Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)

“Let me out of here!” I shriek.

I cry. I can’t help myself. The tears come out in violent convulsions, igniting a shaking fit that I can’t stop. Everything inside me rattles, bones crash against bones, organs shake like jelly, and my knees buckle. I tumble face-first, hard. Unable to brace myself, I hit the floor with a hard smack.



Now I’m on my side, half on the mattress and half on the concrete, and I’m still alone. I sit up and feel a sticky pull on my face and arms. The mattress is damp and has a big red stain with a brown border. It’s blood—my blood—and there’s lots of it.

I search my body, looking under my shirt, wondering if I really was shot, but there are only three tiny burns forming the corners of a pyramid. I gingerly remove my sock and see the nail on my big toe has been torn away. It wiggles when I touch it and delivers a shocking pain into my back. Still, there’s not enough blood to have caused what I’m seeing. I reach up to my scalp and slowly probe my hair until I find a lump as big as a hard-boiled egg on the back of my head where my skull meets my spine. There’s a lot of crusty stuff too, which I guess is dried blood. Running along the top of the lump is a wound. It’s angry, and even a soft graze from my fingertip sends daggers into my skull. I cry out, and when I look at my fingers, there’s fresh blood on the tips.

“I need a doctor!” I shout to silence. My stomach threatens an eviction of Henry’s breakfast. No. Calm down. Someone will come. Spangler will send a doctor. I’m important. Doyle said so. He won’t let me die. They’ll stitch up my head and clean me and bring me a new mattress and a pillow and a sheet. They will do these things because they are human beings.

“Hello?” I shout.

The only answer comes from the light bulb hanging over my head.

Tick—tick-tick—tick—tick-tick.



There’s a commotion at my door. I hear a rattle and the sound of keys. The slot at the bottom opens wide, and a silver bowl of food slides into the room.

I crawl toward the slot and peer out into the hall, but I don’t see anyone.

I have never been so hungry in my life. There’s bread and something that looks like mac and cheese, and two brown things in sticky syrup. When I look closely, I realize they are slices of rotting apple, but I am too ravenous to care. I tear at the bread and it crumbles in my hand, dry and stale. I nearly choke to death on it and have to slow down because they haven’t given me anything to drink. I eye the mac and cheese next and reach for a spoon, only to realize they haven’t given me that, either. I scoop it up with my fingers, feeling like an animal. It tastes gritty and definitely not like mac and cheese. I can’t place the taste at all. It’s a bit like Cream of Wheat, but there’s a vinegary flavor. I’m too hungry to care. I shovel it into my mouth and lick my fingers until I see something squirming on the tip of my finger. I eye it closely. It’s a maggot.

I wretch and everything comes up, burning through all that’s left of my energy. I lie back down, pull my knees close to my chest, and rock back and forth. If my mother were here, she’d rub my back and tell me jokes until I laughed.

“Where’s my mom?” I whimper. “I want my mom.”

Is she in a cell like this one? Could she be across the hall? I know I am not alone in this prison. There are shouts and screams seeping in from beneath the crack in the door. Someone is slamming metal on metal. I hear footsteps and an argument that turns into a fight that turns into an agonized scream. The noises never stop. They bear down on me, grind at my skull. Every shout is a punch in the gut. Every cry for mercy is a stab in the heart. They’re proof that I am not alone, but they are no comfort to me. I wonder if that person is Bex. What if it’s Arcade? What if it’s my father? What if it’s Fathom?

I failed them all.

I hear a rattling, and the slot opens. There’s a hum that terrorizes me. I brace for electrocution, but instead the bowl rattles around on the floor, then skids toward the door as if seized by an invisible hand. It slams against the door, bounces around a bit, then zips through the narrow space. The slot closes. Footsteps fade away.