Page 99 of Blue Arrow Island
He hums a laugh.
“What’s funny?”
“Of all the things you could be afraid of, I’m surprised it’s bats.”
“Everyone’s scared of something.”
He gets up and then offers his hand to help me to my feet. I brush dirt and rocks away from the back of my clothes, my heartbeat almost back to normal.
“Hello?” Marcus cups his hands around his mouth and yells into the cave. “Anyone in here?”
His voice echoes in the silence. There’s no response.
“Let’s head out,” he says. “We can look around some more outside.”
“Can I walk out ahead of you?”
“Sure.”
He stays several feet behind me as I leave the cave, jogging. I don’t want to spend any more time in a bat lair than I have to. Now that Marcus knows where I found the knife, hopefully I’ll never have to go back in there again.
29
The chain of command is important, but you have a duty to consider who will benefit from orders you’re given, and to speak up when you know something is wrong. Blind obedience and misplaced loyalty can lead good people down very bad paths.
-Excerpt from a police training manual written by Ben Hollis
A gust of wind blows loose strands of hair across my face when I emerge from the cave. When I look up at the sky, my gut churns with nervousness. It’s not just the cloud the snow has been falling from that’s gray now—it’s the entire sky.
Marcus’s brow furrows when he steps out of the cave. “We have to go back to camp. It’s never good when it comes on this fast. Virginia’s storm will gain momentum from the temperature drop.”
I tuck errant sections of hair behind my ears. “What’s the point of the microclimates?”
His expression is sober when he responds, a storm much like the one in the sky brewing in his eyes. “The ultimate goal is probably weaponizing climate. Heating or freezing people in certain areas to death.”
My lips part with shock as the horror of it sets in. Whitman could kill large groups of people without sending in a single soldier. The implications are terrifying.
“But here, the microclimates were being used for training at Rising Tide. People were being taught to endure the worst weather conditions. To build shelters out of the materials around you.”
I lock eyes with him, a bad feeling settling over me. “But now she’s using it against your camp.”
“Ourcamp.”
“Ours.”
“Virginia was sowing chaos any way she could, but she slowed way down in the past few months. I think the lack of food and supplies forced her to change gears and focus manpower on surviving.” His lips purse in a thin, grim line. “But now she’s desperate. She’s going to throw everything she can at us.”
I nod, wind rustling through the trees around us. “What if we give them some food? Do you think it would help?”
“No. It would take a lot of manpower to deliver it, and I can’t risk her killing those people.” He glances around. “Flavius is gone. We need to get back as fast as we can.”
“Let’s go.”
He casts a quick look at the tall volcano on the other side of the island. Then he takes off his pack and pulls out his radio, pressing a button on it.
“Ares to Athena.”
He waits, and a response comes a couple seconds later. “Athena reads, Ares.”
