Chapter 10
I WAKE ALL AT ONCE, PANIC BITING UP THE BACK of my throat. There’s a small stream of water hitting me in the face. I sputter, gasping as I arch off the concrete beneath me. I roll over, coughing and choking, my fingernails scratching the floor of the cell.
A cell. That’s where I’m at, and I realize it as I look around.
It’s small—no bigger than a walk-in closet, with bars on either side. I shove myself up, my head throbbing from where Maddox hit me. I’m still in my pajamas, and they’re bloodstained and damp, with a splotch across the center of “GRASS-KICKERS.” And all my mirrored bands are gone.
Maddox stands on the other side of the bars, an empty cup in her hand. Two of her guards stand next to her, smirks on their faces. I immediately flip my eyes to the floor. Daylight streams in from the barred door above, and I wince away from it.
“She wakes,” she croons.
The memories from the night before come flooding back, drenching my mind with a fresh wave of terror and dread.
My sisters got away.
Malcolm is dead.
Dean.
“Where are they taking him?” I bite, shoving myself up. I scramble to the bars as Maddox slips back—just out of reach. Her smile widens.
Maddox steps forward. The streams of soft sunlight fall on her raven hair, making it look blue. “You already know.”
The Blood Market. My lips quiver, and I press them between my teeth. Dean’s going to the Blood Market.
“Wow. You’ve got it bad. So much concern for him, and not one question about where we’re taking you?” she asks.
I meet her eyes, trying my best to hide the fear in them.
“Not somewhere I’m going to survive,” I whisper. “You wouldn’t be taking the Chosen One to the Torch—Runners aren’t welcome there. So the only other option is that you’re giving me to them.”
Maddox purses her lips, impressed. “You know how much they’ll pay to get rid of the one thing that can stop them?”
I don’t answer, and she leans closer. “A lot,” she whispers.
“How did you know where to find me?” I ask, hoping that she’ll be in the mood to brag. But instead, she leans back.
“Curious, huh? Well. I think you’re in luck. You and I? We can help each other.”
I clench my hands on the bars and look around. The floor of the cell is a strange yellow linoleum that’s peeling up at the edges and covered with mystery stains. It smells like it was once a fishing boat. I angle my eyes toward the ceiling—the bars look newly installed. The salty air wafts in, ruffling Maddox’s black shirt. I’m not stupid. Things can absolutely get worse.
But not by much.
I turn to Maddox, a weird calm slinking over my shoulders as I imagine Dean next to me. His wide shoulders and deep, reassuring laugh. I let rage gather in my bones, overwhelming the fear.
“I’m not doing shit for you,” I say finally.
Maddox sighs, gesturing for her guards to open the cell.
“Fine. We’ll do this my way.” Maddox pivots, heading up the stairs toward the deck.
The guards grab me by my arms and haul me after her.
I blink against the bright light as we step out onto the surface. We’re on an old, repurposed fishing boat, and the harsh winds are whipping through the rigging. Maddox’s crew fills the deck. Some are cleaning, while others tie bands of rope. I shiver, thinking about what it will be used for. They all stop to watch as Maddox saunters over to the railing. The guards push me after her.
I look down at the dark, churning water, frothing white where the Devil’s Bid cuts over the waves. My heart beats faster as I picture the guards throwing me to the fathoms below.
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly before turning to me. “Where is Anne’s Heart, Chosen One?”
I blink at her, trying to figure out her play without giving away the fact that I don’t know anything. It makes me wish I’d taken Dean up on his offer to teach me poker.
“You’re going to double-cross them,” I say tentatively. “I don’t know how long you’ll survive if they go to get it and it’s not there.”
Maddox snickers. “I didn’t survive this long without backup plans.”
“I’ll tell you, and you’ll let me go?”
Maddox laughs now. It’s an easy sound, one that might be pleasant under different circumstances. “Oh no, no, no. You’re gonna die. But I’ll give this back.”
She pulls my notebook out from the band of her pants and holds it up. My throat constricts, and I reach for it in a blind panic. Maddox rears back, taking the notebook with her. The pages whip frantically in the wind. “I’m keeping the necklace. It’s got to be worth something.”
“Give it back,” I cry.
“I tried to read it, and”—she lets out a low whistle—“if you weren’t going to be torn limb from limb in a couple days, I’d suggest getting some professional help.”
I look at the notebook as she holds it out over the edge of the boat. “I don’t know what all this means, or why it’s important. But clearly, it is. So tell me where to find the Heart.”
If I tell her somewhere fake, she’ll realize I’ve lied. They’ll go after Vanessa and Harlow. That’s going to happen anyway once the Vessels get me, but Maddox just said it will be a couple of days. That time could be the difference between them getting away and them getting caught.
Everything I know is on those pages, but I’m not going to survive long enough to figure anything out.
Still, the thought of losing any lingering hope of cracking the code and saving the world feels like a kick to the chest.
Maddox sees the conflict on my face, and I feel a decision click into place. It’s better that it’s gone forever than in her hands. If I’m going to die, then it’s best that the notebook is gone.
“No,” I say.
Maddox narrows her eyes and then throws the notebook over the side. I let out a small cry as it flips, end over end, landing in the bubbly ocean below.
She walks by me, stopping to whisper in my ear. “I was going to leave before she ripped you open. But now? I might just watch.”
Maddox jerks her chin, and her guards drag me back to the cell. They toss me inside, and I don’t fight, because my mind is reeling from the word she said.
The Devil’s Bid isn’t just bringing me to the Vessels. Maddox Caine is delivering me to the Vessel Queen herself.
Chapter 11
I LOSE COUNT OF THE DAYS.
Every couple of hours, they bring me to the deck to hose me off, and leave me to dry by tying my hands to the railing. I shiver, looking down at the water as I press my cheek to the metal and breathe. That’s the only measure of time I have now, and it’s the only positive thing I can really focus on. I’m breathing.
Above, a gull screeches, and I watch it dive into the water, the white foam stark against the gray-blue of the waves. I taste the salt on my tongue and close my eyes. It reminds me of movie popcorn. Of the times when I would snuggle in the dark next to Harlow and get lost in a story. Back when I wished I could go on an adventure of my own.
I would have wished for something different if I knew it would be like this.
The only thing that gives me hope is that every minute I keep this up is another minute I draw the attention away from Harlow and Vanessa, giving them a chance to get to the Torch.
And maybe Harlow will realize where Dean is. And maybe she’ll have time to go save him.
Even if that’s a long shot, the thought that they’re far away gives me peace as I sit and shudder in the wind. If anyone could pull that off, it’s Harlow.
Maddox asks me, each time, if I’ve changed my mind. Each time, I’m quiet.
Maybe the sixth time—maybe the tenth, I don’t know—she pulls her dogs from their kennels below. She brings them to where I’m zip-tied to the railing with my arms over my head, each of them pulling on the rope she’s looped around their collars. A
bag hangs from her belt loop, and it swings against her legs as she climbs the steps. They look like they’re German shepherd mixes, and they’re friendly enough as they sniff my feet and lick my toes, but I turn my body as much as I can, holding my breath.
“Ragnar and Pollux. Cute, huh?” she asks. I tense as the bigger of the two, Pollux, leans in. He smells like a dog, and I try to reconcile that otherwise comforting smell with the terror that’s spinning in my chest. He sniffs my nose, and I go very still, which is hard to do when I’m shivering so badly. Satisfied, the dog turns away, and I breathe again.
Maddox sinks to the deck next to me, and then, without a word, pulls a hunk of raw meat out of the bag. The dogs snap to attention, rapt expressions fixed on the still-bloody hunk. She tosses the meat to the floor, and whistles once. The dogs rush forward, ripping into the meat with startling ferocity. Maddox rests her arms on her knees, silent as she watches her pets shred the flesh. I peer out from behind my elbows, trying and failing to control my quivering muscles.
Pollux has blood smeared over his snout, and Ragnar growls as he pulls at what I think is a tendon.
I realize, as I look at the pinkness of the meat, that it might not be an animal.
“You know being eaten by a carnivore is actually designed not to hurt that badly?” Maddox muses. I keep my breathing steady as she tilts her head, surveying her beasts. “Their teeth are made for killing. If this thing was alive, Ragnar would’ve bit the throat out before starting in—and it would’ve been quick.”
Pollux gets too close, and Ragnar snarls viciously. The smaller dog backs off.
“But human teeth are different. We’re omnivores. We can eat meat, but a bulk of our teeth are flat, for crushing plants.” She turns to me, pulling her lips back with a finger to show me. “So, being eaten by a human is . . . a lot worse than this.” She gestures to the dogs.
I feel the fear uncoil in my throat like a living thing, and I force myself to shut my mouth and close my eyes. The sounds still rocket through my chest, and I can’t help but imagine what it will feel like to be torn apart. I open my eyes, because the reverberating sound of tearing meat and growls is worse on its own.
Maddox leans her head back, resting it against the railing.
“I’ll make you a deal. You tell me where the Heart is, and I’ll kill you.” She turns her head to me, keeping it tilted back.
“Won’t the Vessels kill you for that?” I ask. The second I loosen my jaw, it clatters together in uncontrollable shivers. I glance up—my fingers are blue. Maddox shrugs. The meat skitters too close to us, and she kicks it away with a heavy boot. The dogs follow it.
“We have an understanding. I’m more valuable to them alive than dead. I’ll just say you threw yourself overboard. They still get what they want. No Chosen One.”
Ragnar hits bone and latches on, his jaw working and letting out a soft squelching sound with every bite.
Maddox flicks open her knife and stabs it into the deck between us. Her blade teeters back and forth, and I watch it through the puffs of steam my breath leaves as it slips past my lips.
“It won’t hurt,” she whispers. Her words are soft, and my gaze travels up her toned arms, stopping at her eyes. I try to imagine her in a world before this, but it seems like she was built for this chaos. Even her softness wouldn’t quite fit anywhere but here, in a situation where the kindest thing she can think of is slitting my throat.
I open my mouth, not sure what I’m going to say. My teeth click together.
But I don’t get to say anything, because someone calls to her and points over the water. I see it—a small boat. It almost looks like a ferry. My blood goes cold with the hungry look that passes across Maddox’s face, her hunting instincts kicking in.
Maddox pulls the knife from the deck and stands, giving a motion with her hands that all her crew seem to understand. They move in sync. A deadly, well-oiled machine.
“Think about it,” she says. “Once we pass the coastline, there won’t be any turning back.”
They take the boat with a sort of lethal efficiency, leaving me tied to the railing as they usher dozens of people into the levels below. I thought the sound of the meat was bad, but it’s nothing compared to the despairing cries from people who recognize the name of this ship. People who know where they’re going now.
After what feels like hours, someone comes and pulls me to my feet. They take me below, and I trip into my cell. I keep my eyes down, hating the feeling of helplessness that comes without my mirrors. I sink to the floor, staying as close to the corner as I can.
“You okay?” a female voice asks. I keep my eyes to the ground.
There’s movement in my periphery, and she speaks again from the cell next to mine.
“Hey. Use my mirrors. We’re safe.” I lift my eyes slowly and see that she’s kneeling, sticking her arm through the bars. It’s wrapped in leather straps, all covered in bits and pieces of glass. In the reflection, I can see her—a pale girl with a tangled mass of blond hair and yellow eyes staring at me through the bars. She tilts it so I can see the other person in the cell with her has the opposite coloring—she has dark skin and sharp cheekbones and leans on the bars, facing the stairs. Even without her turning toward me, I can see that her eyes are the same stark color. Xanthous.
“You good?” the blond girl asks. I nod once, and she lowers her arm.
“Why do you have those if you’re safe?” I ask softly before I can stop myself. She shrugs.
“I wasn’t always.” She considers this for a moment. “And, you know, not everyone is.”
I turn to look forward, trying to process this. Kindness feels odd. Misplaced somehow. Malcolm’s words sound in the back of my mind. We can’t save humanity if we lose ours.
I shake the thought away, because I can’t hear his voice without seeing everything else, like the moment I lost him.
“You okay?” the blond girl asks.
Her companion doesn’t even bother to look and see who her companion is talking to before chiming in.
“Rielle, we’re all on a Runner ship. You can assume that everyone here is decidedly not okay,” she says.
“I was talking about her blue lips, Lucia,” the blond girl, Rielle, says, her tone mocking. “And the fact that she was tied to the railing before we got here. That’s an oddly personal way to treat Curseclean.”
I wrap my arms around myself as Lucia moves closer to the bars. She’s Xanthous, but that doesn’t make her safe. “Where did they pick you up?” Rielle asks as she pushes herself back to her feet and pulls her sweatshirt over her head.
My survival—and the survival of those I love—seems to be solely predicated on the lies I tell and the information I now withhold. I don’t know what is safe to say anymore and what isn’t. Rielle tosses something through the bars, and her sweatshirt lands softly in my lap.
I stare at it for a second, almost like I’m waiting for the catch. I want to refuse it, because I don’t know what she wants in return. But I’m so cold I don’t really care. And we can’t be far from my fate, at this point. It won’t matter what they know.
“Malibu,” I say quietly. “A little south of Malibu.”
Lucia raises her dark eyebrows. “And Maddox Caine raided Malibu and took only . . . you?”
I nod. The mixture of hunger and thirst and cold has me feeling lightheaded. “She took me. But another ship took other people. They took Dean.”
I feel them move but don’t look. I don’t have the energy.
Lucia turns away, and Rielle lowers herself again, her weight leveraged against the bars until she’s crouched next to them beside me.
“Is he your boyfriend?” she asks. My eyes dart over to her—the mess of blond curls covering the right side of her face as she tilts her head.
She meets my eyes, and she can read confusion on my face. “The boy,” she clarifies.
“Dean,” I offer again, tucking my knees to my chest and pulling the sweatshirt over them. The w
armth wakes me up a bit, and I feel the blood in my hands again.
“He is,” Rielle says, crossing her legs in front of her as she pulls a lock of her hair through her fingers. “I can tell by the way you talk about him.”
A prickly feeling starts in the back of my neck—an awareness that this girl might not be prying just because she’s interested. Everyone has another motive these days.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I counter, irritation taking over. “He’s my sister’s boyfriend.”
Rielle tilts her chin down, a smile curving up her lips conspiratorially. “Okay, well I want to hear that story,” she says.
“Shut up, both of you,” Lucia says from the corner of her cell, bringing her watch to her ear like she’s trying to see if it’s still working.
“Come on, Lucia. It wouldn’t kill you to learn to make friends,” Rielle hisses over her shoulder.
“It could, actually, yes. Have you learned nothing in the end of the world?” Lucia retorts.
“We’re not friends,” I cry incredulously, pushing myself to my feet, my eyes still on Rielle. Her brows are knitted together in something like confusion, and I feel a pang of regret. I lean forward. “We’re on the Devil’s Bid. You’ve been captured by Maddox Caine, and you’re Xanthous. You are of no use to her.”
Rielle flicks her eyes to Lucia, whose eyes narrow slightly at the harshness of my words. But they don’t argue, and I look around to make sure no one else can hear. “The lock on the door leading to the deck sticks, and they usually don’t pull it twice to make sure it’s shut. So the second they open your cell, run for it. There’s a clear shot to the railing on the left-hand side.” I look up to the standing girl, the one named Lucia. “Haul ass, and jump over. It’s your only option.”
Just then, as though I’d summoned her, the metal door on the far end of the brig swings open. It lets out a low groan as Maddox steps inside, flanked by two guards. She walks down the line of cells, her gait as smooth as any predator’s. I scoot away from the bars. I don’t want her to know we were talking.
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