Chapter 18

Flying the Berg back to Alaska was more difficult than he'd imagined. The stab wound near his kidney had stopped bleeding but the wound in his mind only grew. Gaps of time were missing. Memories. Lost. Second-guessing everything. Madness, as Alexandra would say.

Complete Crank-filled Madness.

The shock was wearing off.

He swerved the Berg and took another swig of the canteen he'd filled with turmeric water. He choked down the pain-killing and bacteria-stopping concoction. It tasted like armpits, as bitter and pungent as the rust-colored spice looked. A warmth within his mouth and throat made him cough, but Nicholas had taught him long ago that the spice aided in calming inflammation. Always keep a jar of turmeric on hand, Dear Mikhail, Nicholas would say.

Mikhail could not remember if the spice was meant to be used on open wounds or just internally, so he did both. Maybe it was neither. Who the hell knew? Not Mikhail. He guided the Berg back to the edge of the mountains outside of New Petersburg. As long as he kept the wound from getting infected, he'd live despite the loss of blood. If he could remember his landing path. Where was his landing path? He needed to get to his very own safe haven. The cabin in the woods that no one, not even and especially Alexandra, knew about. The one he'd built high enough above sea level to watch the war unfold.

He took a deep breath, tried to think hard, but he had so many questions still. What did Nicholas mean when he'd said that trauma could affect his brain? His personality? SQUUUEEEE . . . SQUUUEEEE. . . . The squeals of the pig echoed in Mikhail's mind.

But there was no pig on board.

Madness.

SQUUUEEEE

Mikhail was going crazy. Nicholas warned him that could happen. Infected trauma. Inflicted? Inflicted trauma. That was it.

The war would continue. The Remnant Nation had the coordinates and the time. As long as the Crank Army held itself together, literally and figuratively, the Evolution could still be stopped. He laughed to himself as he swerved the Berg back and forth. SQUUUEEEE. The pig in Mikhail's mind, his own wild boar of a soul screamed to be freed. The future of the world depended on Cranks. Cranks! Laughable. Complete Madness. He should have shot every single one of them deadie dead dead back in the bunker, but he couldn't. He didn't shoot them deadie dead dead because he'd have been killing himself. All he'd worked for. Gone. The Gone.

Where was he going, again? The cabin. He had to land and get to the cabin.

He steered the Berg like a proper captain and took another sip of turmeric water.

The Goddess stirred her tea, staring deeply into the tea leaves as if they held some sort of answer, but there was nothing there that could calm her mind. Mannus had survived the boat ride. Of course he did. Those women at the Villa may have known more about creating the Cure than her, but Alexa knew more about living it.

She knew the Evolution was good.

It was already inside of her.

She recited the digits in her mind. She'd been able to keep the women at the Villa from destroying everything, but only temporarily.

"Goddess?" Flint opened the door without a knock. Maybe he'd knocked and she just hadn't heard it over her mind's buzzing. Regardless, the man made it far too easy for her to take out any small frustration on him.

"What is it, Flint?" She enunciated every word so he knew to be quick about it.

The man stood in the doorway, tapping the handle of the door. "The speech is set for Sunday. After Mass."

Alexandra watched him as he nervously tapped the door. "What is it? What else?"

"Nothing, Goddess Romanov." He paused. "Nothing that requires your attention right now." He backed from the doorway.

Alexandra pushed her tea away. "But you'll bother me with whatever's making you nervous later? What is it?"

Flint nodded and stepped one foot back in. "The Pilgrims are . . . they're just starting rumors about Nicholas' death." He sighed. "You know how the people get when they don't see activity."

Alexandra had given the people activity in the biggest way possible. She'd had Nicholas killed so that the Evolution could culminate. But they'd never thank her for that because they'd never know. Even if they knew, they would not understand. "What actions do you suggest?" She walked toward Flint in the doorway.

His hand shook. "I think sharing the details of the investigation into Nicholas' death would quiet their fears."

She tried hard to control her face to not roll her eyes. Before Nicholas' death, the Pilgrims had been afraid of the Northern Lights. There was no fear out of reach for their feeble minds. "You understand I've been grieving. The people will—" She was stopped by shouts outside, but more than that was Flint's expression—his reaction to the voice. Complete terror. His eyes grew wide and he held his breath. She knew the servant well enough to know that he didn't want her hearing whatever that woman was shouting.

She walked to the window and flung it open.

"It's nothing, Goddess, the Pilgrims will—"

"Shhh!" Alexandra waved him off. Below her on the street, a Pilgrim in a mustard-yellow cloak flailed her arms in madness. Alexandra squinted. This Pilgrim looked familiar. She was one of the women—without horns—who'd met with them when Alexandra revealed her plan to Mannus. One of the devout followers that she'd taken down to the Maze.

With whom she'd shared sacred ground.

With whom she'd shared the title of murderer.

The woman ran through the streets, screaming words that Alexandra did not quite understand because it was something that never should have been spoken aloud. Like the sacredness of the Maze, this was to stay a secret. But the woman below her window shouted of Nicholas' death and shouted of the murder. Alexandra went through the digits as her ears buzzed. Her vision went red.

"One of the Godhead murdered their own!" the Pilgrim yelled, her voice screeching and raw.

Alexandra turned to Flint as calmly as she could after softly closing her window. "It's a shame when they reach for rumors like this." She shook her head as if the Pilgrim were nothing more than a sad case of madness. "Take that woman off the streets for her own good." She walked back over to her tea, surely cold by now. "I'd hate to see anything happen to her."

Despite leaving her mom, her best friend, and her favorite late night fire companion behind, Sadina didn't feel alone. Trish made up for their absence. She'd try to get Sadina to hydrate and eat more—like a mother. She'd let Sadina poke fun at her—like a best friend, and she tried to listen and offer wisdom like only Old Man Frypan could. Still, it wasn't the same. It would never be the same again. And despite all of Trish's best efforts, Sadina needed time with her thoughts to process everything that had just happened. She needed time alone.

She walked up to the ship's deck and sat against the trunk that held the anchor. Minho nodded to her from the captain's wheel and she waved back. Sadina wanted to feel okay, and to be okay for Trish, but it wouldn't happen overnight.

She pulled out The Book of Newt and ran her hand over the wear marks from the journal living in Frypan's pocket for who knew how many years. She didn't know why, but she sniffed it, half-expecting the stench of sweat and armpits, but it smelled like leather and his famous stew. That made Sadina miss him even more.

She flipped through the book and let her finger land on a single passage.

I feel the peace of a certain knowledge. I have had friends, and they have had me.

And that is the thing.

That is the only thing.

She shut the book to keep from crying. She would read the entire Book of Newt, because she'd promised Old Man Frypan, but she wouldn't read it today. The loss of Lacey and Carson still stung, and never knowing if she'd see Isaac again, or her mom, or Frypan. All of these things sent Newt's words even deeper into her heart.

"Hey, you okay?" Trish walked across the deck with a frantic look on her face.

"Hey. Yeah." Sadina took a deep breath. She knew she needed to talk to Trish about how she felt, she needed to. But she was so emotionally exhausted that it seemed an impossible task. At the same time, she knew nothing would change unless she communicated her feelings. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Trish's eyes moved back and forth, quicker than Dominic playing ping-pong with himself across the makeshift net he'd made below deck. Nervous. "I don't like the sound of that."

"Trish. Just sit." She motioned next to her and Trish plopped down. "Listen . . ."

"Nothing good happens when you say Listen to someone . . ."

"Listen," Sadina repeated firmly. She needed Trish to get past her own insecurities to really hear what Sadina was about to tell her. Trish nervously cracked her knuckles and Sadina reached for her hands. "When you're nervous, you need this." Sadina bounced Trish's hand in her own. "You need touch, and reassurance, and words of affirmation." She paused to think of how best to explain the next part. "But when I'm nervous, or scared, or I don't know how I feel . . ." She let go of Trish's hand to point to herself. "I don't need that. In fact, when you do what makes you feel better to me—it can feel uncomfortable sometimes and . . ."

She took a deep breath when Trish's eyes started to tear up. "Look, I know you went through hell when Isaac and I got kidnapped. I know it was harder than hard and it was for me, too. I thought about you every single second. And when I came back you were just so relieved, but you haven't let me out of your sight for more than five minutes, and I need—"

"I know. I'm sorry, I just—I fell asleep and then Dominic shouted something and I got startled and you weren't there and—"

"It's not just today, or right now. I need you to know that when I'm going through something, the kind of support I need is space. Even though I love you more than anything in this universe. But we're all on top of each other down there and I don't always need to be—"

"So you're saying you want . . . space . . ." Her voice lowered.

"I'm saying that what comforts you, can be overwhelming to me. Touch comforts you, while it can feel suffocating at times to me." Sadina was trying so hard to be slow and gentle with her words, but no matter how it was said, the word suffocating had just come out of her mouth. Formed itself into a weapon and stabbed Trish in the gut.

"You're suffocated . . . ?" Trish stood up and walked to the railing of the ship. Shit, Sadina thought.

"Trish, let me finish." She caught up to her.

"No. I don't want to suffocate you. I'll just stand over here and cry by myself since my girlfriend needs space."

"I'm not breaking up with you."

"Sadina, that's exactly what I need space means!" Trish gave her a cutting look.

"I know, but it's not what I mean." She took another deep breath. "I want you to know how I feel in case anything happens. Anything could happen to us in Alaska, and if they need me to go into some weird place without you, I need to know that you're okay and not going to lose your shit because I'm not there. And if something bad happens . . . like losing my mom . . ." Sadina swallowed hard and tried to tame the tears that appeared like dew at the thought of her mom. "What will comfort me more than anything else in bad times is just helping me create space. I need more alone time than you. I need time to . . . reflect and gather, and sometimes being touched makes me feel even more scattered and overwhelmed and anxious. It's not that I don't like your touch because I most certainly love it, but when things are going on all at once that I need to process–it's too much for me. It's overstimulating. Does that make sense?"

"Overstimulating?" Trish repeated. "I guess?"

"Yeah. Like . . . when you reach for my hand, or touch my arm when I have too much going on in my head, it doesn't feel like a normal touch . . ." She tried her best to explain by taking Trish's hand in hers and tapping all of her fingers across Trish's skin. "It feels all zippy-zappy." She stopped the tapping and squeezed with love. "Even though you don't mean it to. And even though I don't want it to."

Hell, Sadina was still trying to understand all these feelings, herself. She'd never been more stressed than the night of the amphitheater back home and every day since had just kept compounding onto the day before it.

Trish chewed her lip.

"But," Sadina added excitedly, "it's not all the time. Not even close. Just lately when there's been so much craziness. When we're relaxed, swimming by the cliffs or taking a walk, it's not like that. Stress and anxiety just make it—"

"All wonky bonky."

"Totally wonky bonky." Sadina smiled and that made Trish smile.

Trish slowly nodded. "I get it. I really do. And please don't ever say zippy-zappy again. Only I'm allowed to make up stupid words."

"Now that's a deal." Sadina reached deep into her pocket to what she had made back on the coast. "Thanks for listening and understanding. I know I'm weird."

"You are." Trish kissed her on the forehead. "But you're my favorite kind of weird."

Sadina smiled. "Here." She handed her the gift. "I made this for you before we left on the boat. Again." She watched anxiously as Trish slowly opened the small palm leaf–wrapped gift that Isaac helped Sadina forge. Trish lifted the necklace in front of her, wire wrapped in metal, soldered, a chunk of wood dangling from the chain. "It's a piece of driftwood I found when Isaac and I were kidnapped that I kept. I don't know why. I guess it was something I could carry to comfort me when we didn't have anything. It was something that I could say, this is mine."

"It's . . . beautiful." Trish examined every intricate part of the necklace with her fingers. "Thank you . . ."

"Just like this piece of driftwood was something that I could hold on to and say was mine, when I had nothing—I want you to know that our love is yours. You have it. And just like the driftwood floating itself back to the shore from wreckage, I promise to always find my way back to you. No matter what." Sadina reached over to help Trish fasten the necklace. "The same storms that might pull us apart will also pull us closer together. Okay?" She looked at the necklace on Trish then hugged her, hard.

"Man, that's cheesy as hell and I loved every word. And this." Trish fingered the chunk of wood dangling from her neck. "So sometimes you need space, and I'll give you space. Sometimes you need not to be touched so your nervous system doesn't go wonky bonky. And sometimes you make me freak out that we're breaking up but then give me the most romantic thing ever. Thanks for talking." She hugged Sadina again and whispered, "I love you."

"I love you, too." They kissed, and Sadina squeezed Trish even tighter, and the cheese-fest might have lasted forever if Dominic didn't race up to the deck shouting like the cabin was on fire.

"You'll never believe what I found!" He ran over to them, flapping his arms with a book in his hand.

"What's that?" Trish asked, finally breaking up the hug.

"The captain's log!" He was shouting every word and went looking for Minho. "I found Kletter's captain's log!"

Chaos. Commotion.

The yelling from Dominic and everyone suddenly flanking the captain's area caused the Orphan to tense up. He turned from the captain's wheel and visually identified each crew member: Sadina, Trish, Dominic, Miyoko. Everyone but Roxy and Orange who were untangling a mess of ropes. No one had fallen off the boat, at least.

If Dominic had truly found a captain's log, it might help him figure out the problem with the ship's steering. "Here, let me see." He reached for the small book in Dominic's hands.

"Good luck reading it."

"What, she had terrible handwriting?" Trish asked.

"No, it's written in some kind of secret code," he replied.

Miyoko punched him in the bicep for some odd reason. "You let Happy look at it before me?"

"Huh?" The Orphan asked, but no one answered. Happy? "Where'd you find this?"

Miyoko actually answered. "Behind the wood panel of the steps. Dominic slipped and crash-landed." That made sense. Minho had heard a thud a few minutes earlier and figured they were just horsing around. Miyoko continued, "When we looked to make sure the steps were okay—"

"I'm fine by the way, thanks for asking," Dominic added. Miyoko ignored him. "There was this little book squeezed in between the paneling."

Minho flipped through the pages and saw the English alphabet, but all mixed up, nothing he could read. He recognized a word here and there, but wasn't sure. Colección, científico observación, extraordinario, reacción, exploración, and then one word in particular that would be clear to anyone on the planet: infección. "It's not a code. I think it's Spanish."

"Spanish?" Dominic repeated, as if he'd never heard the word.

"Yeah, Spanish. You know, another language? Let me see if Roxy can read this. Somebody watch the wheel for a minute."

Sadina stepped in and took over. Minho started to walk away but then turned back to Dominic. "Don't spin it."

"How did you know I wanted to spin it?"

Minho glanced at Sadina, "Don't let him spin it."

On the south side of the boat's deck, Minho found Roxy and Orange sitting amongst a jungle of knots. Different colors and thicknesses of ropes draped over them, a mess of white nylon, yellow cord, orange twine, and blue anchor rope all tangled together. Fishing lines wrapped around thicker sailing ropes and Orange used her knife where needed. They were so mesmerized by the task at hand that they didn't even look up when Minho approached. "That Kletter lady who sailed before us, she left a notebook behind," he said.

"What'd the note say?" Orange asked, still not looking up from her knots.

"Not a note, a notebook. A captain's log, but it's in Spanish." He bent down to their level. "Can you read Spanish, Roxy?"

"A little, yeah."

Judging from the upkeep of the boat and its poor condition, the Orphan wasn't sure how helpful any advice from the last captain might be. Still, he was curious. "Can you take a break and see if any words stick out to you?" He handed Roxy the book.

She looked back at him as if he was a knotted mess himself before she flipped through the pages of Kletter's notes. "I don't know. I mostly learned Spanish from posted warning signs."

"Here." Minho found a page with some of the words he'd recognized. Words about experiments and expeditions. "Even I recognize some of it." He pointed. "The word infection is repeated on almost every page. Infección."

That finally perked Orange up. "She documented the Flare?"

"I don't know. Something."

"Let me see." Orange dumped the pile of rope from her lap and leaned over. Roxy pulled it closer to her face and then farther away. "I know this word. Sure as canned beets will stain you, I know this word." She tapped the handwritten text. "Caducado."

It wasn't anything the Orphan had heard before. "What's it mean?"

She handed the book back to Minho. "It's on every canned good I've ever seen. Tells you when the food will go bad, expire."

Expire. That didn't sound good. "Could it also mean something else?"

Orange shrugged.

Roxy sighed. "Well, let's see . . ." She looked to the sky. "A time limit, a length of time until something will go bad, oh, and—" She stopped talking.

"What?" Minho asked. Roxy didn't say anything, just made that same disapproving expression she pulled whenever Minho talked about the Remnant Nation. Her eyes got a little bigger and her mouth a little tighter. "What else does it mean?"

"Well, sometimes . . . in our language at least, people might use the word expire when they talk about a person dying."

Dying. Now that made sense. Not just from the Orphan's past and all the death he had seen and delivered, but from Isaac's stories of Kletter arriving on the island. "Those people on Kletter's crew, who Isaac said were shot in the head when the boat first arrived. . . . Maybe she wrote about them." He carefully examined the text around the word ‘Caducado' until his eyes locked on to infección again. "What if they were infected?"

"Why would she have brought infected people to the island?" Orange asked.

Minho agreed it didn't make much sense. They must've caught the disease en route.

No captain would kill their entire crew for the fun of it.

"Maybe that's why she murdered them. They got infected on the journey and she had to shoot them." Minho thought about how many times words like reaction and infection showed up in Kletter's notes. "Or maybe . . ."

That was it.

It had to be it.

He looked behind him to make sure Dominic, Sadina, Miyoko, and Trish were still at the captain's wheel. "Maybe the islanders have something to do with it." Sadina's blood. Cowan's rash. "Maybe they're not immune after all?"