Dead Water Zone - Kenneth Oppel [38]
“It won’t be much longer now,” said Sam. “We’ll have the first canister within twelve hours.”
“Sam, please let me see you,” Paul said, trying to stave off panic.
There was no answer.
“What the hell’s going on, Sam?” he shouted.
“Shackle both of them,” Sturm told the two Cityweb men. “Take them below to one of the isolation cells. Give them a taste of how my ancestors lived in Rat Castle.”
12
THICK METAL HOOPS had been shackled to his ankles and wrists, chaining him to the wall. He couldn’t shift his body more than a foot in any direction. He thrashed against the manacles, but the ancient iron links held tight. Beside him, in the pitch-blackness, he could hear Monica going through the same pointless motions, cursing under her breath. His muscles ached with exhaustion.
“Why lock us up? Why didn’t they just kill us?”
“They don’t want us dead yet, or Sked would have done it in the passage. They’re planning something.”
“They’ve got Sam.”
“It sounds like they’re all working together. They said he was refining it for them.”
“He can’t be helping them.” But there was no conviction in his words. He had no idea what was going on. It was like some horrible math problem, too many variables, too many possible answers.
“Decks, Armitage—they’ll come looking for us, won’t they?” he said.
“If they do, they might be joining us down here.”
The walls and floorboards were wet, beads of sticky water oozing from the joints. They were probably below the waterline, in a cell in the deep hold of a slowly sinking ship. He reached out, touching hands with her in the darkness.
“I’m sorry about your mom.”
“I wanted to know for sure. Now I do.”
“She didn’t know what she was doing.” He wanted to comfort her and wished he could see her face.
“She had a choice. Maybe not toward the end but closer to the beginning. She didn’t have to keep drinking it—if she’d cared more.”
“She cared,” he said, not knowing if that was the right thing to say. He wondered if even now, in the darkness, she was trying to control her expression. “I’m sure she cared a lot.”
“He’s hardly human, is he, David Sturm? All because of some junk in the water. When I looked at him, I couldn’t believe we had the same thing inside us.”
“It’s not the same,” Paul told her gently. “It’s not the same at all. And you don’t drink it. You never have.”
“But I’ve wanted to!” she said angrily, pulling away her hand. “I lied when I said I didn’t. So many times I’ve almost done it, guzzled it into me! Just to see what it was Mom felt. Maybe you’re right, Paul; maybe she couldn’t help it. But it was in her; it’s in me! I’m just like her!”
“No! You’re not responsible for what your mother did!”
“It’s inevitable. Before long, I’ll start drinking the water, too!”
“You won’t! It doesn’t work like that.” He had no idea if he was right, but what else could he say? He had to convince her—himself, too.
“I don’t know if I loved her,” she said, “or just wanted to love her. But I don’t want to be like her, Paul. I don’t.”
He pushed himself across the planking as far as his chains would allow. “Come close.”
Their mouths barely met. He could feel her tears on his face. He shut his eyes, wanting to lose himself in her warmth, drink her taste into him. Her tongue brushed lightly against his, and his whole body glowed. He could feel one of her hands knotted through his hair, and he wanted her to pull at it, pull as hard as she could, hurt him if need be, to bring them as close together as possible. And he had it again—the whole world collapsed into the feel of her mouth against his, the smell of her hair.
When a muscle cramped in his neck, he winced and laughed at the same time. He kneaded his neck clumsily with a manacled hand. “Wow, that really hurt.”
“You thought I was a freak when you first came,” she said reflectively.
“No,” he said, surprised and guilty.
She chuckled quietly. “Come on, I could tell. I was ugly to you.”
“Never ugly—just different, I guess. I’d never seen a girl like you in Governor’s Hill.”
“I’ve been up there, you know.”