SEVENTEEN:

  JOHNNO

  Just before noon the following day, we finally reach the waterhole. Recognising the surrounding rocks and trees as we get closer, I wonder if we’ll see any evidence of last night’s kill.

  I still can’t believe we did that. Perhaps it could have passed as a collective dream, shared by Violet and myself, except for the fact that I wasn’t starving when I woke up.

  Neither of us ate breakfast. There was no need.

  Violet pulls into the picnic area and turns off the ignition. ‘No one else here.’

  ‘No one else,’ I echo, wondering what the chances of someone else turning up are. I’m thinking pretty low, considering we’ve only seen two cars in the past twenty-four hours.

  Violet jumps out. ‘I’m so grimy, this waterhole will look like a dirty bath by the time I get out.’ Within seconds, she has stripped down to her underwear and is diving in. Smiling, I follow her, gasping when the cold hits my groin and belly.

  ‘Felt different when you were a wolf, didn’t it?’ Violet is grinning, droplets glistening on her eyelashes.

  ‘Most things feel different when you’re a wolf.’ I swing my hand through the water, sending a wave across her torso. She laughs and swipes me back, and then we’re kicking and splashing at each other, and it’s not until I see the trail of crimson between her fingers that I remember her wound.

  ‘Hey.’ I gesture at the adhesive dressing on her arm, which is bright red. ‘Looks like you’re—’

  Scowling, she begins wading toward the shore. ‘Great. I should have known not to get that wet.’

  ‘Wait.’ I go after her, my feet sliding over rocks. ‘I thought you wanted to wash your hair. The soap’s in the car.’

  ‘Yeah, well, maybe it’ll have to wait.’ She raises the boot and takes the first aid kit out.

  I take the kit off her. ‘I’ll do it.’ I stick another adhesive dressing on, noting there are only two more of those and about six plasters. ‘I can wash your hair for you, if you like.’

  She hesitates, glances away. ‘OK. Thanks.’

  Violet sits on a rock, cradling her arm, while I lather her hair, then rinse it using an empty spaghetti can to scoop up the water. When she tilts her head back, for some reason I’m reminded of last night, of how she looked after she brought down the wallaby.

  She’d torn the throat out first, fresh red blood gushing over her snowy snout. The memory of the smell is fresh, too, even though all I can detect now is soap and the faint, almost metallic scent of the water.

  ‘I’m not hungry yet,’ she says, obviously intercepting at least some of my thought-images. ‘Are you?’

  ‘No.’ I tease out the tangles in her locks, reluctant to finish. ‘How do you think that works?’

  ‘No idea, but it means we’ll be able to survive for as long as we need to out here. Or anywhere, really.’ She turns. ‘Are you going to wash your hair now?’

  ‘Sure.’ I lather up, then dive in, head towards the bottom until I realise the waterhole must be really, really deep. By the time I return to the surface, my lungs are ready to burst with the effort of holding my breath for so long.

  Violet, still sitting on the rock, her feet dangling in the water, says, ‘Maybe you should travel as a fish next time.’

  I flip onto my back, my breathing slowing. ‘Guess that could be fun. But …’

  Yeah, she think-says, our communication interspersed with thought-shapes and colours. Being a wolf was awesome. I felt so … powerful.

  I stand up, treading water. You are powerful.

  Not like you.

  What makes you say that? You’re the healer.

  Not a very good one. She pushes wet locks off her forehead. You’re the best at solving the problems they’re always giving us.

  I swim towards her and prop my elbows up on the rock. How useful do you think that really was?

  It means you can figure out other stuff. Her gaze is distant, but I’m remembering the blaze of her wolf eyes. If you put your mind to it.

  By ‘other stuff’, you mean convincing everyone that Violet Black and Jonathan Fletcher really have returned from the dead, and that the Foundation is experimenting on other people like us?

  Violet inhales. Yes. Obviously. But not just that. I had this idea. Her brow wrinkles. I don’t know, maybe it’s crazy. But what would you say if someone told you that the M-fever epidemic was manufactured?

  I frown. What do you mean?

  I mean, what if M-fever was an engineered virus, one that was released on the unsuspecting public?

  You mean by the Foundation? Why would they want to do that?

  She gives me a thin smile. They created us, didn’t they?

  I’m starting to shiver, so I clamber up beside her, the sun-heat of the rock soaking into my skin. Alternatively, I think-say, they could have created a virus and released it by accident.

  The same virus they’re trying to alter to create more of us? Doesn’t sound like an accident to me. Her thigh is very close to mine. So close, but so far. Last night, while we lay curled together, we created our own shared dreams. Wolf dreams.

  I try to focus. Maybe you’re right. But how are we going to prove that?

  Violet touches me, gently, between the eyebrows. Before we left the Foundation, you overcame their blocking devices … right? I mean, all you need to do is access the right people. Greta. Marlow. Melody.

  But that means I’d have to go …

  Back to the Foundation, yes.

  ‘No,’ I say aloud. ‘No, no, no. We only just left.’

  ‘But … last night, didn’t you hear her? Harper was calling out.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ But it’s coming back to me too, a faint memory of a cry for help. Could that really have been Harper? ‘I thought I was just dreaming, but now I’m not so sure. I’ve never communicated with anyone over that sort of distance before.’ I shake my head. ‘Even if it was Harper, we need to find another way. If they get us again, we’ll never leave. Not alive, anyway.’

  ‘But, Johnno,’ Violet says, and the sound of my real name is enough to make me feel hot all over again, ‘we don’t have to return. Not like this.’ She spreads her arms, nearly toppling off the rock. I grab her by the shoulders, steadying her, and stare into her ice-blue irises. Images scud across her — our — consciousness. A wedge-tailed eagle. An albatross and a kestrel. Black wolf, white wolf.

  ‘Like you said, we’re already so much smarter than they are,’ she continues. ‘We’re getting smarter every day. If we can bring together the VORTEX members, if we can join our collective consciousness together just like you and I already have, then don’t you think we can bring them down?’

  ‘Bring them down,’ I repeat. I’m still holding her by the shoulders, but any desire to kiss her has been replaced by a white-hot, excited terror. ‘I hope you’re right. Because if Greta gets her talons into me again, I think she’ll melt my mind.’

  ‘That won’t happen.’ Violet’s eyes change, ever-so-subtly, and the dream-scent returns, fresh blood and flesh and wolf.

  ‘We’re changing,’ I whisper. ‘Aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘We are.’

  That night, we change into our wolf forms and go hunting again. What a joy it is to run and run and run and not get tired. To bring down small animals and feast until all I want to do is sleep.

  When we’ve finished feasting, that’s exactly what we do; our wolf-selves wound around each other on the banks of the waterhole, while our human bodies survive on the barest of heartbeats, the smallest of breaths, safe in the confines of the SUV. We stay like that, our hot flesh-and-blood exhalation mingling, until the sun breaks over the horizon.

  And I dare to think that we might do this all over again tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

  But of course, nothing ever stays the same.

  EIGHTEEN:

  VIOLET

  I wake to the crackle of tyres over dirt-gravel. With a growl, I sit up before realising I’m still in wolf form. Johnno springs up too, and as one we plunge into the waterhole. Down and down and down, until snap, we’re writhing in the rear of the SUV.

  ‘Crap.’ I sit up, peering through the dusty window at the camper van that has just rolled into the picnic area. ‘What shall we—’

  ‘Just act natural.’ Johnno opens the boot and jumps out into the dirt. The newcomers are driving one of the new-release Fuse vehicles, a thin stream of water spilling out of the exhaust pipe.

  A rangy guy with a trimmed blue beard, in his early thirties maybe, leaps out of the camper van. ‘Hey, watch out.’ His accent is American, his syllables long and drawn-out.

  ‘What for?’ Johnno asks. I tug on a t-shirt and jeans before venturing outside, at the same time as a woman with dyed-gold hair climbs out of the passenger side of the van.

  ‘We saw two big … dog things. Dingoes?’ She looks at her boyfriend.

  ‘Those weren’t freaking dingoes, more like coyotes. They dove in there.’ Blue Beard points at the mirrored surface of the waterhole.

  Johnno fingers his hair. ‘No coyotes around here.’

  ‘Someone’s dogs, maybe?’ the guy asks.

  ‘Maybe.’ I hug myself. ‘We never heard anything.’ I wonder if they have any weapons. Seems unlikely, especially if they’re tourists.

  Blue Beard shakes his head. ‘I’d keep an eye out if I were you. They looked kind of wild.’

  ‘Sure,’ Johnno says, while simultaneously intercepting my ponderings. Are you kidding? We can’t leave them stranded out here.

  There’s spare fuel in the SUV, I say. Enough to get them back to civilisation, if you can call it that.

  ‘I’m Conrad,’ Blue Beard says. ‘And this is Kelly.’

  ‘I’m Wolf,’ Johnno says. ‘And this is Liesl.’

  ‘Nice to meet you.’ Kelly eyes up the waterhole. ‘We were going to stop for a swim, but I’m not so sure now.’

  Conrad shrugs. ‘Well, they’ve either drowned or taken off, whatever they were.’

  ‘Probably more scared of us than we are of them,’ Johnno agrees, while continuing our think-conversation. Let’s just hang out with them for a bit first, OK? Aloud, he says, ‘We were about to go for a morning swim ourselves. Are you camping?’

  ‘Yeah. Thought we might stop here, but …’ Conrad scratches his chin. ‘God, maybe it was some sort of mirage. I mean, they were huge.’

  ‘They must have been dingoes,’ I say. ‘That’s the only dog-like thing that would survive out here. Maybe not even that.’

  ‘Well, I’m getting my trunks on then,’ Conrad says. ‘Coming, Kel?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe …’ Kelly says, still reluctant, but when I sift through her thought-stream, I can tell she’s hot enough to put her worries aside, as long as someone else gets in first.

  Johnno obliges by diving in, still wearing his boxers. Conrad appears from around the other side of the Jeep a couple of minutes later in a pair of red boardies, and follows him in.

  Kelly glances at me. ‘Are you going in?’

  ‘I can’t.’ I hold up my arm. ‘Cut myself a few days ago.’

  ‘Yeah? Is it deep?’ Kelly asks. When I probe further, into her subconscious, I realise she’s a doctor. She and Conrad are having their first holiday together, and she’s already having second thoughts about their relationship.

  ‘It is quite deep,’ I admit, while trying not to delve too much further into her feelings for Conrad. None of my business, really.

  ‘Want me to take a look? I’m a doctor.’

  ‘OK.’ I smile. ‘Thanks.’

  In front of us, Johnno is jumping off a rock, his wet skin glistening in the steely glare of the sun. If I squint, he could almost be a fish, the way he’s slipping through the water.

  Not even close, he think-says. Keep an eye out for the car keys. We’ll have to be fast.

  I will, I reply, while feeling guilty at the prospect of robbing such a nice couple and leaving them stranded in the middle of somewhere that is close to …

  ‘Nowhere.’ Kelly moistens a square of gauze with saline. ‘But Conrad wanted to try out his new toy, the Fuse Camper. He says we’ll make it all the way to Darwin without having to refuel.’

  ‘Really?’ I try not to jump when she starts cleaning my wound.

  ‘Wriggle your toes,’ she says. ‘Wow, this is really deep. What happened?’

  ‘I was trying to open a can with a knife. Dumb, huh?’ I’m trying to sound calm, while inside my emotions are all over the place. What if Conrad and Kelly aren’t who they say they are? What if they’re from the Foundation, lulling us into a false sense of security until the back-up comes in with their helicrafts to take us back to the Spiral? No, there’s no way they’d be coming anywhere near us without blocking devices, I think, my emotions segueing into gratitude that Kelly is helping me, and then horror-guilt at the thought of what we’re about to do to her and Conrad.

  ‘Just unlucky. Well, it should heal up OK with some glue.’ Kelly takes a tube of something that looks like superglue out of her first aid kit. ‘Just try not to get it wet for the next twenty-four hours or so.’

  ‘Awesome, thanks.’ Watching the glue ooze into my fish-mouth flesh is grossing me out, so I look away. Johnno and Conrad are still horsing around in the waterhole, snatches of conversation drifting towards us. ‘Must be at least a kilometre deep’ … ‘amazing we haven’t seen any snakes yet’ … ‘So how does that work, not having to refuel for so long?’

  ‘Conrad’s team have worked out a way to super-compress the hydrogen, so the tanks last for up to five thousand kilometres. Don’t ask me for any more details than that. I was never very good at physics. How about you guys, where have you come from?’

  ‘New Zealand,’ I say. ‘We’re having a gap year; travelling around.’ When I look down again, I see that Kelly has drawn the edges of the wound together with the glue. ‘Wow, that was fast.’ Does she have to be so nice? God, I don’t know if I can go through with this.

  She smiles. ‘Got pretty good at it after a year in the Emergency Department. So, are you guys sleeping in your car?’

  ‘We couldn’t be bothered pitching our tent last night,’ I improvise. ‘We arrived late.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ She applies a clean dressing. ‘There you go. You should change the dressing in a couple of days. Maybe get your boyfriend to do it for you.’

  ‘Oh, he’s—’ I bite my lip. Not my boyfriend, no, but I can feel the water sliding over his skin, can taste the kangaroo-blood on his tongue, can still hear his wolf-breath in my ear and I—

  ‘Good like that,’ I say, forcing a smile as the guys walk toward us. ‘Thanks again.’

  Johnno returns my smile. Liesl, don’t forget.

  I won’t forget, I reply, blinking away the blood and snow and Berlin, Berlin, Berlin. He sits next to me and slides his fingers beneath my mended arm.

  ‘Wow,’ he says. ‘You were lucky.’

  ‘So lucky,’ I say, melancholy seeping through me.

  The Americans share their brunch with us, store-bought waffles and yoghurt and fruit. I’m not really hungry after last night’s hunt, but who knows when we’ll next get to eat something that isn’t either stale food or fresh kill?

  ‘Man, it must be ninety-five degrees in the shade.’ Kelly stows the leftover yoghurt in the chilly bin. ‘I’m going to have that swim.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m almost ready for another one.’ Conrad flashes his teeth at me. ‘Pity you can’t come in, Liesl.’

  ‘One more day,’ Kelly says. ‘You should be fine to swim after that.’

  I shrug. ‘It’s OK, I’ve got some tidying to do. Are you going in, Wolf?’ Another wave of guilt-misery assails me. Kelly and Conrad have been so nice to us, and we’re about to throw it in their faces. Not just throw it in their faces, but rob them and leave them in the middle of one of the harshest environments in the world.

  I feel awful about it, too, but it’s not like we have a better option, Johnno think-says, before saying aloud, ‘Definitely going for a swim.’ Rising to his feet, he think-says, Just like at the service station … OK?

  OK. I return to the SUV and gather up our few items of clothing, the pocket knife and anything else I can fit into my backpack, including the leftover cheese and cabin bread. I look at the cannisters of water — two left — and hesitate. It’s way too obvious, hauling those over to their camper van … isn’t it?

  Kelly’s laughter spikes into me, making me jump. No, I’ll have to leave the water. I approach the van, keeping the SUV between myself and the view of the others from the waterhole. The electronic key is where I spotted it before, sitting in the drinks compartment in front of the handbrake. The ignition button is to the left of the steering wheel. With any luck, it’ll start as soon as I press it.

  But what if it doesn’t? What if I give Johnno the signal and he runs for the van and then nothing happens?

  Just act casual, Johnno think-says. I’m getting out now.

  My heart pounding, I glance at the waterhole, where Kelly and Conrad are floating with their noses turned to the sky, their eyes closed. They look so serene, so trusting.

  ‘Sorry,’ I whisper, feeling shaky all over. ‘Sorry, sorry.’

  I grab a stick and use it to etch a message in the sand, one they won’t see until the van has departed: we left the key, keep looking. As I watch, the letters begin to blur in the breeze. I don’t know if they’ll ever see the message, but at least I tried.

  What are you doing? Johnno think-says, as impatient as ever. Ignoring him, I climb into the driver’s seat. Now, I say, as I press the ignition button and Johnno, ever-so-casually, climbs in beside me. The engine starts immediately, no noise, because of course it’s an electric vehicle, yes, and as I slam my foot down on the accelerator, I look in the rear-vision mirror and see the Americans are still floating, still oblivious. Too easy.

  NINETEEN: