Dark Life: Rip Tide Read Online Free PDF Page B

overextended, and sometimes things fall through the cracks. Lack of oversight is what let Doc get away with experimenting on the boys in Seablite.”
    Gemma frowned. “A lot more than lack of oversight anchored that township and left those people to die.”
    “I’ll say.”
    When she took a seat at the foot of my bed like she used to—facing me, tucking up her legs—a thousand sea anemones bloomed inside me, tentacles fluttering and firing. As thrilled as I was to have her to myself, suddenly I could think of nothing to say.
    After a moment she asked, “Are you nervous about tomorrow?”
    “Selling crops to Drift? No.” Which was true, even though Drift’s sachem was straight out of a nightmare, with his face and scalp erupting with skin cancer. “Whatcan go wrong? They need our greens. We want to sell them. Simple deal.”
    “What about the rations the ’wealth sends them? That was part of the Surf Treaty, right? If people agreed to move on to the townships, the government would supply anything they couldn’t grow or make.”
    “Drift’s sachem said the ’wealth is sending them half of what they got five years ago.”
    “Must be a lack of oversight,” Gemma said dryly.
    Even when piqued, she was pretty. With her sun-streaked braids pinned up like a crown and her sea green caftan tucked around her legs, she could pass for a mermaid. Though I’d never seen one pictured with freckles….
    “You know it’s cruel to lead Jibby on,” I said, broaching the subject that kept hijacking my thoughts. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about him.”
    She smiled. “Nope. Still not ready to get married.”
    “Then why’d you say yes to the boxing match? To see Shade?”
    “Yes,” she said quickly. “That’s why.”
    I’d suspected as much. He was her brother and it made sense that she’d want to see him. But I couldn’t forget that living with Shade on the
Specter,
his gang’s submarine, had been her first choice four months ago. She’d only agreed to live with us after he’d refused her.
    “Your parents are going to say it’s getting too late for talking any minute now.”
    “Probably,” I agreed. “We’re rendezvousing with Drift at dawn, and I have to fetch the wagon before that. You want to come?”
    “Sure,” she said, sounding deliberately casual.
    “You don’t have to get out of the sub.”
    “It’s not that.” She paused. “Well, it is that. But I was just thinking, I don’t want to find another township in the trash gyre. Though I suppose now you’ll be able to stake a claim down here with your half of the money.”
    “Yeah. When I’m of age.” There was no doubt that finding Nomad had gotten me a lot closer to realizing my dream, which had seemed unattainable ever since the ‘wealth stopped subsidizing new homesteads. Because of the terrible thing done to the surfs on Nomad—the cold-blooded murder of an entire town—I hadn’t let myself take any pleasure in finding such a valuable salvage. But now, without the derelict township bobbing nearby, dark and silent, a giddy warmth spread through me. My own land. One hundred acres of subsea frontier—gorgeous and teeming with wildlife.
    “Must be nice to know exactly what you want,” she mused.
    “Need,” I corrected. “I wouldn’t survive living Topside, crammed into a stack-city with a million other people and no nature.”
    “And no monsters trying to eat you. You’re right, you’d die of boredom.” As she got to her feet, her smileturned rueful. “I’ll go with you tomorrow, though I’ll probably regret it.” Leaning in, she gave me a quick hug.
    “’Night,” I said, purposely casual, so she wouldn’t know that her touch had sent my pulse into overdrive.
    “Oh, and by the way,” she called over her shoulder as she headed for Zoe’s room, “you’re glowing.”
    The fog surrounded us, giving the surface of the ocean a ghostly feel. Until the sun rose and burned it off, I didn’t dare drive the