Swift pauses, and something bitter flashes in her eyes. “Captain’s having a long chat with him. She threw me out after a point. I dunno what she’s going to do, but I don’t think I wanted to be around to see it anyway.”
I don’t know how to tread here. She’s been on this boat for five years, and so has he. And they’ve been working closely together for at least a year. The night after we took down that bucket, they were celebrating together. Code with a drink in his hand, and Swift with a girl in her lap. But then that afternoon in the Slew a month later, Code had it out for Swift. He wanted to humiliate her, to make her suffer.
And today he wanted to kill her.
I remember how it felt in the Slew, with the crew’s support at my back. That invincible, top-of-the-world feeling—to have that all the time, to have the loyalty of the Minnow. For a moment, I let myself crave it.
For a moment, I understand why Code would do anything to captain this ship.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Swift, figuring it’s the best I can do.
Swift shakes her head and pulls up her shirt, revealing a fresh bandage that’s been slapped over her side. She catches my eye. “Tried to tell the captain it was nothing, but she insisted on having Reinhardt patch me up.”
“It looked pretty bad. Are you sure it’s okay?”
She shrugs, yanking her shirt over her head. “It’ll be a scar, that’s all.”
“Just adding to the collection?”
“It’s yours, I guess,” she says, then draws a sharp breath as if the words came out wrong.
I wrinkle my nose. “That’s hella weird, Swift. It’s on your body, for Christ’s sake.”
She chuckles, grabbing an oversized T-shirt from the drawer. “It’s my body, but I don’t let it get carved up by meaningless marks. Every one of them’s got a story, and every one of them is for someone. This one’s for you. Deal with it.”
“Am I supposed to say thank you?”
“You can if you want,” she says, grinning impishly as she starts unlacing her boots.
“Well, I did kind of want to thank you—not for naming your weird scars after me, but for, y’know, saving my life back there. Even if you were just saving your own life, I mean … what I should … thanks. Just … yeah, thanks.”
Swift freezes, her mouth slightly parted, and for a moment I think she’s going to tip over with her boots half off.
“Also, can I sleep here tonight?” I blurt before I can think better of it.
The impish grin is back. “Knew you weren’t buttering me up for nothing,” she chuckles. “Yeah, it’s fine. Dunno why you sleep out on the trainer deck anyway.”
“Bao grew out of his snoring. You haven’t.”
Swift throws a boot at me, laughing as I bat it away. “He’s okay, right?” she asks as she turns her back, works the other boot off, and shucks out of her pants.
I keep my gaze lowered, pretending that I have no interest in her bare thighs and what lies above them. “If you’re going to kill him with your driving, you’ll have to try a little harder.”
Swift rolls her eyes, steps into a pair of shorts that she plucks out of one of the laundry carpet’s corners, and climbs into the bunk, crawling past me to take her usual spot along the wall. But this time she settles facing me, folding her arms and letting out a long breath. “I guess I should thank you too,” she says, her voice low and quiet.
“For?”
“Basically the same thing.”
I scoff.
“No, seriously. If you hadn’t jumped in … I mean … both times … ”
“You aren’t too good with words, are you?” I rib at her, lying back and propping my head up against the wall as I swing my legs into bed.
“Captain put me on guns for a reason.”
“Mhm.”
She kicks the light off, and it takes a second to adjust to the sudden black and the glow seeping in through the hatch. I drop my gaze to the pirate girl curled up next to me, but Swift’s eyes have already slid closed. Her shirt has ridden up a bit, enough for me to see the stark white of the bandage peeking out.
I think about what she said, about each of her scars being “for” someone. It sounds stupid. I’ve got scars, sure, little ones that dot my body from a lifetime in one of the most dangerous environments a child can grow up in. I’ve even got faint sucker marks wreathing my ankle where a cephalopoid pup got hold of me once, and I sure as hell didn’t get those “for” anybody. But if Swift wants to name her wounds and count her scars, so be it. I guess it’s not my business, except for where that one scar is concerned.
I wonder what it will look like when it’s healed. I let myself imagine the future Swift, with a neat white line slashing across the slab of skin that the bandage now hides. As much as I hate to admit it, a part of me wants to stick around and see how it turns out. If Swift’s decided it’s going to be mine, I can play along.
I drift off slowly, listening to the thrum of the engines and the hiss of Swift’s breathing until some combination of the two lulls me into unconsciousness.
In the middle of the night, I wake up to find that Swift’s shifted, one of her arms thrown lazily over my waist.
I decide that I kind of like it there and let the rhythm of the sea rock me back to sleep.
20
The next morning, we wake to Chuck throwing the door open, slamming it into the wall with a thunderous crash. She’s got a manic grin plastered on her face that only gets wider when she sees me in the bed and Swift’s hand trying to sneak back over the crest of my hip.
“I thought you sleep on the trainer deck,” she says, glee sparkling over her round features. For a moment it seems she’s forgotten why she came bursting in, but then her brow shoots up. “Captain’s ordered everyone down below. Apparently we’ve got a traitor in our midst.”
Something horrible is about to happen. There’s a beast in my stomach, clawing to get free, and the sensation persists as we get dressed and sprint down to the trainer deck, joining the throng of crew packed in there. Swift immediately plunges into the crowd, heading straight for the captain. I reach out, hook my fingers in the back of her jacket, and let her guide me forward.
Of course it’s Code that’s caused this commotion, but I still gasp when I see him. His skin is patterned with bruises. Some must be from Swift, but others dot his body in places I know she didn’t hit him, and I’m sure they belong to the captain. He keeps his left hand clenched around his right, and when he shifts, I can see why. His index finger, the one that used to bear the inking of a little fish, has been sliced clean off.
Santa Elena stands behind him, one hand clenching his shoulder, and I’m convinced it’s the only thing keeping him upright at this point. The captain’s eyes glint when she spots me and Swift heading straight for her. “Glad you could join us, kids. Didn’t want to start the show without you.”
“What’s going on, boss?” Swift asks. I let my hand drop from the back of her jacket before Santa Elena notices it.
The captain shrugs. “Spectacle, mostly.”
Swift and I slot in next to Varma and Chuck. I glance over my shoulder to find Lemon hanging back against the wall, pressing herself as far away from the crowd as possible. Her eyes never leave Code, and I feel a twinge of sympathy for the lookout trainee. She and Code spend all day in the navigation tower together, and I get the sense that he’s the closest thing she’s ever had to a friend.
I set my gaze back on the boy who tried to get me killed, shuddering when his electric-green eyes meet mine. Even though he’s bruised and battered, Code shows no signs of remorse.
“Right, you bastards,” Santa Elena thunders. “Got a bit of news for you. I figured you’d all inferred that any attempt to mess with my beast or his trainer wouldn’t end well for you. Well, this scrap of meat here decided to risk it. And, as you can see, it didn’t pay off.” She shakes Code’s shoulder, and a vicious tumult of laughter rises from the crew.
My heart rate is rising, the anxiety prickling at the back of my neck. I glance at Swift, but she’s got her arms folded, her jaw set, and the hint of a cruel smile edging in on her expression. She wants him to suffer, and she’s enjoying every second of this.