Page 19 of The Infinite Glade
“Frequency?” Jackie repeated the word as if it were new to her language.
“Sound. Vibration. Feeling.” Ximena humored Jackie. “It actually makes sense.” She had no sooner just learned of it herself, but the time spent with the thought in her mind didn’t equate to her understanding of it. Her ability to see it. Defend it. Her inner-knowing identified it.
The fire crackled its own frequency.
Understanding was a frequency.
Anger, another.
Erros spoke next. “The ones from WICKED, they thought the Flare had changed thoughts into frequency, but the Flare didn’t change it . . . thoughts have alwaysbeenfrequency.”
“The Flare only made the frequency easier to receive,” Cian added. “To understand.”
Ximena looked down. The hairs on her left arm stood straight, the kind of truth-antenna confirmation that her inner-knowing did when something proved true. But despite that, she didn’t want to believe what they were saying about WICKED. She didn’t trust the tales of WICKED any more than she trusted Annie Kletter or anyone at the Villa. The two strangers around the fire seemed desperate, and Ximena knew that desperate people would say anything to get what they wanted. She just didn’t know what it was that Cian and Erros wanted. Not yet.
“How do you know so much about WICKED?” Old Man Frypan asked the question they all should have been thinking. Her whole life, all the adults from Annie to her Abuela talked about WICKED often. But most of it was a mystery.
“We know . . .” Cian lifted the fish pan to wipe it clean. “Because we helped destroy the World in Catastrophe, Killzone Experiment Department.”
He paused. The fire crackled and hissed. Darkness hung in the sky like a storm.
“Yep. We destroyed WICKED.”
CHAPTERSIX
Coyote’s Curse
Commitment to the mission was a soldier’s duty.
Minho boarded theMaze Cutterand joined the others on deck.
“So we’re good?” Dominic practically stepped on the heels of Minho’s boots.
The soldier ignored Dominic and nodded just once to Orange as he passed, a greeting only used in the Remnant Nation among Orphans if they were alerting others of danger ahead. Orange pulled her gun in front of her and signaled her eyes quickly to Alexandra and back.
“Good?” she asked.
Minho nodded. “Yeah. The rudder’s fine. Not great, but it’ll get us there.”
“Really?” Dominic whispered to Minho. “But what about the Ber?—”
Minho cut him off. “We’re ready.” He needed to know whatever Alexandra knew about the Great Master. Then, and once everyone was ready to ditch their mission, Minho could fly everyone out. He couldn’t tell Dominic what he found in the Berg. It was too much to explain, and Minho wasn’t even sure if Orange would believe him if he told her the so-called Godhead had killed a man. A man who appeared to be the Master of the Golden Room of Grief, the leader of the Remnant Nation. At the same time, he fought the urge to tell her everything right there, out in the open and in front of the islanders.
“Good, we’ll be on our way then.” Alexandra turned around on the deck to face Minho as effortlessly as she turned around after killing the Great Master.
“The sooner the better,” Roxy added, pointing over the bend where the fires from the city looked like they were spreading farther. The smell of the apocalyptic scene reminded Minho of the incinerator at the south end of the Remnant Nation. They never buried bodies of trespassers, not like Isaac talked about doing on the island with Kletter’s crew. The Remnant Nationburnedthe dead and their belongings . . . at least the belongings that weren’t of any value. Minho had dragged so many bodies into the south incinerator during his time in the Nation that the smell of burnt flesh felt stronger than a memory. It was like a permanent taste in his mouth. Despite the distance and time that had passed since Minho last stepped foot in the Nation and its mighty fortress, he was still trying to escape.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said to Dominic. “Pull up anchor?”
“Yessir.” The boy saluted like an idiot.
Alexandra coughed and coughed until phlegm came up the back of her throat. She must have breathed in more smoke from the fires than she thought. She swallowed the phlegm back down, not the most pleasant thing in the world.
“Oh no, dear, you’ve got to spit that right out,” Roxy said.
“Excuse me?” No one told the Godhead what to do. Alexandra lifted her chin up enough to look down her nose at Roxy.
“The smoke, you probably breathed in quite a bit of it when you were fleeing.” Roxy finished helping the other boy with the anchor. “You’ve got to spit that right out or it’ll clog up your system.”
