Someone—I think it’s Adele—gasps softly. None of them challenge Marcus. I used to only do it behind closed doors, but he and I won’t be alone behind closed doors again, so out in the open it is.
“It’s my call, and we need to get going.”
“Okay. I’ll go look for Niran myself.”
He gets to his feet, his legs eating up the distance between us. “The fuck you will, Briar. I’ve never said every decision I make is the right one, but I’m in charge. Don’t insinuate that I don’t care about the lives of my people. Niran left against my orders. Play dumbass games, win dumbass prizes.”
I press my lips together, then say, “Let’s vote on it.”
The smallest hint of a smile quirks on his lips. “All in favor of doing what I said?”
Arms shoot up around the table. Everyone but me and Amira, and honestly, even she doesn’t look fully committed to her choice, her palm halfway up in the air. I widen my eyes at her, annoyed.
“They might have captured him.” I look at the faces around the table. “That could be any of us.”
Amira lowers her hand all the way, but she’s clearly my only ally here.
“We have to go,” Nova says, standing up. “Just because we aren’t going after Niran right now, it doesn’t mean never.”
“Are you with us?” Marcus asks.
I glare at him. “Yes. For now.”
The tension between us is heavier than the thick, humid island air outside the Sub. He holds my gaze for a couple seconds before getting up and reaching for the handgun in his shoulder holster. He takes it out and points it at the ground, then checks the safety and drops the magazine.
Amira tugs on the back of my shirt.
“Come on, we have to get strapped.”
I get up and follow her from the room. It’ll be hard to clear my head for the fight ahead over the new prisoners, but I have to focus and do it. I can’t be thinking about Marcus when arrows are flying and the stronger, faster Tiders are gunning for me. Since I killed their leader, I know I’m their top target.
Half an hour later, I’m crouched behind some shrubs, a vine coiled on the ground beside me.
The Dust Walkers who don’t know me well are careful to keep their distance, even though I’m one of them. I get why. Thevine is poised to defend me against danger, and the concept of sentient plants is kind of hard to swallow.
My bond with plants on the island comes from aromium. My aromium isn’t on now, but like Marcus’s connections to wolves and endoliths—small living organisms present in rocks—my connection to plants is there even when my aromium device is switched off. I’d be worried about it if I had time to stop and think, but I keep myself in motion, training and working on the stabilizer. Worrying accomplishes nothing.
“Stay in formation.” Marcus’s eyes rebuke me when he gives the command, like I defy his every order.
Asshole. My hand is hanging at my side so he can’t see me flipping him off, but I still get satisfaction from doing it.
Wyatt and Chance are always paired in combat, and Amira is usually with Niran. Since he’s not here, she’s paired with Nova.
Marcus and I are together in this one and only way. We’ll be the first team to engage, standing back to back to protect each other as we try to rescue prisoners from the boat while fending off Tiders.
Good thing we have guns and stun sticks. The electric current at the end of the long poles several of us are carrying knocks people on their asses. It’s like a super Taser.
The Tiders have archers, though, and spears. The aromium coursing through all of them gives them a physical advantage, but we have better weapons.
“Tell me if you see incoming arrows,” Marcus says as we run toward the beach.
He has a round wood shield on one arm, and we can shelter under it to avoid arrows. I refuse to carry one. Because I trained for so many years without one, it would throw me off balance in every way.
I can feel the vines following behind us. As our connection has grown stronger, I’ve learned to communicate with them.It’s not full conversations or anything, but I can read incoming feelings from them the same way they can read them from me. They get cranky when it rains several days in a row and there’s no sunshine, but most of the time they’re content.
They’re not so much athem, actually. There aren’t different plants I communicate with. It’s more like a collective communication that all of them are part of. It’s scientifically impossible, but also true.
“Watch yourself.” Marcus’s command is more of a growl, his gaze leveled on Pax.
