Rising Tide (22 page)

Brana crosses her arms. “Yet our location is still compromised. In the hands of the worst possible people.”

“Ben wasn't the one who told them,” Miranda says, her voice low and steady.

I grimace. It was Diego. But I'm the one who put him in that position in the first place.

“Can we stop this?” I ask. “Miranda and I came back because we needed to make sure you were okay. And yes, I blew up my ship to stop the raiders from reaching you. I know you still think of us as outsiders, but we both want to be here. I'm sorry that I got Diego involved in all of this, and I'm sorry for what happened to him. I can't take any of that back. But I was hoping that I could help you. That I could fix this. Now.”

Brana raises an eyebrow. “How?”

“We were on Gastown. We have some idea about what you're up against. About what we're all up against. I just want to figure out a way to keep Tamoanchan safe. And Miranda, well . . . I'll let her talk about that.”

Miranda crosses her arms over her chest. “First I want to know who this is.” She gestures to Brana's companion.

“I'm Lewis,” he says.

“He's the leader of the minority party on the Council,” Brana says. I realize that I don't have the slightest idea of how the Tamoanchan Council works. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that they have different parties, but I just assumed Brana was fully in charge.

I put out my hand. “I'm Ben, and this is Miranda.”

Lewis takes my hand, tentatively, and says, “I know.”

“I suppose my reputation precedes me.”

He flashes me an amused smile. “You could say that.”

“You said you have something,” Brana says impatiently.

“I have data,” Miranda says. “Data I took from Gastown. It should help advance our research immeasurably.”

“Meaning what, exactly?” Lewis asks. It's the first time he's shown interest in any of this.

“Meaning that we're closer to a cure,” Miranda says. “But perhaps even closer to what Ben promised you when we first came here. A detection system for the virus.”

The man's eyes widen. Brana shakes her head.

“Look,” I say. “We're here. You have us. Why not just sit down and put it all on the table. Talk this through. Then you can decide what you want to do with us.”

Brana seems to mull it over in her mind. The man looks at her, then back at me. “I think an exchange of information is warranted.”

I nod at Lewis. “Then maybe we can start by talking about what happened here? When we left Gastown, Rosie had Diego on board the
Osprey
and they were headed straight here. Miranda and I flew to try to intercept the raiders and succeeded. With a little luck and a lot of foolishness, we managed to take them all out.”

“What does that mean?” Lewis asks.

“There were five ships. Three were carrying live Ferals. It's a tactic they used back when they attacked Gastown. They drop the Ferals in ahead of their attack—let the panic set in, and then come in afterward to mop up.”

“So what did you do?” Lewis asks.

My lips curl up in a grim smile. “I flew my ship right in the middle of them and blew her up. Made quite a pretty light show.”

“How did you survive?” Brana asks.

“We jumped out of the ship in a raft,” Miranda says. “We fell into the water.”

Lewis looks at me like I'm crazy. Fair enough. I shrug. “That's . . . hard to believe,” he says.

“You're telling me,” I say. “So what happened here while we were doing the impossible?”

Lewis leans back in his chair. “Rosie and Diego made it back and raised the alarm, so we started an evacuation.”

“So you were off of the island before the attack came?” I ask.

“That's just it,” Lewis says. “There was never any attack.”

“What?”

“We evacuated and had a few ships come back to check on the island, and no other ships came.”

“None?”

Lewis shakes his head.

“That doesn't make sense,” I say.

“Maybe,” Miranda says. “When you found Diego, you said it seemed like he had just told his interrogator about Tamoanchan. Maybe a small group left Gastown right away without being able to assemble a larger group. Maybe we got all of them.”

I remember what Tess told me the first time I visited her. “I did hear that with the disruption down at the plant, they had sent a number of ships there. That might have prevented them from sending a larger force. But surely they would have recorded the location.”

“Maybe,” Miranda said.

Could they really have lost the location? Or could they really not care?

“We need more information,” I say.

Brana nods, then shakes her head. “Of course. And you're the one to find it, right? Leave the island again? I don't think so.”

“Someone should.” Things are starting to come together in my mind, but I'm not ready to bring them up yet. “So they didn't come here. That's good. How is Diego?”

Brana looks at her boots. “He's recovering. His wounds were substantial, but none of them life-threatening. His sister's been caring for him.”

“Good,” I say. Rosie would defend him to the death. Of course, I'm probably not her favorite person right now, but I'll still need to see him.

“What happened after you fell into the water?” Brana asks. “How did you get out?”

“I'll tell you,” I say. “But can we sit down at least? It's been a long couple of weeks.”

So we all sit like civilized people. Except that their side has two armed guards on it and, judging by the way they're standing, they've been given orders to shoot if necessary. Miranda is next to me, close by. Lewis and Brana are opposite us, but with adequate space between the two of them. I tell them both the whole story, going back to what happened after I left Tamoanchan. How I went to Gastown with Miranda, Rosie, and Diego. How we met Claudia there. How Rosie and I went with Claudia down to the helium plant to check it out. How we found evidence of Gastown scientists experimenting with Ferals. Miranda fills them in on what she and Diego got up to back on the floating city. Then together we take them through leaving Gastown, taking out the raiders, and then an abbreviated version of what happened with Mal, the naval base, and escaping.

By the end, Lewis is looking at us incredulously. “All of that happened in the past few weeks?”

“Just about,” I say. “I left out a few things.”

Quarantine is painful—three days of confinement and restricted rations—but in the end they let us back into Tamoanchan.

It's late afternoon as we walk up to Diego and Rosie's house. It's a simple, wooden dwelling. They've taken the time to paint it in a light color that's not quite white but not quite anything else. Their door, however, is green. I realize that the house's colors are pretty close to the
Osprey
's colors, their airship, and I raise my appreciation.

“What are you smiling at?” Miranda asks, and I remember what we're here for and chase the smile from my face.

Diego.

The last time I saw him, his face resembled ripe fruit more than it resembled a face. His dark-brown skin had been covered in cuts and bruises, one eye swollen shut, his face stained with his own blood. I didn't see the torture, but I could see its marks. They had broken him. A more steadfast man I couldn't imagine. And they broke him. I'm sometimes afraid to think of how.

“Are you going to knock?” Miranda asks.

I want to. I need to. But I hesitate.

This is all my fault
.

“Just do it, Ben,” Miranda says.

And so I do. I reach out and knock on the door. It opens a moment later. Rosie appears in the doorway. She's taller than Miranda, though not as tall as me—muscular, hard. Her long, dark hair is pulled back in a ponytail and she wears a worn baseball cap on top of it. Whatever logo or symbol it might have sported has long been worn away.

When she sees us, her eyes widen at first, then narrow. As she looks at me, her face twists into a disgusted frown.

“Hello, Rosie,” I say.

She's silent for a long moment. Her expression doesn't move. She just stares at me. Then. “You have a lot of nerve coming here.”

“I wanted to see Diego.”

She closes her eyes for a moment, tilts her head to the side. Then a wide smile crests her face, a humorless smile, and she opens her eyes and shakes her head. “After what you did to him.”

“Rosie,” Miranda says. “Diego made his own choices. And Ben got him out.”

Rosie's face goes hard. “He wouldn't have been there if not for you,” she says in a low, cold voice.

“I know,” I say. “And if I could go back and change that, I would. If I could take his place, I would.”

“Fuck you,” she says.

“Just . . . Can I see him for a moment?”

Rosie continues to shake her head, then turns toward the door, one arm on its edge. “He's still not healed,” she says.

I nod. I don't know why. I just don't know what else to do. And based on the last time I saw him, of course he's not healed. Those bastards took him apart. The visible scars will probably be the least of his worries.

I think then that she's not going to let us in to see him. That she'll keep me out because she blames me for what happened to him, and I don't blame her for blaming me.

“Rosie,” Miranda says, “Ben did all he could to save you. All of you. He was ready to sacrifice his life for that.”

“So was Miranda,” I say.

Rosie looks up at me. Her face doesn't soften, not even the least bit, but her eyes narrow as if she's searching me.

Then a voice comes from behind her. “Let them in, Rose.” Diego's voice, deep and warm and rumbly.

Rosie looks back at him.

“C'mon, Rose,” he says. “I want to see them.”

Rosie steps back from the door and pulls it back with her, gesturing in with her hand.

I step inside, Miranda right behind me. Diego is standing behind her, where the light from outside dims. He's wearing a wool cap, and beneath it his face is healing. There are scabs and bruises on his dark skin, but the knitting has begun. He still looks like shit, though.

“Diego,” I say. I hold out my hand to shake, but Diego grabs it and pulls me in, slapping a large hand on my back.

“Thank you,” he says. “For getting me out.”

“That's not . . . you don't need to thank me,” I say.

He pulls back and looks me in the eyes. “No, I do.” He smiles at me, but I think I see something behind it. Pain? Or something else?

Miranda steps forward and hugs Diego. She's all but swallowed up in his bulk. “I'm so glad you're okay,” she says.

“Likewise,” he says. Back on Gastown, while Rosie and I had infiltrated the helium plant, Diego and Miranda had investigated together. At the time it had driven me crazy—Miranda would barely talk to me—but now I'm glad for it. Of course while they seem to have bonded because of their time together, Rosie hates my guts.

“I don't think your sister is a fan,” I say to Diego.

Diego sighs and waves a hand. “She'll get over it. She's just protective of her big brother.”

“How are you doing?” Miranda asks.

“Mending,” Diego says. “The pain gets a little less every day. The bones are knitting back together.”

I wince at that.

“You look better,” I say.

Diego shifts uncomfortably. “There are some good doctors here,” he says. He nods, perhaps a bit too emphatically. “They took very good care of me.” He looks up at me. “Did I really look that bad?”

I get that same image of his face, swollen and beaten and broken. “You weren't at your best,” I say. “Though better than a Feral's ass.”

His smile fades to stone seriousness. “If you hadn't gotten me out . . . I don't know if . . . I couldn't have lasted much longer.”

Now it's my turn to shift uncomfortably. I shake my head. “Let's just say we're even.”

His face widens in surprise and he immediately winces. “Even?” he asks.

“For getting me to Gastown so I could get my ship.”

He thinks about this for a moment. Nods. “How is she?” he asks.

It shocks me for a moment, his question, and I quickly look away. “She didn't make it,” I say, not knowing what else to say. As soon as it's out, I regret it.

Diego is starting at me, wide-eyed. Then he starts shaking his head again and again. “Then all of that . . .”

“Ben gave up the
Cherub
,” Miranda says. “He sacrificed it to stop the raiders headed here. He almost sacrificed his life.”

“So did Miranda,” I repeat.

I can feel Diego's eyes sharply on me, but I'm looking at Miranda.

“You almost died? For Tamoanchan?”

I feel heat flush my face, and I suddenly want to be somewhere else. “I didn't really think it through,” I say. “It happened so fast.”