The Complete Seabound Trilogy Box Set

by Jordan Rivet

  The level markers appeared in descending order as Esther got closer to the top: seven, six, five. So the structure had at least nine levels (she couldn’t help but think of them as decks). There were no windows, and she didn’t know whether or not she was above ground yet.

  The Calderon Group couldn’t have built this facility themselves. There were too many signs of the old world: the paint on the rails, the light fixtures in the hallways, the way the numbers were printed by the doors rather than scrawled. Whatever this facility was, it had been here for longer than sixteen years.

  At the doorway to the Level 3 corridor, Esther waited, catching her breath and listening for footfalls. Nothing.

  The Calderon Group didn’t seem to be early risers, if they lived here at all. Vacant, well-lit hallways didn’t provide much insight into how they were using the Island. She was going in blind. She pulled the knife from her belt and pushed open the door.

  This was the longest corridor she’d seen yet. The walls were a faded blue. Dozens of evenly spaced doors lined the hall, like in the residential quarters on a ship. Chairs sat beside a handful of the doors. Esther smelled something chemical.

  She tried the first door. It was locked. So was the next one. The third led to an enormous bathroom with cracked tiles and empty stalls. There was a flicker of movement. Esther jumped and jerked her knife forward before she realized it was just her reflection in a full-length mirror. She scowled at the tangles in her dark hair and the salt rings on her clothes.

  Back in the hall, her boots squeaked on the linoleum as she crept along, trying each knob. All the doors were locked, the rooms silent. When she reached the middle of the corridor, she put her hand on a doorknob, only for it to turn of its own accord. She leapt back.

  “. . . shouldn’t let you keep me up like this, mate.”

  Esther pressed back against the wall as a man pulled open the door from the inside. He spoke into the room with his back to the corridor. He had a shock of red hair and narrow shoulders.

  “You’re a bad influence, for a prisoner,” he was saying.

  Esther brought up her knife but hesitated. She didn’t want to stab anyone. She yanked the flashlight from her belt to crack the man on the head instead. But her hesitation gave him time to turn around. He saw her coming, gave a strangled yell, and pulled back from the blow.

  “What the hell!”

  Esther shoved her shoulder against the door. She caught a glimpse into the room beyond: a familiar shock of white-blond hair and a cable-knit sweater. It was enough. She hurled herself into the red-haired man, knocking him to the ground. The flashlight flew out of her grip. She swung her fists, keeping the man pinned beneath her knees. For a moment it was all elbows and clothes and shouting.

  Suddenly, she was being lifted into the air and tossed aside. She yelped and rolled to her feet, ready to face this new threat.

  David Hawthorne was holding the red-haired man on the ground, straining with the effort. Esther quickly scanned the room, but no one else was there. David had been the one to pull her off the guard.

  “Help me,” David grunted. “The bedsheets.”

  The man pinned beneath him hollered and swore.

  Heart pounding, Esther tore the thin sheets from a bed in the corner. Together they used them to bind the guard’s arms and legs behind him. David ripped off a strip of cotton and forced it between the man’s teeth.

  “Sorry about this, Harry,” he said.

  The guard’s face went as red as his hair.

  David sat back and looked at Esther. “Now do you mind telling me what you’re doing here?”

  “Breaking you out,” she said. “We can’t waste time. When will they change the guard?”

  She darted to the door to check that the corridor was still empty.

  “Hold on, Esther,” David said. “I need a minute.”

  She turned back and got her first good look at him. He’d been ill. He was always thin, but now he looked positively skeletal. His wrist bones stood out in sharp relief against the tattered cuffs of his sweater. Tackling the guard had clearly taken a lot out of him, and he was breathing heavily.

  Even so, Esther was shocked at how handsome he was. The strong jaw and straight back. The cracked glasses sitting slightly askew. Those eyes.

  “You look awful,” she said. “Why didn’t you let me deal with this guy? You look like you’ll need to sleep it off for a week.”

  “I was afraid you were going to stab him,” David said with a shadow of his old smirk. “We’ve become friends. Did you hear that, Harry? I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  The red-haired guard grumbled and tried to spit the wadded-up cloth from his mouth.

  “What’s the situation here?” Esther asked, scrutinizing the room. “Have they been hurting you? Are the guards armed?”

  Now that she actually had David in front of her, Esther didn’t know how to behave. So she babbled.

  “I’ve got a boat, but I don’t know if we’ll be able to get back to it. I left a guard somewhat incapacitated in the basement. Where’s the nearest exit? How many people are here?”

  “Esther. Stop.”

  David lowered himself to a rickety chair between the narrow bed and a folding table. It held a deck of cards and a flimsy metal ashtray. David was barefoot, and a pair of unfamiliar shoes peeked out from underneath the bed.

  “Are you okay?” Esther asked, determined not to let her voice shake.

  “You’re an idiot,” he said calmly.

  Esther felt a white-hot flash in her chest. “Well, I’m an idiot that’s going to save your ass, so if you don’t want me, you’d better say so now,” she snapped.

  Both David and Esther herself seemed equally shocked by her tone. She didn’t mean for it to come out like that. She’d just voiced the question she’d been terrified to entertain ever since they’d met. Did he want her or not? She knew she wanted him.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” David said. “The Calderon men are ruthless. You shouldn’t have taken the risk.”

  His voice lacked its usual composure. It had a ragged edge that matched his thin, wasted face.

  “Do you want to come with me?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

  David pushed himself out of the chair and walked slowly to her. He just looked at her, standing so close she didn’t want to breathe.

  “Esther . . .”

  Suddenly his arms were around her, and she was burying her face beneath the ridge of his collarbone. The rough knit of his sweater rubbed her cheek, and warmth seeped through the fabric between his body and hers. She wrapped her arms around his too-exposed ribs. He kissed her on the top of the head, then drew her gently away from him, both hands cupping her face. “I’m glad you’re here. I—”

  “Blegh, that makes one of us,” Harry the guard said as he finally managed to spit the wad of cotton out of his mouth. “Let me go, you rust-loving bastard.”

  “Shut up, Harry,” David said. “Esther, do you have a way out?”

  “I came through a cave in the base of the island. We can get out the same way, but we need to hurry.”

  It couldn’t be this simple. Esther barely dared to breathe.

  “You don’t think they’ll let you get away, do you, Davey?” Harry said, struggling against his bonds. “You know Burns. You’ll be dead before the Island is out of sight, unless your girlfriend brought an armada with her.”

  David raised an eyebrow at Esther. “It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d managed that.”

  “No, it’s just me,” she said. “There’s a Metal Harvester ship that we may convince to come for us once we’re away from the Island. I’ve got a satellite phone, but it works sporadically at best.”

  “Let me get my shoes,” David said.

  He swayed for a moment as he turned to the bed. Esther caught his arm, feeling his bones beneath her fingers.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I shouldn’t have stayed up all night playing cards. Just tire
d.”

  David smiled, but the color had drained from his face.

  “That’s one way to put it. Burns has been starving your boy here,” Harry said from the floor. “He won’t make it far if you expect him to do any heavy lifting.”

  Esther’s gut twisted a little. “Why were they starving you?” she said, though she already knew the answer.

  “Because I won’t tell them how to build my algae energy technology,” David said, shooting Esther a warning glance as he tugged on his boots.

  “We’ll get some strength back in you along the way,” Esther said, faking a smile and a jovial tone.

  She stooped to retrieve Harry’s gag so she could stick it back in his mouth.

  The door flew open.

  Esther whirled around, and Harry used that instant to roll forward and knock her off her feet. The world blurred sideways. Esther hit the ground. Shouts and curses clattered around the room. People rushed in, boots pounding the linoleum. Esther rose to a crouch, but something smashed into her back. More shouting. Within seconds Esther was facedown on the floor, pinned by an unseen captor. She struggled and swore as a heavyset guard punched David in the stomach over and over again.

  “That’s enough, Zeke,” Harry said as another guard untangled him from the confines of the bedsheets.

  “Where’d the bird come from?” Zeke said, letting David slump to his knees beside the bed. He didn’t bother to hold him down.

  David spat blood and saliva onto the floor.

  “Apparently she came through the cave,” Harry said. “Better send someone down to check on old Monty.”

  “On it,” said the man who had untied Harry. “I’ll report to Burns too. He’s just back from patrol.”

  He dashed out the door.

  “Come on, you two lovebirds,” Harry said. “I think Burns is going to like the bargaining chip the sea-gods were kind enough to deliver this morning. You’re going to talk now, Davey.”

  Esther thrashed against her captor as Zeke and Harry lifted David between them and dragged him onto the bed. He was still struggling to catch his breath, and slumped back against the wall. Then Esther was hoisted into the air for the second time in ten minutes. Her captor dumped her onto the bed beside David, banging her head into the wall and causing her vision to waver for a moment. As her sight cleared, the man who’d set her down pulled a gun from his belt. He sat in the rickety chair and pointed it in their direction.

  “Don’t move,” he drawled.

  Chapter 25—Burns

  ESTHER’S MUSCLES STIFFENED. She didn’t know how long they’d been sitting there. The room was cold, and the man with the gun waved his weapon menacingly every time she tried to shift to a more comfortable position. He had a thick beard and close-set watery eyes. His expression was hard. He would have no reservations about using that gun.

  Without taking her eyes off their guard, Esther moved her elbow to the side and found David’s arm. She pressed against it, unsure if she was trying to give or take strength. David didn’t respond at all, and she immediately regretted the action. She pulled her elbow back, staring straight ahead.

  Zeke and Harry retreated to the other side of the room, by the door, and conferred in low voices. Harry looked chastened, but he seemed to be arguing vehemently on some point.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” David breathed.

  Their guard gave no hint that he’d heard.

  “I had to.”

  Their guard stood and joined the other two by the door. His watery eyes didn’t turn away from them, but he leaned in to say something to the others. Harry appeared to disagree with him. Unlike the Harvesters, the men did not wear matching uniforms. They would have fit in easily at the Amsterdam with their random assortment of salvaged garments.

  “What are you planning?” David asked. “This isn’t much of a rescue.”

  “I’ll negotiate.”

  “You’re not very good at that.”

  “Supposedly, you are,” Esther said, “but it hasn’t been working out that well for you. You’ve been here—what?—ten days and they won’t even feed you.”

  “I’ve been bluffing.” David dropped his voice even more, so Esther could barely hear him whisper when she leaned closer. “I don’t have anything to bargain with.”

  “You could have told them who the real inventor is.”

  “I would never do that. Do you think I wanted you to end up in this cell? Thanks for handing yourself over and undoing all my work to keep you out of this mess, by the way.”

  David shifted angrily against the bare concrete wall.

  “What were you going to do? Starve?” Esther said.

  “I was making progress with Harry. He’s already slipped me food a few times. I’d have talked my way out eventually.”

  “Not if they still think you know how to build the energy tech.”

  “Shh. That secret is keeping me alive,” David said, eyes darting to the three guards by the door. “I don’t want them to know until they’re too fond of me to kill me.”

  “The technology isn’t worth dying for,” Esther said. That was one thing that had become clear to her in this mess, even if other people didn’t see it yet. “Let’s just give it to them and be done with it.”

  “I wish they’d sent someone besides you. Dirk or somebody,” David snapped.

  Esther felt a sharp sting in her chest. “I’m the one who has what they want. And I decided to come on my own. Thought you might actually be happy to see me.”

  “I want to see you safe and sound on the Catalina.”

  Esther scowled. He doesn’t think I can do this. After all we’ve been through!

  “Hey, you! The ginger one!” she shouted.

  “Would you two quit jawing,” said their bearded guard, walking back toward them with his gun held low and level.

  “I want to bargain,” Esther said, staring down the barrel of the gun. It looked a lot bigger from this angle. “I have something worth a lot more than two prisoners.”

  “Shut up, Esther,” David hissed.

  “You said yourself it’s a bargaining chip.” She had Zeke’s and Harry’s attention now too. “I want to talk to Burns.”

  “You’re in luck, my dear.” The door had opened, and the man with the large holes in his ears was stepping into the room. “My name is Burns. It’s a pleasure to meet the sea demon who left such an impression on poor old Monty.”

  Burns was all wrinkled skin and jagged bones. Cheeks, elbows, even his sternum seemed to stick out at odd angles. He looked taller than he had when Esther saw him on the Amsterdam by the Rusty Nail. She wished she’d paid better attention to him then.

  “I’m Esther Harris. I invented the algae energy technology. David doesn’t know how to build it.”

  “She’s lying,” David said. “She’s just trying to help me out.”

  “No, listen.” Esther jabbed David’s side and immediately regretted it when her elbow met his terribly exposed ribs. “I have what you’re after—and I want to bargain.”

  “Is that so?” Burns’s expression gave nothing away.

  Esther shifted her legs in front of her, easing the stiffness in her muscles. She met the bearded guard’s eyes defiantly as she moved so she could sit straight, facing Burns head-on.

  “I have some conditions,” she said. “First rule is you do nothing more to hurt David Hawthorne. If he so much as misses another meal, you’ll never get the technology, even if you hang me by the toes from a mast.”

  “And what makes you think we won’t simply hang him from a mast until you tell us everything?” Burns said pleasantly.

  “I’m here to get him back,” Esther answered. “I don’t give a shit about you or the Calderon Group or who gets the technology. But if you hurt him, all bets are off. I’ll choke on my own tongue before I tell you anything.”

  Burns chuckled and pulled up the rickety chair. “You’ve found a rather feisty advocate, haven’t you, Hawthorne? So what’s the truth? Does she
really know a few things about the energy system? Perhaps she worked on it a bit and hopes to pass off secondhand knowledge in this little plea bargain.”

  “I invented it,” Esther said before David could answer. “No one can install it better than I can. You know what this technology means; otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble to capture Hawthorne. I’ll give it to you here and now if you agree to my terms.”

  Burns chuckled again. It sounded like an engine sucking the last dregs of diesel from its tank.

  “I’ll play along,” he said. “What’s the second condition?”

  Esther leaned forward. “After the tech is installed in all your ships, we get a ride off this island directly to the location of our choosing.”

  Burns waved his four-fingered hand. “Of course you’ll want to be shipped off to that floating apartment block you call a ship.”

  “I didn’t say the Catalina. I said the ship of our choosing.”

  David shifted beside her. There’d be time to tell him about Zoe later.

  “Fine. Fine. If the tech works like your salesman says it does, we can take you all the way to Panama.”

  “And my third condition—” Esther began.

  “Aren’t your life and freedom reward enough?”

  His voice was nonchalant, but Burns was twisting his nine fingers together eagerly. He must sense he was close to victory. His foot tapped, betraying his impatience. Esther knew she could ask for any quantity of fuel or supplies and he would give it to her.

  “I want Hawthorne with me at all times while I work,” she said. “To assist me.”

  “Aha. So he is a mechanic after all. Very well. I think you’re full of whaleshit, Ms. Harris, and you don’t know a thing about the technology.” Burns stood, his chair squeaking against the linoleum. “Our inventor friend Hawthorne here has simply realized his little starvation game isn’t going to pan out. Convenient of you to show up as a scapegoat.” He sneered. “You are welcome to have Hawthorne ‘assist’ you, and as I have been telling him, you’ll have all the supplies you need. When we’re satisfied that the technology is all you promised it would be, we’ll ship you out of here, no harm done.”