AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“A date?” Lily said.
Abby, to her credit, looked only briefly bemused before carefully constructing an expression of faint embarrassment, complete with a little shy smile. “Shy” suited her about as well as lying suited Liam, but most people, I knew, see what they expect to.
“I thought that you and—” Kenny started, his thumb starting to point in my direction, but Lily stepped on his foot.
“Are you sure you have permission?” she asked.
I laughed. “I’ve been here for two days and I know no one in their right mind would piss off Dr. Kapoor for the chance to show a girl some birds and rocks,” I said. “And Liam’s no rebel.”
Here’s the funny thing about lying: the substance of the lie often doesn’t matter nearly as much as the conviction. So ignore the fact that Liam Kapoor was out here in the first place for breaking rules—breakinglaws, in fact. I sounded sure, and more than that I made it sound like anyone who disagreed wasn’tin on it. And people will do just about anything to make you think they’re “in,” because being “out” scares the crap out of us.
“Fine,” Lily said. “Just don’t flirt in front of me. I’m entirely too cynical for teenage love.”
“Aren’t you, like, twenty-three?” Kenny asked.
“Yes, but I tested out of my teenage years and went straight to middle age,” Lily replied.
I reminded myself that this did not make me jealous or upset at all, and got into the boat, busying myself in the front so I didn’t have to watch Liam help Abby in. They sat together on the back bench as we skidded across the water and past the jagged bridge of rock toward the headland. The tide was low, baring masses of barnacles like tumors on the rocks. At low tide you might be able to inch your way along the base of the rocks to Belaya Skala, but one slip and those barnacles would slice you to ribbons before you plunged into the cold, rough water. Kenny kept the boat well clear of them.
When we reached land, Liam held out a hand to help Abby out, but she hopped to the shore herself without even glancing at him.
We stole a moment to ourselves while Lily and Kenny fiddledwith the gear that was too expensive for the grubby hands of mere interns. “Okay. We’re here,” I said. “Now what?”
Abby didn’t answer. She was looking out across the island, as if searching for something.
“Abby?” I said. She jerked.
“Sorry,” she said. She bit her lip. “The bunker. We need to see the bunker. On the video, Ashford...” She stopped. Took a sharp breath. Then pressed on. “Ashford said that the military brought something there to study it. Right? So maybe there are records down there.”
“Or the Six-Wing is down there, getting ready to eat us,” Liam said.
“That’s a risk we’re just going to have to take,” Abby replied, tone flat.
“Hey, intern. Time to earn your keep,” Lily called. I turned reluctantly.
“We’ll be fine. Just gathering intel,” Abby said.
“Be careful,” I said. Because that look in her eye wasn’t akeen on self-preservationkind of look.
“Don’t worry. I’ll look after mop top,” she said, and ruffled Liam’s hair. He ducked out of reach.
“We’re going to go for a walk,” Liam said, covering his reaction with a wave.
“Have fun canoodling,” Kenny called back.
They headed up the hill together. Abby glanced back and gave me a wave that was one part charade and one part reassurance. She had this handled, that wave said.
I wished I believed her. But I could see the hurt and uncertaintyroiling behind her eyes, and I knew that however confident the Abby of yesterday had been, today was different.
Lily trusted me only marginally more than Dr. Kapoor did, but Kenny convinced her to let me man the massive binoculars. It was actually kind of fun, if I ignored the anxiety gnawing its way through my small intestine. The chicks liked to clump up into indistinct masses like wadded-up cotton balls. I had to check and double-check that I’d counted all the eyes, beaks, and black legs properly, and more than once Ididalmost count a pebble.
“So is this all you do?” I ask. “Count birds?”
“When they’re a little bit older, the parents get less testy and we start being able to go in to do some more direct observations, tag them, that sort of thing,” Kenny said.
“Tag them?”
“ID tags, mostly, but we’re currently trying to solve the mystery of their migration pattern,” Kenny said. “We’ve got these little GPS doohickeys we’ve been attaching for a couple years, but the failure rate’s pretty high.”
