Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)

“Oh, not you, Lyric. You’re number thirty-three and the best of the best. No, I’ve had to get creative.”


There’s a knock at the door, and when it opens, there’s another wheelchair. This one has Arcade in it. Her head is tilted to the right and her eyes are rolling in her head. She’s drugged and doesn’t seem to know where she is, but she has a moment when she focuses on me. Her hands go up to strike, and that’s when I realize one of them is missing and her arm is now wrapped in white gauze.

“Oh, no,” I whisper, too horrified to scream.

“I will kill you slowly,” she slurs as she swings wildly in the air.

“What have you done?” Doyle gasps.

“I need the two of you to understand the dire nature of what is happening, because things have gone from bad to worse. Rusalka have attacked lower Manhattan. They control everything south of Twenty-Third Street. It’s pushed our timetable up. Chloe has her glove, and this time I made sure it went on her hand. I even locked it in place myself. She’s ready to be trained. I know you’re very close with her, Lyric, so I’m hoping you’ll do your best to help her learn to use it. Delivery is in three days.”

“Three days! They won’t be ready!” Doyle cries, getting up from his chair so fast, it topples over. I’m too hypnotized by Arcade’s stump to notice.

“The client paid for the product, and now it’s time to ship it.”

“The product,” I say.

“You’re sending those kids to their graves!” Doyle rages.

“I’m trying to save the world!” Spangler shouts. “That’s our job, David. The Rusalka, the Alpha—whatever else is out there—they’re coming for us. The kids are our only chance. You can cry in your bunk because they have to do the heavy lifting, but those are the cards we’ve been dealt. They’re going, and when you’re an old man sleeping in your bed and not worrying about mutated fish people coming to kill and maim your family, you’ll see the price wasn’t that high. Thirty-three children for the lives of millions, that’s hardly a price at all!”

Spangler turns to me.

“Three days. Those kids can learn a lot from you in that amount of time. I suggest you get to work.”



I wheel Arcade back to my room because the thought of leaving her with Amy is too frightening to imagine. I’m hoping my mother will know what to do, or my father, who was trained in first aid when he became a cop. Bex will be good for her too. Their friendship, if you can call it that, is complicated, but I do think they respect each other.

When I get her into the room, my mother lifts Arcade out of the chair and lays her on one of the beds. Bex rushes to get some cool washcloths, and my father checks her pulse.

“It’s slow but not dangerous,” he explains. “The sedatives they gave her are most likely the cause.”

“He should know,” Bex says, not having to explain who “he” is to me.

I nod, and suddenly my anger at Fathom is gone. Yes, he should see her. I go to the door and beg the guard to bring Fathom to my room. The guard is lazy but eventually relents and heads off as soon as a replacement comes to take his post. I wait outside until Fathom appears. His face has a tentative smile, and his eyes are hopeful. He thinks I’ve changed my mind about him.

“Arcade is hurt,” I say.

“Arcade is a warrior,” he says.

“Seriously,” I say.

I lead him into the room and he hovers over her bed, lifting her wounded arm and studying the dressings where her hand once was. I brace myself for some nonsense about trophies won in war, that a wound is evidence of a fight, and that she will cherish this loss, but if he is thinking it, he keeps it to himself.

“Like all Triton, Arcade carved the cutting edges of her Kala with stones, from the time she was a small child until she had her first kill. Every edge is unique, the closest thing our people can produce to art. This wound has ruined her work. It is a terrible tragedy for her. Her designs were widely admired. When we were still living in the hunting grounds, she often told me she considered being a teacher, instructing young Triton in the forms their Kala can take. I encouraged her passion. I believe she would have been very good at it.”

He stands over Arcade for a long moment before turning to me.

“Will you take care of her?” he asks.

“Shouldn’t she be with you?”

He shakes his head. “Please do me a kindness and do not tell her I was here. She will be offended if she learns I was concerned. It will imply that I think she is weak.”

“That’s insane,” my father says.

My mother shakes her head. “It’s true. Triton do not nurse the wounded. It is insulting to the victim’s strength and tenacity. If she wants him, she will ask, though I suspect she will not, out of pride.”

“So that’s it?” I cry. “You’re going to go? And if she survives, then you two will go back to the normal routine, like nothing happened?”