Out of habit, I keep my eyes down on the water teeming below the grated walkway, the glow of the lights beneath sending strange shadows up to the surface.
We stop, and Lucia grabs a shoulder before I walk straight into Rielle. There are two knocks and then a voice.
“Tell Monte I’m here,” Seth says.
There’s half a beat, then the sound of a heavy lock being pulled.
“Eyes cast,” a gruff voice says. The sound of a metal blade rings through the air, and I know they’re going to screen us again as we walk inside.
I chance looking up only to the level of Seth’s boots as he steps up to the door, pausing for a moment before continuing. I lift my eyes slightly, enough just to peer through the door, and it’s unlike anything I’ve seen since the Crimson started. It’s shadow and firelight, the smell of cigarette smoke and burning wood wafting out like a fog.
The cacophony of clinking glass and music rises as we get closer. A shadow falls over us, and I look in the reflection on the water. We’re beneath a tall guard tower. Boots walk up beside us, and I hear the sound of a fist on the metal. A door squeaks open.
“Long night?” one high voice asks.
There’s a slurping sound, like someone taking a deep pull of coffee. “Nah. No Torchies,” someone responds. They’re guards, and it sounds like they’re changing shifts.
“This fog isn’t gonna help, though,” the first one says before both voices disappear into the tower and the door shuts once more.
Rielle steps up and then inside.
My turn.
“Up,” the man orders, and I lift my eyes. He’s beside me, a mirror lifted as he checks. I catch a glimpse of my reflection.
My hair is wild, eyes even wilder. I tuck my unruly locks behind my ear.
“Go ahead, love,” the man says, lowering the mirror so it shows him. I look at him—he’s older—probably as old as my dad would have been. Bushy beard, thick around the middle.
He nods at me tentatively, like he’s not sure what will happen to me if I step inside.
That makes two of us, but I don’t have the luxury of thinking too hard about it, especially since Lucia is behind me then, shoving me into the shadows. A deep, rhythmic beat shakes the room.
Slowly, I raise my eyes. It’s bigger than I thought—wood paneling lofted to a point above our heads. It almost looks like a hunting lodge.
I follow Rielle, who follows Seth deeper into the fray.
A hunting lodge that was commandeered by a gambling ring.
Fire pits with different-colored flames sit in the middle of tables directly under mirroring skylights cut into the ceiling, pulling the smoke into the night. People surround the tables, cigarettes and all manner of pipes in their hands. A woman with yellow eyes and closely cut black hair blows smoke in rings as she looks me up and down. I shake my hair loose from behind my ears, rethinking my attempt to look less wild. It can’t hurt to look a little wild here.
I turn around, and find only Lucia behind me. The rest of the people in the brig with me must have been told to wait somewhere else. A bar sits on the left side of the room, and a woman with a bright purple braid pours clear liquid into metal cups before sliding them to two men in leather jackets sitting on the barstools. The room is packed, the body heat steaming up my cold mirrors.
Shouts erupt at a far table, and I turn sharply at the sudden sound. A woman with long strawberry-blond hair raises her hands in triumph. The men around her groan and throw bottle caps—their chips—into the center of the table.
“Her name is Hilary,” Rielle says, and I jump. I didn’t realize she was there. She smiles conspiratorially as she motions back to the woman. “She was a high school English teacher before the Crimson, and now she comes in here, cleans these dudes out, and takes supplies back to her settlement.” Rielle looks to the far wall, where I see an assortment of wares, available for trade-in at the end of the night: iron blades, bullets, mirrors, and some jewels.
This place is for underground survivors. Rule breakers of the highest order. Rielle walks, and I follow.
We weave through the fire pits, toward the far end of the hall, where we disappear through a corridor, the dank, musty smell of stale seawater filling my head as all my other senses go dark.
Two more knocks, and a door opens.
This room is smaller than the hall, and quieter. The walls are red velvet, and the floor—
I stop for a second, choking out a scream.
The floor is glass. Beneath, the gray ocean, lit by the floodlights, churns.
Seth doesn’t stop as he strolls across it—he’s been here before. I force myself to look up—to keep my mind off the fact that I’m hovering above the abyss. I know everyone has been screened, but I’m not stupid enough to think that makes me safe.
Which basically means I can’t look anywhere, really. The thought frees me, in an odd way.
A series of wide, circular tables sit under an iron chandelier covered in half-melted candles.
Beneath it, at the center table, sits the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Her red hair is twisted around one shoulder, cascading down the front of a black dress that doesn’t suit this place at all. Her arms are covered in tattoos, and rubies glisten from elegant settings around her fingers. She has mirrored fingernails, and gold-edged glass panels secured to the inside of her forearms with sterling bands. It’s beautiful, something done for aesthetics first, and survival second. I haven’t seen anything like it.
People sit at the table with her, black cards tucked in their hands. Jewels are scattered across the table—emeralds and sapphires. They aren’t fighting for bullets or blades. This must be the high-end room.
If there was ever going to be a time to escape, it’s here. I just have to find the right time. But with Rielle on one side of me and Lucia on the other and Thomas back in the main room, my options are limited.
“You’re late,” the woman drawls, leaning forward on her elbows as she lays her cards facedown on the table.
Seth stops. “I told you I’d be here within the week, Monte.”
The woman glares at him, her golden eyes lined with bronze. The others leave the room, walking past us without so much as a glance. She’s Xanthous, though she doesn’t look like a Runner at all.
What could she be after?
“Cutting it close is as good as late,” she says, picking up an emerald and rolling it between her index finger and thumb. “I thought you might have changed your plans. Gone after bigger fish, as it were.”
Seth widens his stance and grins. “Come on. Ain’t no bigger fish out there that could make me turn my back on you, gorgeous.”
Monte tosses two sapphires into the pile. She smiles and licks her top lip.
“Not even Abel Lassiter?” she singsongs, setting a card down.
I go still, and I see Seth’s shoulders stiffen at the name of his presumably dead sister’s boyfriend. The difference between living and dying in this world is often based on what you know and what you don’t. But not even Seth can pretend not to care about the name that just crossed Monte’s lips.
“What?” he asks. The word is choked and thin.
Monte raises her perfect eyebrows. “You didn’t hear? Abel Lassiter’s ship went missing yesterday. Went to check on the progress on that Rig of his, and never came back.”
I chance a look at Lucia and Rielle. Rielle looks backward at Thomas, her expression tight. They didn’t know.
Seth’s hands are fists, and I hate the water-through-my-fingers feeling that overwhelms me: that I’m getting half the picture. Seth abandoned them. He left. Betrayed Abel and Evelyn. Why would he care?
I watch the way Seth takes a deep breath and then unclenches his fists. He loosens his shoulders.
“They’re getting bolder,” he says. His tone has a practiced air of ambivalence, but it’s too late. He already showed that the news rattled him. Monte sits forward, almost like she’s amused by the attempt.
“We
ll. Our reasons are less exciting. We got held up,” he says, looking back at me.
“Do you have what we agreed upon?” she asks.
My stomach clenches as I look over. Lucia has a hand on her knife, and Rielle casually spins her blade between her fingers. If I’m part of this transaction, there isn’t going to be much I can do about it.
Seth pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and tosses it on the table. “The tech shipment will pull out in two weeks from the eastern docks. Those are passcodes and the names of the guards working that morning.”
Monte snatches the paper up with her pointed nails and opens it, eyeing the writing on it before dragging her gaze back up to him expectantly. “This is all you got for me? Not much to go on, Marsali. That, mixed with your tardiness . . .” Monte picks up a jewel from the center of the table and twists it between two fingers.
I bite my cheek as Monte turns her yellow eyes to me.
Seth shifts slightly, moving in front of me just enough to make Monte’s smile widen.
“She goes with the others,” he says. “They’re waiting for her.”
They’re waiting for her.
“A tech shipment isn’t what I was hoping for,” Monte says, her eyes sharp. “You and I both know I wanted to hit the main depot. But she could sweeten the deal. She certainly looks sweet enough.”
Seth’s eyes go flat.
“Or perhaps you have something else?” Monte croons as the jewel in her hand catches the light. She’s playing with him, and she’s winning.
Seth sighs and reaches back into his coat, and I gasp when he pulls out a familiar piece—the headdress.
Rielle grabs me, pulling me back before I can say anything.
“That is mine,” I hiss over my shoulder at Rielle, pulling loose from her grip.
“Seth didn’t know that. Thomas grabbed it from Maddox’s quarters before we left. Let it be—one wrong move gets you killed,” she whispers.
The questions bubbling at the back of my throat feel like they’re going to drive me mad. But, for now, the tension in the room has dissipated. It becomes clearer as Monte reaches into a hidden pocket in her gown and withdraws papers. I risk a glance: coordinates. But of what, I’m not sure.
“And will you be staying?” Monte asks, her eyes moving slowly up and down Seth before flicking to Rielle.
“You mean will I be losing everything I have at your table again? Sadly, no,” Seth says, the edge in his voice barely noticeable through his playful tone. “We’re heading north right after we see the girl to her place.”
I step out from between Lucia and Rielle. “I’m not a thing. I won’t be spoken about as though I’m not here,” I bite out.
Monte smirks as she pushes herself to her feet. Seth turns, glaring at me.
I said no talking, the look says.
Monte runs her tongue over her top teeth as she steps around the table. “Well, Seth. I know you had plans for her elsewhere, but I know for a fact that there are several Vessels who would be very happy to get a taste of that,” she says.
Monte’s grin deepens as confusion colors my expression.
She’s about to say something when the door opens, and Thomas slips through the doorway.
“Seth?” he asks, an incredulous laugh riding his voice as the sound of shouts and crashes spill down the corridor behind him. “We’ve got a problem.”
The door snaps open, throwing Thomas forward. He catches himself, pulling a knife from his boot as a man with stringy blond hair barrels through the doorway, rage etched on his pale face. Behind him, three men the size of small trees lumber inside.
“Seth Marsali, you prick,” he seethes, pointing to Seth.
Seth falls as still as granite. The man glares back at him, spittle caught in his patchy beard.
“Geramond. I didn’t know you’d be here. Did you know he’d be here?” Seth asks, turning to Monte. She shrugs, looking down at her nails.
“No one knows anything!” Geramond roars. “I’ve been stranded at Port Cadre for three weeks. Because you stole my ship.”
Chapter 15
“TECHNICALLY, YOU STOLE IT FROM THAT MILLIONAIRE yacht club guy when the Crimson hit Catalina, Geramond,” Seth says.
If Seth isn’t the captain of the Ichorbow, or if he has only been at the helm for a couple of weeks, then he isn’t the notorious Runner I thought he was. I was wrong, but how wrong, I don’t know.
“I paid for that privilege in blood, you asshole,” Geramond responds. “I took that ship by the code.” He runs the back of his thumb across his throat. “As you can see, I’m still alive, and out a pretty penny since you took my livelihood.”
“Livelihood,” Rielle says, her words clipped. “Is that what you call selling Curseclean?”
“Careful, girl. There are no judgments here,” Monte breathes coolly.
A grin flicks up the side of Rielle’s mouth. “Oh, I’m not judging. A man has to make a living. Especially a man who has to pay for any sort of human interaction,” she spits.
“Watch your mouth, whore, or I’ll watch it for you,” the man next to Geramond, a slim reed of a man with graying hair, chokes out.
Seth takes a dangerous step forward just as Thomas lets out a generous string of curses.
But it’s Lucia who puts a knife to the man’s throat, quick as a breath. No one else saw her moving down the wall.
“Say that again,” she hisses.
“That’s enough,” Monte says, taking a decisive step forward and putting her hands out on either side of her, palms up. The light glints off her mirrors, her nails, her gems. “Marsali. You stole his ship. You owe him recompense.” With a swivel of her head, she pins Geramond to the spot. “That’s the price according to the charter,” she explains. She moves closer to Geramond, her steps smooth and lethal. The room falls silent. “But call another woman a whore in my presence and I’ll throw your tongue to the depths. I’ll let you choose if it’s still attached to your head when I do it.” Her words are clipped, her teeth bared behind bloodred lips. I don’t doubt her. Honestly, something tells me she’s done it before.
Geramond saunters toward Seth. “I’ll take back my ship, and then I’ll take your cargo. You walk away with your life.”
Prickles of ice flood my spine. Cargo—the other people on the boat.
And me.
Seth’s voice is low and measured. “I don’t think so. I’ve already secured plans for them, and I don’t think it would look good for this establishment to condone the breaking of a previously agreed-upon contract.”
Geramond shakes his head, revving up for a comeback when Monte holds up a hand. “Enough.”
Both Seth and Geramond look to her as she stands. “Geramond, if the cargo is spoken for, it’s spoken for.”
The man seethes, but says nothing. Seth doesn’t show any reaction, almost like he’s waiting for the hammer to drop.
Which it does.
Monte sinks to her chair.
“But, Marsali, you took his ship. And that complicates things.”
She drums her mirrored nails on the polished wood of her chair.
“To the pit, then?” she asks.
The pit.
I look to Rielle, whose skin has tightened against her skull. Even Lucia, who still stands behind Geramond with murder in her dark eyes, looks afraid.
Seth turns to Geramond. “Winner gets the ship,” Seth says.
Geramond snorts, a sneer curling up on his thin lips.
“Winner gets it all.”
I walk with Rielle through the dark. Lucia joins us somewhere between the glass room and metal walkway, and I yank my arm from Rielle as I stare down Seth’s silhouette ahead of me. My mind races, looking for a way out.
I didn’t make it this far to lose my life now.
We emerge out on the railing, overlooking the inner circle of the Jawbone. Seth and Geramond continue down the catwalk, but Rielle and Lucia pull me to the railing.
“I don’t want to be bar
tered like a cheap watch in a poker game,” I snap.
“And I don’t want to hear that my Benefit cream isn’t available on the black market anymore. Bad things happen to good people,” Rielle says.
I’m quiet as I look around at this little, teeming city over the water. I could run. I could turn and sprint back the way we came. I wonder how far I’d get before Lucia pounced. I look over the edge of the railing. Below, the floodlights illuminate the pod’s steel legs, though they go so far down that they’re lost to the shadows of the deep. I swallow the knot in my throat and lean back. There’s nowhere to go.
“What does Seth mean, we’re spoken for? Who did he make a deal with?” I ask quietly. People pour out of the metal pods, filling the catwalk around us, all facing the illuminated circle of water below.
Lucia’s face is tight as she searches the crowd and finds who she’s looking for—Thomas. He stands with the other survivors from the Devil’s Bid. They look as confused as I do. Thomas gives her a nod, and she nods back, relaxing.
Rielle stares forward, the light dancing on her face with the water.
The clinking of chains ripples through the night, and the rumble of applause splits the cold air. Chains from the edges of the surrounding pods are pulling something up from the water. I crane my neck forward to get a better look.
A latticework metal platform rises, cutting through the light as the chains roll up on a levy. The crowd gets louder as it emerges from the ocean, water spilling over the sides as the platform stops, suspended over the water below the railing.
“What the hell?” I breathe. Rielle bites her nails.
Across the way, Monte steps out of her heels and onto the lowest rung of the railing.
“Knaves!” she calls, and the crowd screeches in approval. “We have a disagreement. Geramond de Levlier challenges Seth Marsali to the right for ten units!”
Units.
“Units?” I hiss, looking to Lucia. “Is she talking about me?” I ask. “Is that how she refers to people?”
Lucia silences me with a look, and I turn back to face the platform, my fingers digging into the railing. Next to Monte, I see Seth. He pulls his shirt over his head, the scars on his shoulders visible even from this distance. He looks like one of the sculptures from the Getty Villa, with wide shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist. His face is drawn.
Unchosen Page 13