Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)

“Make an example out of us,” they taunt, and one last time they change. The monsters are gone, and in their place are hundreds and hundreds of identical copies of myself.

I wake with a jerk, all floppy limbs and foggy brain, and then WHAM! The crown of my head crunches against something hard and unmovable. My skull is a cracked egg with searing yolk dribbling down my neck, shoulders, and spine. Fireflies swoop in and out of my vision and the coppery taste of blood fills my mouth. I’ve bitten my tongue so hard, I’m worried I might have lost some of it.

“Calm down! You’re okay. You’re safe,” a voice says from above me. Its owner is sitting on my chest.

I push off the dream, telling myself I am not a monster. This is not Coney Island. I’m in a lime-green Ford somewhere in the middle of Texas with a one-hundred-and-twenty-eight-pound girl sitting on my chest.

“Bex,” I gasp.

Bex gives me a long, suspicious look as if she’s weighing whether or not I’ve gone crazy.

“I can’t breathe,” I squeak.

She rolls off me and into her seat. She’s sweaty, and it looks like someone poured a glass of water down the back of her T-shirt.

“You’ve been having a lot of crazy dreams lately,” she says, pointing to my hand. The glove is awake and pulsating. It’s never powered itself on before without my asking.

“It was so real,” I explain as I turn it off. “I can still hear them.”

Bex points to my driver’s-side window. I crane my neck in that direction and spot a gang of burly guys sitting on motorcycles in the parking space beside our car. They laugh and shout at one another, gunning their motors so that a loud thrum rattles our windows, my teeth, the air, and probably God in heaven. One of them spots me and howls with laughter. He’s amused that he scared the crap out of me. I give him the finger and he laughs even harder.

“Where’s Arcade?”

“She’s praying,” she says, the words riding on a wave of irritation. “Were you two out training last night?”

I nod. There’s a big purple bruise on my shoulder and on the right side of my rib cage. Bex gives them a quick once-over and shakes her head.

“Do the two of you have a plan when we get there?”

“Sort of,” I say, but suddenly realize we don’t at all, unless you consider “Attack the camp, free everyone, make people regret doing evil crap” a plan.

“Sort of?” she says. “And do you have a plan for me?”

“You’re going to drive the getaway car.”

“No, for when you die.”

It’s not like I haven’t considered the possibility, but I also know I have actively avoided giving it a lot of thought. I don’t know what is going to happen or how it’s going to end. I also haven’t thought about what Bex will do if I’m killed. Who the heck plans that kind of thing? This is a unique situation. I don’t have a plan B, and she knows it.

“What do you want me to say? There isn’t an instruction book for what we’re going to do. I’m doing the best I can here.”

“For just one second, can you stop fighting me and hear what I’m saying to you?” she says. “What should I do if you die?”

I fumble with words I don’t have. I’ve been so caught up in preparing for this fight that I have forgotten about the consequences if it fails.

“Find somewhere to be happy,” I whisper.

I watch a tear tumble out of her left eye and down her cheek; then she nods as if I just answered a question for her.

“Typical,” she says.

Arcade opens the car door and crawls into the back seat.

“You have had enough rest,” Arcade says. “Make this machine go.”

I give Bex my best reassuring smile, but it misses by a mile. She turns her head away to the window again.

I start the car and pull out onto the freeway.