CHAPTER 2
MEADOW
Something is different tonight.
On normal evenings, when the sun begins to set into the sea, the waves are calm and quiet. They whisper and crawl and collapse onshore, as steady as a heartbeat.
Tonight, the sea is angry.
The waves crash harder than ever against the rocks. Sea spray erupts into the sky, stinging my skin. Out in the water, the shipwrecked boats rock and groan like they are begging for mercy.
“Meadow?”
I blink and look down. My little sister Peri sits beside me on the sand, her silver curls dancing in the wind.
“Yes?” I ask. My voice sounds hollow. Empty.
“How much longer?” Peri asks me. She grabs my hand, entwines her fingers in mine. They are so cold that I flinch. “I want to go home.”
“I know you do,” I say, as I look back out at the sea. “Me, too.”
There is a storm on the horizon, a promise that chaos is soon to come. We should go home, back to our houseboat where my father and my brother Koi wait. But something tugs at my mind, begs me to stay. The gray clouds rumble just beyond the Perimeter. The Pulse blinks in time with the lightning, and the hair rises on my arms. I shiver.
“Just wait,” I say. “A few more minutes.”
Peri shifts beside me. “What are we waiting for?”
“I . . . I can’t remember,” I whisper. My breath comes out in a puff of fog. Something that has never happened before in the Shallows. It is whisked away by the wind, carried into the bleeding sky.
The colors of the sunset are the same, reds and oranges and pinks, like the citrus my mother used to love. But still, I sense it.
Something is different tonight.
Seagulls dip and dive, screeching a warning. But a warning for what?
“I’m cold,” Peri says. She leans against me, and her body is like ice.
A voice tugs at the back of my mind, whispering my name over and over. Meadow, Meadow. Wake up. Pay attention, Meadow. The voice sounds like my father’s.
Peri starts to sing. Her voice is soft and lovely, and for a moment I close my eyes and let it roll over me like the wind.
Somewhere in the distance, the Night Siren goes off. It is a wail that belongs to those who mourn the dead. A warning that soon, something will come.
But what? I can’t place it, and everything feels off.
Peri stands up, suddenly, whirls around to look at the beach behind us. Sand sprays my face. “Is that what we’ve been waiting for?” she asks.
I can hear a sound, like shuffling feet moving across the top of the sand. But I don’t want to turn. Something begs me not to.
“Meadow!” Peri tugs at my hand. “Meadow, look!”
I take a deep breath and turn, slowly, and in my head I hear my father’s voice again. Wake. Up.
And that’s when I see them. A wave of Patients stumbling toward us in the sand.
“Run,” I hear myself say. “Peri. Run!”
But when I turn to look at her, my little sister is gone.
In her place sits a puddle of fresh blood.
CHAPTER 3
ZEPHYR
I sprint into the trees at the edge of the alley.
“Lark,” I say. My voice is strong and steady. “I know you’re in here.”
Movement in the overgrowth catches my eye. I stand up just as Lark appears in the tall grass. She stumbles toward the beach like a wounded animal. At the sight of her, I lose what’s left of my sanity.
I fire the gun in her direction. And curse it all, I miss.
So I run, sprinting across the jungle floor, the wind blowing into the hole in the side of my head where my ear should be.
“Stop!” I scream, voice ragged. Lark trips, and I close the distance between us. I dive, fingertips grazing her ankles. I land on top of her and she cries out, her eyes reflecting the craziness that’s inside of her.
“You left us to die!” I spit. “You left your daughter to die!” I whirl her around so we’re facing each other. For one second, seeing her is like a punch to the gut.
She looks so much like Meadow.
“They can’t touch my daughter, Patient Zero,” Lark says, smiling with blackened teeth. “She’ll live.”
I punch her in the face, and she groans, then bursts into laughter. “Go ahead and kill me,” she says. “Kill me and drag my body back to the Initiative. Do you think they’ll hand Meadow over then?” She laughs, and her breath is so bad I want to puke. “You’re a murderer, and you always will be. I made you perfectly in that way.”
“Then this will be easy,” I say. I turn the gun, level it at her forehead, right over her Catalogue Number. I’m ready to do it. Ready to kill willingly, and I’m not afraid. As soon as her heart stops, the fail-safe she put into the Murder Complex will activate. The Patients will turn their attacks onto the Leeches, and the Shallows will erupt into chaos.
Should I do it? Do I kill Lark, and use the chaos to help me rescue Meadow . . . or do I carry Lark in, alive, and use her in exchange for setting her daughter free?
“You’re a fool,” Lark spits up at me.
I’m about to squeeze the trigger when she looks right into my eyes and whispers something, a string of words and numbers and things that don’t make any sense. But she seems to know exactly what she’s doing, and she smiles as she finishes speaking.
That’s when the pain comes. I see a bright white light in my head, and suddenly, Lark’s voice whispers from deep inside of me.