“She was just here,” I say into my wrist mic. “Slit throat, like all the others.”
We’ll get her next time, Zero, Rhone says, and I want to believe him, but he’s been saying the same thing for weeks. 21 days, and 7 hours, to be exact. I’m on my way.
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. I have to find Lark. When I do, I’ll take her to the Leeches, knock down their front door, and hand her over in exchange for Meadow. I’ve thought about killing Lark instead. But in the chaos that will come afterward, I might not get to my moonlit girl.
Trading Lark for Meadow is best. We’ll be together again, and we’ll find some way, any way, to leave the Shallows behind. Find where the Leeches have taken her family, set them free.
I promised her I’d rescue them.
But I won’t leave without her. I refuse.
The Leech groans, one last time. He takes a rattling breath and dies.
“You deserved it,” I say to his body. I lean down to grab his rifle, and that’s when I see it.
A bloody footprint, just a few feet away from him.
And then another, and another, heading out of the alley, toward the exit that leads to the beach. The footprints are small, but not small enough to be a child’s. They could be Lark’s.
I lift my wrist to my mouth. “Rhone, I think she’s hurt. She couldn’t have gone far from—”
The Night Siren goes off.
It starts as a whoop, dipping low, and then goes so high it’s like a piercing scream. I cover my ears and drop to my knees. My whole body shakes, all the way to my fingers and toes. I hear a voice in my head. Lark’s voice, welcoming me to the Murder Complex.
And suddenly I want to kill, destroy, give in to the pull of the system in my mind. I feel myself slipping away, feel my heart turning cold and solid as stone, see a victim in my head, their Catalogue Number, 65098, in bright red numbers.
But I think of Meadow. I think of one word, with four letters, and it’s stupid as hell but I don’t care.
Because love is what saves me and sets me free. It’s still working, for now, but each night it’s becoming harder. If I don’t save Meadow soon, I’m afraid of what I’ll become.
I shake the Murder Complex from my mind and sprint into the darkness.
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.