Myrikal Page 6

  Myri half-swam and half-pulled herself around the lower deck. At the very end—she had no idea if it was the front or the back end—she thought she saw what could have been a safe. As she drew closer, she became more sure. A sense of relief entered her chest as she made out the lock. She wiggled out of the rope loop she’d tied around her waist. She wrapped the rope around the thick metal box that was as tall as her and at least half that wide.

  She had to have been beneath the water for at least thirty-minutes. The burning in her lungs had changed to a dull ache.

  Now what was I supposed to do? She shook her head. She’d never felt like this before. Like her head had been stuffed with cotton. Thoughts came slowly. Black spots danced before her eyes. Back to the surface. I need air.

  Which way is up? Her spotty eyes landed on the rope, floating out from where she’d tied it to the safe. She grabbed the rope and held to it loosely with one hand as she swam, following it out through the hatch then up toward the surface of the river. The world spun around her as she ascended to the surface a hundred or more feet above. She focused her thoughts on the rope.

  Don’t let go of the rope.

  She could no longer remember why she was holding to it.

  Don’t let go of the rope.

  Flashes of light crossed her vision, even when she closed her eyes. The kicking of her feet slowed and the ache in her chest grew.

  She finally broke the surface, her hand still gripping limply to the rope. It took her several seconds to realize what the cool breeze on her face meant. She drew in a deep breath. She coughed and spit as some of the dirty water of the Hudson chased the air into her lungs. Rolling to her back, she floated as she continued to take deep breaths until her fuzzy mind cleared and her vision returned to normal. The ache in her lungs disappeared.

  The strength returned to her limbs and she swam alongside the rope until she reached the dock.

  “Myrikal?” her father whispered.

  “Yes. It’s me.”

  “Good. I was starting to wonder if a ‘quake creature got you after all,” he said, his words laced with annoyance.

  “One tried to.” Myri pulled herself onto the dock and stood beside her father.

  “Is that so?” He raised an eyebrow. “You’ll have to tell me about it. Later. Did you find the ship? The safe?”

  She nodded.

  “Did you get the rope secured around it?”

  She nodded again.

  “Well,” he huffed. “Help me pull it up, then.”

  She reached for the portion of rope he held toward her. “How long was I down there?”

  “I’d say forty-five minutes to an hour.” He cocked his head and looked at her. “Did you have any trouble? You know, from holding your breath for that long?”

  The way his eyes widened just slightly and his cheek twitched sent a chill straight to her heart. “No. No problems,” she lied.

  “Oh. Well, good. That’s good.” A flash of anger sparked in his eyes before he turned away to concentrate on the rope.

  That wasn’t the answer he’d wanted to hear. Myrikal shivered.

  “Weapons?” Branch asked, eyes wide. “What kind of weapons?”

  “Guns, ammunition, explosives… I guess. He didn’t really let me see everything that was in there,” Myrikal answered.

  “What does he need that stuff for?”

  Myri shrugged, she wasn’t about to tell him what her dad’s “job” was. “My dad said it’s for our protection. He’s worried about the gangs that have been getting more and more aggressive.” She couldn’t look at him while she lied.

  “What’s wrong, Myri? Something’s bothering you.”

  She looked around the crowded city street. “There are too many people here. Let’s go somewhere more private.”

  “Okay,” Branch said. “I know just the place.” He picked up a small duffle bag and headed down the street.

  She frowned and followed him. He turned down Fifth Avenue, one of the more devastated areas of the city. He looked back at her and grinned. He dropped to the ground and crawled through a small opening into a crumbling building, pulling his bag behind him.

  “Wait, Branch.” She inspected the broken down walls, the crumbling bricks, and the decaying wood piled up around the opening.

  He stopped crawling and looked back over his shoulder at her. “What?”

  “This doesn’t look very safe.”

  He rolled his eyes. “That’s why it’s a good place to talk. Nobody’s gonna’ come in here. It’ll be fine. I’ve been in here before.”

  Myri sighed and followed him inside. After crawling through a rubble tunnel a few feet long, it opened up into a bigger room. A small animal scurried behind a stack of tumbled, broken shelving.

  Leaning back against a pile of mannequins, Branch sat with his hands resting atop his bent knees. “So… what’s bothering you?”

  She looked down at her hands. She could trust Branch, right? He knew all her other secrets and he hadn’t told anyone about those—not that she knew of anyway. “You have to pinky swear not to tell a single living soul.” She thought about the stories of ghosts and wraiths wandering the tunnels beneath the city and added, “Or a single not-living soul.”

  “I totally pinky-promise, Myri. I won’t tell a soul, living or dead.” He held his crooked pinky out to her.

  Looking him straight in the eyes, she hooked her pinky around his and said, “Repeat after me: I solemnly swear that I will never tell another soul—living, dead, or otherwise—what Myrikal is about to tell me. On my honor and my grave, I swear.”

  He repeated the words, the solemnity in his eyes telling her that he meant every word. She sighed. Her secret would be safe with him.

  “Remember when you asked me if I had any weaknesses, besides the light bothering my eyes?” she asked.

  He nodded, eyes widening.

  “I found another one. Only, this one could prove to be much more of a problem.”

  “What is it?” Branch whispered.

  Myrikal swallowed and looked down. “I… I can’t hold my breath indefinitely. I was underwater for an hour, maybe less, while I was retrieving the safe. I didn’t think I was going to make it back up to the surface.”

  “Oh… drowning. I never thought about that. I guess even super-cells need oxygen to function. What happened?”

  “My mind got all fuzzy and dizzy. I started seeing spots. I… I think I was almost ready to pass out.”

  “Wow. That’s…” He laid his hand on her shoulder. “Thanks for trusting me enough to tell me. I promise I’ll never tell anyone.”

  “I know you won’t.” Something above them creaked. She halted her smile mid curve. “Branch, I think we…”

  They both looked up. Branch started to stand, but Myri lunged at him and pushed him several yards away. He landed with a crash against the remains of a display case, broken glass crunched beneath him. Her friend safe for the time being, Myri crouched and shielded her head as a section of the second floor crashed down on top of her.

  “Myri?” Branch’s hysterical, muffled voice penetrated the rubble pressing down on her.

  “Stand back,” she replied. Facedown on the floor, a heavy beam pressed down on her upper back. She maneuvered her hands beneath her shoulders, in a push-up stance, and pushed, shifting the metal beam and surrounding ceiling tiles and other debris until she could get her legs under her.

  Clearing junk out of her way as she crawled, she made her way out from under the beam. She cringed as it shifted behind her, causing another loud cascade of building materials to crash down.

  Myrikal got to where she could stand. She gazed around her, having trouble seeing through the cloud of dust even with her enhanced sight. “Branch? Are you okay?”

  His voice came from the other side of the mountain of rubble. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay… mostly.”

  She moved toward the sound of his voice. “Mostly?”

  “I’m kinda’ stuck. I can’t get my
leg out from under this column that fell.”

  “Hang on. I’m coming.” Myrikal carefully dug her way to her friend. She stopped frequently and changed her course as the piles shifted.

  After moving a chunk of cement, she was able to shimmy her head and shoulders through the small opening. Branch’s pale, grimacing face worried her and she pulled the rest of her body through in a rush. A chunk of cement and rebar broke loose from its precarious position near the top of the pile and plummeted toward her friend’s head. His eyes widened and he wheezed out a short cry of alarm. Myrikal charged forward and batted the deadly boulder away from him as it came to within an inch of his skull.

  Branch winced as it landed close-by. He looked from the chunk back to Myri and swallowed. “Thanks. Again.” He looked back at his trapped leg. “Think you can lift that thing off me?”

  Myri rolled her eyes and moved toward the column. “Get ready to scoot yourself forward when I lift it.”

  She slid her fingers under the column and lifted carefully so as not to cause an avalanche of building materials to come crashing down on top of them. Branch grunted as he pushed himself forward with the un-trapped leg. When he was clear, Myri set the column down gently and let out the breath she’d been holding.

  “Are you hurt? Can you stand?” she asked. “We need to get out of here before the other ten floors collapse on us.”

  “I’m fine.” Branch stood and winced slightly as he put weight on his injured leg. “How are we going to get out of here? I can’t crawl through that little hole you came through. I’m a bit chunkier than your scrawny butt.”

  Myri looked toward the back of the building. “Do you think there’s a way out back there?”

  Branch shrugged. “I’ve never really explored this building before. I’ve only been in this area.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll find out together, then.” She nodded to the pile of rubble blocking their exit from the front. “That isn’t stable enough to try to dig a bigger hole.”

  “Okay, but you’ll have to lead the way. It’s too dark in here for me to see where I’m going.”

  Myri hadn’t realized how dark it had gotten since the cave-in. Light that had been streaming in through the gaps in the boarded up windows, was now gone—on the other side of the mountain of debris. She pulled her goggles down and let them hang around her neck. “Alright. Follow me, then.”

  They wended their way through the ruins of the former store, Myrikal picking her way slowly around the bigger piles of junk so Branch could keep up. She sensed when his movement stopped and she looked back at him. “You okay?”

  “I… can’t see.” He lowered his head. “We might have to hold hands or something—I know, that’s gross, but I don’t want to get lost in here.”

  Myri didn’t think it would be gross. Why had he even said that? Did he think she was gross? “Okay.” She grabbed his hand and continued forward, a little faster this time.

  They reached what she assumed was the back of the store where a crooked door hung on one hinge. A metal sign said “Employees Only”. Still thinking about what Branch could have meant about it being gross to hold her hand, she ripped the door off its last hinge as she pulled it open. She let go of Branch’s hand and moved the door to the side. She peered into the “Employees Only” room and sighed. A jumble of tipped over metal shelves and clothing racks met her gaze.

  She grabbed Branch’s hand again. “Sorry. You’re going to have to hold my gross hand again. This place is a mess.” She dragged him forward toward a small glimmer of light coming from the other end of the room.

  “Wait… I… I didn’t mean that your hand was gross. Nothing about you is gross, Myri.” He stumbled as he tried to keep up with her.

  “Well, what did you mean then?” She stepped over a metal bar.

  “Umm… some, or most, kids our age think… well, boys think girls are gross and girls think boys are gross.” He shrugged. “I thought maybe you’d feel that way, too.”

  “No. That’s just stupid. Boys and girls are just people. We’re both gross and we’re both… not gross.”

  He straightened up. “Yeah. You’re right.” He squeezed her hand.

  A warm flush rushed up her arm. She wasn’t used to personal contact with other people. Her dad rarely touched her—and then only during training, when he was teaching her how to fight. This kind of touch was much nicer. She smiled as she continued to work her way across the room.

  She had to break some boards off the empty windows for them to climb through to the alley behind the store. The exit door was stuck and she didn’t dare push it too hard, with the way the building was prone to collapse.

  Back out on the relative safety of the street, she let go of Branch’s hand and pulled her goggles back into place.

  “You saved my life in there, Myri. Twice.” He grinned. “I owe ya’ another one. That’s two more points for you. That makes the score: Myrikal-3, Branch-0. I have some catching up to do.”

  She grinned back. “Nah. Don’t worry about it. Isn’t that what ‘superheroes’ are supposed to do?”

  Now that Russ had his stash of weapons, he was more paranoid than ever. They moved underground, into the tunnels beneath the city. Not many people dared even descend into the depths below—mostly just the crazies. And Myrikal and her dad. She didn’t know if people were afraid of cave-ins, crazies, or… something else. She’d heard rumors of “others” being down there. “Others” was what people called the supposed monsters that had crawled out of the core of the earth through the crevasses left by the ‘quakes. She’d never seen one. Except, she guessed, the sea creature that tried to eat her in the river, but she’d never seen one in the underground. And, Russ didn’t seem to be scared of anything.

  They made their new semi-permanent home in the cars of an old subway train. Myri loved it down there. She could see and didn’t have to wear goggles. Russ let her have her own train car to herself. It gave her life a bit of normalcy, whatever that was in this post-quake world. Just having the same place to return to each day had a calming effect on her—knowing she had a “home” with her own space at the end of the day.

  The bad thing about the weapons was that Russ wanted to practice with them. And practice, to him, meant trying them all out on his daughter. Which meant he spent more time tormenting Myrikal under the guise of “training.” And that meant less free time for her, less time she could spend with Branch.

  “This ammunition isn’t going to last me forever,” Russ said. “You still need to learn the family business. You’re going to be the world’s greatest assassin, which means I can retire someday and just mooch off of you like you’ve been doing with me for the last thirteen years.”

  “Yes, Russ.” Myri averted her gaze from her father’s. She wanted to remind him that he wouldn’t have the ammunition at all if she hadn’t gotten it for him. But she didn’t. She really didn’t want to kill people, but every time she broached the subject with her father, he spent the next several days showing her the disgusting underbelly of the dark society in which they lived. She didn’t know how many more acts of cruelty she could witness without jumping in to help—or losing her mind, becoming like her father.

  Shadows danced around them as the flames of the torches her father needed to see by fluttered with their movement. They sparred in an open area in the underground, surrounded by mostly intact concrete. The depressed area where the train tracks lay gaped beside them as Russ threw sharp knives at Myri in rapid succession. She could have dodged most of them, as they appeared to her to be flying toward her in slow motion.

  Russ, however, wanted her to do more than dodge and insisted that she block and catch some of them. “You won’t always be in an area where there’s room to dodge.”

  Myri blocked another knife with her forearm, sending it flying down to the tracks. “Why don’t I just stand here and let them hit me? We know they can’t penetrate my skin.”

  The next throw went wide, aggravation making Russ�
�s aim off. “I’ve told you before. Appearances. You want your targets, and more importantly, observers, to see your skills. To stand in awe of you. Your target will be dead after your encounter, but the audience—they will go out and talk. They’ll tell others about you and before long, all will fear you.”

  “So… it just looks cooler?”

  “It looks tougher, Myrikal. It looks badass. Now quit asking questions. I want you to catch the next three and fling them back toward me. But don’t hit me. Then we can be done for the day.”

  “I figured these would fit your scrawny twelve-year-old body.” Branch held up a pair of decent looking jeans and a hoodie with “NY” blazed across the front.

  “Thirteen,” Myri said as she eyed the clothes.

  “Thirteen? Thirteen what?”

  “I’m thirteen now.”

  “What?” Branch lowered the clothes. “I missed your birthday? When was it?”

  Myri shrugged. “I’m not sure of the exact date. My dad just says I was born sometime in September.”

  “I’m gonna’ go out on a limb here and assume that you’ve never celebrated your birthday before.”

  “You should really refrain from going out on anymore limbs…”

  He rolled his eyes. “Ha, ha. Very funny. And, you’re avoiding my question.”

  “You didn’t officially ask a question, so…”

  He huffed out a frustrated breath. “Have you ever celebrated your birthday in any way?”

  “No. My birthday is also the day my mom died. So my dad would rather just pretend I was never born or something.”

  “Yeah, well. That’s not how we do things. Wait here.” He threw the pants and hoodie to her. “You should try these on while I’m gone. I’ll be back in a couple minutes.”

  Myri smiled and held the clothes to her chest. She would never admit it out loud, but she was thrilled to have some real clothes. She just hoped they fit. She ducked behind a pile of garbage in the alley outside of Branch’s clan compound. Instead of taking the hideous red suit off, she just slid the jeans on over it. They were a little loose in the waist but the length was just right. She had to roll the sleeves of the black hoodie up a couple of times, but that was okay. She loved it anyway. Today, black was her favorite color.