I shouted, as much to remind myself as her.

I pulled myself up and turned the winch again. Gunshots grew more frequent, but I didn't stop turning, and neither did she. Peering through the railing, I couldn't see any gray-green water at all anymore, which meant that the rats were close.

Tarn was unfurling the mainsail, while Dennis filled it with powerful gusts of his element. As the ship began to move slightly, they both seemed to relax.

“We might be all right,” said Tarn. “I think we . . .”

She pointed toward my anchor chain. At least twenty rats were clinging to the links. As they reached the level of the deck, they jumped free and landed on the ship.

Nyla screamed, assuring us that the same thing was happening on her chain. My instinct was to let the chain slide back down into the water, but then nothing would prevent the rats from climbing. I shouted to Nyla not to let go of her winch either, but it was too late—she had already released the handle in horror.

“Get it back up,” I yelled.

Tarn understood immediately. She left her station at the sail to assist Nyla. Rats were spreading across the deck now, having caught a ride on my chain. At least with the anchor stowed, there was a limit to how many more of them could come.

The rats had appeared perfectly organized as they swam across the sound. Now they crisscrossed, their movements unpredictable and chaotic. Even though I couldn't explain it, I had no doubt that even out here they were being controlled by the clan boy's awesome element.

“Watch out, Thomas,” said Dennis.

They surrounded me in an instant. I didn't panic, though. Oddly, I felt immune to them. I'd already been exposed to the Plague when they bit me in Skeleton Town. Now I needed to prevent the others on board from being bitten as well.

I grabbed a coiled rope and whipped it back and forth across the deck. It was thick and heavy and knocked several rats overboard with each swing. But there were always more.

A scream from the stern pulled me around. With their anchor still partially submerged, Tarn and Nyla were being deluged with rats. Dennis left the sail and sent powerful gusts of air across the deck, like a gigantic broom sweeping everything aside. Nyla and Tarn fought to hold their ground against it as the anchor broke the surface and they locked off the chain.

The ship began to move quicker. We were pulling away from the sea of rats, but hundreds had already boarded.

“Thomas,” Dennis called out. “We need to combine.”

He was almost at the stern now, and I was near the bow. Neither of us could afford to stop what we were doing to race across the deck.

“Combine with Nyla,” I shouted back to him.

She was crouching on the deck only a couple yards from him. He barely had time to register that she was there when she lunged for his hand and the gusts of wind accelerated. And then stopped, replaced by an eerie stillness.

“Down!” she screamed.

I dropped to the deck as the atmosphere shifted. I felt like I was caught in a vacuum, as if all the air surrounding the ship had been gathered up. Then it erupted in an explosion that cleared the deck of rats and sent several wooden crates flying through the air. I rolled away as a large one landed beside me and burst through the wooden planks.

“Nyla?” I shouted. “Tarn?” I got on my knees and surveyed the desolation. Every object not tied down had gone, bursting through the ship's steel railing as if it were made of twine.

The others heaved themselves into a seated position. Tarn stared at Dennis and Nyla, mouth open, saying nothing. The two of them looked shaken, like they couldn't quite believe what they'd done.

An odd sound distracted me then. It came from below deck, but I couldn't place it. Was it an animal? Or the weakened planks shifting beneath us? I pressed my ear against the deck.

From the corner of my eye I noticed Nyla watching me. She stood and padded swiftly toward me. “What is it?” she asked.

“I don't know,” I said. “I thought I heard something.”

She nodded once and headed for the stairs.

“Where are you going?” I shouted.

I was about to follow her when I heard a sound like a human cry coming from below the chest. Griffin and Rose were in a cabin at the other end of the ship, so it had to be Tessa. But the sound was coming from the galley area, immediately below the prow. If Tessa could move about, she could answer my questions. And I had plenty.

I walked lightly down the stairs. Tessa's cabin was the nearest door, so I opened it. To my surprise, she was asleep on the floor, exactly where we'd left her. There was an empty plate beside her, though, so at least she'd been able to eat.

But what had made the sound?

I continued to the end of the corridor. The galley door was ajar, and I could just make out Nyla's left shoulder. As I drew closer, I heard a series of quick, rasping breaths.

I peered around the door. Nyla had a flashlight in her left hand, and shone the beam at white panels against the far wall. I'd seen the panels before, but now there was a gap.

I eased the door open. It didn't make a sound. But as I crossed the threshold, Nyla spun around.

The flashlight momentarily blinded me. When I recovered, I realized that there was something in her right hand too: a gun. She pointed it at me.

I froze. “What are you doing, Nyla?”

“You should go.”

“Jerren said there were no weapons on board.”

“He was wrong.” Her eyes flitted from me to the gap in the panels. One of them stood apart from the others and had been moved to the side, revealing a strikingly different
metal
panel.

“I heard someone cry out.”

She shook her head, a warning for me to stop asking questions. Her finger rested precariously on the trigger.

“You're not going to shoot me,” I said, edging forward. “So please put down the gun.”

“I have to protect myself.”

“I'm not going to hurt you.”

She held her ground. “It's not you I'm worried about.”

The moment her eyes flickered back to the metal panel, I pounced. In two strides I had hold of the gun barrel. I poured my element along the metal shaft, just enough to shock her into letting go. But Nyla didn't cry out. Instead, she blocked the flow and fought back with a surge of her own.

Energy built up in the space between us. I felt it like some great malevolent elemental force. When our power was evenly balanced, the energy converged on a single point. Smoke rose from the gun barrel. The metal began to bend.

Would either of us be left standing when this ended?

I took a deep breath and let her power ebb toward me. Then, as she became distracted by her own progress, I threw everything into a single massive shock.

Nyla stumbled backward and crashed against the wall. She crumpled to the floor and grabbed her head. She was bleeding.

“What's going on, Nyla?”

“They promised me everything would be all right,” she said, tearing up.

I tossed the gun away. “Who did?”

“Jerren and Alice.” She glanced at the metal panel again. “They said this was the only way.”

Now that I had time to look, I noticed that the metal panel was a door—it had hinges on the left, and two sturdy bolts were attached to the top and bottom. When I pulled them back, the door swung easily and noiselessly toward me.

It was mostly dark inside, except for a sliver of light from a tiny crack in the ceiling. It must have happened when the chest fell against the deck. The air was stale, rancid. I figured the space couldn't be very large, as it was crammed into the shape of the ship's prow.

Something skittered across the floor toward me. It moved lightly, quickly. I stepped back as the rat reached the edge and clawed its way down the paneling and across the galley floor.

Once I'd caught my breath, I retrieved the flashlight from the floor. My heart must have been beating fast, because the light shone brightly.

“Don't,” she whispered.

I shone the beam through the gap in the paneling. The space was larger than I imagined, with metal walls and ceiling—a place to store precious cargo, most likely. There was a bundle of black cloth stuffed into one corner. As my pulse slowed down, my element waned and the light became dimmer, but I could still make out colored images through holes in the cloth.

The images moved slightly. There was the sound of someone breathing. Then the cloth fell away, revealing a blood-streaked face and long lank hair.

I
staggered back from the tiny space as Dare edged toward me. Behind me, Nyla closed the galley door and locked it. “Let us explain,” she said—not
me,
but
us.

I wasn't interested in an explanation. I was overcome by blinding anger, so I lunged for Dare and poured my element into him. Unlike Nyla, he didn't resist. Or couldn't. He just accepted the punishment, and when I was done, he slid through the gap and collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Blood flowed from a wound on his head. Barely conscious, Dare stared at me with a blank expression. This was my chance to kill him, to apply my element until his eyes rolled back in his head and his heart stopped beating. No one deserved to suffer as much as he did.

But then, why had he let me attack in the first place?

“Go ahead,” he wheezed. “Do it.”

He was a seer. He'd foreseen everything so far. He'd probably even foreseen getting captured and locked up. So what was his endgame?

Nyla passed by me and handed Dare a water canister. He tried to take it, but couldn't grip. It fell to the floor and rolled out of reach, dripping water onto the wooden planks. He closed his eyes.

I couldn't bear to look at Nyla. We'd given her a chance to survive, and she'd betrayed us. “How could you do this?” I hated how breathy and nervous I sounded.

She picked up the canister and gave it to him again, careful to make sure he had it this time. “Dare helped Alice and Jerren escape from Sumter. You and Griffin too. You'd all be dead if he hadn't turned on Chief.”

“He's the one who risked our lives in the first place!”

Dare drank a little. “Where . . . Alice?” he rasped.

“She's been captured,” I told him. “Her and Jerren, both.”

He clicked his tongue. “I told them to take me.”

“You're a seer. Don't pretend you don't know what's happened to them. What about my mother? Is she still alive?”

“
Was
alive, last time I saw her. But that was days ago.”

“We found the wooden box in Skeleton Town—the one you carried her ashore in.”

Dare winced as he stole short breaths. “I didn't want to do that to her, but she was distracting.”

“What does that mean?”

“She seemed scared. She'd asked to come to Roanoke with me. Said she wanted to see you, and your father and brothers. But when we got here, she changed her mind—said something terrible was going to happen.”

“What was it?”

“I don't know. She said she couldn't see it clearly.” He looked at me at last. “I thought she was stalling, to give you time to escape from me. But a hurricane was coming and my men were worried. That's why I hid her in the wooden box. There was no distraction after that, for us
or
for you.” His face relaxed, as if he was satisfied by his answer.

“Well, now she might be dead. Along with everyone else.”

“My men won't hurt anyone. We'll negotiate your mother's release. Alice's and Jerren's too.”

“And the clan folk? Will you negotiate for them too?”

“Of course. I was the one who radioed for them to come. I
invited
them here, Thomas. Non-elemental pirates and non-elemental clan folk—a new colony for a new future.”

Despite his injuries, he seemed to be gaining energy with every word. I hated myself for having this conversation, but we were getting to the heart of something here, and I still couldn't see clearly what it was. “What about the elemental on that clan ship? The boy who controls rats.”

Dare's lips twitched. “What are you talking about?”

“You
know
what I'm talking about. You're a seer.”

He was concentrating now, working on the argument that would prove I was mistaken. “You saw this boy?”

“Yes. And now my father and brother are captured. Alice and Jerren too. And you want me to believe you had no idea it would happen?”

He looked away. “I told them not to go without me.”

“You sent them into a trap.”

I kept waiting for the Dare I thought I knew to emerge, to fight back with words if his body wasn't up to it. But he just looked tired and wounded. “The last time I spoke to Alice we were still a long way from Roanoke. My visions were close to useless.”

“Liar. My mother held Jerren's hands on Sumter and foresaw his future.”

“Clearly not all of it. Anyway, you can't compare me to Skya.”

“Why not? You're brother and sister. You're both seers—”

“And seeing the future is my
secondary
element.” He paused to let the words sink in. “I'm not like your mother. Or Tessa. My strengths lie elsewhere.”

The longer I'd been standing over Dare, the more I'd allowed myself to feel in control. The injury to his head was real. The dehydration too, I was sure of it. All too late, it occurred to me that I had no idea what other surprises he had in store.

With a deep breath, Dare raised a shaking hand upward. A moment later, a tiny flame emerged.

I flung myself at him. Grabbed his hands and jolted him. This time, his eyes rolled back. He passed out just as Nyla pulled me away.

“What are you doing?” she snapped.

“What are
you
doing? He was going to burn us. You know what he's capable of.”

Nyla pressed a finger against his neck to check for a pulse. “Here,” she said. “Help me get him back inside the secret room. We need to lock him up.”

“No. The others need to see this. See how you've betrayed us.”

Nyla punched the floor. “Don't be stupid. You really think this is all just chance? That when you and Alice were changing ships, Dare stayed here alone, just waiting for Alice to capture him?” She gritted her teeth. “Wake up, Thomas. He
wanted
to be captured.”

“Why?”

“Because he knew that Alice wouldn't hurt him. Not after she read the journal that he left for her.”

I wanted to tell Nyla to stop. I wanted to believe these were lies. But deep down, I knew they weren't. I felt like I was staring at a distant object through binoculars. It was getting closer and closer but I couldn't bring it into focus.

“The reason you escaped from the other ship is because Dare unloaded the men's rifles,” she continued. “He meant for this to happen.”

“What was in the journal?” I whispered.

Nyla looked at Dare's unconscious body. “That's what he was trying to show you. His primary element is fire.
Fire,
Thomas . . . same as Alice.” She paused. “Elements are inherited, but neither of her parents had that element. So ask yourself: Who do you think she got it from?” She bowed her head. “Who do you think Alice's real father is?”