Desperate Measures Read Online Free

carrying the rings up the aisle, where they all stood together until the last “I do.”
    After the ceremony, a band played into the night. It was good music, fun music. The percussionist had even let Jane sit in and pound away on the bongos for a couple of songs.
    Bum-bum, bum-bum-ba-DUM-bum . . .
    Bum-bum, bum-bum-ba-DUM-bum . . .
    Looking back, it was strange to think about the nightmare that lay ahead of them that day. There was the shipwreck on Uncle Dexter’s boat. The thirteen days of surviving on Nowhere Island. And then their near-rescue, when Mom and Dad found them with the help of a private search operation.
    They’d been
so close
to going home again. But then one rogue current was all it had taken to snatch thatchance away. The four kids had been swept out to sea in their life raft, faster than anyone ever would have imagined. The night they spent tossing over the waves before landing on Shadow Island had been as endless as any Jane could remember.
    Now here they were, fighting to get back out to sea again. The idea of returning to the open ocean was terrifying, but it was also their best chance of rescue. The only thing scarier was thinking about never seeing Mom and Dad again.
    Bum-bum, bum-bum-ba-DUM-bum . . .
    Bum-bum, bum-bum-ba-DUM-bum—
    â€œJane?” Vanessa called. “Keep up!”
    Jane blinked out of her waking dream. Vanessa was waiting for her, and watching with tired eyes. Her sister seemed just as exhausted as Jane felt. But what did it matter? Buzz was right. There was no changing what had happened, and no use looking back. The only useful thoughts now were about putting one foot in front of the other.
    â€œI’m coming,” she said.
    From the main clearing, Ani led them up a secondtrail, away from the celebration. All of the other
Raku Nau
winners and their families were already heading that way.
    Before long, another hut loomed into view. The trail ended at its doorway, where two more guards were stationed. The hut itself was far too small to hold everyone who had already come this way, Jane noticed. And that could only mean one thing.
    Sure enough, as they stepped inside, Jane saw a square hole in the bamboo floor where a trapdoor had been raised. Beneath it, a ladder descended into a dark hole. The line of people ahead of them had already started down. A flickering light from someone’s torch showed dirt walls and timber supports below the floor, but nothing else.
    â€œWhere are we going?” Vanessa asked.
    â€œTo the marking ceremony,” Ani told them. “It is the last act of those who run
Raku Nau.
You should prepare yourselves.”
    â€œPrepare how?” Buzz asked.
    â€œWith strong minds,” Ani said, and tapped his fists in the Nukula manner.
    Jane had learned the gesture from Mima, and returned it to Ani. She curved her fingers into fists, turned her knuckles inward, and knocked them together with a double tap. As far as she could tell, it meant
be strong
.
    And so she would. They all would. Not that they had much choice.

    Vanessa led the way down the ladder ahead of Buzz and Jane.
    The air cooled as she came into a crowded, low-ceilinged tunnel. The earthen walls were supported with raw timber, and the tunnel itself smelled like dirt. Straight ahead, a torch in one of the elders’ hands showed some kind of wooden door. Behind them, in the other direction, there was nothing but darkness.
    â€œWhere does that go?” she asked, but nobody answered.
    â€œAni?” Jane said.
    â€œI’m here,” he said from somewhere in the dark.
    With that, the door swung open, wider and higherthan Vanessa ever would have guessed. Soft daylight spilled into the tunnel from the room beyond.
    They moved with the group into a large round chamber. Laki and two elders were already inside, tending three large stone pots over a fire in the middle of the room.
    Vanessa took in as many details as she could.