Page 1 of Ember Rising

PART ONE

1

“Our survival was an accident. They took everything from us, and I promise you this: Justice will not be swift. It will be as painful and torturous as what they did to the people we love.” – Justin Lynch, leader of the Deadmen

Amira

I could go back.

After my five fellow passengers disembark from Gussie the sub, I could close the door and program a route back to Blue Arrow Island.

I’m no sailor, but the sub is voice-activated, and I have a voice. I’d be safe on the island with the friends I have there.

It only takes one glance at Briar for my stomach to sink with realization, though. She’s my best friend, and we don’t know what’s happening on the mainland. She wants to rescue her sister Mae—who she thought, until recently, was killed by the virus that swept the globe like the scythe of an outsized grim reaper, wiping out most of humanity.

I know too well that loving someone is a gamble in the deadly postvirus world, but I love Briar. I won’t leave her.

“Why isn’t it docking?” Evander knits his brows together, looking at Olin, who shrugs.

The men were both working as undercover operatives for the Idaho Liberation Front, a resistance group that’s been trying to topple the regime that calls itself New America. It’s led by a billionaire named Soren Whitman. Lochlan Murphy, the man holding Mae captive, is one of his top officials.

The sub is bobbing gently, its steady mechanized hum silenced. I concentrate on a slow inhale through my nose and exhale through my mouth. I need to keep it together. No one can know how terrified I am to return to the mainland of the former United States.

“It says we arrived,” Marcus says, looking at the screen displaying our route here.

He’s right. We’re right on top of the star on the display signifying our destination of Corpus Christi, Texas.

“They know we’re here,” Evander says. “We need to sit tight.”

It’s the most the stoic man sitting across from me has said since we left the island. Marcus met him when he was summoned to another of the islands Whitman and his billionaire friends are using for scientific experiments on people and animals. Evander exposed himself as an ILF operative by helping Marcus, and he almost paid for it with his life.

“Smells like ass in here,” Pax mutters.

Marcus shifts in his seat, looking restless. He’d normally be going back and forth with Pax right now over which one of them smells like ass, so he must be distracted.

We’ve been confined in this tight space for the past ten hours, with nothing to do but think. I’m used to exerting myself every day just to survive before immediately dropping into a hard sleep and then waking up to do it all again. All this thinking has my stomach in knots.

The past few days still seem surreal. A perfect clone of Marcus came to our island, and he was killed by Stella, who betrayed not only Marcus but the rest of us too. Niran also let all of us down, and he was someone I bickered with but thought had my back no matter what.

The sub lurches as something bangs into it. I grip the edges of my upholstered seat, locking eyes with Briar. Wariness flickers over her expression.

We’re at the mercy of strangers. Trapped. They could do anything they want to us, and we’re powerless to fight back.

“I don’t like this,” I blurt.

“It’s a big magnet,” Evander says. “They’re towing us somewhere.”

“Why? We were told to come here.”

“It’s okay,” Olin says. “Try to relax.”

“It’s been more than six years since I was relaxed,” I quip.

His lips quirk with amusement. His wild tangle of red hair looks like a campfire, and his fair skin is reddened by one of the perpetual sunburns he had on the island. I do relax a little, because Olin is too sweet to be a secret bad guy.

Evander clears his throat and straightens slightly in his seat, his shoulders too broad for him to sit all the way up without smashing into Pax’s shoulder. “They’re going to separate us. That’s standard procedure.”

“Why?” Marcus drops his brows, miffed. “We’ve proven ourselves to you and the ILF people on Island Four.”