Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 110757 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110757 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
One of the soldiers forcefully spins me around; another one grabs the tie securing my hair and tears it free, ripping out some of my hair with it. I scowl and shove his arm away.
The other soldier takes my upper arm and turns me back around to face the man with the medals.
“She’s a feisty one.” He grins and sticks a toothpick in his mouth. “I’ll take her.”
29
“You love me the most when I’m at my worst. How did I get so lucky?” – excerpt from a letter written to Donovan Shore by Amira Khalil
Marcus
This can’t be right. I’ve been crammed into the Prius of submarines for the past eight hours, and it looks like the boat drove itself to an abandoned island.
It’s an overgrown jungle, the small beach strewn with branches and rocks. There’s a neglected dock with weeds growing up through the wood slats.
A sign, the words so bleached by the sun I can hardly read them, hangs from a crooked post.
Island contaminated
Maintain safe zone of four miles from shore
Great. Either Tyrone fucked me, or this robo sub did. I need to figure out how to program my way out of here and hope the sub is enough to protect me from whatever contamination is on this island.
Movement on the dock grabs my attention. A man wearing a maroon T-shirt and gray sweatpants stands there, a canvas bucket hat on his head.
Waving his arm, he gestures for me to come closer. I furrow my brow and point to the sign.
Smiling, he shakes his head and points to the dock.
He looks human, and he’s alive. But I don’t trust anything after what I saw on Island Three. He could be a clone.
What else can I do, though? I need to get to Island Four and I don’t know where it is. Using the joystick on the control panel, I maneuver the sub over to the dock.
The guy who looks like I’m interrupting his fishing trip points to a spot in the water closer to the shore. I ease my pod over to it, and he gives me a thumbs-up.
Suddenly, the sub gets sucked into the water, the force so powerful and fast that I’m looking at the guy one second and I’m back underwater the next.
Fuck. I frantically push buttons, but this vessel isn’t under my control anymore. A powerful force that feels like a vacuum pulls me through the darkness. After around fifteen seconds, the bottom of the vehicle locks onto something, jolting me.
I brace myself, one hand on the dash and another on the door, as the sub is raised by something mechanical, the trip smooth and quick.
When the water slides away from the windows, I find myself in a dry dock. It’s like the one on Island Three, but smaller. Three people stand on a walkway, one of them holding a sign with letters printed in blocky black letters.
It’s not contaminated
Adrenaline is still pumping through me. I’m alive, and I could be dead if they wanted me to be. Still, I wish I had a weapon. I push the button to open the sub’s door and step out onto the adjacent dock.
“It’s okay,” the woman holding the sign says. “We got a message from Island Three that you were coming. There’s no contamination. That’s just how we keep everyone away.”
I breathe slightly easier, sizing her up. She’s tall and lean with shoulder-length black hair. She looks me up and down, her smile widening.
“Come on, cowboy. Let’s have a chat. I’m Cress.”
“I’m not staying long.”
The guy in the fishing hat walks in through a door on the side of the dock. He looks me up and down, too, shaking his head.
“Damn, dude. It’s Tarzan.”
“Evander sent me.”
Cress tilts her head to the side. “You’d be sitting at the bottom of the ocean if we didn’t know who you are, Marcus.”
“So you know what I want, then?”
She arches her brows. “You just knocked on our door and we’ve invited you inside. Come on.”
I want to secure a boat and get back to my island as soon as possible, but I guess I need to convince Cress I’m trustworthy.
I join her and the others, the fishing hat guy opening a heavy steel door.
“Hey, I’m Seth,” he says as I walk through the doorway.
He’s average in height, and he tilts his head back to meet my eyes.
“Marcus.”
We climb a flight of stairs that leads to a large room with nothing in it but a table and four chairs.
Cress takes a chair and gestures to the one across from her. I sit down there and one of the people with her, a man, sits beside her. The other two leave the room.
“Tell us about your island,” Cress says.
They’re both wearing regular clothes from before the virus. T-shirts and lightweight pants. I don’t know how much I want to say, but I’ve got no leverage. The only way I can leave here in one of their boats is by giving information.