Once they’ve eliminated the crew and disabled the communications, they’ll loot the ship. They’ll take every last piece of valuable equipment, tear out the tech, strip out the wires. Hina and her team will raid the kitchen, and tonight we’ll feast like kings.
No, they’ll feast like kings. I’ll be fighting too much nausea to take from the spoils.
Bao’s my only comfort as the fight grows louder and louder. He’s breathing slower now, his blowholes flaring, his sides heaving in and out. I kneel next to him and press one hand flat against the towels, feeling the steady pounding of his massive heart beneath them.
Another shell hits the ship.
I replace my hand with my head, letting the thunder of his heartbeat drown out the noise of the Minnow’s wrath. We’re alive, I remind myself. My cheek is damp against the towel, my hair plastered to my head. With my nose this close to him, I can smell the faint carrion stench he carries, and it reminds me of Durga. Of the last time I saw battle.
Of the time I was ready to do anything I could to save that ship.
Have my weeks aboard the Minnow changed me? When the Nereid was under attack, my very first thought was not for myself, but for Durga’s well-being and the passengers on the ship. But the situation I’m in is so far removed from anything I trained for. My Reckoner’s life is synonymous with my own now, and there’s a pirate girl thrown into the mix. When I forced Bao to board the ship, who was I saving?
Who was I supposed to be saving?
Another shell.
I curl up against Bao, folding my arms around my knees. I don’t want the other ship to win. I just want it to be over.
15
Finally the noises of the fight fade away, replaced by the sound of heavy footsteps above, laden with the take from the ship. I roll up the trainer deck doors and dive into the sea behind the Minnow. The sun’s gone down, but the waters are lit with dancing flames. My stomach churns as I take in exactly what Santa Elena has done to the ship we hit.
It’s burning from the inside out.
They fought back viciously, and this is how they paid for it. I shudder, imagining what would have happened to the hundreds of people aboard the Nereid if I’d thrown Durga into battle instead of reining her in.
Bao perks up once he realizes that the water is within his reach again, and this time he needs no signals or encouraging. He kicks and scrabbles against the deck until he topples back into the NeoPacific with a shriek. The water paralyzes him and for a moment he simply floats, catatonic. After all the stress he’s been through today, he’s as at-risk as he was when he first hatched, and I realize with a sinking feeling that I’m going to have to sleep on the trainer deck to keep an eye on him for the next few days.
With the flames from the ship heating it, the water’s unnaturally warm for a night in the middle of the ocean. I let myself hang for a moment, watching as the hull blisters and crackles. We’ll be underway soon. If the ship managed to get out a distress call, there’ll be aircraft inbound to pick up the pieces.
If the wreck wasn’t so … on fire, I could find somewhere to hide. Somewhere the pirates wouldn’t realize I’d slipped away, where I could wait for the searchers to come. Provided they’re coming.
But the ship is on fire. Just a blazing ruin, a star of heat in the middle of the ocean. The closest thing I had to a chance at escaping is now a smoldering heap of metal, waiting for the sea to consume it.
I could probably construct it as a cosmic sign, a flashing neon banner emblazoned with the words YOUR LAST CHANCE AT FREEDOM. I’m not likely to get another.
The trainer deck hatch is still locked, but there are other ways of getting into the Minnow, and now that Bao’s back in the water, there isn’t much more that I can do for him. A righteous anger crackles through me as I swim around the ship’s portside and find a series of handholds built into the hull. My grip is unsteady, and several times I plunge back into the water and have to start all over again, but I’m on a mission. I’m not going to let some slippery ladder be the thing that stops me tonight.
When I finally manage to swing myself onto a deck on the ship’s lower levels, I can’t help but pause. I’ve never walked these halls without Swift escorting me. Theoretically, there are several people on this ship who want me dead, and now’s their perfect chance. I can hear the thunder of celebrating pirates from all the way down here. No one’s concerned about the captive Reckoner trainer, and no one would notice if she disappeared.
But I’ve got business to deal with, so I start off toward the mess, leaving a trail of water in my wake.
I burst into the middle of the celebrations without anyone noticing. The entire crew seems to have packed themselves into the mess hall. There’s food flying, stringers injecting, and a thrumming beat blasting from speakers as the pirates relish their victory. When they took down the Nereid, the feast was reserved. But this was such a vicious fight that they can’t help but go a little wild. I didn’t even realize I was starving, but the sight of the fresh food laid out has me salivating within seconds. The air is thick with sweat and the bitter scent of stringlets, which the pirates pass around like candy.
I spot Swift tucked away in a darkened corner with a girl on her lap and Code slumped next to her, nursing a bottle. He perks up when he sees me, one eyebrow arching. “Hey, Swift, your wife’s here,” he says as I approach, his words scarcely audible over the din. “And she don’t look too pleased.”
Swift startles. Her arms slide from around the girl’s waist and she almost stands, then seems to think better of it. “How the hell’d you get here?” she asks.
“Took the long way ’round.”
Her eyes are rimmed with red, and a stringlet needle dangles from her elbow. The girl pushes out of her lap and disappears back into the crowd, leaving Swift looking rumpled and flustered. “You’re lucky,” she slurs. “You could have been killed coming up here.”
It’s taking everything I’ve got to keep myself from punching her again. “You want to talk lucky? Your worthless ass is lucky that I got the damn beast on this ship before it took off, that I had the sense to take care of the thing that both our lives depend on after you locked me on the trainer deck.”
“Can’t hear you,” she mouths. “Too loud.”
I grit my teeth and lean in, propping one foot up on the bench next to Swift as I tower over her. A satisfied smirk curls over her lips, but I can’t let that throw me if I’m going to make her understand just how pissed I am at her. “You almost got us both killed,” I start, yelling right into her ear. “If you had just listened to me instead of rushing off at Santa Elena’s whistle, we could have kept Bao in the water, and you’d still have taken the ship.”
I draw back, searching her for any sign of guilt or worry or any of the things I want her to be feeling, and for a second I think I see it in the glint of her eyes as they wander. Her expression shifts, and I can see her on the cusp of spitting something out, see the gears in her brain churning as she tries to process this information.
And for a split second, just when the light shifts, I stop seeing and start noticing. I notice the muscles in her jaw pulse as she bites her lip, notice the curve of her collarbone where her tank top has shifted, notice the imprint of teeth on her earlobe.
Something lights inside me.
It’s not like with the girls I’ve dated at school—no, she’s too much of a disaster for anything like that. She’s a pirate. But there’s a hunger in Swift, and maybe it’s just my trainer impulse that makes me want to feed it for a moment.
Then her attention flicks back to my eyes. “When an all-call goes out that we’re about to hit a bucket, I’m at the captain’s side no matter what. If I’m not there for her, I’m as good as dead anyway. It’s your job to save my skin when the beast is concerned.”
Moment’s over.
“Also, you’re dripping on me,” she adds.