Page 113 of Blue Arrow Island
Marcus is met with stunned silence. After a few seconds, Niran laughs.
“I’m still in, brother. Go big or go home, right? And I guess going big is our only choice by default, because we sure as hell aren’t going home.”
Adele speaks up next, her shirt stained with blood from the fight with the Tiders earlier. “Yeah, me too. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.”
One by one, everyone in the room tells Marcus they’re with him. I’m last, and I smile when his eyes land on mine..
“You know it’s a yes from me.”
He scrubs a hand down his face, looking tense. “This is dangerous shit, you guys.”
“Hey, we’ll have a better chance of killing those fuckers with our aromium on,” Chance says.
“The aromiumiswhat’s dangerous,” Marcus says. “The effects are ...” He furrows his brow. “You don’t start back at zero when it’s reactivated; you pick up right where you left off. So if you were ninety percent of the way to bonding, which makes it impossible to turn off the aromium, every day it’s on brings you closer to that. And if you were feeling volatile when it was turned off, you’ll be right back there. You’ll only want to fuck and fight.”
Niran scoffs. “Don’t threaten me with a good time. We said we’re in, so let’s fucking do it.”
Marcus looks up at the ceiling.
“What should we do if we find him?” Adele asks.
“Call me on the radio. We’ll use the code word eagle for him. So radio the team that you’ve located the eagle and then stay with him. Donotradio location or coordinates.” He pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Fuck it, I might as well just tell you guys the rest. Aromium is made from a flower that grows on this island. The flowers are huge and shaped like bells. They’re bright blue—very distinctive. McClain said he thinks he can make an aromium stabilizer with a component of the plant, probably the root. I’ve been low-key searching this entire island for it for a long-ass time. If you run across a plant with a flower that looks like that, dig up a bunch of them and bring them back to camp. Radio that you located...I don’t even know, just call it a pot of gold. And for fuck’s sake, don’t forget the location.”
I’m staring at him, open-mouthed, because that wasa lot. It looks like everyone else, other than Nova, is doing the same. I can tell by his expression that even Niran didn’t know about this flower.
“Oh ... I get it,” Amira says. “That’s why it’s Blue Arrow Island. It’s not actual arrows, it’s blue aromium.”
Marcus nods slowly. “The compound retains the blue color from the flower.”
“How do you know all of this?” I ask him, unable to wait until we’re alone.
He exhales through his nose, meeting my gaze. “Long story, but the short version is when I was a Tider, McClain found me in the woods and turned off my aromium. He told me everything he knew because the team of scientists fled the island and he was alone. If something had happened to him, no one would’ve been left to communicate with Whitman about the aromium project. He showed me how to do everything. Order supplies, send emails as him?—”
“Email?!” Adele cries. “We have email here?”
“Not really,” Marcus says. “It’s only a connection with Whitman; there’s no access to anything else.”
I put a hand up. “Wait. If the other scientists left the island, why didn’t Whitman do anything? Does he think his experiment is still rolling along as planned?”
Marcus pinches his brows together in a pained expression. “McClain knew that would happen if they made it back, so ... they didn’t.”
“What?” Amira whispers next to me.
“He sank their boat,” Marcus says. “It was a submarine, and he was able to sabotage it from here. Look, you guys, we could spend all day in here on this stuff, but we need to be out there finding McClain. The life of every person in this camp depends on it.”
Niran’s usually playful expression is serious. “The shield can’t stay up without the solar array, can it?”
Marcus hesitates. “I honestly don’t know. We’ve never been in this position before. But I think we should assume we’re on borrowed time.” He scans the faces of everyone in the room. “I can’t say this strongly enough—everything I’ve shared with you in here is for this team’s ears only. Do not fucking repeat it. I don’t want panic breaking out.”
“We should divide into pairs to cover more ground,” Nova says. “I’ll take Amira, you take Briar?”
He nods. “Niran and Adele, you two pair up, and then Wyatt and Chance.”
Chance holds a fist out to Wyatt. “Let’s go cowboy the shit out of this.”
Wyatt bumps his fist, his expression stoic.
Marcus exhales heavily. “Okay, let’s all get changed and gear up. We’ll meet up at the front entrance and take Stella with us so she can turn our aromium on when we’re out of shield range.”
