“Hi,” she says, removing the gag from my mouth. “How are you holding up?”
And I decide right then that I’m going to have to kill her.
“Okay,” she says, “I know you’re probably upset—”
“UPSET? YOU THINK I’M UPSET?” I jerk violently against the ties. “Jesus Christ, woman, get me out of these goddamn restraints—”
“I’ll get you out of the restraints when you calm down—”
“HOW CAN YOU EXPECT ME TO BE CALM?”
“I’m trying to save your life right now, so, actually, I expect a lot of things from you.”
I’m breathing hard. “Wait. What?”
She crosses her arms, stares down at me. “I’ve been trying to explain to you that there was really no other way to do this. And don’t worry,” she says. “Your friends are okay. We should be able to get them out of the asylum before any permanent damage is done.”
“What? What do you meanpermanent damage?”
Nazeera sighs. “Anyway, this was the only way I could think of stealing a plane without attracting notice. I needed to track Anderson.”
“So you knew he was alive, that whole time, and you said nothing about it.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Honestly, I thought you knew.”
“How the hell was I supposed to know?” I shout. “How was I supposed to knowanything?”
“Stop shouting,” she says. “I went to all this trouble to save your life but I swear to God I will kill you if you don’t stop shouting right now.”
“Where,” I say, “THE HELL,” I say, “ARE WE?”
And instead of killing me, she laughs. “Where do you think we are?” She shakes her head. “We’re in Oceania. We’re here to find Ella.”
Warner
“We can live in the lake,” she says simply.
“What?” I almost laugh. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m serious,” she says. “I heard my mum talking about how to make it so people can live underwater, and I’m going to ask her to tell me, and then we can live in the lake.”
I sigh. “We can’t live in the lake, Ella.”
“Why not?” She turns and looks at me, her eyes wide, startlingly bright. Blue green. Like the globe, I think. Like the whole world. “Why can’t we live in the lake? My mum says th—”
“Stop it, Ella. Stop—”
I wake suddenly, jerking upward as my eyes fly open, my lungs desperate for air. I breathe in too fast and cough, choking on the overcorrection of oxygen. My body bows forward, chest heaving, my hands braced against the cold, concrete floor.
Ella.
Ella.
Pain spears me through the chest. I stopped eating the poisoned food two days ago, but the visions linger even when I’m lucid. There’s something hyperreal about this one in particular, the memory barreling into me over and over,shooting swift, sharp pains through my gut. It’s breathtaking, this disorienting rush of emotion.
For the first time, I’m beginning to believe.
I thought nightmares. Hallucinations, even. But now I know.
