A Thousand Pieces of You

“Paul was screwing everything up. They took Henry, and I—you know, I drove his car to the river, messed with the brakes, made sure it went over the side. If the car went into the water, you guys wouldn’t expect to find a body right away, if ever. It was just about buying Triad time.”

Of course. Theo’s always been the one working on cars. Why didn’t I realize he’d be the one to cut somebody’s brakes? “You let me think Dad was dead. Mom still thinks that, and Josie too. Did you even ask yourself what you were doing to us?”

“Come on, come on, listen to me, will you? Do you understand how much power this gives you? This is a huge opportunity, if you’ll just take it.” Theo shakes his head; there are actually tears in his eyes. “I’ve hated lying to you. To all of you. What I feel for you, it’s not only what your Theo felt, you know? It looked like I didn’t have a chance with you in my own dimension, and when I realized I might get another shot, I wasn’t going to waste it. But I didn’t take advantage. You know I didn’t. In London, I held back. I wanted you to make your own decision. I said, when we were both ourselves, remember?”

“Yeah, you deserve a medal.”

“I swear to God, if I could get you out of this whole mess, I would. But I can’t, Marguerite. I can’t. The only way I can save you is by getting you to see how you have to play this.”

“‘Play this’? It’s not a game, Theo! You would’ve killed Paul.” By now I’m as close to crying as Theo is, though mine are tears of rage.

“I was always going to come clean eventually. What do you think was going to happen in Lab Eleven? What Conley was going to tell you if you’d made the meet at the Dragon Gate? We were going to tell you the truth, the whole truth, make you see that you could get Henry home safe and sound. Conley was bringing you on board! Don’t you get it? The smart move here is to join him. Join us. If you join us, you’ll never be hurt again. Not ever. I’d spend the rest of my life making sure of that, Meg. I promise you.”

You mean, you were going to blackmail me by holding Dad hostage. I’m on the verge of shouting that back at Theo, trying to snap him out of his delusions about Conley—but then the sub shifts more violently beneath us, and I see the entire view turn white with sand. I scream just before we crash.

The sub grounds out, with the grinding of propellers breaking against stone. We tumble over and over, Theo and me bouncing away from and into each other, a dozen small collisions that all seem to draw blood. I manage to grab onto my seat as the submersible skids over the lip of the trench, and we begin to tumble down into the infinite deep.

Theo told me earlier—this submersible will only hold to about 1,500 feet. After that, the underwater pressure will crush us like a fist around a soda can.

“Shit.” Theo braces himself against one wall, then pushes forward to the control panel. He tries to restart our propellers, but the terrible grinding sound they make tells us they aren’t working. The gauge reads 650 feet—700—750—

I swing into my seat, trying to ignore the terrible bobbing and scraping that’s taking us farther down into blackness. “What do we do?”

“We try to hang on.” With shaking, bruised hands Theo activates the retrieval clamp; it swings out, trying to find purchase.

Theo and I sit side by side, wordless, listening to metal thud against stone. Our fall never slows. Just as I feel fear rising to the point of panic, the clamp finds some spur or jutting stone and locks on. We jerk to a stop, then swing there, suspended. For the moment, we’re safe—but as we both know, the clamp may only have hooked onto something very fragile. Any moment, the weight of the sub could break it and send us hurtling down again, to our deaths.

“Okay,” Theo says, taking a deep breath. He flips the comm switch back to on. “Salacia? Salacia, this is—what, Submersible One? It’s Theo and Marguerite. Over.”

No response, not even static: We’re too deep for our communications system to work.

He runs one hand through his hair. “So, we have to stay calm and figure out—”

I slam Theo’s head into the console, as hard as I can.

In the split second he’s stunned, I claw at his throat, forcing him down the way he forced me. “We’re not partners.” The words grind out through my gritted teeth. “We never will be. Tell Conley that.”

Theo’s stronger than I am—he throws me off, and I stagger backward. Before he can follow, though, I get myself on the other side of the divide and hit the button that separates the sub compartments. The watertight doors slam shut, separating me from Theo—him in the front with the now useless control panel, and me in the back with the diving gear.

Fortunately the lock is clearly labeled. I make sure it’s activated, keeping us apart.

“Marguerite?” Theo’s face appears in the door’s thin sliver of superthick glass. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Getting out of here.”

Because one of the other very clearly labeled things in the back is the ESCAPE POD.

The small, circular passageway is something I can slide through easily; what waits on the other side is a tiny dark sphere that will require me to curl into a ball. What about air? What about getting back to the surface? I’d assume something like this is pretty much automated—but I don’t like making assumptions almost a thousand feet underwater. Still, my only alternative is hanging around here. Theo’s going to figure out how to get through that lock sooner or later. Probably sooner. So I have to go.