Heart of the Storm by Michael Buckley

  “Yeah? Did he tell your people to slaughter the rest of the Alpha and eat their bodies?”

  Husk picked up my spear, and I flinched, certain I’d pushed him too far, but instead of impaling me, he sharpened the tip against a rock until he was satisfied with the point.

  “You know I’m telling the truth, don’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “Then why don’t you urge everyone to leave?” I cried.

  “Because this is our home.”

  “It’s making you sick!”

  “Minerva will never abandon the hunting grounds. It would be the ultimate defeat to be forced to return to our nomadic ways. Abandoning her husband’s city would lead to challenges from the others. As long as she wants to be here, the others will stay. She is the prime. Her wishes will be carried out.”

  “Even if it kills you?”

  He waved me off. “Keep our bargain, human. Hunt for her. That is all that is asked of you until the baby is born. In return, I will keep you alive.”

  “I don’t know how to fish.”

  “Then learn,” he said, then turned to jump into the water.

  “Wait! How do you know English?” I begged.

  “The Great Abyss gave me a blessing.”

  “A blessing?”

  He shook his head, clearly frustrated by me. “That’s what Tarooh called it.”

  “Tarooh?”

  He growled. “It’s like talking to a jellyfish! Tarooh was the High Thinker of the Alpha empire, a Nix of great intelligence and imagination. I was one of a few of my people he gave a device. It changed all of us, but I alone became something new.”

  “He gave you a glove, right?”

  His black orbs peer at me suspiciously.

  “It’s made out of metal? Covered in little symbols? You wear it on your hand? I used to have one too,” I explain. “I used it to fight off the prime’s invasions—​that is, until I put on the second one. I was amazing for a couple minutes and then the power just fizzled out.”

  “This is not possible!” he shouted. His frustration and impatience with me turned to shock and fear. He backed away as if I were the horrible monster instead of him. I hadn’t seen a lot of emotions on a Rusalka aside from “kill, kill, kill” and “eat, eat, eat,” but at that moment I knew he was bewildered. “The voice told me of another like me, but I assumed it was one of my brothers and sisters, not a human.”

  “Wait? You heard a voice too? When I wore one of the gloves, I could hear a whispering, but when I put on the second one, I actually saw an old friend who told me I was going to change. I guess the gloves cause hallucinations in all of us.”

  Husk stepped forward and clamped his heavy hands onto the sides of my head. “The voice is not in your head, human. It is real!”

  Lyric, can you hear me?

  I stumbled back, pulling myself away from him and falling onto the unforgiving ground. He stalked me, his face crazed and alight, his hands reaching out for me. I crawled backward, desperate to get away.

  “You heard the voice. Tell me now, human!” With an incredible leap, he was over me, falling to the ground and snatching my head once more. This time everything changed. Husk’s hands, the little island, the clear blue sky—​they all melted away, and when my vision cleared, I was home, back in the Coney, popping a squat on one of the weather-worn benches lining the abandoned boardwalk. I had sat there many times, smoked cigarettes on it, kissed a boy or two on it, but that bench doesn’t exist anymore. It was demolished to make room for the fence that separated the Alpha camp from the Zone. Still, it felt real. The Wonder Wheel slowly turned behind me. Rudy’s Bar was open for business, too. The jukebox played Sinatra’s “The Summer Wind.” I could smell corn on the cob. I heard popcorn popping. There was a bell ringing somewhere, announcing to some lucky kid that he had won a teddy bear. Everything was just the way it was before the Alpha arrived, and Shadow was sitting next to me shoving his phone into my face.

  “I’m taping this. Say something interesting.”

  “You’re dead,” I said.

  He frowned. “Way to start on a down note.”

  He looked like he always did, brown-skinned, wide-eyed, and with a mop of unruly hair he couldn’t have cared less about. His round baby face was losing the baby, and he was growing into a man, and a handsome one, too. This was the boy who followed Bex around until he earned his nickname.

  “You’re in the light,” he complained as he squinted into the sun behind my head. “Can we switch?”

  “This is breaking my heart,” I said, because it was.

  “I’m sorry. This is just easier,” he said.

  “Easier?”

  “For you.”

  “Is this a dream?” I scanned the boardwalk in both directions. Everything was remarkably clean. There should have been beer bottles, used hypodermic needles, and discarded lottery tickets up to my ankles. There should have been a sunburned junkie drifting around aimlessly waiting for the methadone clinic to open.

  “In a way,” he said. “It’s hard to explain. If you want to be picky about it, I am not your friend, but I am made of the parts you find dearest about him. You need a familiar face to help explain what’s happening to you.”

  I turned and saw Husk lingering by the funnel cake stand.

  “Does he see you too?”

  “Husk sees his father. He was a very important figure in his life. It’s actually quite sweet.”

  “So, we’re sharing a daydream?”

  “Yes . . . no. You know what? I’m hungry. C’mon!”

  In a flash, he was up and trotting along the boardwalk. Before I could stop him, he was down the ramp that led to Nathan’s. The restaurant was deserted, another unlikely occurrence, but everything else was exactly like I remembered it—​the grimy floors, the murky yellow and muddy orange linoleum, the five wobbly tables standing in the center of the room without a chair in sight, the busted ketchup caddy, even the messy glob of pickle relish on the floor. Like the beach, it felt authentic down to the scratch graffiti someone had carved into the tabletops. It even had the stinging smell of barbecued pork, but it was also completely wrong. Where were the panhandlers begging for change and the middle-aged Russian guys whistling at young girls? Where were the tired, crying children, the young Puerto Rican boys keyed up and looking for a fight, the sunburned tourists trying not to make eye contact with the locals? Where were the seagulls? Coney Island was lousy with seagulls swooping up and down, dive-bombing for pretzels right out of your hand. Where the hell were the rats?

  “These are so amazing,” Shadow confessed as he popped a Tater Tot into his mouth. I looked down and found a red tray had materialized in front of us. Along with the Tots were two chili dogs and a couple of lime rickeys. Shadow reached for more, but I pulled the tray away.

  “Answers first. Food second.”

  “Fine,” he said, and threw his hands up in surrender. “Do you remember when the Undine came onshore and you put on the second glove? Do you remember talking to me?”

  “You said my brain was getting a software update.”

  He rolled his eyes. “The real Shadow was kind of a nerd, huh? It’s as good a description as any, I guess. Husk calls it the blessing, but it’s more like your mind is being overwritten with a new operating system, just like when you upgrade a computer or your phone, and when it’s done, things will be different for you.”

  “Husk got super smart? Is that what’s going to happen to me?”

  “I have no idea how you will be changed,” he confessed.

  “Any idea when it’s going to happen? I’m in a lot of trouble at the moment.”

  He shrugged.

  “That’s all you’ve got for me?”

  “Sorry, kid,” he said.

  “Well, that sucks, Shadow! It’s no help at all,” I grumble. “Can you explain how he and I are having the same hallucination?”

  “First, this is not a hallucination. Second, you’re linked,” he said as he p
ointed to his head.

  “I’m lost,” I confessed.

  “C’mon, Walker. You’ve got to keep up. My Tots are getting cold,” he complained.

  I pushed the tray back toward him. He forced three of them into his mouth, then took a huge bite of his hot dog. Chili rolled down his chin and landed on his Sugar Hill Gang T-shirt.

  “Haven’t you ever wondered how the gloves work?” he asked with his mouth still full.

  “No. I’ve been trying to stay alive, so that’s kept me busy,” I snapped.

  Husk entered the restaurant and stood next to Shadow.

  “She’s not ready to understand,” he growled.

  “You weren’t ready at first either,” Shadow scolded. “Don’t you remember how afraid you were when I told you this? Help her.”

  “What the hell are you two talking about?” I demanded.

  “The gloves have a power source unlike anything else in the world. It’s a living energy,” Husk said. “We both heard a whispering voice that helped us master the water, correct? That voice was not conjured inside our minds. It’s the power inside the glove talking, and it comes from a much larger consciousness.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard this before,” I said. “Ghost and Luna thought the voice belonged to the Great Abyss, but—”

  “She’s not ready for this part either,” Husk said.

  “Fine, tell her what she needs to know and save the rest for later,” Shadow replied.

  “Putting on the second glove awakened an ancient ability that all intelligent creatures once shared—​a link to the voice, and to one another.”

  “The two of you sound like my mom’s yoga buddies. Can you cut all the hippie-dippy stuff and just tell me what has happened to us?”

  “We are bound, our minds are connected,” Husk said.

  “You’ve entered a hive mind,” Shadow explained.

  “A hive mind.”

  Shadow sighed impatiently. “Some groups of animals think and act as a single organism, like a beehive, with one goal and one voice. Let me make this simple, Lyric. Your brain and Husk’s brain are like a swirl cone from the Mister Softee truck.”

  “We can hear each other’s thoughts?”

  “No,” Shadow said. “But you can speak to each other that way. You’ll share information and knowledge. But that’s not the important part. This hive you are in—​you didn’t create it. You joined it. It’s big, and there are others in it with you. You are sharing everything you know with them, as well. It’s important to—” Shadow raised his finger to his lips. “Shhh.”

  Nathan’s vanished, along with Coney Island, and I was dragged back to the little island in the middle of the ocean. When my eyes focused, I found Husk pacing by the edge of the water.

  “Where did he go?” I asked.

  “They were listening,” he said, peering over the side of the island as if the eavesdroppers were out in the water.

  “Take me back. I have questions!” I felt an odd sensation wash over me, like my spirit was reaching out to Husk—​no, more like I was following in his footsteps, breathing on the back of his neck, even though we were several yards apart. I could sense his heartbeat, the way the sun hurt his eyes, his anxiety about being on the surface too long and making Minerva grow paranoid that he and I were plotting against her. His emotions were mine. I felt the same fears. I was in his head and under his skin. I was tethered.

  “Get out of my thoughts,” he bellowed.

  “I am not doing this on purpose,” I cried defensively. “This is not something I want. Tell me how to turn it off, and I will.”

  “We don’t have time for this. The prime will be expecting her dinner,” he growled.

  “Forget her dinner. This is more important,” I said.

  He shook his head. “No. We should go. Learn to fish, human. It will keep you alive.”

  He leaped into the water and vanished beneath the waves.

  Chapter Seven

  MY MOTHER FINDS A BOX OF MAC AND CHEESE, the good kind with the sauce instead of the powder. Luckily, the house they are squatting in runs on electricity, and with the help of a couple of generators, Riley and Maggie stole from a Home Depot, they’ve got enough power to cook, keep the lights on, and even make hot water for showers. We gather in the fancy kitchen, with the farmer’s sink and the marble-topped island, and everyone takes turns assembling the last three months for me. The group has been hiding in different houses in the area since they arrived, moving from time to time to avoid attracting attention from drones and the occasional door-to-door search by soldiers checking for squatters and burglars.

  “I still don’t understand how you all got together,” I say, between bites. Along with the mac and cheese, there are canned peaches, Ritz crackers, and chewable vitamins my father found in an upstairs bathroom. I have been instructed to eat everything on my plate.

  “Remember Jackson?” my father asks.

  I do. He was one of the soldiers who helped us fight when Minerva sent the Undine to kill us. I learned to trust him.

  “The soldier he ordered to take us to safety turned out to be working for White Tower,” he explains.

  “Do you think Jackson knew?” I ask. I hate to think he did.

  “I don’t know for sure,” Dad says. “I’m leaning toward no. He had a million opportunities to sell us out to White Tower if he wanted. I think a lot of the military is working for Bachman on the side, but Jackson felt solid to me. Anyway, this kid—​’cause he wasn’t older than eighteen—​he took us to a jeep, and we started driving away from the battle zone, but the dummy kept his radio on, and all the while, we’re hearing people shouting for him, telling him that White Tower guards will meet him on the other side of the Verrazano for the exchange.”

  Bex laughs.

  “Why is that funny?” I cry.

  “You have to picture this. So your dad is in the front seat. I’m in the back with your mom, and she’s sitting right behind the driver. His radio is in the back with us, and we look at each other, and I just couldn’t believe it, right? After all that craziness, they’re still screwing with us. So your mother reaches up, grabs the soldier by the back of the collar and tosses him up and out of the jeep. He let out this crazy scream and landed in a tree. Aaarghhh! It was hilarious.”

  “I was angry,” my mother says, as if she’s ashamed a little.

  I marvel at the story. My mother is a yoga instructor. I have a hard time imagining her as an Alpha warrior, even though I’ve heard stories about her from other Alpha. To me, she’s Summer Walker, on the beach in her cutoff shorts and flip-flops.

  “Next time I could use a little warning,” my father says. “Luckily, I got into the driver’s seat before we crashed.”

  “We didn’t even stop driving,” Bex says. “But that’s not the best part. You can’t imagine what we found in the jeep—​guns, flashlights, radios, and a state-of-the-art, untraceable laptop computer with built in Wi-Fi. Private Stupid taped his password to the keyboard so he wouldn’t forget it. You have no idea how valuable it has been for us.”

  “But I don’t know how you found the kids, and what happened to the others.” Half of them are not here—​McKenna, Geno, Dallas, Alexa, Cole—​there are at least fourteen missing from my team.

  The good feelings around me seep away. Everyone’s eyes look to the floor. Chloe seems like she might cry.

  “When you killed the Undine, White Tower came in and captured all of us,” Maggie explained. “They used the EMP device the lady in the wheelchair gave the soldiers when we arrived. When they turned it on, our gloves were useless. We fought back, but they had guns and Tasers.”

  “Still, we tried,” Brady bragged. “I knocked at least a dozen people out.”

  “They arrested us and put us on buses,” Riley explains.

  “And the buses headed right toward us,” Bex says.

  “We waited for them to show up, blocked the road with the jeep, and Momma Bear hulked out again! Your mom ripped t
he door right off the first bus,” Bex said.

  “The driver peed his pants,” Finn says. He and Harrison break into giggles.

  “But helicopters came and soldiers, and we were just outnumbered,” my father says. “We couldn’t rescue the kids on the other bus. If we had stayed, we would all be dead.”

  I share a look with Bex, then Riley. No one needs to ask where the rest of the team is right now. They’re back at the camp, most likely locked in tiny cells while Bachman pokes and prods at them.

  “And then you came here?” I ask.

  “Well, after a couple problems, yes,” my mother says.

  “Why didn’t you come for me?”

  The question wraps around everyone like a straitjacket. No amount of squirming loosens its stranglehold. It’s a brutal question to throw out into this reunion. I understand, but I’ve needed an answer to it for a long time. My mother flinches like I’ve punched her in the face. She stands, her face awash in grief, and hurries out of the room and through the back door.

  “She knew were I was. She could have found me,” I say defensively.

  “She wanted to, Lyric,” Bex says.

  “What stopped her?” I cry.

  “She’s been hobbled,” my father says.

  “What?”

  “The government forcibly evacuated the eastern seaboard. People were put on buses and driven away to camps. People who fought back were arrested. Some were shot. Families were separated. It was out of control. We camped out at an abandoned motel in Elizabeth for a few days to stay off the roads. We needed to get our bearings and figure out what to do next.

  “One night a group of soldiers raided the motel and found us. Before we knew what was happening, a guard locked this thing on her leg.”

  “What thing?”

  Bex reaches across the counter to where a thick, heavy-duty laptop computer has been sitting. She starts it up and types a few words on the keyboard, then spins it so I can see the screen. On the screen is an image of someone’s leg encased in a metal band. The skin around it is raw and red.

  “It’s an iron cuff,” my father explains. “They lock it onto an Alpha’s leg or arm to prevent them from transforming in the water or, in the case of the Triton, to stop them from releasing their arm blades. If your mother goes into the water, she’ll die. Her transformation to her true form begins automatically. It would tear her legs apart. Not that it mattered much. I had to chain her to a post a few times to make sure she didn’t just leap into the ocean to find you.”