Read Online Renegade by Antony John - Free Book Online

I’ve been doing for the past fourteen years. Maybe it’s time for me to toughen up.”
    â€œYou sound more like Alice every day.”
    â€œIs that such a bad thing?” Rose peered at me from the corner of her eye. “Clearly it is. Has something happened between you two?”
    I almost laughed at that.
Something?
So many things had happened that I’d lost track, but Rose didn’t need to hear them. “I just like you as you are, is all,” I told her.
    â€œThen hold me.”
    I groaned. “You’ll be better soon. I’ll hold you then.”
    â€œThat’s all? You’ll just hold me?”
    â€œMaybe . . . kiss you too.”
    Rose raised her eyebrows. “Oh really?”
    She probably expected me to go red, but for once, I didn’t. “Yes, Rose,” I said, tending once more to her wounds. “Really.”
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    Later that night, after a turn at the wheel, I selected an empty cabin and fell asleep. I was exhausted, but sleep didn’t come without nightmares: of Plague, and Dare, and the pirates we’d have to face when we reached Roanoke Island.
    Someone shook me awake. I batted the hand away and rolled over without opening my eyes.
    â€œThomas.” Alice’s voice. She grabbed a flap of my tunic and yanked it hard, rolling me toward her.
    I snapped my eyes open. The cabin was filling with the dull gray light of a cloudy morning. “What are you doing? What’s the—” I stopped the moment I saw her. Gone was the familiar defiance, the narrowed eyes, the pursed lips. Now she appeared cautious. Scared, even. She opened her mouth, and closed it again.
    â€œWhat is it, Alice? What’s going on?”
    â€œSomething’s happened. Something bad.”
    An image of Griffin—bloodied, broken, and now Plague-ridden—filled my mind. I’d known it was possible that he would contract the disease, but the news still caught me off guard.
    â€œHow is he?” I asked.
    â€œHe?”
    â€œGriffin.”
    She shook her head. “This isn’t about Griffin. Or Nyla,” she added after a pause.
    â€œWhat is it, then?”
    â€œA rat must’ve gotten on board the ship before it left Sumter. Maybe more than one.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    It seemed an eternity before she answered. “Because Dennis and Rose shared a cabin last night, and both of them were bitten just before sunrise. They’ve been exposed to the Plague,” she said, spelling it out for me. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

CHAPTER 11
    I flung the blanket aside and pushed past Alice. She grabbed my arm, but quickly let go again. “Be careful, Thom. Your element has gotten stronger since yesterday.”
    â€œAre you afraid of me?” I demanded, blind with anger.
    â€œNo. I’m afraid for Rose.”
    I ran along the corridor, following the sound of Marin’s crying. Rose and Dennis lay side by side in the same small, sweltering cabin as Griffin and Nyla. Dennis drummed his fingers against the floor impatiently, still feeling too well to understand how serious this was. Even Rose appeared more comfortable than she had the previous evening. Seeing the four of them together was heartbreaking, as if the Plague had already claimed them all.
    Rose greeted me with a wan smile. “You came,” she said, like I was the first person she’d seen all day. Maybe that’s how it felt to her, as if her mother weren’t there at all, or only there for Dennis.
    Sure enough, Marin was kneeling beside her son. She ran the backs of her fingers across his forehead comfortingly. But what Rose couldn’t see was how Marin’s eyes constantly drifted to her daughter too. Maybe, like me, Marin was comparing the girl before her to the Rose we’d known back on Hatteras. If so, she must have been as disturbed as I was to see Rose’s swollen right leg, and