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The boat rocks as more women board, their faces grim but resolute. I find a spot near the edge of the boat and sit down, feeling the wet wood beneath me. Gran settles beside me, her presence a silent comfort in the chaos around us.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Mexico,” she says. “We’ve been in touch with another group of omegas there who have created their own settlement. We’ll be safe.”
For now. I’m starting to think there’s nowhere in this broken world where omegas are safe.
As more women gather on board, the boat starts to groan under the weight, straining against the pull of the rough waves. I look back toward the shore, where shadows move in the darkness.
Are they searching for us already?
My question is answered when a shot rings out, and one of the women on the dock falls limp. My head spins, unable to catch up with even the concept of what’s happening to us before three other women fall, one plunging into the black water.
Oh my god…they’re killing us.
They’d rather kill us than let us go.
I search for my mother as someone onboard screams and others take shelter, but I don’t find her.
“We have to go!” someone is shouting from where the boat is tied off. “Now, now!”
They start untying the tether, and I rush to stop them—but I’m thrown off, and caught in Gran’s arms. I go for it again, but the rope breaks free—
A shout breaks through the air, and my heart leaps to my throat. My mother is sprinting down the dock, desperation etched into every line of her face. She reaches the edge just as the boat begins to pull away, her hand outstretched as if she could will us back to shore.
"Wait!" she screams, her voice barely audible over the pounding rain. "Aisling!"
Tears spring to my eyes at the sound of her voice and I fling myself toward the edge of the boat, but Gran pulls me close. A beat—another gunshot.
My mother’s body jerks and she falls.
Red blooms on the dock.
I can’t make sense of any of it…minutes ago, I was warm in my bed.
And I’m sobbing, I’m sobbing as the boat rocks and takes off, the men gathering on the dock, swarming around my mother. If she’s still alive…I hate the thought of it, but I almost hope she’s not.
Jasper—my father—will punish her for what she’s done.
But Gran is still here and she’s clutching me to her chest, smoothing my hair back. The world goes dark as I breathe her in, a scent so like my mother that it makes my heart ache.
"We have to keep moving forward," Gran murmurs, her voice thick with emotion. "For her—and for all of us."
I nod, swallowing down the lump in my throat as I watch the familiar shores of our village disappear into the night. The boat rocks violently as we venture further into the turbulent waters, each wave propelling us forward.
And the rain pours down.
…and the waves get rougher.
I thought that was the worst of it, but it’s only a few days later when the storm gets so bad that the boat can’t take it anymore. We spring a leak just off the coast of Pacific City in the dead of night…and then another. I lose my footing, I lose my grip on Gran.
I don’t find her again until we’re both in the water, her head bleeding, her eyes closed. The water is rough, threatening to drag me under. I inhale salt water at every attempt to swim to the surface, and I’m looking into her face—the face of the woman who taught me chess, the face of my horrible father, my face—when I let her go.
She sinks….
…I rise.
And when I wake up in Echo Beach, sand in my eyes and water in my lungs, I’m a different woman entirely.
