The Dead-Tossed Waves

“Promise me,” he prods.



I feel myself leaning toward him as if he’s the only light in the dark. I nod, unwilling to put my lie into words, and then he turns, his fingers dropping from mine, and starts walking toward the beach.



When we reach the seawall along the dunes I can see the footprints of the Mudo stretching along the waterline on the other side. We pause and listen but hear nothing, the crash of the waves drowning out most sounds. My boat rests where I left it, tilting to one side, the incoming tide reaching like fingers toward the hull.



Elias shakes his head. “This is stupid,” he says. “We barely made it the first time. It’s crazy to try again.”



“I have to get back,” I tell him.



He closes his eyes as if trying to come to a decision. And then his shoulders slump. “Fine.” And he begins to climb the smooth boards of the seawall.



I follow him and drop to the other side, my landing soft and silent in the deep sand. I start forward but Elias holds out a hand, stopping me. I pull the knife he gave me from the loop at my hip, ready, and look around in the moonlight, wondering if there are more downed Mudo buried beneath us or if they all followed me on the beach earlier.



He leans in close, his breath hot against my ear. “You go ahead—I’ll fight off any that follow.”



I don’t have time to be terrified. If I hesitate and give in to the fear then I might miss my chance to make it to the boat. So I nod and slide down the dune, hitting the beach at a run. I stumble a few times but finally find firm footing in the damp sand closer to the waves.



I look over my shoulder to see Elias still crouched by the seawall, ready. I make it to the boat and begin to push, trying to heave it out into the waves, but it’s still full of water and deeply lodged in the sand. It barely budges. I drop my knife into the bottom and angle my body, trying to push harder, but my feet slip on the sand.



I glance back, seeing Elias’s impatience. I try again and again and slowly the boat starts to move as I grunt and strain with the effort.



Behind me I hear footsteps and look up. It’s Elias sprinting toward the boat waving his hands, his mouth open. I can hear the sound of his voice but not the words, which are too jumbled. I fumble in the boat for my knife but the water is dark and I can’t see past the surface. I skid my hand across the bottom, feeling a sharp sting when the blade slices my palm.



Elias is almost on me. I finally understand what he’s screaming: “Go! Get the boat in the water! Now!”



It’s like last night when everything became slow and fast. Down the beach a Breaker runs toward us. And I realize in that instant that I recognize him. It’s the redhead, Griffin, who was there at the amusement park with us. I barely spoke to him; he was the one dancing with Mellie.



My chest feels as though it’s being crushed with the weight of this memory. I can’t catch my breath and there’s nothing to hold on to but the rails of the boat. Griffin is nothing anymore. He’s no one and neither is Mellie. They’re both dead, just like Catcher will be. I bend over and heave, spots flashing in front of my eyes. I almost want to give up, to slip into the waves and let them carry me away.



I’m jolted out of my thoughts when Elias slams against the hull. He screams “Push!” at me and suddenly the world snaps back into place. I can breathe again, the urgency of the moment infusing me with strength, and I dig my feet into the sand, throwing my weight against the boat.



It drags across the sand so slowly that it feels as though a hundred thousand waves have crashed onto the shore before we finally touch water. Elias pushes me into the stern as the bow slams against the surf. I look past his shoulder and see the thing that was Griffin racing closer, fingers tearing at the air and teeth bared.



“Faster,” I pant. “He’s getting too close!” I dig my hands into the water, using them like paddles trying to pull us deeper. The salt burns the cut on my palm as I thrash against the current but my efforts are useless, the waves too much of a force. Elias struggles against it all, the water cresting and crashing around his thighs as he tries to drive us farther from shore.



The sail hangs limp. The rudder and tiller jolt from side to side. A wave crashes into Elias, throwing him off balance. His hands wrench from the boat as his head dips below the water.



I reach for him, screaming, but the current pushes us apart. Another whitecap crashes on top of him, sending him tumbling. I look down the beach where Griffin sprints toward us, about to reach the waterline.



Leaning out over the boat, I shout for Elias to grab my arm, but our fingers are too slick and he slides away. He kicks in the water. His body slides through the waves until he can grasp the side of the boat. But when he tries to pull himself in, it tilts and almost capsizes.



We’re frozen in that instant. Him floating. Me leaning away from him, trying to balance the little boat. The boom jerking back and forth between us.



And then the Breaker hits the water at a full sprint, his moans seeping into the night as he stumbles and trips and claws his way forward. He’s like an animal, a crazed beast bent on destruction.



I scream again for Elias but he just looks at me. The drag of his body through the surf is keeping us in the shallow water. Keeping us in reach of the Breaker. The boat tries to slice through the waves but Elias’s body pulls us back toward shore.



I know what his plan is a heartbeat before he does it. I watch as his fingers go slack as his hand slides down the hull. As he lets go. The boat lurches deeper and I lunge for him.



“No!” I yell. His slick skin slips through mine and I grapple, trying desperately to hold on, to get a firmer grip on him. His head bobs above the surface and then sinks. I reach as far as I can and feel my fingers connect with his tunic. Once, twice I try to grab it but the fabric floats past my fingertips. I reach out one last time and finally I catch him. I pull with all my strength, the boat tipping underneath me. The lines snap and rattle against the boom, the empty sail ripping.



Griffin fights his way through the waves behind us, getting closer, but I refuse to leave Elias, refuse to let another person become infected because of me. “I’m not letting you go!” I shout to him. And finally he begins to kick and struggle again, pushing to try to get into the boat.



I heave him against the hull, leaning back to balance his weight as he clambers over the side, collapsing into the bottom as Griffin’s moans crest around us. With Elias safe I grab the line and pull the boom in tight, twisting the tiller. Elias kneels in the middle of the boat, his chest heaving and head bent over his knees.



Behind us Griffin reaches out his hands, and his fingers are just about to close over the rudder when the wind snaps the sail, jerking the boat forward to cut through the waves away from the shore.



We stare at each other, Elias and I, both drawing in ragged breaths as Griffin flounders in the surf, his moans silenced by the salty water. I pull at the tiller and the boat sluggishly cuts parallel to the shore and we sail toward Vista and the lighthouse blinking in the distance. Elias leans back against the bow, water seeping through the cracks around him.



My hands are shaking, my body buzzing. Flashes of what just happened spark in my mind but it doesn’t feel real. “I don’t …” I stop and try to breathe. “I knew him,” I finally say. Griffin will either be dragged to the depths or washed back onto the shore. I wonder if the current will drag him down to our beach. If it will be my mother who has to cut off his head. I still can’t comprehend it all, that last night he was alive just like me and now he’s gone—all of who he was disappeared. He’s nothing more than a monster now.



Elias says nothing. He leans forward and reaches for my hand, prying the rope from it so that he can study the gash across my palm.



I close my hand into a fist and he tries to pry my fingers open but I don’t let him. “I knew him,” I say again. I’m so angry at the world that everything inside me boils and I have to press my lips together to keep it from escaping. “Just like Catcher and Mellie and everyone else. It’s not fair.”



I yank my arm away but he doesn’t let me go. Instead he crawls closer until he cups my palm in his hands.



Beneath us the boat bobs and rocks, the water slowly leaking through the cracks. I bite my lips. I know the world isn’t fair but that doesn’t make it any easier.



He prods at the raw flesh of my hand and I stare at the top of his head, at the way the moon gleams off it. “If your friend really cared about you he wouldn’t let you take such risks,” he says.



I squeeze my fingers around the cut and pull away, feeling the sting inside and out. I don’t need him telling me what Catcher feels about me. I’m already confused enough about it.



“It’s selfish of him to ask you to come back, to have to see him like that,” he adds.



I clench my jaw. “He didn’t ask,” I tell him, gripping the line and jerking the boom in tight against the wind. But it’s too late. Elias has planted the seed of doubt and its roots have already taken hold.



“I’m not letting him go through that alone,” I say. He leans back against the hull and stares at me. The shreds of the sail cast a shadow over his face so that I can barely see his expression. But I can make out his mouth, the whites of his eyes.



“Wouldn’t you want someone there?” I ask.



He closes his eyes and winces ever so slightly. If I weren’t staring at him so closely I would think it was just the boat rocking underneath him and not something roiling inside. I wonder for the first time if he even has anyone in his life or if he’s totally alone.



As we glide past I see the amusement park and the Barrier huddled along the shore, lights like fireflies where the Militia patrols.



“Why’d you go out there tonight, Gabry? Why risk your life?” he asks in the darkness. He trails a hand in the water over the side of the boat and I watch the wake created by his fingers.



A thousand reasons crowd my mind. Because of Catcher’s smile, the way his hand feels in mine, the crinkle of his eyes when he looks into the sun, his fear of heights, his laugh, his smell. The way he makes me feel—the way he’s always made me feel—as though I’m the most important thing. Because my mother told me to forget and I wanted desperately to remember.



“Because I promised his sister I’d find him,” I finally say, wanting him to know that this isn’t just about me.



“Why didn’t she go herself?”



My hand twists the tiller and the boat turns into the wind, its sail falling limp. We sit there, small waves lapping against the hull. My stomach feels sick with guilt. “She couldn’t,” I say. “She can’t.” I swallow. “She was caught outside the Barrier last night and is in quarantine before they send her and the others to the Recruiters.” Once again the enormity of how fast and far everything is changing pummels into me.



I feel him move forward and he reaches a hand out and touches my knee. “It’ll be okay,” he says. It’s as though I can feel every ridge on his fingertips. I shift, suddenly uncomfortable.



The little bit of kindness makes me want to believe him but I can’t. “No it won’t,” I tell him. “The Recruiters are a death sentence.”



I push the tiller until the sails fill again with a rustle and a snap.



“Not for everyone,” he says. He crouches in front of me and lifts my chin. His face is still lost in shadow, only his eyes barely visible. He looks as if he’s about to say something but then a wave rocks the little boat and he grips the sides with his hands. My first thought is that I wish he were still touching me, as if the feel of him could keep everything around me from lurching. I shake my head, quickly scattering the idea.



“Not everyone who joins the Recruiters dies,” he says softly. “Some come home. I did.” He reaches under his tunic and flips out a silver disk attached to a leather cord around his neck. In the sweep of the lighthouse beam I recognize the seal of the Recruiters on it.



I try to fit this new piece of information into the small amount I know of Elias. “You were in the Recruiters?” I ask, my voice a whisper. It doesn’t make sense. I thought he was an outcast living beyond the safety of towns and cities. The disk proves he served with the Recruiters and is a full citizen with the opportunity to live in the Protected Zones. He should be there, not here cast aside in the barren stretches between civilization. “What happened?”



He stares at the black horizon. I watch his throat tighten, his jaw clench. He reaches a hand up to his head, his fingers brushing against his shaved scalp.



“It doesn’t matter,” he says absently, tucking the disk back under his tunic and staring into a distance or a time that I can’t see. He settles back against the hull, crossing his arms over his chest and closing his eyes.



I want to tell him that it does matter, that I want to understand him. Understand what my friends will be going through. But I don’t know how to ask such questions and he’s still a stranger.



No part of us touches in the small boat and suddenly I miss the comfort of it. I imagine reaching for him, taking his hand or brushing my foot against his knee, but he’s pulled into himself. My cheeks burn as I swallow down these thoughts.



“Elias,” I say. He opens his eyes and in the darkness they seem colorless. I want to tell him that there’s something familiar about him, about how I feel around him. That something about him makes me feel safe, as if it really will be okay. But his gaze is so intense that I lose the words and all I can say is “Thank you.”



Once we hit land he helps me pull down the mast and drag the hull back up to the storage rack. I hesitate by the door to the lighthouse, everything I thought I knew about my life waiting past those walls. “I’m going back tomorrow night,” I tell him.