The Stranded by Sarah Daniels

Author:Sarah Daniels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2022-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 31

Esther

The knife hovers in the air between us. My arm’s shaking from holding it, and my hand is slick around the handle. I recognize that voice, even without the sickbed rattle. It’s been on repeat in my head since I heard him say my name the night I was kidnapped.

What now? Now I get answers. Hoping that trouble will disappear if I ignore it long enough hasn’t worked. I have to take action, even if it means doing things I never thought I was capable of.

Like holding someone at knifepoint.

“Start talking,” I say, trying to sound like someone who will use a knife if she needs to. It weighs a ton, and I already wish I’d picked the vegetable peeler, but I need shock and awe if I’m going to get info out of him. I raise it so that the point is level with the boy’s chest.

He scratches his head, ruffling scruffy black hair that looks like he cut it himself, and puffs his cheeks in exasperation. I realize I know him. He lives down the deck. We’ve passed each other a thousand times without ever speaking. His dad was taken by the Coalies a few months before May and I started our training. We watched them throwing the family’s possessions down into the sea until Mom shooed us inside.

“What do you want to know?” he says, shrugging.

He’s wearing a hoodie underneath a waterproof jacket that’s been patched more than once, and the smell of woodsmoke and paraffin lingers on him.

“Let’s start with your name, then move on to how you know my sister.”

“I’m Nikhil Lall. Nice to officially meet you. And I told you. We work together.”

His eyes flick around the cabin. He picks up our tea container from its place on the worktop and sniffs the leaves inside. He wrinkles his nose.

I snatch the tin and snap it closed. “Why was I kidnapped? Why not someone else?”

“How would I know? I was busy being half dead, remember?”

He wanders to the shelf by the front door and pulls a book out by its spine, leafing through the pages before dropping it and picking another one.

“Where does May keep her stuff?” Nik says.

Emotion catches in my throat, raw and hot, but I refuse to let him see me cry. “I’m asking the questions,” I say. I jab the knife in the air.

“All right, doc, keep your hair on.” He smirks.

My free hand goes to the choppy ends of my hair, and I want to cry all over again. If I had any strength left, I’d punch that stupid grin off his face.

“Who’s Silas? Why does he want me dead?”

He scans a book’s cover, then drops it on the growing pile by his feet. “That’s what happens when you give a gang leader a bloody nose. They hold grudges.”

“What?”

“The other night. You kicked him in the face. Ring a bell?”

“He attacked me! I was defending myself!”

“You’re a little girl, and you humiliated him. He needs to reassert his power.” Another book thuds to the ground.

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