Dead Water Zone - Kenneth Oppel [28]
He pinned Sked to the deck by sitting on his legs. He caught him around the neck with both hands, squeezing.
“How’s that?” he shouted feverishly into the spider boy’s face. “How does that feel?”
Sked’s fingers tried to pry away his hands, but Paul held tight, tighter.
“Just get him off, Paul!”
The spell was broken. Paul looked down at Sked, took hold of his leather jacket, and half dragged, half lifted him toward the side of the boat.
“You’re dead!” Sked screeched hoarsely, and then he was laughing again. “They’re going to get you! You are dead!”
Paul shoved him backward into the night water and watched him flailing about until he was swallowed by the mist. He dropped to his knees. It hurt to swallow, and there was a faint ringing in his right ear. Several fingers were already swollen around the joints, and he could only bend them halfway. His stomach lurched and he made it to the railing just in time. He’d been ready to kill Sked—he would have done it. A second wave of nausea swept over him.
A hand rested gently on the back of his neck. “You all right?”
He spat to clear his mouth, waiting for his breathing to smooth out.
“I thought you were going to kill him.”
“Me, too.”
“I would have stopped sooner, but I saw another boat. I just wanted to get as far away as possible.” She took his hands carefully between hers. They felt cool and soothing against his burning skin.
“Your brother set us up,” he rasped.
She stared into the mist.
“He was the only one who knew where we were! Monica, are you listening to me?”
“I’m listening,” she replied, her voice expressionless.
“He told Cityweb where to find us! They wanted to kill us! Both of us! Why’d Armitage do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your own brother!”
“I don’t know why he did it, all right? He’s got his own reasons, probably. You can’t trust anyone, not even family. They all betray you in the end! Look what you did to your brother!”
“That’s not fair! It’s not the same!”
She wasn’t listening. “Everyone does it to everyone else. You should never trust anyone!” She was raging through her tears now. “You should never put yourself in a position to lose! I was stupid to get involved in any of this,” she muttered in disgust. “Look at us!” She flung out her thin hands at the fog. “This is a loser’s situation.”
“Where are we?”
She sighed, jamming her hands into her pockets. “Out in the shipping lanes.”
Foghorns sounded mournfully across the water, seemingly from all directions at once, soft, strengthening, then fading.
Paul gazed anxiously into the impenetrable mist. “Is it safe out here?”
“Where is it safe for us? You tell me and I’ll take us there. Cityweb’s probably paid off everyone in Watertown by now. They want us dead, Paul!”
“What they really want is the diskette. They think it’ll lead them to Sam.”
“Your brother found out some secret and they don’t want anyone to know about it. Whatever it is, it’s worth killing people for.”
“We’ve got to get to Sam first.”
Monica turned away from him. “You can get out of this, you know.” She spoke quickly, as if trying to convince herself. “I could dump you in the docklands. You could catch a train back to where you came from.”
Escape: leave everything behind. Watertown. Cityweb. Sam. Forget it all.
“It’s impossible,” he told her softly.
“It’s out of our control!”
“I’ve got to find him.”
“Your brother’s made his choice,” she said fiercely. “You don’t owe him anything! It’s stupid, thinking that way! Why do you have to take these risks for him?”
“Because I’m nothing without him!” The words welled up from deep inside him, unbidden—his brother’s words, traveling across time.
Monica was staring at him, her body tensed with the force of his voice. He was breathing hard, as if he’d just done fifty push-ups. He looked away from her, into the mist.
“After I set him up, I thought it would be a relief when he went to college. But the guilt didn’t go away. And I missed him, bad. When I was working out, I’d wonder what the point was. There was nobody to look after. I felt