Tsunami Blue Read Online Free PDF Page B

fall smack on my butt. The knife clattered on cedar planks and my clothes went flying. The blanket, however, stayed anchored. Sort of. A small victory, but a victory no less.
    I scrambled, picking up the knife first, clothes second, and my boots, the only shoes closest to the door, third. All the while I refused to look at Gabriel. I was out of the cabin almost as fast as Max. When the door slammed shut, creating a barrier between me and my bunk buddy from hell, I slumped against it, catching my breath. I willed my heartbeat to slow, my adrenaline to quit pumping, and then I heard it through the door.
    Laughter. Deep male laughter. And didn’t that just piss me off.
    I sat on a grassy dune above the gray-blue waters of Haro Strait. A mean north wind tossed and twisted my long hair, obscuring my view. I smelled sea salt and dried kelp and rotting fish. The gulls, loud and boisterous, cried foul. Foul to the weather, foul to the wind, and foul to my dark mood.
    The ocean, as if sensing the darkness, was restless today, tossing waves angrily on the beach as if to say, He should be dead, he should be dead, he should be dead.
     As I brushed long, thick strands of hair out of my eyes, I had to agree. He damn well should be.
    But Gabriel Black had not only survived the night, he seemed to have no outward residual effects. It was uncanny. I should be spoon-feeding him warm sugar water, helping him walk, nursing him back to full strength. I picked up a rock and threw it. Yeah, right. Like I could ever be a nurse. I could barely take care of myself. And Max.
    With knees drawn up, I watched Max play in the surf. We had kissed and made up. You know, it was that girl-and-her-dog thing.
    I had drawn a sketch of Gabriel in the sand, a very bad sketch. I mean, really, how great could it be with a stick of driftwood and no talent? Still, I had tried to show Max who the bad man was. I didn’t care how great Gabriel Black scratched or rubbed or petted. I had a sudden vision of him lounging in my sleeping bag naked. Okay, maybe I did care how great he scratched and rubbed and petted. In another lifetime. But right now, I told Max, Gabriel was the enemy, and until we knew more about him, Max was to resume the raised-hackles-and-bared-teeth act. Fake a case of rabies, even. Whatever it took, I told him. He was to remember he was on my side and my side alone.
     “Right, Blue,” I said out loud before resting my head on my knees, letting my hair whip around me like an angry dark storm. “Now you think you can communicate with dogs. Gabriel Black is making you nuts.”
    Max’s bark jolted me out of self-pity mode. I lifted my head and squinted, out of habit, at the horizon. My eyes expected to see nothing, but my mind said differently. And it was a full twenty seconds before I put it all together to register the sight in my overloaded brain.
    Runners.
    On my feet, I yelled for Max, studying the horizon, trying to estimate how long. How long before they beached, tracked, hunted, and found us? Thirty minutes? No, I only wished. Twenty? Maybe. Fifteen? Please, God, no. The sea was rough today, so beaching would be difficult. Still, not impossible. Not impossible.
    Max barreled up the sand dune, dropping a stick at my feet. He stood next to me, growling and snapping at the gray and black sails dotting the horizon. The lead boat unfurled a spinnaker, and the Runner’s emblem painted on the sail glared harsh against a bleak sky. The 666 with a dagger running through the numbers did just what it was supposed to: It struck terror in my heart and twisted fear in my gut.
     My heartbeat slammed against my chest and my blood pressure mounted. For a moment I could hardly breathe. I doubled over, putting my head between my knees, trying to catch a breath. That was when I saw it. Not a stick. Max had not dropped a stick at all. He’d dropped Gabriel Black’s knife, lost from the night before. Scrimshawed in the bone handle was a design: 666, with a