D. MacHale - SYLO

“We thought about that,” Mr. Sleeper said. “All of it. I’m sorry to hear about your friend, Tucker. And your father, Kent.”

“I can’t believe that Quinn is gone,” Olivia said, genuinely upset.

“And I’m sorry about my parents,” I said. “They’re working with SYLO.”

That shut the conversation down. With each new revelation about SYLO, I kept thinking about my mom and dad and wondering what part they were playing in this nightmare. For me, that was the nightmare.

“We don’t have a whole lot of answers,” Mr. Sleeper said. “But we all feel certain that the only way to get the truth is to blast off of this rock and get back to civilization. Nobody knows what we’re going to find there and who might be on our side, but what other choice do we have?”

“None,” I said quickly. “I’ll help. I’ll draw you as many maps as you want and tell you every last thing I learned about the place, but I want something in return.”

“What’s that?” Mr. Sleeper asked.

“I want Tori and me to be on one of those boats going to the mainland.”

“What about me?” Kent asked.

“And me?” Olivia chimed in petulantly.

“You do whatever you want, but Tori and I will be on one of those boats.”

Mr. Sleeper frowned and shook his head. “No. Too dangerous.”

I stalked toward him and said, “It’s no more dangerous than what we’ve been through already. We’ve been out there, Mr. Sleeper. In your boats, in the middle of a battle. One of them was vaporized with my best friend on board. That’s how Quinn died.”

Mr. Sleeper went white. “You made a run for the mainland? Tori?”

“We did,” Tori said. “The Patricia was hit by a light that vaporized it, along with Quinn.”

“Seriously?” Olivia said, stunned. She looked whiter than Mr. Sleeper. “Evaporate? Like…poof?”

“I don’t know who is fighting who,” I said. “Or why. But they’re not taking prisoners. We saw it all, which means we have a hell of a lot more experience making a run for the mainland than any of your weekend warriors here. We will be on one of those boats, Mr. Sleeper. In fact, Tori will be the captain. I trust her more than anybody. It’s not a request, it’s a fact. Accept it or you won’t be getting any map from me.”

Tori stood up and said, “Or from me, Dad.”

I looked toward Kent. He saw how serious I was. He gave a resigned shrug and said, “Or me. I don’t want to be stuck here either.”

Mr. Sleeper was speechless. Tori went to him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and pressed her cheek against his chest.

“Don’t think that leaving us here is the same as protecting us,” she said. “We stand just as good a chance of surviving by making a run as staying on the island.”

Mr. Sleeper closed his eyes and hugged his daughter. She was all he had in the world. It must have pained him to think that he would lose her. But he wasn’t the kind of guy who would step back, hope for the best, and let fate play out on its own.

“All right,” he said softly, then looked at me and added, “You know how to pick ’em. If anybody’s got a chance of piloting a boat through a crapstorm, it’s my daughter.”

“That’s what I figured,” I said. “Do I have your word?”

He nodded. “You do.” He wiped his brow and added, “Let’s get to work on those maps.”

We spent the next hour drawing, talking about what we saw in the SYLO compound, and answering questions thrown at us by a group of people that Mr. Sleeper brought in. Most I knew from around town. They were Mr. Sleeper’s buddies, and now they were his lieutenants. It was clear that Mr. Sleeper was the boss. He’d grown up on Pemberwick; he knew every inch of the island and most of the people. He also had a very strong personality. When he spoke, his buddies listened.

They didn’t fill us in on the details of their plan to snatch Granger. I think they were still figuring it out, especially since we had dumped a boatload of new information on them. All we knew was that once the team left Chinicook, we would move down to the boats and wait.

Feit was not part of this discussion. When the lieutenants showed up, Feit was asked to step out. Obviously, nobody trusted him. He wasn’t going to play a critical role in the kidnapping other than to provide a boost from the Ruby. I got the feeling that nobody liked him much. Made sense. As far as I was concerned, the guy was a murderer. I hated that the good guys had to rely on him and worried that they were going to take the Ruby, but it was a small risk compared to everything else that was going on.

It didn’t help my opinion of him that he was such a good liar. Everything he first had told me about the Ruby was bogus. It made me wonder where his lies stopped and the truth began. We accepted everything he told us about SYLO and Granger because it fit and helped to explain some things. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if everything he said was the absolute truth.

It was nearly four in the morning by the time we finished. I hadn’t slept much earlier that night and I was definitely feeling low after coming down from my adventure with the Ruby. Olivia had already crashed somewhere because she didn’t have anything to offer. Kent got bored quickly and was asleep on the floor of the tent.

“Get some rest,” Mr. Sleeper said. “If you think of anything else, you can tell me later. And sleep in. We don’t move around much during the day. We’re like a camp of vampires.”

The lady from the ice-cream shop came in with a couple of sleeping bags and pillows for us and started to lay them out near the crates of the Ruby.

“Thanks,” I said. “But I’d rather not sleep near that stuff.”

She glanced at the Ruby and nodded. “Right. Sorry.”

She laid both of the bags down on the opposite side of the tent and I went right for one, ready to crash.

Tori gave her father a playful poke in the chest. It reminded me of when she pushed his hat over his eyes on their dock. “I’m proud of you, Dad,” she said. “If anybody can pull this off, it’s you.”

“It’s not like I have a choice,” he said. “I’ve gotta take care of my little girl.”

He kissed the top of her head and headed out of the tent.

Tori came over and lay down on the sleeping bag next to mine.

“Did you ever imagine that your father would be the leader of a revolution?” I asked.

“No, obviously,” she said. “But if there’s gotta be a revolution, there’s nobody better to run it. People listen to my dad.”

“Seriously. I can’t imagine telling him what to do.”

Tori leaned over, kissed me on the cheek, and whispered, “But you did tell him what to do. And he listened. Not bad.”

She lay down on her sleeping bag and was asleep in seconds.

It wasn’t fair. I was about as exhausted as I’d ever been in my life, but I had been jolted awake by a kiss that I never saw coming.

There was so much rattling around in my head, good and bad, that I feared I’d never get to sleep. I probably lay there thinking for, oh, a solid eight seconds before dropping off.

I didn’t sleep for long though. Can’t say why. I definitely needed more downtime but my brain needed my body to be awake so we could both get back to stressing over the situation.

It was still dark. I saw that Tori was fast asleep. Kent and Olivia were, too. I wanted to fall back to sleep but knew it would be impossible so I got up and left the tent.

The sky was slowly growing lighter. The sun would soon rise on what promised to be a dramatic day—maybe the most important day of our lives. Witnessing the dawn on that kind of day felt like the right thing to do, so I walked through the campground, snaking past tents, looking for a trail that would lead me out from under the protective canopy. The entire camp was surrounded by dense scrub trees. There was no way to bushwack out. I had to walk halfway around the perimeter until I found a trail.