Or me, for that matter.
There’s some sort of nervous energy thrumming away in Swift. She keeps on fidgeting with the sack of cash, her eyes fixed on the looming Flotilla. If it wouldn’t take me along for the ride, I’d push her over the side of the boat. In all of her twitching and glancing and picking, she hasn’t bothered telling me what’s eating her. I don’t want to ask. Being chained to her is bad enough—it only gets worse if we have to have a conversation.
The Minnow prowls into the Flotilla’s inner harbors. We’ve gotten docking permissions at a prime slot, and I have no doubt that Santa Elena paid an arm and a leg to get us such a prestigious spot, just so she can show off her new pet. Bao follows quietly behind us, and already people are lining up along the docks, scrambling over haphazard stacks of crates and rickety platforms that balance on barrels and slabs of foam. Their eyes are wide, and some are already snapping pictures with their phones. When Swift spots them, she tugs me back from the railing and into the shadow of the ship’s interior.
Because of course we can march into the harbor with an unregulated Reckoner, but god forbid a presumed-dead girl turns up alive and well in the background of a viral video. It’s not like anyone would recognize me anyway—all of my hair is hacked off and I’m dressed in Swift’s clothes. It’s been months since the Nereid went down. Everyone’s probably given up on me by now.
When did I start thinking that?
The realization doesn’t bowl me over or anything. It’s something that’s always been there. Everyone at home thinks I’m dead. They think the pirates killed me when they sacked the Nereid, or else I took the pill when I was captured. Nothing’s given them reason to assume otherwise. No one’s looking for me anymore.
And it’s sort of freeing, being a dead girl walking. As the docking arms extend and bring the Minnow in, I feel lighter. There’s an itch building in me, a longing for something other than the ship’s deck below my feet. I want solidity and stillness and everything I’ve lost at sea. I want to run without running out of hallway.
That’s obviously not happening with my wrist chained to Swift, but I can dream.
As the Minnow puts down its ramp and the crew pours off the ship, Swift guides me through the crowd, her knuckles white on the bag of money. She’s so protective of it that I can’t help but wonder if it’s been ripped from her hands before. Swift wasn’t always one of the top dogs on this ship. While she hasn’t told me much about the time before Santa Elena raised her out of the ranks, looking at the way she guards her sack of cash, I’m starting to think that the captain’s favor was sorely needed.
We spill out onto the dock, and immediately Swift takes off, dragging me after her. I yelp when the cuffs bite into my hand, but nothing’s slowing her down now. She charges for a set of rickety steps at one end of the dock and thunders up them, climbing furiously for the upper levels of the city. I barely have time to look down, and given how much the stairs shake underneath us, I don’t think I want to. I glance back over my shoulder at the Minnow, and then we’re around the corner. For the first time in months, the ocean is out of sight.
Not out of mind, but it’s good enough for now. I can feel a pressure releasing from my back, though I still have a niggling sensation that urges me to check on Bao. Leaving him back in the harbor without any sort of trainer supervision is probably the captain’s weird idea of a show of force. Hopefully he doesn’t wreck all of the shit before I get back from wherever Swift is dragging me.
I hook two fingers inside the cuff, trying to keep it from chafing as I stumble along in her wake, but they just pinch against the bone when she jerks and I have to withdraw them. “Swift, slow down.” I warn her.
She lets her pace slacken a little, eyes still fixed determinedly forward.
Now I’ve got time to see the sights, but in that regard, the pirate city is sort of disappointing. True, most of the people here are packing more heat than anyone in the streets of New Los Angeles, but there’s a sense of normalcy that permeates the people we pass in the streets. It’s like the world out here is just a different, more dangerous flavor of the same stuff I’m used to. Even the fact that I’m cuffed to my companion doesn’t bother many of the people we pass. I puzzle over it until Swift offers a solution when she notices me glancing after one man who stared too long. “They think you’re a slave,” she hisses, then yanks me down a side street and up another flight of stairs.
I try to keep her pace more gracefully after that.
The city gets rougher and more chaotic the higher we climb. On the lower levels, there were paths resembling roads, where rickshaws ran wild and porters with inhumanly large loads strapped to their backs wandered the streets. Up here, the buildings are balanced precariously together, supported by massive iron beams that the sea winds have turned a dull orange. The paths are either narrow walkways that jut out from the sides of the buildings or spindly plastic bridges that stretch between them. Most of the construction is done with the cannibalized remains of shipping containers that have been haphazardly welded together to create homes and little shops, shops we pass up despite the heavenly smells wafting out of them. The protein bars I had this morning feel like nothing in my stomach.
“We’re getting close,” Swift blurts. “Okay, no matter what, you can’t tell anyone on the ship about where we’re going or what you see there. Understood?”
I nod.
“Say it.”
“I understand. Not a word,” I spit, rolling my eyes, though inside I’m getting worried. Swift’s business here is apparently so important that she practically had to run the second the ship docked. If it were an errand for Santa Elena, she wouldn’t have sworn me to secrecy. All she’s carrying is the sack of cash, her entire salary bound in one scrap of flimsy, well-worn cloth. Is she running some sort of smuggling job on the side, working for some Flotilla crime boss underneath the captain’s nose? Or maybe there’s a debt to some dangerous warlord, something where she’s in so deep that her entire salary is forfeit.
She pulls up at one of the rickety hovels, and I can see the tension building in her shoulders. “This is it. Just stand back, be cool, and let me do the talking for us.”
“Got it,” I tell her, wishing that she was wearing more than her pistol at her belt.
Swift raises a hand and knocks three times on the door. There’s a shriek and several thuds, followed by the pounding of feet. I shrink back just a bit, just in case. If this gets ugly, I guess I can try to run, but I go where Swift goes, and something tells me she’s making ready to stand her ground.
The rust-tinged door swings open, and I freeze mid-flinch. Standing there, beaming wide and spreading his arms, is a middle-aged man with a baby in a sling on his chest and a child clutching his ankle.
“Welcome home!” he says, beckoning us inside urgently.
23
Swift and I step through the door. We both have to duck. The tiny shack is sparsely lit—most of the light comes from the holes that the rust has eaten in the roof. It bakes like an oven in here, the metal reflecting like a hotbox. There are random strips of cloth nailed up everywhere in a feeble attempt to offset the effect, but I immediately feel the sunken weight of the humidity inside settle over me.
I’m still trying to process what’s happening as I watch the man hug Swift, who squeezes him back, careful not to disturb the baby on his chest. When she releases him, he regards me with a curious eye, but I remember Swift’s instructions and keep my questions to myself.
“Prisoner,” she explains as she bends down to greet the anklebiter still clutching the man’s leg.