“Meeting us at the Caravan,” said Phoenix. “Dove, did you put in the coordinates?”
“There’s no GPS, boss. We’re flying blind.”
“Don’t need any bloody GPS,” said Churchill. He scuttled into the cabin and came out holding a bronze and wooden device. “This is what I use,” he said. “Old-fashioned telegraph—Feds don’t have anything like it. The Caravans have one on their end.” He typed out a message and put on a headset. “We’ll need to go three miles south to join it. Tell New Texas to meet us there.”
“You already got their response?” I asked. “That was fast.”
“Well,” said Churchill, slightly embarrassed, “they haven’t actually responded yet… I just feel it in my bones, lad. So that’s where we’ll head.”
“Er—right, then.” I nodded skeptically.
Dove, however, had no problem accepting Churchill’s “bones” as a perfectly reasonable navigator. He moved to retreat to the captain’s cabin before Churchill stopped him with a raised hand.
“I’ll drive,” the captain said. Then he looked around and saw Phoenix massaging Mila’s shoulders, and Bertha nursing her own arm. “And don’t worry, there’s a medical bay on the Caravan,” the captain reassured them.
I leaned on the ship’s bow and watched as the ocean breathed fast and slow: a living entity in and of itself. In the span of a few short days, I’d traveled outside Federal waters twice, nearly died several times, lost my mother, my best friend, and my own innocence in the eyes of the state.
I vowed I’d find the last three again.
The Lost Boys had saved my life, over and over again—but why? What did they want from me? They’d lied to me: Mom couldn’t be dead. She was innocent. Charlie, too, with her bright blue eyes and chopsticks. They had to be alive, of that I was sure. The Federation would keep them that way, if only to get to me.
We steal Indigo. We’re Indigo thieves. Phoenix’s words echoed in my mind, coupled with the cases of Indigo vaccines that had fallen from the sky. Mila had shrugged when I’d mentioned it. Thousands of kids wouldn’t get their vaccines because of that loss, that failed theft. They could’ve been sold for millions. Somewhere, rich venture capitalists would pay for Indigo, for life itself.
But I knew the Lost Boys weren’t thieves. In that arena, they’d proven themselves to be incompetent at best. And yet, by attacking Club 49, they’d created fear in the city of Newla. Fear was what they were after. Fear and terror.
It was strange to think how nice they’d been. Kindred, with her blueberries, didn’t seem like the sort of person who’d strike fear in the hearts of millions. And they’d already saved my life twice. Why me? Me of all people?
It didn’t make sense. None of it made any sense. The Pacific Northwestern Tube exploding overhead, the water rushing in, the nets being down, the megalodons swarming, the green glowing lanterns of the Federal guards racing toward the wreckage, Mila retreating toward the surface. None of it made sense.
The nets being down.
The nets had been down on the day of the attack on Tube. They’d been down today, too—just in time to unleash the megalodons on the swarm of Feds. That was just too convenient to be a coincidence. Did the Lost Boys have control of the megalodons?
Phoenix put a hand on my shoulder, and I jumped. “You okay?’ he asked. I nodded. In my mind I could still see the soldiers’ blood floating in the water. In a few years, that could’ve been me. Or Charlie.
“We’ll arrive at the Caravan soon,” Phoenix said, leaning against the railing next to me. “I know everything’s happening really fast—probably faster than I could’ve handled at your age.”
“Were both your parents dead when you were my age?” I asked. It was better if he thought I didn’t know Mom was still alive. Otherwise he’d realize I was on to their game.
He gritted his teeth and stared out over the railing. “They died when I was twelve.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t realize you’d been at H.E.A.L.”
“I wasn’t,” he said, his face hard. “Never got on the train to go. My parents weren’t euthanized. They were murdered.”
“Murdered?”
He nodded. My chest tightened. I couldn’t imagine my own parents being murdered—the very thought of it made me sick. Death was always present in the Federation—on the minds of children and adults alike. The Carcinogens in the air made sure of that. Our lives revolved around death. Murder, however, was rare.
“Yes,” he said quickly, clearly wanting to change the subject. “And I didn’t go to H.E.A.L. because I couldn’t leave my city.”
“Newla,” I said. This was how he’d known it so well. He’d wandered the streets. Probably lived on them for a time. One of the kids who slept behind the trashcans—addicted to Neglex or worse. “You lived on the streets.”
“No,” he said with a small smile. “I slept on the streets. I lived between the pages of books. You ever read Peter Pan? How’d you think I came up with ‘the Lost Boys’?”
It made sense—explained how he was so smart. I wondered if his parents had been booksellers, maybe professors. My own dad hadn’t liked English so much. He used to say that when it came to novels, you only had to read the first ten pages and the last ten pages. He told me fiction was like an ice cream cone: if you looked at it too long, it’d melt. I guess there were a lot of things that melted if you looked at them too long.
I figured it didn’t hurt to ask.
“What—what did your parents do? Before they—yeah.”
“Farmers,” said Phoenix.
“What? I thought you said you lived in Newla? Isn’t the Ministry of Agriculture on Molokai, next to the Suburban Islands and not much else?”
A worried look flashed across his face.
“I—er—meant they were writers. They wrote books and stories. Liked English and literature.”
“That’s the whole story?” I asked. “They were writers and they were murdered?”
“In so many words, yes.”
“And after that you had to live on the street? They didn’t leave you anything?”
“They left me books,” said Phoenix. “Books and a brown leather journal.”
“And that’s the truth?”
He raised a brow. “Truth?” he asked, and I nodded. “Why wouldn’t it be the truth, Kai? Do you think there’s something I’m not telling you?”
“I—er—dunno,” I said. “Just seems like there’s parts of the story missing. What was in the journal?” I thought back to the report I’d found in the Morier Mansion’s library—the way Madam Revleon eyes had lingered on the copied pages. “I mean, did you read it?”
Phoenix nodded. “I read it.”
“Then, what did it say?”
Phoenix’s mouth smoothed to a flat line and his brows sank under the weight of my question. “Nothing of great importance.”
I threw up my hands. “Secrets, then,” I said. “It seems like everything’s a secret, and they’re chewing at me from the inside out.”
Phoenix stared out at the ocean. “Secrets gnaw at the soul, piece by piece, but the truth devours you whole,” he said quietly.
“So there are secrets?”
Phoenix smiled. “Just trust me, Kai. That’s all I ask.”
I thought about Mom and Charlie locked in Federal prisons somewhere. “Well, trust is a lot to ask,” I said. “And it’s awfully hard to give without the truth.”
Bertha stomped her foot against the deck. “I see it!” she yelled.
We joined her at the ship’s starboard side. In the distance, I made out a line of boats. There had to have been at least a hundred, all draped in shades of blue fabric. If Bertha hadn’t pointed them out, I could’ve mistaken them for the crest of a breaking wave, or the space where water met the sky.