“Got anything to say for yourself?” the captain asks Code.
He nods. “Not for myself. To her.” His eyes fix on Swift, boring into her. “If the captain had put you on the other side of this, you’d have done the exact same thing. You don’t get to stand there looking all smug. You’d have come down to that deck with a knife and a needle, same as me.”
“I’d have come down to that deck with a gun, you moron,” Swift spits through her teeth, and her fists clench as if she’s thinking of giving him a new bruise to match the old ones.
“God, can you really blame me, Swift? Like Captain would’ve picked a nav as her replacement.”
“So you decided to try to knock out the gunner kid, because you felt the most threatened by me?” she says. “That’s sweet. Really, I’m flattered. But it was stupid, Code. You deserve this.”
“What does he deserve?” the captain prompts.
“Whatever you see fit, boss.”
My heart sinks, my chest feeling like it’s shattered again as Santa Elena smiles, showing enough teeth to put a shark to shame. “Cassandra, weren’t you just telling me yesterday that Bao’s not ready to fight—that he hasn’t got any aggressive impulses because he hasn’t been trained?”
This leads nowhere good, nowhere I want to tread. I swallow the knot of fear in my throat and nod.
“I’ve had this theory about Reckoners for a while, you see. About most beasts, really. Everything fights to survive. Everything’s got a base instinct locked away inside it. You and yours train the beasts to release it, but I think you guys give yourselves too much credit. I think he can do it on his own.”
No. She can’t do this. She can’t—
Swift gives me a worried glance.
Code’s shaking, but Santa Elena’s grip on his shoulder is as strong and true as ever. “Cassandra,” the captain says. “Call your beast.”
She’ll shoot me if I don’t. I can see it in the way her hand drifts right to the gun at her hip. She probably wouldn’t kill me outright, but if I don’t start moving for the homing beacon now, there’s a world of pain in my future. Still, I’m rooted to the deck beneath my feet, and I feel like my skin will tear away if I take that step forward.
And then a gentle hand presses into the small of my back, and it’s as if my stomach’s sunk to the depths. Swift pushes me forward, urging me until I can’t resist, until I stumble. I pad over to where I left the beacon last night, feeling as forty pairs of eyes bore into the back of my head and probably other places as well, since the wetsuit I wear leaves little to the imagination. I close my hands around the beacon’s handle and lug it toward the open doors, toward the rolling sea sparkling in the morning sun.
I wish the crew were noisier. I can hear every bump and scrape of the beacon’s bottom against the deck in the dead silence that pursues me. Careful to keep my hands from slipping, I lift it over the edge and set it on its hooks.
I could key in the wrong code. I could order Bao to dive, and it would take minutes for the captain and the crew to figure out that I hadn’t followed orders. But if I bought those minutes, I don’t know how I’d spend them. And the cost would be painful. A bullet in a nonessential extremity, or worse, a finger or two gone forever. I feel my own selfishness take root again, that same selfishness that kept me from killing Bao back when he was a pup, that made me hesitate to take the pill when I had the chance.
I flip the switch, hating myself a little more with every blink of the LEDs.
Santa Elena pulls Code over to the edge of the deck. Fear flashes in his eyes, and it twists something deep inside me, something I can’t bear anymore. I stand up straight, my fists balled so tightly that my nails bite into the skin of my palms, and say, “Don’t do this.”
The captain pauses.
“He’s not going to become the monster you want him to be if you give him a person. He needs boats to train on—he needs to learn to track LED signals. I’ve had to stop his training because he doesn’t have a ship to wreck, and I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner, and I’m sorry. This does nothing. And it’s cruel.”
That’s it. I’ve thrown my cards on the table. I’ve given her what she wants, what I’ve been keeping from her for weeks. Come after me. Do what you want with me, but just leave this boy alone.
“Swift,” the captain says, her steely gaze flickering back to the other trainees lined up on the deck. “Your pet seems to have forgotten her place on my ship. I think you’ve given her leash a little too much slack. Rein her in.”
And Swift, the girl who saved my life, the girl who slept with one arm slung over me, her breathing so close that I could feel it in my hair, steps forward and grabs me roughly by the wrist. “Stand down,” she hisses in my ear. “This doesn’t help us.”
Screw that. I wrench myself from her grip and lunge for the beacon, but Swift surges forward and wraps both arms around my waist, hauling me back deeper onto the deck.
“Don’t touch me!” I shout. I don’t care that everyone can see me, I don’t care that I’m trying to save the life of a boy who tried to get me killed yesterday. I scream and kick and pull at her arms, but her grip is like iron and her will like steel.
Santa Elena laughs. It starts as a chuckle and builds until she’s howling, and the crew’s laughing with her, their voices a barrage of tiny knives that slash at the strings holding me up. I fight against them, but they keep coming, keep cutting. I’ve been surrounded by these cutthroats for months, but I’ve never felt less safe than I do now. My breath’s almost choked out of me by Swift’s grip, and I realize that I’m crying. Ugly, fearful tears plunge down my neck to join the saltwater of the spray that kicks off the Minnow’s stern.
Out in the ocean, through the haze of water that clouds my vision, I can see the dark form of Bao approaching, only this time I can’t see him as a Reckoner, as my charge. He’s a monster, an ancient horror emerging from the depths and coming for blood.
There are only two other people on the deck not laughing now—Swift, who’s got her nose buried in the crook of my neck as she tries to restrain me, and Code, who’s finally stopped shaking. He’s got his head hung, as if he’s finally ready for what the captain’s about to do.
“Don’t,” I choke, clawing at Swift’s hands. “Please. This is gonna ruin everything. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
And for some reason this makes Santa Elena laugh even harder. “Cassandra, this is unbelievable,” she chuckles once she’s calmed herself. “You raised this beast to do exactly this. You’ve always raised these beasts to do this.”
“I raise ship-sinkers. Not maneaters,” I sob.
“Eaten, drowned, crushed. Dead is dead. And you raise monsters that deal death because you’re too clean to do it yourself. That’s shoregirl thinking, kid. Won’t do you no good out here.”
“Please,” I call out again.
“Muzzle her,” Santa Elena orders, and then Swift’s hand is over my mouth and I’m screaming against it, thrashing, trying to bite, but I can’t wrench my jaw open wide enough. I can only taste her skin and see the captain as she turns to face Bao, who’s drawn up alongside the trainer deck. His huge eyes roam over the crowd, and his beak rolls lazily open as he leans forward to nudge the beacon, just like I trained him to do.