He does not stop.
I swim out as far as I can, toward the partially submerged geodesic sphere, the fishing trap I saw from the yacht. If I can just get inside—if I can just keep him out—I can cling to the bars at the top while I catch my breath, hide deep underwater until he gives up, or until someone finally decides to help me. Hopefully one of those things will happen before the tide is so high I can’t get above the surface anymore. It’s worth a chance. It is my only chance.
Lonan’s long arms narrow the gap between us—I’ve never swum so ferociously in my life. The cage is close, so close.
But the door is secured with a padlock the size of my heart.
I am so tired, and so out of options, but I fight to hang on. He grabs my elbows from behind, shoves me into the cage’s unforgiving bars. I cling to the steel with all I have and climb it like a ladder, one painful rung at a time. I’m barely high enough to get a clear breath. He is heavy, weighing me down—and then he’s not.
But I am not free.
He tears at the chain around my neck, pulls it tight tight tight from behind. My father’s thick wedding band—it digs, it chokes. The force of it is strong enough to hold me underwater, for long enough to steal my breath.
Lonan pulls tighter still, but then the chain snaps: freedom. I come up for air, gasping.
It takes a second for Lonan—Ava inside Lonan—to recognize what’s happened. I take a deep breath and head back for the shore, swimming even more furiously than before.
I’m just out of the too-deep water when my lead expires.
Salt water stings my eyes, bites at my throat. Lonan’s hands hold me under much more easily than Hope’s did. I connect my knee where I know it will buy me time—breath—life. He recoils from the pain.
I grab a fistful of hair with one hand, dig my other set of fingernails into his neck until a trickle of blood seeps out. “Why are you so intent on killing me?” I yell, staring deep into his eyes, where I know I will be seen. “What have I done, Ava? What has my father done—what could you possibly have to gain? You’ve destroyed Zhornov’s business meeting! Do you really think that’s going to earn his favor?”
He plunges me under again, holds me there for so long the glittering sunlight on the water turns to pinprick stars. I tear gashes in his wrists, let the salt sting him as the blood swirls around my head and into my hair.
“Stop, Lonan!” I shout, when I bob above and steal enough precious breath, though it is useless. “Please, for the love, stop!”
Water, glittering light, pinprick stars, blackness.
There is no for the love. There is no stop.
And then: a wonder.
One second his hands are an iron vise. The next, they are his again—I can tell this at once; there are all things tender and gentle in the way he moves them over my body. I am limp in his arms, hair floating on the water. I leave all my tears in the ocean. There are no more in me to cry.
“Eden, Eden! No—no!” He is panic, he is pain.
He is there. Behind his eyes, Lonan is there.
He pulls me to the beach, wraps me in his arms. “Stay with me,” he says, pleads. His lips are soft as he kisses my neck, my temples, my wrists.
Or maybe he is only looking for a pulse.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—I’m so, so sorry!” He cries this into my hair, over and over.
But all the air I need to form words, all the air he forced from my body, is taking its sweet time coming back. No desire to be caged in a human, I guess, now that it’s found freedom.
It flies away and so do I.
NINETY
I WAKE TO dim turquoise light, alone, in a room that looks exactly like the one where the chaos began, except everything is backward. An electric-purple jellyfish pulses just outside the wall, tentacles trailing from its bell as it sweeps over the coral terrace. Another of my line-drawing prints watches over me as if to say, Tomorrow. Peace. It’s a hope, not a promise. Tomorrow doesn’t guarantee peace, and peace doesn’t guarantee a tomorrow.
But if I’m in this room—to recover?—we have still not been found out. Someone tucked a blanket over me; there is a Havenwater bottle and an untouched plate of food on the table. How long have I been in here? Where are the others? We’ve not been killed yet, and we’re still on the island.
Perhaps I haven’t failed my father after all.
My limbs are heavy with sleep—all of me is—but my fingers find the vial in my pocket miraculously intact. I guess it shouldn’t be so surprising. I carried the first vial around for two years before it shattered outside the lodge; no doubt the bloodlock’s glass is stronger and more advanced than even that was.
Blood and glass: memories come flooding in.
No indication the waterlock failed in the chaos room—it must have done its job; we are not flooded. No trace of blood stains this floor, but what about the other one? Or does Pellegrin remain only in my mind, images I’ll never be able to erase? I fear I will never be free of all the images that play in my head.
I throw off the blanket. It is too hot; I am slick with sweat. When I finally slip back into darkness, the nightmares play all night long.
NINETY-ONE
WHEN I WAKE again, I am immediately on edge.
My eyes fly open at the sweep-slide sound of a door panel. No one rushes to my side, no one calls out to me. There are only footsteps in the main room, soft and steady. And then a face I don’t know, one it takes a moment to place. This woman, two-thirds my size in every way, but still with a presence, is one of Zhornov’s kitchen staff. I saw her slicing fruit as we passed through the kitchen.
“Your presence is required upstairs,” she says. S-A-B-A is tattooed on her pinky: she used to be one of us. I wonder if she, too, is a HoloWolf—I can’t imagine Zhornov would allow anyone who hasn’t undergone the procedure to live on his island. “The kingpin desires to speak with you.”
My stomach flips. I need . . . more than food, really, but food is all I have right now. I pick a cracker from the fruit plate that’s been sitting there for who knows how long. “Did you bring this down for me?”
She doesn’t smile, but I can tell from her eyes she appreciates the acknowledgment. “You should have eaten it before now. There’s no time—follow me, please.”
I pluck a handful of grapes from the stem, stuff as many pieces of sliced banana into my mouth as I can handle, and follow her out of the room. No use resisting. If she is a HoloWolf, I know all too well that she can be used against me if needed. Also, if there’s even the slightest chance Dr. Marieke is still on the island, it would be good to get out of the habitat and back above the surface.
She doesn’t initiate any conversation as we walk. I eat my fruit; she keeps her eyes straight ahead. Every step makes my heart ache over how fast I ran this exact same path last time. I wonder if Lonan was also called in to speak with Zhornov, if the others were, too. I hope they made it out.