Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)

I found a receipt for gas on the floor of Lucas’s truck, so I know Doyle filled the tank in Menard. It will get me pretty far, maybe all the way. It’s a long drive, but that’s fine. It will give me time to become as brave as I sounded in that parking lot. Everything is falling apart, and I don’t know how to stop it. Worse, I’m terrified that my bad luck has yet to run out.

I search the truck’s glove compartment and find a spiral-bound road atlas of Texas highways that allows me to trace a path with my fingers to my very best guess of the camp’s location. I assume it would be in the desert’s remotest area, maybe even on the very border of the U.S. and Mexico. It’s a shot in the dark, but it’s the only one I’ve got. After that, it’s anybody’s guess. The uncertainty sends me into despair. I think about how afraid Bex must be and how little help Arcade will be to her. I think about my parents in that camp with Doyle watching them every single day. I can’t shake my certainty that he’s watching me now, that there are cameras in the truck and my escape was part of the plan.

And then I think about Fathom. Not knowing if Doyle was lying to me or not is excruciating. I whimper for hours as I drive through Eldorado, Iraan, and Fort Stockton, where I take Highway 67 south toward the Texas border.

It’s here in this barren landscape, the rocky climb into copper-stained mountains, that I feel loneliness for the first time. I expect Bex to lean over and change the radio station. She and Arcade are like a couple of phantom limbs. Their absence feels wrong. It needs to be corrected. Arcade wanted me to have a reason to fight, maybe even to kill. Doyle just gave me one.



It’s nighttime when Lucas’s car runs out of gas, half a mile from the nearest town. I let it roll off the freeway and as far into the scrub as it will go. Hopefully no one will spot it.

I find a blanket in the truck bed and a bottle of water under the seat, then spend ten minutes debating whether or not to leave Lucas a note. I doubt he’ll ever see this car again. There’s a good chance that he’s not even alive, but it seems right to say something.



I’m sorry that you got mixed up in my problems. I had no idea the bad guys would go so far. I hope you are alive. You’re good all around, and the world needs more people like you, Lucas.





I place the note on the dash, wrap the blanket around my shoulders, and walk through the chilly night. When I get back to the road, I realize there are no streetlights out here. My only guide is the moon, so I use the light it reflects off the paint on the pavement to steer my course.



Half an hour later I walk into Shafter, Texas. The sign says the population is twenty-seven. I think it’s exaggerating. Shafter is so small, I don’t think it should be allowed to call itself a town. There are a handful of tiny homes surrounding a large white stucco church. It’s imposing in the night, a white behemoth surrounded by black mountains. It’s also quiet and a good place to camp for the night. I circle the outside and find a silver camper in the back. I listen at the door for signs of life, but there’s nothing. I try the door, but it’s locked tight. I consider breaking a window, but I doubt I’d fit through it.

The church has two entrances, one in the front and one in the back, but both are locked as well. I consider going back to the truck to sleep, because breaking into God’s house seems really wrong—maybe so bad that my father’s nagging voice might give up on me entirely. Still, it’s so cold and I need to lie down. So I make the sign of the cross as best as I can remember and whisper a pre-crime apology into the sky. I find a heavy rock, wrap it in my hoodie, and smash a window. It was loud. I bet all twenty-seven residents are rushing down here in their pajamas to investigate. I wait for a light to come on or a police siren. After ten minutes, I reach my hand through the sharp edges and unlock the window.

The room I’ve broken into is a dank, stuffy place filled with rows and rows of pews and folding chairs. There are racks on the back of each seat where Bibles, hymnals, and paper fans wait for worshippers. A plaque on the wall explains how much money the church collected last month and how much more they need to meet their goals. There’s a life-size sculpture of Jesus on the cross standing behind the pulpit. It’s not fancy, not like the church Dad used to take me to, with the towering ceiling and the stained-glass windows and the little cushioned benches you could fold down when you knelt to pray. This is church without the special effects.