The sea is warm. Molly kicks toward the shore with vigor—she’s latched instantly onto my idea; it’s wild how you can sync up with a stranger during a crisis. Beneath the surface, everything blurs. One of my flip-flops disappears into a briar of brightly colored sea plants, but I have scarier concerns: as surge after surge rushes up my nostrils, my limbs struggle to swim or even kick against the surf breaks that fight powerfully to keep me away from shore. Energy evacuates my body like a stuck pig. A spike of fresh adrenaline forces my arms to paddle faster, but pins and needles fill my limbs and stiffen my fingers.
Atrophy. You’re panicking, and it’s shutting down your body.
I scream under the sea, vomiting a flurry of bubbles. The island’s shoreline floats only a few feet away, but the fizzing continues to fill my skull. My head weighs too much…
I break the surface for a quick sip of air. Laughter booms in the distance. I kick my spasming, stiffening legs until, clutching at the sand, I crawl from the bay on atrophy-frozen hands and knees. Already arrived, Molly limps over the shore to help me. I collapse onto my back, but that’s when the real pain begins: a branch—as long as a wizard’s staff—pokes into my windpipe. Molly’s stringy hair and fierce eyes drill down as she pushes the staff into my throat.
“WHO ARE YOU?” she shrieks.
“What…?” I choke.
“What is Nightlight?!”
“I told you—everything—” I haven’t caught my breath yet from the swim, and I’m already fighting for air.
“Tell me who they are!”
“I don’t know!” A sob breaks from my throat. This must be enough to convince Molly I’m genuine because the branch loosens against my neck.
“Don’t follow me.” She chucks her branch into the bay and bolts toward a wall of midnight-dark jungle trees. I remain motionless on my back, my hands pumping open and closed with newfound freedom—at least Molly shook me out of my atrophy.
The Nightlight boat barrels across one final surf break and then collides with the beach. As the vessel shudders to a stop, four men leap into the shallow bay. Three sprint into the forest after Molly, while the remaining one—my good friend Benjamin Briggs—crunches closer over shards of driftwood. “Hope you’re not too tired to walk,” he says, kneeling fatherly by my side. “Bit of a trek from here, I’m afraid.”
“Where are you taking us?” I whimper, thoroughly defeated. Couldn’t I be dragged God-knows-where in the morning? Just let me sleep here, half-dead on the shore.
Struggling screams cut through the thunder. One of the kidnappers—nothing but a shadow—hoists Molly off her feet and carries her back. The rest of Briggs’s team hauls their boat onto a wooden weigh station far from the tide, where it ascends a ramp before being fastened in place with bungee cords.
“Mr. Major, Miss Partridge,” Briggs announces, rising, “as I said before, I’m Ben Briggs, and you’re here to do as you’re told. On your feet.”
Standing sucks worse than I imagined. My legs are as limp and beaten as bread dough. Far ahead, a mile-high jungle looms while palm fronds flap like eagle wings in the storm. Briggs marches us to the jungle’s edge, where the ghostly remnants of the dark-green sky illuminate a signpost. The sign—a crucifix carved from a broad chunk of wood—welcomes us:
“The jungle gets darker from here,” Briggs says. “Your families want you to have these, and they’ll be proper light.”
A bright, electronic blue illuminates the dark and burns my eyes as Briggs presents two phones, both displays lit with full battery charges (but no signal). One is encased in a turquoise shell—mine. The lock screen picture is different than usual: a gorgeous, shirtless boy with olive skin. Dark tufts of hair circle his nipples. He kisses at the screen. At me.
Ario texted this selfie weeks ago. Someone went into my phone and set this as my lock screen.
A chunky, black OtterBox protects Briggs’s other phone; in this lock screen picture, Molly smiles like I’ve never seen her smile before. Her freckled arms wrap around a tall dark-skinned girl. A girlfriend.
Molly and I have something in common after all.
CHAPTER FIVE
ARIO’S RECORDER
ONE WEEK AGO
A man’s dinner grows cold in the trunk of my car. But Mr. Hannigan won’t have to wait long for his mashed potatoes and rice pudding—I’m ahead of schedule. I purposely delivered the other Meals on Wheels early so I would have time to make this side trip to Ario’s. Both Ario and the Hannigans live one town over in White Eagle, which is still a fifteen-minute drive from my house. Illinois is made up of either Chicago, Chicago suburbs, or utter farmland desolation. Guess which section we live in? “My family is like the only Iranians for a hundred miles,” Ario always complains. That’s why after the summer, he’s going to college in the city, so at least that isolation won’t be a problem for him anymore. It’s what I tell myself to feel better about the likelihood that in two months, I’m going to lose him.
Mom allows me to take her car for Meals on Wheels but only for this. If I’m not dropping off pureed dinners to sick folks, I can’t drive. And if I’m not driving, I can’t make it to White Eagle. And if I can’t make it to White Eagle…I probably won’t have a boyfriend anymore.
Which Mom would love.
Stay present in the moment, Major. For the moment, you have him.
Ario kisses me in the entryway of his bright, newly renovated house. He’s nearly a foot taller than me, so I let myself be consumed in his furry arms, against his towering body. “How long do I have you?” he asks between loud, starving smacks.
“I have to be there by six,” I huff into his mouth. Mr. Hannigan isn’t expecting dinner until then, so I have an uninterrupted half hour with the spearmint of Ario’s lips.
“How long do I have you?” I want to tell Ario “forever,” but I’m not gonna risk admitting something that naïve. I have enough trouble as it is getting him to see me as someone other than a cute, inexperienced kid.
Ario strokes the bristling scruff on my cheeks (I should have shaved first). His fingers—nails painted glittery silver—slide beneath my knit cap and tug on my tangled hair (I should have gotten a haircut). I breathe in a rush of clean, ripened fruit (He put on cologne for me, but I’ve been wearing the same nasty gym shorts for days). Ario wouldn’t know that though; we’ve been kept apart for a week. Mom confiscated my phone, so I haven’t been able to text, call, send pics—nothing. If it weren’t for these weekend Meals on Wheels, I’d never see him. I’d lose him to somebody he goes to school with; a boy he can actually see regularly; a boy whose family doesn’t create nonstop bullshit.