PART ONE
1
“When my brother put his newborn daughter in my arms for the first time, I loved you from that moment. Anything I do to keep you safe is well worth it. You’re all I have left.” - Excerpt from an unsent letter by Virginia Marsden to her niece
Briar
I don’t feel great about punching my best friend in the face so hard she staggers and drops to the ground, but it had to be done.
“Okay,” Amira huffs, quickly rolling to her stomach and getting into a crouch. “I get it.”
She’s a quick learner, but I’m a ruthless teacher. I spent a week coaching her in hand-to-hand combat—now it’s all execution. And her lessons are like the ones my father gave me and my sister. Unfair, but effective.
Your opponents won’t tell you a hit is coming. You’ll be on your feet one second and on your back the next, and before you take another breath, you’ll be dead.
I carry my parents with me. Dad’s combat lessons were grounded in his love for us. He wanted me and Mae to be able to defend ourselves against any opponent. I want the same for Amira.
She gets to her feet, fists up to protect her battered face. The girl can take a punch, but I don’t want her to have to take them from men who are twice her size and much stronger than either of us.
“First strike usually wins,” I remind her. “Don’t hesitate.”
She goes for my knees with a sharp kick. I evade it, grabbing her foot, twisting it, and shoving her back to the ground. Dirt from the training arena clouds into her face when her palms land.
I’m on her, lightly pressing the toe of my boot into her side. “I’m about to fuck up your insides. Move, Amira!”
She groans and starts crawling away.
Zara, watching us while she fletches arrows, tips her chin at me. “Fighting weaker opponents gets you off, doesn’t it?”
“Eat shit.” I shoot her a disgusted glare. “We’re training.”
“You don’t have to injure people to teach them. I never broke a bone learning.”
She’s never letting me live down Amira’s broken finger from a couple weeks ago, even though it was Amira’s fault.
“That’s probably why I’m a better fighter than you,” I fire back.
“You mispronouncedarrogant bitch.”
I turn, closing the distance between us. If it’s an ass kicking she wants, I’ll deliver.
Someone grabs a fistful of the back of my T-shirt and pulls me backward.
“Don’t take the bait, Briar.”
I don’t even have to turn. That smoky, deliberate voice belongs to Nova, who never loses her temper the way I sometimes do. Zara knows how to set me off.
Nova’s right. I shake my head and go back over to Amira, who’s on her feet now.
“Zara. Training drills.”
The clipped command forms a fist around my heart. Even after three weeks of us not speaking to each other, Marcus is never far from my mind. And due to both of us working in camp security, he’s usually physically close, too.
Everything is different now. I used to fight my urges to jump into his arms and beg him to take me back to our room for slow, sweaty sex. Now I have to keep myself from punching him in the balls every time I see him.
The knife still feels freshly buried in my heart. Every day of the past few months on Blue Arrow Island has been a battle to survive. Life on the mainland is a struggle under the regime, too, but at least the rules are clear.
The island is a fresh tropical hell where death awaits in many forms. The cutthroats in the Rising Tide tribe. Genetically modified animals. Controlled climate extremes. The ticking time bomb inside all of us from aromium, the experimental compound Marcus helped create.
