First Light (The Daylight Cycle, #1) Read online

  “It’d be one thing if I’d been alone and been gunned down, but the two of you? Especially after you risked your lives to save me? I couldn’t risk it. I wouldn’t risk it.” E.J. shook his head, his shoulders trembling and glistening in the midafternoon heat. “I wanted to give the three of us a chance. Now I might’ve fucked us by doing that.”

  “You didn’t know what would happen.”

  “No, but I should’ve known that the boat would only go so far before it ran out of gas.” E.J. tossed the fish into a cooler, likely salvaged from the storage room. “I feel like this is all my fault.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “And you know what’s worse? I feel like I’ve let you both down.”

  “You haven’t let us down,” Lyra said.

  Rose and E.J. turned.

  Lyra stood in the stairwell, her features masked by the shadows cast from the helm. “You couldn’t have done anything,” she continued, taking extra care to grip the railing as she stepped forward. “I thought it was your fault too, at first, but then I got to thinking… what would’ve happened if we’d’ve gotten into Ireland? If something else had gone wrong? I mean, we already know this thing is contagious… and that the infected aren’t easy to stop… so who’s to say we would’ve been safe, even behind military walls?”

  “I don’t know,” E.J. said.

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking about, these past few days. What could’ve happened, what might’ve happened, what would’ve happened. And you know what? Everything comes back to one thing: us, trapped in a building, surrounded by the things that want to kill us.” She paused to wait for a response. When none came, she broke into a grin on the verge of maniacal. “See what I mean?”

  “Yeah,” Rose said. “I do.”

  “So no,” Lyra continued, turning her attention back to E.J. “I don’t blame you. And I’m sorry if you’ve ever felt like I have. I don’t. If anything… It makes me happier to know you’re here.”

  “Thank you,” E.J. said. “That means the world to me.”

  “I’m ready to do this, guys. If sticking it out is the only way we’re ever going to make it back home… or wherever home will someday be… I’m ready to do it.”

  Turning, Lyra stepped to the stairs leading up to the helm. “Well?” she asked. “Are we ready to do this?”

  Rose nodded.

  Though it was no easy feat, it was with hope unlike any she’d felt before that she took the stairs.

  At the helm, they looked at each other, nodded, then waited for the inevitable.

  With a sigh, E.J. leaned forward.

  Disengaged the key.

  And threw their fate to sea.

  Chapter 6

  Days, weeks, eternity, nothing; the downward spiral of the loss of hope, the careless momentum of the overhead sun; the occasional fish, the dwindling supplies, the rumbling stomachs of dreams—at times it seemed worthless to think that they would one day reach land. E.J. sang, Lyra laughed. A chemistry developed.

  Rose knew that they were falling for one another—that a bond was being made even though everything should’ve been broken—and while happy that her friend had found joy, she couldn’t help but wonder if it was all for nothing.

  Her hair—ratty, unwashed, bleached by the sun to a light auburn brown—mocked her for time she could not count.

  The clocks had stopped soon after their decision.

  How long had it been? A few days? A few weeks?

  She struggled to find clarity.

  Unable to determine the straits of devastation, she took to watching the sea for any glimmer of salvation.

  It came at the most unlikely time.

  At first, she wasn’t exactly sure what she was seeing. It was so early in the morning that shadows were born of confusion—casting light from a sun that had not fully risen and masking details in innocuous shadows. In any other circumstance, she would’ve seen it as nothing more than ignorance. Today, however, she felt it was something else.

  At the bow of the ship—where she stood awaiting her final deliverance—she watched it unfold.

  Land.

  It appeared like a shadow from a forgotten world. Anonymous, destitute, whose appearance marked upon the consciousness of those weary a sense of apprehension inspired from things undiscovered—she knew not what land mass it was, how far the sea had carried them, nor where the storms could have pushed them. What she did know was that they were headed there—aligned like magnetic needles inside a compass to their unyielding destiny.

  At first, her voice was lost, so strangled was the concept of safety.

  When she was finally able to yell, she yelled but one word:

  Land.

  Time slowed the moment the word left her mouth, her mind failing to process the intricate simplicities of seconds as from below the sound of barreling footsteps reverberated into the open air. Right at her side stumbled Lyra, her footing nearly lost in haste and her posture only secured by her hands around the railing, while E.J. appeared directly behind her.

  He was the first to speak. “Shit,” he said.

  “What’re you doing?” Lyra cried. “Get on the rail! Get this fucker rolling!”

  “I don’t know if we’ll have enough juice to get us there,” E.J. replied as Lyra and Rose pursued him across the deck.

  “What’re we gonna do if we can’t get there?” Rose asked. “Swim? Use the life raft?”

  “There’s no way we’d make it in that thing,” Lyra said. “The storms’d blow us away.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I’m only trying to be realistic!”

  “We’ll deal with that if it comes down to it,” E.J. said. “Now… to get this baby rolling.”

  He ripped the key from a pendant dangling around his neck and slammed it into the ignition.

  The false start of the motor revved once, then twice.

  “Shit,” Rose whispered.

  “Why isn’t it starting?” Lyra asked.

  “Just give it a minute,” E.J. said. “Just give it one—”

  It rumbled to life.

  Low, monotonous, like the throaty growl of the rhino as it was about to charge—it quaked beneath its living occupants for the first time in weeks and gave an involuntary lurch as E.J. tested the wheel.

  “Hot damn,” he breathed. “Hot. Fucking. Damn.”

  “You better get started,” Lyra said.

  “Why?” Rose asked.

  Her friend pointed.

  They turned.

  Swelling upon the horizon was the storm that’d been chasing them for the past three days.

  Comes the Devil, the voice in her head whispered, to give false hope and swallow you whole.

  “You think we have enough gas to make it before it hits?” Lyra asked.

  “I don’t know,” E.J. said. “Why?”

  “It’s Hurricane Mirabelle. The one Dad was worried would develop into a five.”

  It would’ve been the worst hurricane to hit the United States since Hurricane Katrina. Sweltering in its concept and even more in its appearance, it’d begun as little more than a blip on the radar before blowing proportionately out of control. For almost a week they’d watched it blooming in the background—darkening the skies, projecting the wind. Its forceful approach could in part have been the reason why they’d ended up so close to land, but what gifts it could offer might be far worse.

  There was no way they would be able to survive a hurricane.

  The winds would rip the ship apart, the waves capsize it in but an instant, and even if they managed to survive drowning they would surely be killed thereafter.

  Rose was a good swimmer. She’d been on the team before she’d switched over to baseball. But no matter how great her strength, she would never be able to outswim the Devil.

  She glanced over at E.J.—who, in the midst of Lyra’s revelation, had completely frozen up.

  “E.J.,” she said.

  “I’ve never been so close to
one that big before,” the man breathed.

  “That’s what she said,” Lyra managed despite it all.

  Rose snorted and nearly started choking.

  E.J.’s silence didn’t need further prodding. His fear was as palpable as the rapidly-cooling air.

  “How fast can you get us there?” Rose asked when the brief spark flickered out.

  “As fast as I can,” he replied.

  “And if you can’t?” Lyra replied.

  He didn’t reply.

  He merely began to haul ass.

  “Shit,” E.J. said less than half an hour later.

  “What?” Lyra asked.

  “We’re out of gas.”

  “What?”

  Every goosebump on Rose’s body flared.

  “We’re out of gas,” E.J. laughed, thrusting the ignition gauge forward, then back, his disbelief soon turning into hysterics as the ship revved, but failed to pick up speed. “We’re out of fucking gas.”

  “So what’re we doing?” Lyra asked. “Sitting here? Dropping anchor?”

  “There’s no way the ship will hold us,” E.J. howled. “Goddammit, Lyra. Don’t you get it? We’re fucked. We’re absolutely, motherfucking—”

  Lyra took hold of the man’s undershirt and slammed him against the glass dome. “Now listen here, buddy. You are the one who got us in this situation in the first place, and I am not about to be fucked by some stupid storm!” She slapped him when he started laughing, instantly sobering his expression. “You fucking idiot! What the hell are we going to do?”

  “We’ll take the lifeboat,” Rose said.

  Both turned to look at her.

  Brushing a bead of sweat from her brow, Rose expelled a trembling sigh and tapped her hand on the railing. She hadn’t realized how far she’d backed up. Any further and she would’ve fallen down the stairs. “We’re… what? Maybe two, three miles out? We can row ourselves there.”

  “And I thought he was a fucking lunatic,” Lyra laughed as she released of E.J.

  “Have you got any other ideas? Because if you do, I’d sure like to hear them!”

  “I don’t have any ideas, you fucking dickhead. Don’tcha think I’d’ve already said something if I did?”

  “Oh, I know you would’ve,” Rose chuckled.

  “You fucking bitch!”

  “Stop,” E.J. said, waving his hands. “Seriously. Stop.”

  “This is no time to be arguing,” Rose agreed, thankful that the man appeared to be recovering. “Every second we stay on this ship, that thing gets another inch closer. E.J.—how far away do you think we are?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Do you even know where we are?” Lyra asked.

  Rose shook her head.

  “Guess it doesn’t really matter anyway,” Lyra continued, pushing forward. She stopped beside Rose and set a hand over hers. “Sorry, love. You know how I am when I get scared.”

  “I know. Don’t worry.”

  Lyra nodded and looked over at E.J. “Get the lifeboat ready. Me and Rose’ll grab anything we can.”

  E.J. nodded.

  They ran.

  Rose didn’t believe in the Devil until she looked into the eye of the storm.

  The world existed in mute chaos. Whereas there were no sounds of planks snapping or necks breaking, there rang a notion about the air—of doubt, worry, failure and death. E.J. worked frantically to secure everything from nets to life preservers to even floating noodles as from below, Rose and Lyra approached.

  “Get rid of the floaties,” Lyra said, tossing a sack of supplies at his feet.

  “What?” E.J. asked.

  “They’re not gonna help if we go under.” She stabbed one of two preservers with a finger. “And neither are these.”

  The straps were corroded—barely hanging by strings, in places. If the preservers didn’t slip off their shoulders, they would surely drown them.

  Without question, E.J. cast the threadbare preservers and floaties onto the deck and secured their few supplies in the compartment under the back seat. “Get on,” he said.

  “How are you getting down?” Rose asked.

  He looked over the side of the boat, then back up to them.

  “No.”

  “Someone has to operate the crank.”

  “It’s stupid.”

  “We can’t haul you onto the boat,” Lyra said.

  “Then who--” E.J. started.

  Rose wrapped her fist around the crank. “I’ll do it.”

  “Rose,” Lyra said.

  “You know I was on swim team.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I’m also the lightest. Blame my beanpole father and my wispy mother, but it’ll be easier to pull me up then it would be to drag a six-foot-two man onto a boat.”

  Mouth agape in what should have been argument, Lyra said nothing, the understanding quickly dawning in her eyes.

  “All right,” E.J. said. “Do it.”

  She helped Lyra onto the boat after E.J. crawled aboard, and made her way back to the crank. “Whatever happens,” Rose said.

  Lyra nodded.

  Rose closed her eyes and began to spin the crank.

  The metal grind of gears and the creak of taut wires was unlike any panic she’d ever experienced. The twist and turn of the bowels, the strum and flicker of the heart, the lungs expanding, inflating, contracting as so overwhelmed you became that the fire started and spread within your torso…

  As she spun the crank, slowly but surely lowering two people who meant everything into the waters below, the muscle in her arm threatened to cramp. Such nervous reactions were commonplace in athletics. She’d hurt her arm more than a few times and had retired only upon a doctor’s recommendation.

  It’ll catch up, the man had once said. One day, some place, when you least expect.

  But here, now, in her most desperate hour?

  Almost there, she thought, grimacing, the tendon in her arm threatening to snap at any moment. Keep going. Come on. You can—

  The splash cut through.

  “Rose!” Lyra called.

  “I’m here,” she said, bracing herself as she paced toward the railing.

  “Are you sure you can—”

  There’s nothing she can do, she knew E.J. said, though his voice was so low Rose shouldn’t have been able to hear. She’s going to have to jump.

  We’ve got a jumper, the madman said. Got a jumper, got a jumper—

  Rose looked over the railing.

  The boat and the water seemed so far away.

  Can you swim? the Devil she knew asked. Can you fly?

  Kicking off her shoes, Rose tied the laces together, then tossed them over the railing.

  They dropped.

  And landed in the boat, the clang cacophony to her fears.

  Once over the railing—the deck at her feet, the world before her—Rose braced herself for the impact that was to come.

  Diving had never been her forte.

  Could she do it? Now, in the midst of all this despair?

  The gust of wind that graced her trembling back gave her the answer.

  As though fallen, she spread her wings, prayed, and jumped.

  Though it couldn’t have taken more than a few moments, it felt like a lifetime.

  Her last game in America—her father deciding to move them to London—

  The plane, the nine-hour flight from New York—

  Landing in London.

  Her first day at school.

  Lyra, approaching from down the hall, a casual hello from Rose.

  “What are you, an American?” the then-stranger but future friend asked.

  Years of companionship, of moving together for college.

  The end of the world.

  Their flight.

  Their fight.

  The ship.

  The storm.

  And now, this.

  She hit the water with such force she didn’t understand what had happened.
r />   It was only after she went under that she realized she’d hit belly-on.

  The stabbing pain that crucified her body prevented her from navigating the uneasy waters. The air was ejected from her lungs, and her body attempted to reclaim it just as quick. The sharp inhalation of seawater burned through her nostrils and then her eyes as she fought to regain her motor skills.

  Don’t panic.

  You might go deeper.

  Something grabbed her shoulders.

  She fought, tried to scream.

  The resisting force overwhelmed her.

  She gasped as her head whipped free of the water.

  “What happened?” Lyra asked as she and E.J. hauled her into the boat.

  “I,” she gasped, gagging, turning her head to vomit water from her lungs. “I—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” E.J. said. “We have to start rowing.”

  Rose took little heed of the command as E.J. disengaged the security cables and Lyra began to row them away from the yacht. Still struggling to regain her composure, Rose sucked in as much of the cold air as she could and pushed herself into a sitting position. She barely had time to recover before E.J. pushed an oar into her hands, but she didn’t blame him. The fear in his eyes far outweighed any bodily pain she could’ve experienced.

  She balanced it across her lap and waited for his instruction.

  “We’ll do this in bursts,” he said. “You and Lyra switching off every ten strokes, one of you taking my place after fifty or one hundred.”

  “Are you sure that’s going to work?” Rose asked.

  “It has to,” Lyra said.

  E.J. nodded.

  Rose bit her lip.

  The rhythmic pattern began as nothing, and then became an extension of herself.

  She thanked the athletic muse for her enduring physical strength.

  Her opposite in terms of physical prowess, Lyra struggled, but so determined was she that she said not a word.

  Behind them, the storm surged.

  Its strength was colossal.

  “This is bad,” Lyra said.

  “Keep going,” E.J. replied without pause. “We can’t stop.”

  “It’s gonna get us, E.J.!”

  “No, it—”

  A bolt of lightning cracked the sky and a clap of thunder deafened them.

  Lyra screamed.