Page 6 of Blue Arrow Island (Blue Arrow Island #1)

You don’t need a background in botany for this course. I hope to build your knowledge of plants and their role in Earth’s ecosystems from the ground up this semester. The only requirements for this course are a willingness to learn and curiosity.

- Excerpt from the Introduction to Plant Biology course taught by Dr. Lucinda Hollis

“Harder.” Pax spits in the dirt and gestures for me to come closer. “Hit me like you mean it, Briar.”

I do mean it, but every punch I throw lands on him like a light slap.

It’s starting to really piss me off. I’ve sparred with men bigger and stronger than me since I was thirteen years old.

My dad wanted Maven and me to be able to defend ourselves, so he and some of his friends in law enforcement showed us how to fight someone when you’re outmatched.

Nothing is working. Pax’s reflexes are unbelievably fast, and he seems to anticipate my every move. We’ve been sparring at the Rising Tide training grounds for more than an hour, and I’m wearing down.

“Pretend I’m coming at you with a spear.” He crouches slightly, putting his arm up and making a fist.

It takes me right back to the beach. The smell of saltwater and the metallic tang of blood are still fresh in my mind.

I drilled this scenario with my dad many times, but he used a rubber knife to simulate a real one. The concept is the same, though. If you’re unarmed, you’re beaten unless you can evade, distract or disable.

I go with disable, scooping up a big handful of sandy soil and chucking it in his face as Pax advances on me.

“Shit.” He stops, his hands flying to his face.

I back up a few steps, relaxing slightly. He chokes out a single note of laughter, rubbing his fingertips over his eyes.

“Nice move.”

A group of about twenty people who left for a run earlier returns to camp, still in the same neat two lines they left in. I do a double take because the leader of the group announced it was a five-mile run, and they haven’t been gone very long. It doesn’t even feel like thirty minutes.

They’re finishing at what looks like a six-minute mile pace, but surely they didn’t run that pace the entire time? They don’t even look winded—some of them are smiling.

“Have you picked all of this up since the virus hit?” Pax asks me.

I turn my attention back to him. Black soil and sweat are streaked on his face, a glob of dirt stuck in his dimple.

“No. My dad taught me.”

“Was he in the military?”

I nod. “Marines. Then he became a police officer, and he worked his way up to teaching at police academies.”

“And were you planning to become a cop, too?”

“No.”

Thanks to the setting sun, I’ve stopped sweating so heavily. Still, I’m drenched. I pick up the canteen I left at the edge of the sparring area, draining what’s left in it.

“You need to fill up?” Pax asks me.

“Yeah.”

The training area is a huge clearing, sparring areas delineated with medium-sized rocks. The clearing runs all the way to the beach. When we got here earlier, a group of people was swimming hard and fast in the ocean, fighting cresting waves and high winds.

Pax picks up his own canteen and we walk over to a well at the edge of the practice area. The group that was running is huddled around the woman who was leading their run.

“Bring!” she shouts into a megaphone.

“Peace!” everyone yells back in unison.

“Create!” Her shrill yell makes me flinch.

“Order!” They pump their fists in the air as they respond.

“Ensure!”

“Prosperity!” They shout it like a war chant.

“What’s that about?” I ask Pax, remembering the same words from the commander’s announcement of the baby.

“That’s our mantra. Everything we do in Rising Tide is to create peace, order and prosperity.”

“For Whitman?”

He pinches his brows together tightly. “For us. Here. This island is beautiful, but it’s also dangerous.

There are animals in the jungle that could eat you in three big bites.

And the leader of the Dust Walkers, Marcus, he’d kill any of us on sight, no questions asked.

The rules we have here are for our own protection and prosperity. ”

My mind flashes back to Amira, carried away by someone from the Dust Walkers camp.

“That’s what they do to the people they take on the beach? They kill them?”

His expression turns grim. “Yeah, and they’re not merciful about it. They’re savages. We train to protect ourselves from them.”

Maybe I am safer here than alone in the jungle. I’m about to ask Pax what else he knows about the Dust Walkers when my eyes catch on the group that just finished running. Three of the women are visibly pregnant, one of them close to full term.

“What the hell?” I blurt it with no forethought. “There’s no way they just ran five miles that fast.”

Pax’s grin is proud. “They did. The Dust Walkers go after pregnant women first, so women here train up until they go into labor.”

I’m silent the rest of the walk to the well. I know the virus changed the world forever, and that New America is a cold, unforgiving place, especially for women. It’s wise to make sure pregnant women can take care of themselves. It’s what I’d want in their situation.

There must be very little to do around here for entertainment, because of the eight women in the group that’s dispersing, three of them are clearly pregnant. That’s almost half.

“So what were you doing when the virus hit?” Pax asks.

I shift my focus back to him. “I was a college student. You?”

“You won’t believe me if I tell you.”

“Try me.”

“I was a twenty-four-year-old accountant working for a firm in Boston.”

A laugh bubbles out of me. “An accountant?”

“I mean, I wore the hell out of my suits, I’m not gonna be modest. I was living the life and then”—he snaps his fingers—“there went civilization.”

“Did you get the virus?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. Everyone around me was so sick, and I never got sick. I heard some people are immune to it.”

The scientist in me comes out. “Some people’s bodies can alter the structure of the receptors viruses use to infect cells. There are also genetic mutations in humans that can prevent a virus from infecting their cells.”

He had been filling his canteen as he spoke, and the water is now spilling over the edge. He pulls it back.

“How do you know all that?”

I hesitate, then decide to be honest. “I was raised by a scientist. I was a bio major myself, but I was only a freshman when the virus came.”

He lowers his brows. “Your dad was a cop and a scientist?”

“My mom was the scientist.”

“Gotcha. And you were a freshman where?”

“University of Washington.”

“Oh man. I love Washington State. Or I guess, the state formerly known as Washington.”

This is the first conversation I’ve had in a very long time that feels like conversations did before the virus. My dad told me about common tells he used to determine if people were lying to him when he was a detective, and I haven’t seen any of them from Pax.

I’m lucky he lassoed me on the beach. Otherwise, I would have met the same fate as Amira.

“You want to spar some more?” he asks me.

I scoff. “Haven’t you kicked my ass hard enough yet?”

His laugh is hearty, reaching his golden-brown eyes. “I’ve been at this a long time. You just got here. Were you training eight hours a day before you got sent here?”

My smile fades, the memories of my life with Lochlan still painfully fresh. Even if I had been training eight hours a day, I lived in an inescapable fortress. If I hadn’t been caught with the herbal tea I drank monthly to prevent pregnancy, I’d still be living in that hell.

“No.” I clear my throat, eager to change the subject. “Hey, what are the numbers on the bracelets about?”

His eyes narrow slightly in a puzzled look. “Did Marcelle not explain that to you?”

The last thing I need is for my mentor to get in trouble and hate me even more, so I cover for her. “Well, she told me a little bit, but we had a lot going on.”

He puts his hands in the front pockets of his pants, making them hang down just a little lower, and I get a peek at the top of the light-brown hair that trails down. My heartbeat kicks up its pace and I look away quickly.

“You start out on probation, and then you become a one. That’s our entry level, when people are learning and training.

Ones have to stay in camp unless they’re with a three or a four.

Twos get better job duties, but they also can’t leave camp without a three or a four.

Threes get a lot more autonomy. They’re our hunters and fishermen and gatherers.

They can be mentors. And fours are in leadership. ”

“So you’re a four?”

A corner of his mouth quirks in a grin. “No, I’m one of the two commanders here. I’m Commander Thatcher when it’s not just the two of us. Then there’s Commander Marsden.”

“She was the one who made the announcement about the baby earlier.”

“Yep.”

“I think I saw her on the beach. Does she have blond hair?”

He nods. “She’s thirty-five, long blond hair and a scar on her neck. Virginia’s a hard ass until you get to know her.”

“She called the baby one-three-six Tide. What does that mean?”

Pax’s shoulders lift and then drop slightly when he sighs. “Well...part of prosperity for us is the next generation, so the birth of a baby is a happy occasion.”

I wait for him to answer my question, but he doesn’t.

“The numbers.” I press him. “Do you guys not give away the baby’s name for privacy reasons? And does that mean it’s the one hundred thirty-sixth baby born here?”

He worries his lip for a second before responding. “Yeah, that’s what it means. All babies here have the last name Tide, because we’re one community.”

I’m about to ask him to elaborate when he cuts me off.

“Here’s some friendly advice for you, Briar.

Listen and learn. Those are the best things a one can do.

I see great potential in you. I can honestly say I’ve never seen anyone—man or woman—come in here with the defense skills you already have.

And there’s so much we can do to help you grow and refine what you know.

Keep your head down and work, and you’ll settle in here quickly. ”

I nod, his unspoken advice leaving me unsettled: Don’t ask questions.

He’s been good to me so far, though, and since he’s in a position of power, I don’t want to make him angry. I paste on the placid expression I perfected on Lochlan.

“Thanks. It seems pretty great here.”

It’s my first full day, and so far I haven’t seen any opportunities to escape the island. It may take me a long time to get away, and I have to take care of myself in the meantime. I can’t settle the score with Lochlan if I get eaten by a wild animal in a remote jungle.

“Better now that you’re here.” His gaze roves up and down my body. “Come show me more of what you’ve got, Briar Hollis.”