I smile then, heat unfurling in my chest. “Don’t hate the player. Hate the game.”
Seth’s mouth drops open in surprise as he holds his arms out. “You’re not the player! You were the judge!”
I shrug, giving him a who, me?
Seth points at me. “Rielle and Lucia talked you into a lower score. Admit it.”
I laugh at the desperation on his face, and I hold up my hands.
“Fine. It was a nine-point-seven.”
“I knew it,” he says as he turns back to the water before leaning closer. “Nine-point-eight,” he challenges.
“Don’t push it, Marsali,” I reply, smiling as I walk back to the stairs.
I don’t look back, but somehow, I know he’s smiling, too.
Chapter 25
THE WATER IS CALM.
I think that’s what puts me off first. It feels like there’s an electrical charge in the air, humming so low that it thrums through the nerves in my molars.
I emerge from below deck, hugging my jacket to me as I look over the horizon. The sky is a flat gray. I can’t see the edges or soft folds of the clouds. It’s the shade of the steam coming off my breath, and the water is like black glass.
The crew is on the starboard side, looking out. I walk up behind them as they talk in hushed tones.
Rielle twists her hair in a knot and ties it back.
I’m about to ask what the hell is going on when I see it—
A ship, a little closer than the horizon line. Lucia propels herself down from the mast, a set of binoculars in one hand. She hands them to Seth, who has appeared behind me. He peers through the lenses.
“Cobalt,” he says. He hands the binoculars to Rielle, and she looks. The word feels odd. I replay it in my mind—Cobalt. It’s like I’ve snagged on it somehow. “A passenger ship, last docked at the Jawbone last month.”
“Vessels? Or—” I whisper.
“Runners,” Seth says from behind me.
Even from this far, I can see the hull. I can imagine the inside—rooms converted into cells filled with Curseclean. Headed to the Blood Market. My fingernails bite into the wood. The fear that lashed at the back of my neck a moment ago is washed away by something else. Something more useful. Rage.
“Do they have people on board?” I ask.
“Only one way to know,” Seth says. The walkie clipped to Rielle’s belt lets out two bites of static. Rielle sends three pulses back.
“Thomas wants to know what direction we’re headed.”
I look back and am surprised to find Seth looking at me, a question on his face.
“You promised,” I say.
He clenches his jaw and then looks to Rielle, inclining his head slightly before turning and stalking toward the ladder leading to the lower deck.
Rielle sends one burst over the walkie, and I turn to follow Seth, ignoring the look of pure irritation coming from Lucia.
Seth walks down the stairs.
“Seth.”
He’s walking down the hallway. I don’t know if he’s purposely ignoring me, or if he’s just so focused he can’t hear me. But I say it again, louder: “Seth.”
He stops, opening the door to his room.
“What can I do?”
His brows knit together as he looks at me, trying to process what I’m saying.
“I want to help,” I clarify.
He blinks. Once. Twice. Then he shakes his head.
I open my mouth to argue, but he takes a step forward. “You are going to go in your room and lock the door. And you’re not going to open it until you hear my voice telling you to come out.”
Rielle calls from above deck, and Seth walks into his room. I don’t ask for permission. I follow. “I’m not going to hide like a child. I showed you—I can handle myself.”
It’s a small cabin—the same size as mine. I don’t know what I was expecting—in the movies the captain always has the biggest room.
“This isn’t a small boat with a couple Vessels, Charlotte. It’s a ship that requires at least seven people to man. You’re not going to hide like a child. You’re going to hide like the Chosen One who could destroy the world if you fall into the wrong hands,” he says, pulling open the drawer of a small desk and pulling out several knives. He lifts his shirt, revealing a holster and two sheaths clasped to his belt.
On the wall, right above the desk, a picture is tacked up with one clear thumbtack.
Evelyn. Her smile is wide and easy as she stares into the camera, the freckles on her scrunched nose melding together as she grins.
I’d seen her picture before. But never realized how much they looked alike.
Lucia calls down into the lower deck: “Two minutes.” Seth looks out his window as he shoves the drawer shut before walking past me.
I know I should listen. I should go shut my door. But the thought of hiding in the room while Rielle and Lucia and Thomas fight at his side makes me feel sick.
I’m not helpless.
“Seth,” I call again as he steps out into the hall. He blinks, remembering that I’m there.
“Your room, Charlotte. Lock the door. Don’t open it until you hear my voice.”
I hesitate, but I know there isn’t much time for him to stand here and argue with me.
“That’s an order,” he says, his voice shifting just enough to know that I can’t talk him out of this.
I watch him walk back up the steps, then turn and walk back into his room.
I don’t need to talk him out of anything—he just won’t see me.
I jump onto his bed and look out the window.
The ship must have been coming for us as we were coming for them, because it’s within spitting distance now. My breath catches in my throat. If this ship I’m on was once a fishing vessel, then this thing must have taken down whales. It’s huge, looming outside the window like a wall.
The Cobalt.
My mind buzzes, like it’s trying to recall a tune, or like it’s trying to grab onto the tendrils of a dream.
All of a sudden, I remember.
Find him on the dark blue.
Dark blue. Cobalt is dark blue. My hands shake as I put the pieces together, but I’m pulled back to the scene outside the window.
A man in a gray hoodie stands at the railing of the Cobalt. I can’t see his eyes in the shade of his hood, and I look down at my wrist, adjusting the mirrors on the leather straps. I’m not taking a chance.
He yells something, and it’s muffled through the window. But in the reflection of my bracelet, I see the smirk on his face as he shouts something to our ship. This isn’t good. I look for a latch on the window, hoping to push the glass out and listen, but it doesn’t open.
Ropes dart from the Cobalt to our ship, grip hooks fastened to the end like angry, cruel hands. They make a thud as they latch onto us above my head, and I duck, looking up.
They’ve got us.
I look out through the reflection in time to see the man in gray kick a board between our ships. A plank.
“What?” I gasp out loud.
Then, Seth walks across, his hands up.
I hit the window, a shout ripping from me as I watch, helpless. The man in gray kicks out the back of Seth’s knees, and he falls to their deck.
They tie his hands behind his back, and I spin around and launch myself at the door.
I yank it open and peer out. The hallway is empty. I creep down toward the stairs, realizing too late that I don’t have a weapon. With one pivot, I’m racing toward the canteen. I pull two knives out of the drawer and race back down the hallway, up the stairs. I chance a glance around the corner, onto our deck. There are three people on board that I don’t recognize. A girl with red hair braided down her back, a man with a neck tattoo of a lipstick mark, and a guy wearing black gloves with mirrors sewn onto the backs. He’s Xanthous—I can see that from here. So he’s probably stolen those gloves from one of his victims.
I tiptoe around the edge of the door, kee
ping away from them as I grip my knives. I slink, crouching down as I run under the window of the captain’s galley and around to the bow, then slide, keeping on my knees as I look through the window to the other side. The captain’s galley is empty—Thomas isn’t there. On the deck of the Cobalt, Seth is still on his knees, his face unreadable as the man in the gray hoodie paces in front of him.
My mind races as I look around. Braid and Neck Tattoo stand sentry at the edge of the plank, blades drawn.
They’re scary, but I doubt they would deter Lucia.
No. There’s something going on here that I’m not seeing.
As if on cue, I see someone slip out of the water and start scaling the side of the Cobalt, a knife in her teeth.
Rielle. Lucia is right behind her, her eyes lit—there’s not a hint of fear in them.
They planned this, I understand. And my stomach feels like it’s going to fall out of my butt as I fully realize—they planned this. And I’m on the deck, right where Seth told me not to be.
I thought I was helping, but it’s entirely possible that I’ll cause a bigger problem.
Shit, I mouth to myself, rolling over to try and slink back the way I came. But Gloves steps toward the starboard side. If he looks left, he’ll see me braced against the side of the captain’s galley. I scramble back, hiding by the bow.
I shut my eyes for a moment and lean my head back.
Shit.
I have to think of a way out of this.
But before I can, a hand comes up and clamps over my mouth.
My hands fly up, but Thomas slides up next to me, a finger to his lips.
I nod, and he lowers his hand. Noiselessly, he motions for me to scoot away from the fiberglass edge. With a flick of a wrist, he opens a small storage cabinet. There’s a coil of rope, but other than that—it’s empty. He motions for me to get inside.
Fear slides up the back of my throat, but he shows me the inside of the door. It opens from the inside, his look says.
I nod, sliding inside. He points to my chest.
Stay here, the look says.
I nod.
He looks over his shoulder in time to see Lucia and Rielle scramble over the edge of the railing of the Cobalt. He closes the cabinet door, and it goes mostly dark.
Thomas’s voice rings out then, and it sounds nothing like him. “Check the captain’s pockets! He has two knives sewn inside them.”
Footsteps then as Braid and Neck Tattoo run across the deck, no doubt to grab Thomas. I listen to the footsteps as they round the side of the captain’s galley.
I hear a scraping sound scratch across the deck. They’re dragging Thomas, who they think is surrendering. I can’t help it—the whole thing is so brilliant, I smile. Seth acts like he’s looking for a truce while Lucia and Rielle, both strong swimmers, scale the boat. Then Thomas pretends to panic, giving them inside information. Once they’re distracted, the other two strike. That’s a variation of the plan that they executed on the Devil’s Bid.
I wait for the screams—for Lucia and Rielle to take the crew down. The ship is huge, but even I could see that the crew was not as big as one a ship that size would normally demand.
The scream starts, but it’s not the one I expect.
“Bitch!” a male voice roars. I hear a sickening thud that sounds like flesh hitting wood, then a sound that shreds my heart into a thousand pieces.
Thomas screams then, his voice raw with terror. “LUCIA!”
Something has gone wrong.
Something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. The terror in my chest doesn’t subside as I twist the knob and peek out from the cabinet. There’s no one there.
I crawl to the corner and peer around—I have clear sight of the Cobalt from this angle.
A man with blood dripping down his ear holds Lucia pinned in front of him, her blade against her own throat. I look over the glass partition. Thomas is in a similar position on our ship—Braid has a machete against his collarbone, and she’s moving it up and down slowly, like she’s playing a cello. The look on her face is too bright—too gleeful for there to be a hope that she’ll think twice about spilling his throat onto the deck.
“Let her go!” Thomas cries, and Lucia struggles.
Seth stands, and the Cobalt’s crew all draw their weapons. The man holding Lucia tightens his grip, and Seth holds his hands out as he lowers himself to his knees once more. “Let her go. Let her go, and you can take me.”
I bite the tip of my tongue at the thought.
The man in the gray hoodie laughs. “You were the one that started following us. We were content to keep sailing, Marsali. But now we’ve got a problem—one you alone won’t be able to fix.”
I turn my knives in my grip so that they’re tight against my forearms, and an idea blooms at the back of my mind.
I slide against the fiberglass, shoving myself back around the way I came. With one movement, I’m on my feet, running crouched as I come back to the wood awning above the stairwell. Braid, Neck Tattoo, and Gloves are all watching Lucia.
They think they’ve seen our play. They think we’re out of cards. But I see Rielle—perched in the crow’s nest, the butt of a crossbow tucked against her shoulder. She’s waiting for the right moment.
And I can give her the right moment.
I tuck the blades into the back of my sports bra. I’d seen enough of the crew to know that they’re all Runners and, therefore, all Xanthous. Which is good, because I won’t have time to check eyes if this works.
If.
Such a small word to balance my life on, but there’s not really a choice. My eyes flick to the Cobalt. Most of the crew is situated on the deck facing us, but there are three who are focused on something else—a door. It looks like the same kind of door that this ship has, the one that leads below deck.
We were content to keep sailing, he’d said. That’s because they have a full hull.
There are people down there.
Find him on the dark blue, 3A, the one with the teeth.
I remember Vanessa’s words, and my mind reels. Cobalt. Dark blue.
Who is him?
A strange, wild hope bites up the back of my throat. Could it be Dean?
I look back at the ramp. Focus—I have to get through this.
Fear spits adrenaline into my veins, and the burn of it coats the back of my throat and the inside of my eyelids. There isn’t a part of me that doesn’t hurt. There isn’t a part of me that isn’t entirely taut with fear.
But if this crew falls, then I have no way to get to the Blood Market. If the Cobalt takes us over and finds me, then I’m dead anyway.
That thought gives me the strength to stand.
I lift my hands and step out from behind the stairwell.
“Wait!”
Braid looks over her shoulder, and Neck Tattoo spins, raising his machete with a shocked expression on his squished, brutish face.
I feel every one of the Cobalt crew turn their gaze to me, to my thin arms above my head. I don’t have to fake the fear on my face—that just comes naturally.
“Charlotte! What are you doing?” Thomas seethes.
“Shut up,” Braid orders, digging her blade tighter against his throat.
But it’s Seth’s gaze that hits me right in the chest. The man with mirrored gloves puts his hand behind my neck, his thumb and forefinger digging into my skin so tightly that I wince despite myself.
“Take me!” I call.
“And why would we do that?” Gray Hoodie calls.
I look up, meeting Seth’s eyes as I take a deep breath.
“Because. I’m Curseclean.” I don’t take my eyes off Seth’s.
The crew of the Cobalt lets out a low ripple of laughter. It starts with Gray Hoodie and spreads until the man with the gloves is chuckling. The girl with the braid shoots me a pitying glance as she laughs harder.
“You’re not bad-looking, sweetheart, but one Curseclean isn’t going to do much. I mean. We could come u
p with an arrangement, maybe?” His voice is thick with implications that make my skin crawl as his eyes rove over me. “But it does beg the question—what’s a Curseclean doing with you lot this far north?”
He steps closer, his eyes narrowing as though he’s trying to solve a puzzle.
“You know, they’re saying some crazy things now. About the Chosen One being found. One of Maddox Caine’s crew got drunk at the Jawbone a little while back . . . said they had her in the hull for a bit.”
I try my best to look unimpressed. Confused. Anything other than scared. Gray Hoodie cocks his head.
“. . . said she was a pretty little thing that wasn’t too bright. And that she got away with some self-righteous assholes who like to mess with our way of life.” He punctuates his words with a swing of his sword. I swallow back a litany of curses and move my eyes to Seth’s. His jaw tightens as his gaze bores into mine.
Do not.
Do not, the look in Seth’s eyes tells me. I can feel it pulsing off him. But I swallow hard.
And I chance a quick look at Rielle, who can see me through her sight. And I hope she can see the plea in my eyes like I can see Seth’s.
I look at Gray Hoodie. His eyes are yellow, too, though they look wrong. Too yellow, almost—almost neon. It makes him look like more of a monster than he already is.
“Yeah. I’m the Chosen One.”
Gray Hoodie’s face tightens as my words sink in. He’s quiet for half a second, and then—“Bullshit.”
“Maybe. But the mark on the inside of my wrist says otherwise,” I say, the lie sliding off my tongue like butter. I’m getting used to it. I don’t even think I sound half as uncertain as I feel.
Gray Hoodie considers. And then he steps forward, curiosity getting the better of him.
Right into Rielle’s line of sight.
Rielle pulls the trigger, and the arrow spears Gray Hoodie’s shoulder. He screams, falling down. Thomas shoots to his feet, throwing his head back. It connects with Braid’s nose with a sickening crack, and she lets out a primal howl as blood splatters the deck.
At that moment, the door to the lower deck bursts open, and dozens of prisoners spill onto the deck, armed with what I assume are stolen weapons. Rielle and Lucia had set them free.
Unchosen Page 20