The Abyss Surrounds Us (12 page)

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.

“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.

There's nothing I can do at this point, and it's only now sinking in. Swift must feel the fight leave me. Her arms relax, but she keeps her hand over my mouth, the other clenching my wetsuit. “Cas,” she warns, dropping her voice low. “He deserves this.”

Those are the last words I hear before Santa Elena pulls out the knife, and the trainer deck erupts into incoherent noise as the pirates cheer on their captain. But the trainees aren't cheering. Lemon's still folded up against the wall, Chuck and Varma are leaning close to each other, their faces set in stoic masks that hide what must be an ocean's worth of turmoil, and I can feel Swift's pounding heart against my back. This is their companion, their comrade who betrayed them and shattered the trust that had grown between them.

This is their traitorous friend, and he's about to die.

I can't look away.

Santa Elena takes Code by both shoulders and leans in close, whispering something that only he can hear. When she draws back, he's crying, his face ashen, his hands limp at his sides. The captain turns the blade over in her hand, then draws it back, and he squeezes his eyes shut.

She thrusts the blade between his legs, flaying his inner thigh open, and a wash of red pours out in the knife's wake. Femoral artery. Clean slice.

Code screams as he drains, his hands clutching the front of Santa Elena's jacket, but all she says is, “Hush,” and his grip slips away until she shoves him backward. His arms don't pinwheel—he flops into the NeoPacific with a wet slap, but he still struggles, still tries to swim even as the waves lift him toward Bao.

Don't do it, you shit. Don't you dare.

Bao tilts his head, and I can feel everyone on the deck lean forward to get a better view of the inevitable. Code has stopped screaming. He's reduced himself to messy sobs that grow weaker and weaker with each breath he draws, and the Reckoner looms over him, beak dipping down to sample the bloodstained waters that wreathe him.

Don't do it. Don't—

My thoughts are worthless. Bao lunges forward, his jaws snapping shut, and then Code is in half. His torso disappears down Bao's gullet, and it's merciful because finally, finally, finally his sobbing stops, replaced only with the surge of the monster's body against the sea.

I've never hated Bao more than I do in this moment.

Swift's holding me so tight that she's practically strangling me. She must feel it. Must feel how I'm a beast in my own right, waiting to strike, ready to surge at Santa Elena the second her hold lets up.

She's
ruined
Bao, perverted him even more than he already is. He's been given human flesh as a reward for coming to his goddamn beacon, and I can't erase that. And even worse, Bao's proven her right. He doesn't need fancy training, with beams and noises and beacons to tell him what to destroy. He's already the monster she needs, and I raised him. I could have killed him, but I raised him.

I did this.

I let myself go limp until Swift's the only thing keeping me standing. I keep my eyes fixed on the bloody stain, on Code's legs sinking into the depths, on Bao as he plunges after them.

When Swift lets me go, I run.