Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)

Bachman presses some buttons and then spins her tablet so we can see. What appears are images of the prime walking onshore while hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Rusalka swarm behind him.

“I don’t know what to believe,” Riley says, exasperated. “Who is telling the truth? Is any of this real? Are we really under attack?”

Calvin nods. “The governor and I, along with several of our intelligence agents, will escort you to the front, where you will be placed under the command of Major Tom Kita of Marine Special Operations Forces.”

“What about the others? What about our families?” Riley cries.

Calvin takes Bachman’s tablet after she taps into it, then reads her response.

“‘Your parents, along with Lyric’s, will accompany you. As will Ms. Conrad, the Triton prince, and the Triton girl. Everyone else stays.’”

“No way!” Riley shouts. “Everyone goes free.”

“Here is the deal on the table,” Calvin says. “You fight. You kill the monsters. Your Alpha and human parents go free. Everyone else stays. If you tell the other children any of this, we will kill all of the human parents. They are expensive to the bottom line of this company anyway.”

“We can’t win!” I say.

Bachman taps on her tablet.

“‘I know,’” Calvin reads. “‘You are grotesque to me and the rest of America, but you may kill a few of them before they kill you.’”

I stand up and lean over Bachman. “What did you do with Doyle?”

She shifts uncomfortably.

“If you bury him—all of him—then I’ll go,” I say. “He was a soldier. He deserves a burial.”

She shrugs.

“You got it,” Calvin says.

“I’ve got your back,” Riley says as they escort us to our rooms.

I lean in and kiss him. Maybe it’s inappropriate. Maybe it’s sending the wrong signals. Maybe I’m not thinking straight and I’m scared and in the middle of a nervous breakdown. Or maybe I just want to kiss somebody who wants to kiss me, somebody who’s not in a loser triangle. It’s a nice kiss. It doesn’t pull me into an undertow, but it’s got potential. It’s probably the last one I’ll ever have.



The story Calvin tells the children is that Mr. Spangler and Mr. Doyle have the sickness and, during the crisis, Riley and I raced to get them to the infirmary. Only a moron would believe that story. It makes zero sense, but the kids don’t question it. Their blind acceptance makes me fear for them all the more.

We gather in the park. The children, Riley’s family, my own, Bex, and Arcade. Fathom hovers in the shadows. Everyone is looking at me. I suspect they are holding their breath until I give them permission to breathe.

“You need to say something to them,” Riley whispers to me. “They’re all afraid.”

“They should be afraid,” I whisper back.

“They don’t need to know that,” he says. “Give them some hope. Who knows what could happen? You survived the first attack, didn’t you? You didn’t think you’d survive this place, but you did. Miracles happen. I just had one happen to me.”

He gives me that smile again, and I take it.

“You’re that boy who pushes people to do things they’re not comfortable with, right?”

He nods earnestly. “Talk to them.”

I turn and look out on their faces. They stare back at me, waiting for some kind of guidance, but I have no idea what to say. I bet my dad would nail a speech like the one they need. Even Bex would be good at it. But it’s me.

Breathe, Lyric.

“Today is the day,” I stammer. “We’ve been training for it and now it’s here, and we’re going to save the world. I’m not going to lie and I’m not going to candy-coat it like Spangler and Doyle did. Some of us may die today. We are children going off to face monsters. There are only thirty-three of us. There are thousands of them. We are saddled with human feelings like mercy and fear and kindness. They make us weak. Our enemies aren’t burdened with things like that. They only know revenge and bloodlust.

“So why send us? The answer is simple. We are special. We can do things that a normal person cannot, and we’re fighting something the world cannot deal with on its own. So it’s up to us. That’s a lot to put on our shoulders. But like I said, we’re special. We can breathe underwater. We have weapons that can break the ocean apart. And we’ve been trained to fight. But that’s not why we’re going to win. We’re going to beat those things because we have each other. Look around you. Look into the faces of your friends. We aren’t just a group of people thrown together to fight for a good cause. We’re family. In fact, we are related by blood now. We are our own Alpha clan.”

“The Sons and Daughters of Lyric,” my mother shouts. The kids clap and cheer but I’m too embarrassed.