By chewing at their own limbs.

  It took his mind a moment to wrap around the situation in front of him. He had never feared the Cranks before, but the wound in his back made him weak. Vulnerable. In counting the Flare-ridden, bloodied bodies before him, he only counted six still attached to their wrist and ankle shackles. Two gaping holes in the link—loose chains dragged on the concrete. Two Cranks were loose in the bunker.

  “Get to the armory room!” Mikhail shouted as he stumbled backwards, not able to take his eyes off the sight of their madness, their desperation to be free. Like caged animals, they would rather chew off every limb than stay enslaved. The armory room had a full supply of guns, knives, ammo, and hand grenades, but his right leg suddenly gave out from the spreading pain. Like something poked him from inside the wound. He screamed despite himself.

  “Great Master!” one of them exclaimed, but the cloaked men didn’t have the instincts of Orphans who’d trained their whole lives. They were organizers and politicians, didn’t have the minds of soldiers. To guard. Protect. Kill. Mikhail spun around and within an inch of his face was a snarling Crank, ripe with rage.

  Widened eyes with no soul behind them. Only bloodlust.

  Such smells. Every bodily fluid combined into one. Spit. Bile. Blood. The Crank lifted his half-chewed wrist toward Mikhail but he grabbed it, held it back, held it tight. The Crank gargled a scream.

  “Give me your pen!” Mikhail shouted. He reached for it, grabbed it from the hapless Grief Bearer, clicked it, then stabbed the Crank in the neck. Right in the artery.

  The monster dropped to its knees, Mikhail still holding its wrist.

  Detached from its body.

  “Great Master, you’ve been hurt!” a Grief Bearer cried from behind, finally observing Mikhail’s wound. But he wouldn’t allow this to weaken his plan.

  “Pack the Cranks into the Bergs. Now!” He forced himself to his feet and moved swiftly toward the armory.

  “One time, Skinny found an Orphan all the way out in a field. Dead.”

  Minho appreciated company while he steered the ship, but Orange was not going to convince him that one dead soldier in a field meant there was an army of Cranks. “He saw the Crank Army?”

  “Well, no. The guy was dead. Skinny never reported it, he wasn’t supposed to be out there.”

  “Then how does a dead soldier in a field equal a whole army of Cranks?”

  “Because.” Orange took a deep breath. “Skinny said the body was hollowed out.”

  Hollowed out? He shrugged. A single Crank could have done that, or a pack of Crank-wolves. Minho didn’t know if Crank-wolves existed but if they did, it would make more sense than an army of trained Cranks. “Don’t go telling her all these crazy stories, okay?” He nodded toward Roxy, approaching the two Orphans at the captain’s bench.

  “Stories about what?” Roxy asked.

  Orange shook her head. “Nothing . . .”

  “Everything working okay?” Roxy asked as she looked over the controls. Minho nodded. He’d figured most of them out. Steering a ship on water was a hell of a lot easier than steering a Berg in the air, but still, being out in the ocean made him nervous. He kept the Maze Cutter within sight of the coastline so that he could anchor in at night. The Orphan found that being behind the captain’s wheel required only one thing: Focus. Like watching the distant tree line from the walls of the Remnant Nation. Patience. Balance. Watching the surface of the water. Listening for the sounds of the ship to change.

  He tried to ignore the things he didn’t know, like why the rudder of the ship kept pulling to the left, but it was getting worse by the hour. “The alignment’s off. It wasn’t this bad when we started. Something’s making it pull.” He steered slightly to the right in order to go straight. “Think you can take over while I look at the mechanics?” Orange nodded.

  “I can help, too,” Roxy said.

  Minho scoffed. “No offense, Roxy, but I’ve seen you in a truck. I don’t need you finding every bad wave and hitting every whale.”

  “Heyyy.” She almost sounded offended. “I’ll have you know my grandpa taught me how to canoe. Yeah, that’s right. It’s a little different, but his first rule,” she held a single finger in the air, “was to respect the water.”

  “That’s a good rule,” Minho replied. “You can help Orange ‘respect the water’ by keeping watch for anything ahead of us.”

  “Ain’t nothing in this water but water.” Roxy looked out at the gentle ocean waves. “No other ships, no whales, nothing to look at. Kinda boring, gotta be honest.”

  “Wait.” Orange took over the captain’s wheel. “You knew your parents? And your grandparents?” Tiers of soldiers and generations of Grief Bearers were about as close to a family tree as Orphans from the Remnant Nation ever got. Minho wanted to hear the answer.

  Roxy nodded with pride. “I knew my grandparents and my dad. Although I wouldn’t exactly say I knew him. I met him and we spent lots of time together, but I never got to really know him.” She stuffed her hands in her pockets. Minho thought about what that meant, for Roxy to have had someone like that in her life but still never really know them. “My mom, she died some horrible death that no one loved me enough to talk about.”

  “Oh.” Orange turned the captain’s wheel to the left as she glanced at Roxy. “I’m sorry.”

  Minho remembered Roxy telling him about her mom before, but it must have really bothered her. Never knowing the truth. “Maybe . . . they loved you a lot and that’s why they didn’t tell you. You know, if it was horrible.” He stepped over and corrected Orange’s steering back to the right to overcompensate for the pull to the left. “Sometimes, what we know. . . it changes what we knew, and maybe they didn’t want that for you.” He understood this by how much he’d kept from Roxy and the others about himself, his true self—because he knew it would change what they thought about him.

  Roxy was lost in thought. She may not have been his real mom, but he wanted to get to know her—really know her as much as he could before they got to Alaska and things changed. He could look at the rudder later. “Tell us about your grandpa.” He sat on the captain’s bench. “He taught you about the water, what else?”

  Roxy sat down next to him and pulled her legs up to her chest as if she was about to tell a proper yarn. “He collected stories from all over. Books, pamphlets, almanacs, whatever he could find, and he’d memorize those stories. He’d travel the country and towns on horseback to find more.” She laughed.

  Minho couldn’t picture it. “Your grandpa went around on a horse? Just to tell stories?”

  “Why is that so hard to believe?” She scrunched her eyebrows.

  Minho didn’t mean to offend her, he just didn’t get it. Traveling to give a warning he understood, because he’d killed many people doing so. Traveling to give aid was another excuse he’d heard often before shooting arrows at trespassers. But traveling to share fairy tales seemed less . . . respectable. It seemed like an unworthy reason to die.

  “What, spit it out. Whatever you’re thinking.” Roxy frowned.

  He wasn’t sure how to share all that without telling her how many men he’d killed who had been traveling with greater missions. He looked at Orange but she was only watching the ocean. As she should when at the wheel, but it didn’t help him find the right words. “Because there’s no honor in doing so.”

  “Honor?” Roxy spat it out as if she’d never heard the word before.

  “The reason. The purpose. A need that’s greater than your own.” The Orphan explained as best he could. He didn’t want to say that telling stories wasn’t worth dying for. He knew Orange would understand his perspective.

  Roxy shook her head back and forth. “Connection is the purpose. Without stories, we’re all just barely living. Stories help us understand life so we can live. Stories are the glue that hold our bones together. Stories of family. Stories of Old. Stories of make-believe. Didn’t that Nation of yours ever teach you anything?”

  “We have rumors in the Remnant Nation. They’re like stories, right?” Orange asked, and Minho tried not to make a face. “Tell us one of yours.” She didn’t take her eyes off the small waves ahead.

  “Oh, there were so many.” Roxy tilted her head back as if looking to the cloudless sky might help jog her memory. “People used to come from many towns over just to hear his tales. The ones about the ancient Gods were the stories people loved the most.”

  “What ancient Gods?” Minho asked.

  “The Elohim.”

  He gazed lazily at Orange but she looked just as confused as he did. “What is that?”

  “You know, the God with the Angels and the Devil?” Roxy waved her hands in front of her as if that could help them place it. The only God they’d ever heard of while growing up was the Godhead, and those weren’t stories about how to worship them. No. Only ways to kill the Godhead.

  “The Flare was our Devil,” he said. “And our God was the Cure.”

  “Still is,” Orange agreed.

  Roxy huffed. “The Cure is just a thing. You can’t worship a thing.” Minho knew plenty of people who did just that.

  She continued. “Most people of old worshiped a God, but not everyone had the same one. Different names, different origin stories, different lands and planets the Gods came from, but one thing that never really changed was the Devil. Evil remained a constant in all tales of old.”

  Orange steered the ship, and Minho watched to make sure she continued to favor the right side. To him, evil was evil, no matter what shape, body, or thing it possessed. The Flare would always be his Devil even after he joined the Godhead. And the Evolution was needed to stop that Devil. “This guy have a name?” he asked to appease Roxy.

  “Iblis.” She paused. “God commanded all the spirits to bow before man, which he’d created from his own breath, but the spirit named Iblis refused. He wouldn’t bow to anyone but God. He didn’t believe man could be a God.”

  “Kinda like the Godhead,” Orange contributed. “People who think they’re Gods and can control the Cure.” What would she think of Minho when she found out his personal mission in Alaska was to join the so-called Godhead? To become one of them, despite the rank he was born into? “I agree with this Iblis fella. Men aren’t Gods.”

  Roxy seemed pleased with the conversation. “But by not bowing, Iblis offended God. So much so that he was cast into Hell.”

  Minho and Orange looked at each other with wide eyes. They both understood Hell long before these grandpa stories. They had been there before. It was the lowest level of the Remnant Nation fortress, a place of torture and cruelty. A place to which Minho vowed never to return.

  “Oh, we know Hell,” Orange said.

  “Yeah,” Minho added. “We’ve both been there.”

  “No, no, no.” Roxy laughed. But if she had ever been to their Hell, she wouldn’t have. “Hell is a place you go to after you die, where the Devil rules his little scary kingdom. I don’t believe in it, not literally anyway, but some people do.”

  Roxy could say Hell was a made-up place all she wanted to, but it was real.

  All too real.

  “So . . .” Orange thought out loud. “This Iblis guy. He’s in charge down there?”

  “Sent there, then ruled it.” Roxy paused. “Still does, I suppose?”

  Minho stepped in to correct Orange’s steering again. “I got it, I got it,” she said. “Go check the rudder, already.”

  He nodded. Yeah. He’d check the rudder. Anything but this Devil nonsense.

  He thought about everything Roxy had said as he walked toward the other end of the ship. It seemed like every generation on the Earth had a different idea of God, and every generation their own idea of a devil. He had his own beliefs and would stick to them.

  Men could be Gods, no need for a Heaven or Hell.

  Maybe those left back in the Remnant Nation already thought of Minho as a devil for not returning. They’d surely think it when he joined the Godhead.

  It didn’t matter if they did.

  He’d never go back to find out.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Blind Luck

  It had been over a day since they watched the Maze Cutter disappear beyond the horizon, but Isaac couldn’t stop thinking about everyone on board. His only solace lay in the fact that he trusted Minho more than he’d ever trusted Kletter.

  “Think they’ll be okay?” Jackie asked quietly as they walked south along the coast.

  “Yeah . . .” Isaac rubbed the grass-braided bracelet around his wrist that Sadina had made him. “They’ll be okay.” He wanted to fill the silence that Cowan and Old Man Frypan left open. Isaac didn’t blame Frypan for not wanting to go to Alaska. To everyone else, the stories of old were just stories, but to Frypan they were memories. Painful, terrible, memories.

  “They’ll be something.” The old man added, “Long as they don’t come across any Grievers, they’ll be fine.”

  Isaac couldn’t tell if he was joking.

  Cowan coughed. “They’ll come back to join us soon. Once they reach the Godhead, we’ll be their next stop.”

  “You think it’ll happen that quickly?” Jackie quickened her step with this news.

  Isaac wondered if Ms. Cowan was going to tell the others what she’d told him—that everyone from the island was a test subject, not just Sadina. Well, except for Isaac and the old man, who were last-minute additions. It made sense now why Cowan had hesitated to let them come on board. Surely Frypan didn’t look at manipulation kindly. Not about test subjects, at least, with the infamous tattoo still visible on his neck.

  “What do you think will happen when we get to the Villa?” Isaac directed his question to Cowan in an attempt to invite the whole truth to the rest of their group. He’d kept the secret of her infection and he didn’t want to carry another one.

  “We’ll introduce ourselves and our lineage and we’ll ask them for help,” Cowan answered matter-of-factly, as if it would be that simple.

  Frypan chimed in, “Nobody’s going to help us if they don’t see any help in it for themselves.” The trees on the path started to look weak the farther they went, more and more bare. Something was eating their leaves. Or infecting their leaves.

  “We don’t have to go in the Villa, you and me,” Jackie said, turning to Frypan. “We can just stay in the woods until they—”

  “Nah, we’ll go in. If there’s something in my old blood that can help you recover Ms. Cowan, I’ll help.”

  This brought an honest smile across Cowan’s lips. “Thank you.”

  “It doesn’t look like the Flare.” He added, “A new variant, maybe, but it’s not the Maze-forsaken-Flare, that’s for sure.”

  Isaac’s shoulders relaxed at hearing that. He had nothing to compare Cowan’s symptoms to in his mind, but the rash looked bad and the woman’s face had begun to droop, as if the sickness in her body pulled her down in every possible way.

  “Anyone need a rest?” Isaac asked, looking back specifically at the adults. If his legs were tired, then Cowan’s and Frypan’s had to feel twice as worn.

  “I’m good,” Cowan said.

  “A little farther,” Old Man Frypan added.

  “How is it that I’m ready for a break and you two aren’t?” Jackie blew out a heavy sigh and laughed. “I’ll walk all day if it means I’m not swaying on that stupid boat, but I don’t think I’m in quite the shape as you two.”

  Frypan flexed a bicep. “Back home I walked four miles every morning. Up the coast and back around.” No wonder he had so much energy.

  “When we get back home, I’m doing that walk with you,” Jackie said. “Every day.”

  “Me, too.” Isaac smiled thinking of home. He wasn’t sure they’d ever make it back to the island, but he was relieved to have the others. Even if something happened to Cowan, Isaac wouldn’t be alone. Jackie might not have the stomach for a boat ride, but in Isaac’s opinion, she was the strongest islander of the group, even stronger than Dominic. If they ran into Cranks again, he’d trust Jackie to kill them with her bare hands if needed.

  “What is that . . .” Cowan pointed to a brown lump on the dirt path up ahead. Isaac squinted at the strange blob. He walked ahead to investigate and leaned over. It was a dead bird.

  “Just a sparrow.” Jackie joined him and bent over to touch the bird.

  “Wait, don’t touch it,” Isaac said, “it might have a disease.”

  “I’m not touching the bird, there’s a little someone I wanted to say hi to.” She motioned to the tiny, wiggly, red and orange thing crawling on the dirt behind the bird. An amphibian. Cowan had started another coughing fit and took the opportunity to stop and rest. “Hi little guy, what’s your name?”

  Old Man Frypan took a look. “That there is a big ol’ Salamander.”

  Cowan coughed and coughed to clear her throat. “This is silly, but maybe it’s a sign . . .”

  Isaac looked down at the dead bird and then back to Cowan. He didn’t want her to think she’d soon be dead on her back, beak to the sky, too. “No. Everything will be okay.”

  “Exactly. It’s a good sign.” She managed a smile, but her forehead creased like a frown. Isaac had no idea what she was talking about. “We have these old books in congress, written accounts by the immunes, sharing their knowledge and memories. And in one of those books, someone called a Salamander a Newt. Said not to eat them.”

  “I’d starve before I ate this cute thing.” Jackie pet the creature on the top of its head with the pad of her finger.

  “Little Newt,” Isaac said, and it earned him an honest smile from Old Man Frypan.

  “That’s a fine name for anyone,” he added.

  “Hear that?” Jackie asked the tiny salamander. “You’re a newt, Little Newt.” She stood up and placed the new pet on her shoulder.

  Their group had just added another member, one that made each one of them smile. Maybe the little guy even had a bit of luck in him. Isaac wasn’t superstitious, but he’d welcome any good fortune they could get, especially since the brown sparrow was the second dead bird they’d found in as many days.