The Dark Water (23 page)

We could use him. If we bring him back Topside, he'll be able to control his men much better than I can.

“Pick him up,” I say. “Bring him with us.”

“You can't be serious,” Brayden says. “He just had Jo killed. He's responsible for all of this. For your dad. For my parents.”

Rob and I look at each other from across Jo's body. In some ways, he's all I have left. He shakes his head, just barely, his ashen face drawn and exhausted.

“We need him, Brayden. I'm done killing.”

Brayden's about to protest, but he sees how serious I am. His lips thin, and I can feel him make up his mind. I can feel him take matters into his own hands. If I wasn't holding Jo, maybe I could have stopped him. If I knew how to control my powers, maybe I could have soothed him. But I don't make much of an effort to try.

“You might be done,” Brayden says, “but I'm not.” He slams a knife into Sutton's chest and holds it until Sutton's body stops jerking. Brayden shudders and appears to somehow relax, as if a weight just left him.

“I couldn't let him get away with it,” he says, wiping Sutton's blood on his pants.

I'm too tired to answer. I know Dad wouldn't want me to kill, but I also know I'm not Dad. I chose not to kill Sutton. I don't have to be unhappy that he's gone.

THERE ARE NO MORE SOLDIERS. INSTEAD THERE ARE
Keepers, swarms of them, chanting in unison. The streets are clogged, spears and swords and guns that were captured raised in the air. I don't feel cheered though. I'm empty and the weight of my friend on my shoulder is everything.

We're all quiet. And Brayden's hand on my arm does little to comfort me.

The Keepers let us through, Lisa calling in her tongue to clear the way. The streets are so crowded, the Keepers so tall, we can't see more than a few yards ahead.

Some of the Keepers we pass are injured, being fed water by their brothers and sisters. They seem to be congregating in clumps by clan, not mixing much. I see Keepers stare at their dead in disbelief. I see other on their knees, wailing. I don't doubt that there was a sore price paid for the guns that I notice some Keepers carrying. But then again, the Keepers had numbers, healing water, and a real insider's knowledge of the city.

The source flexes inside me, wounded but present, and for the first time I get a real chance to think about what it's doing to me, and what I can do with it. The people around me, these Keepers, the source takes each of their pulses as I walk by, and if I want to, if I pay attention, I can focus on the beating heart of any one person. Most of them feel relief, shock, overwhelming pride, and a searing, mounting pain.

Without warning, the group that we're wading through starts moving toward us, and it feels like we're fighting a riptide. Giant eyes stare at us as we go by. A couple Keepers stop and point at us; they even spit at us. Lisa talks them down, she yells them down. But I don't blame them.

The crowd thins, but even so, it takes a while to get to the steps at the edge of the city, the very steps that Straoc took us down. As we head up, making our way to a lookout landing, I can see the wreckage of Capian, the smoke and the fire, and a part of me can't help but feel a tug of guilt. On the landing, we find Keepers of all colors, and it isn't hard to figure out that these are clan leaders. They are better outfitted, their armor more decorative, their faces painted extravagantly in matching shades and accented by their loyalty to Arcos or Randt or Feileen—pearl earrings and a black necklace for one dressed in deep green trousers and vest, blue and yellow gloves on a sparkling purple dress for another. They stand in a semicircle and face Arcos, who sends them back to their people. At their feet, lined in a perfect row, are Topside soldiers. It's shocking, seeing the twenty or thirty men, their eyes closed, their black gear covering any bloody wounds they have. Next to them, a pile of guns and rocket launchers and a few things I don't even recognize. A Keeper, even now, is pouring what looks and smells like gas on the pile.

“I am sorry for your friend,” Arcos says when he sees us. His face covered in sweat and grime, bobbing with each word. He touches Jo's cheek gently, genuinely sad, and I can
feel
that he's not lying.

“Me too,” I say. “I'm glad you managed to stop them, though.”

He tsks, indicating the city behind us, the smoking ruins of several buildings, the dead everywhere. “We did not win anything.” He takes a step closer, close enough for me to feel the warmth and surprisingly sweet smell of his breath.

“You feel it, do you not?” he whispers in my ear.

I stare at him a moment. My friends and nearby Keepers gawk. Who am I, the Keepers must think, to get this attention from their leader? But I do feel it, I know what he's talking about.

“Something's happened to the source.”

He nods, looking down at his hands. “The water's drying up. It has never been this way.” It's hard to fully comprehend. I only just drank the source, so I don't have much experience in what powers the source actually does give me. But the dull throb of the heartbeats that I feel around me has changed; they aren't as linked to each other as before, as connected. I try to reach out for the source but there's an almost screeching sensation that runs across my mind as I do, like a scratched record.

“But I can still . . .” I pause, grappling with the words. “
Do things.
”

He sizes me up, most likely wondering what powers I've discovered so far. “Yes, me as well. The source must be damaged, off its axis and unable to spread through our aqueducts, but not destroyed.”

“Can you fix it?” I ask.

“I do not know with honesty. And I am the last original Keeper of the source left. The tunnel has collapsed. I do not know, little Mia. My new sister. I do not know.”

I'm quiet for a moment, imagining the source, the cyclone splintered and bent, broken into smaller offshoots. It pulls at me, and a part of me wants to help. But I can't. This isn't my world. I'm no Keeper. We have to get back and help our own.

“Will you be okay?” I ask.

“I do not know,” he says, and I try to imagine him living here, feeling the ache of the source every moment. “I would hope you would stay and learn and be here. But I understand.” His eyes go distant, and he looks up the stairs. “The water . . . You must hurry, you don't have much time,” he says, louder, so everyone can hear.

“Wait,” Brayden says, his voice as weary as I feel. “I thought we had, like, eight days or something before the gates closed.”

Arcos shakes his massive head. “You do not understand. The source is damaged. The water does not flow correctly. We have to take as much of it as we can, at the very moment, or it may be gone forever.”

Lisa slips into her own tongue, but I can still hear the alarm in her voice. Arcos is kind enough to answer in English.

“The gates open only because of the water, so without it, they are closing early, ending the cycle.”

I share a look with my friends and we go, pushing past him up the steps. Arcos calls to us. “Remember, sister, you took of the source. It is in you.”

I don't look back. We can't get stuck here. We can't.

“Push it, guys. Double-time!” I slip into coach-speak on instinct.

“Here,” Lisa says. She hefts Jo up, fireman style, and begins to jog up the steps. I don't have time to gape. We run, not about to get stuck here for seventeen years or maybe for forever. I risk a glance out over the city and see the wreckage below, the true devastation Sutton wreaked with his men. The wall holding the tunnel is crumbled and distorted by dust, chipped away and calved like a glacier. The entire city, lit by gas lamps, is a combustible playground and there are fires and small explosions everywhere. It looks like what I'd think of hell. An underground city of fire and brimstone. But it's not. Not at all. Those are innocent people, hurting because of us, and we aren't staying to help. I try not to think of what they will do if the water runs out. How long they will survive. I try not to wonder if they should all be running with us.

We crest the rise out of breath and aching. My body quickly gets over the pain, and for that I'm grateful, but the others don't have it as easy. Even Lisa's hurting, doubled over and taking in huge hunks of air.

Arcos was right; the gates are closing. They're three, two feet apart, and I can hear the groan of the hinges pulling the massive weight together.

“Run run run,” Brayden shouts, and we do, pulling the last reserves from our feet.

A smallish soldier's standing near the gate's entrance, most likely waiting for Sutton. The lone member of the rear guard. He raises his gun and shouts for us to stop, but we don't. We don't have any weapons, so I sprint harder and get in front of the others, ready to take a bullet, but the guy doesn't have it in him. He knows something's wrong. He also knows there's no time. So he lowers the gun and passes through the gates five steps before I do. The things are so big, so tall that I can't fathom
not
being able to squeak through their arms. But when I get there, the gold bars squeeze my shoulders. I turn and hold out my arms for Jo and Lisa passes her through, her body a weight I can barely hold. The soldier, a skinny young guy, no more than twenty and still pimpled, surprises me by helping out. We get her through and lay her on the ground. Brayden clears the gate, then Rob, who turns around and holds his hand through the bars for Lisa, beckoning.

She hesitates, then shakes her head, her blue hair a blur.

“I cannot leave them. Not as it happened today. My father would not want it.”

Rob opens his mouth to speak, maybe to disagree, maybe to say what he really thinks about Randt, but he stops himself. Rob never stops himself from speaking.
We have to go,
I mouth to him.

Behind her there's the sound of another explosion. Some building falling. The gates pull closer. Lisa grimaces. She looks back over her shoulder at Capian, unsure. “But I have nothing here left. Not anymore.” She hesitates, then her lips curve into the barest smile, a little of her former self cracking the surface, a little of her hope shining through. And she lunges forward, squeezing her tall body sideways through the gates. It's tight enough that Rob has to pull, that her shirt rips, that the side of the gate leaves a gash, that they fall together on the ground.

For a moment they laugh and rest against each other but we don't have time for more than that.

“Come on,” I shout. “We have to get to the lake.”

We struggle up, but the soldier hovers, watching the gap close to nothing.

“Where's the commander?” he asks. He's having a hard time not staring at Lisa, who's bound to be his first Keeper.

“He's dead,” Brayden replies. And I realize that he's asking Brayden. He's probably seen Brayden before, knows that he's been helping Sutton. “So are the others. If you want to make it out of here, you gotta come with us.” Brayden doesn't even wait for an answer, just runs past the soldier toward the lake. After a moment, the soldier follows, which I'm glad for. No need for anyone else to get hurt.

The lake is dark, the glowflowers fading. The water's receding from the edge rapidly, and at the shore we can make out a slow whirlpool, like a drain emptying, spinning loudly in the center of the water. Fish of all shapes and sizes twitch and flop on the mud. In the faint light of the forest edge I make out a half-dozen blue barrels, lying about. The ones Sutton used to bring the weapons, the same containers Dad created to store water.

“If we don't make it,” Brayden says, “we'll be stuck between the gates and the well.”

“Trapped,” I murmur to myself. Then I turn to Lisa, who's still lugging Jo's body. “Give her to me,” I say. “I'm the best swimmer.”

Brayden puts an arm on my shoulder. “It's dangerous to take her with us through the well. Maybe we need to leave her.”

I round on him. “I left my dad in there. I'm not leaving Jo too.”

Brayden raises his arms, surrendering. “Okay, okay. They brought their guns, we can bring Jo.”

“Guys,” Rob says, pointing to the receding waterline, at the tree roots exposed along the bank. It's moving faster.

We trudge through the wet muck of the waterless lake bed, though the mud makes it hard going. But we get there, into the middle of the lake, where the water surrounds us, rewarding the others, relieving their pain and giving them energy. With the source in me, I don't need it. I lean back and put Jo's body against my chest and then swim, outpacing the others by far. Jo would have kept up. The water splashes her face as I swim, and I see her like I've done a thousand times—at the pool, coming up for air, her eyes closed. She never used to smile after a good dive. Not even after a perfect one. She won't be smiling anymore.

Somewhere in the middle of what's left of the lake, I turn and watch the others flail through the water, especially Lisa, who's had no real practice swimming. Brayden and Rob are pulling her along, her ashen body splattered in mud, but she's not afraid; this is her healing water. She knows she can't drown in this. Even the soldier plods steadily on, intent on the new mission.

The swirling in the center of the lake is near, and I feel it tugging on me. I feel something else too, the heartbeats of my friends, like little beacons in the water. I don't even have to look to know that they've caught up with me.

“Hey soldier,” Rob asks, spitting water from his mouth. “Are there guys on the other side, ready to shoot our brains out?”

“I . . . I don't know. Maybe one or two.” His teeth are chattering and he looks like he's about to cry. He's so small in all his huge black army gear. I almost feel sorry for him.

“Whatever happens, happens,” Brayden says, slicking hair out of his eyes. “We know we can't stay here.”

“We're going,” Rob says, taking Lisa's hand.

Rob's thin face is serious and scared—swimming into a toilet bowl is a lot more daunting than jumping into still water. He looks at Lisa, her blue hair slathered across her white forehead, her eager fear. “Just keep swimming down. I'll hold your hand the whole time, okay?”

She nods. They push into the whirlpool spinning slowly around in the darkness of the water. They gulp air. And are gone.

I point at the soldier and to his credit, he goes, disappearing under the surface, his black boots flailing for a second before he's gone. I reach for him to follow his progress and hear a few unsteady beats, then nothing. He could be dead, he could have made it. I'm not sure.

“You ready?” Brayden asks me as we wade together.

I'm not, not really. I spin Jo around to face me, her skin as white as a Keeper's, her blond hair scattered around her in the water. I wish I could say that her closed eyes make her look peaceful, but they don't. She looks hollow, empty. She looks alien to me. Not at all Jo.

“Mia,” Brayden says, softly but with real urgency.

I have to take her. I have to. Mrs. Banner already lost her husband and now her daughter, and I owe it to Jo.

I turn to Brayden, and notice something different about him. I can sense that he's scared, watching the dwindling water. But there's more. I don't fully understand what the source has given me, but I can feel an invisible piece of him trying to cover me, to envelop me. It's like I can feel his pulse louder now, closer. I can sense it reach out from him and touch me, warm and comforting, wrapping around my shoulders.